Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 35 : Reviewing Jeremy’s Top 40 Hitters

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Ep. 35 : Reviewing Jeremy’s Top 40 Hitters · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode thirty five of Cards and Categories. I
• 0:20
  am Mike Coolard here from Rasball, joined as always by my very good friend
• 0:24
  Jeremy Brewer, also from Rasball. How are you doing tonight, Bud?
• 0:28
  I'm doing very very well. Excited to be here is we are so close
• 0:32
  to baseball season. I am excited. Don't know about you. I am
• 0:37
  ready. I'm going to opening weekend down in St. Louis, so I
• 0:41
  am ready to roll because it's going to be like thirty degrees freezing, and
• 0:46
  hopefully we're not already three games under five hundred. But besides that, I'm
• 0:50
  excited and ready to go. How about you? Yeah, I mean,
• 0:54
  I'm actually I'm going to spring training here this upcoming weekend, so I'll be
• 0:58
  at the card spring train game on Sunday. We're recording this on March thirteenth,
• 1:03
  Wednesday, in case you're wondering, because I think we also need that
• 1:07
  time to damp because baseball is certainly happening around us in terms of trading,
• 1:12
  trades, signings, injuries, and fantasy season. So like fantasy draft season
• 1:19
  is going strong. We've had both of our home leagues draft already. So
• 1:23
  especially if you're looking to get leagues in and drafted before things kickoff in Korea
• 1:27
  next week, It's going to be a big weekend for drafts. Part of
• 1:32
  the reason I'm going down to flor is like I've got a draft, not
• 1:34
  this upcoming weekend, but next weekend. So it is certainly prime fantasy baseball
• 1:38
  season. As we're getting to the last rounds, I think of most raz
• 1:44
  lams, at least mine is we've only got like four picks, four rounds
• 1:48
  left a piece, and TGFBI should be pretty much wrapped up. If except
• 1:52
  for Matt Frank's our buddy Matt Frank, is this like the slowest one in
• 1:57
  TGFBI. I've been enjoying watching that saga. But yeah, there's a strategy
• 2:00
  there right like at this point and you're in those later rounds just waiting for
• 2:04
  the news to break of something you've got too. Yeah, you know,
• 2:07
  there's there's always an opening opportunity for everything, opportunities everywhere exactly. So let's
• 2:15
  dive right into that news. And this is just broke maybe literally three hours
• 2:19
  before we started recording this podcast, and that is Dylan Ceese has been traded
• 2:23
  from the White Sox to the Padres for a package that includes Drew Thorpe,
• 2:29
  jyr Arte, Steve Wilson, and Zavala. I forget Savala's first name,
• 2:36
  let me Sam Samuel. I wanted to say Sebbi. So we'll all have
• 2:39
  a Zavala back in Chicago here on the South Side. So what a crazy
• 2:45
  trade to kind of come out of. I think the pressure came on the
• 2:49
  Padres if they wanted to get ceased, because the heat's been turned up.
• 2:53
  As we'll get into why the Yankees were pursuing Dylan Cees pretty heavily over the
• 2:58
  past few days. And I think the Rangers were too, because I've seen
• 3:00
  some quotes in the media where Rangers front office people have expressed that they're a
• 3:07
  little worried about how the overall rotation is going to work out for the first
• 3:14
  half of the season. So the Padres are here the winner for the Dylan
• 3:16
  Ceese sweepstakes to get these last two years of Dylan Cees before he hits free
• 3:23
  agency. And I don't know about you, Brew, but I mean,
• 3:25
  if you do have Dylan c shares, this has got to be super exciting
• 3:30
  news, mostly because should be going to a really fantastic ballpark and just a
• 3:35
  better opportunity for wins overall. Yeah, I fully agree. You know,
• 3:39
  if you if you look at the ballpark, you know, the Petco Park
• 3:44
  was probably the second best ballpark to pitch in in all of baseball last year.
• 3:50
  And you know, moving from a guaranteed rate, which is called you
• 3:53
  know, middle of the road ballpark, and so you know that can only
• 3:57
  help him and from just a situation perspective, only up to go from there,
• 4:02
  right, whether it's offense, defense doesn't really matter. Things are gonna
• 4:08
  be better in San Diego for for Dylan c So, you know, I
• 4:11
  will say it's you know, Dylan ces is one of those guys that you
• 4:15
  can kind of to go out there every five days. He's gonna pitch.
• 4:17
  What he does on those five days out there is also questionable. At times.
• 4:21
  He might go seven seven shout out, he might make it seven outs.
• 4:26
  I think that's the beauty of Dylan Cees, is the potentials all there.
• 4:30
  It's just which version do you get? But yeah, overall, I
• 4:34
  think you have to really like this. For Dylan Cees, it's gonna get
• 4:36
  you know, he's probably gonna get jumped up draft boards. A little bit,
• 4:41
  just with the trade and noise. There's always a little tax on news
• 4:46
  and then legitimate he's in a better situation significantly than where he was with the
• 4:51
  White Sox, so I think this is only good news for for Dylan Cees.
• 4:56
  Yeah, absolutely that. I think he was maybe one of the latest
• 5:00
  double digit K nine pitchers going in drafts, honestly, and that's mostly because
• 5:05
  you're afraid of the walks and you can see it in his stats from last
• 5:11
  year too, in terms of he ran a three thirty babb and is left
• 5:14
  on base percentage was sixty nine point four percent. So the White Sox defense
• 5:19
  was brutal last year, and I think it was gonna be rough again this
• 5:25
  year with the likes of you know, Paul Deyong and Linnon Sosa got sent
• 5:30
  down, So I don't I'm not totally sure who's gonna play second base with
• 5:31
  the Sucks, but it's only gonna be better, I think in San Diego
• 5:36
  with I mean, they're fielding like a team of all shortstops, so that
• 5:41
  shows you how good the lineup will be in terms of athletic prowess. And
• 5:47
  yeah, I'm looking at baseball Prospectus's handbook. Right now, Petco plays actually
• 5:53
  about dead neutral one hundreds across the board. But in night games, especially
• 5:58
  with that Maline green layer coming in over the downtown San Diego, it kills
• 6:04
  balls. So I think, especially if you're looking at Dylan season night games
• 6:09
  in San Diego, he's a pretty easy start every time because the ball just
• 6:14
  does not fly the same. I think it's gonna be I mean, he's
• 6:18
  a great Blake Snell replacement from the right side, So I wouldn't be surprised
• 6:23
  if you do see Cease really push for like an nlsy Young here over the
• 6:28
  next season, because it is going to be just a great situation for him
• 6:32
  overall. Yeah, I think it really it comes down to if you're a
• 6:35
  se Skuy or not. I mean, I look at where he's going to
• 6:38
  drafts right now. He's going just in front of guys like Tanner, Bibby
• 6:43
  Bailey Ober, Michael King. I'm gonna leave one of my favorites out of
• 6:47
  there. Sonny, you're Gray Shane Bieber, you know, And so you
• 6:54
  look at some of the guys around it and it feels about right for Ceas,
• 6:59
  but you know, you can't can't argue. You know, he's you
• 7:01
  know, teammate Joe Musgrove right above him, Justin Steele, Joe Ryan,
• 7:06
  he's us Lozardo. Like yeah, Like it feels about the right spot.
• 7:10
  But like if you wilieve in the tools of Dylan Ceas and he's gonna have
• 7:13
  a little bit of a bounce back year, you're right there. There definitely
• 7:15
  is upside there. Uh. He's a riskier play of pictures in my opinion.
• 7:20
  So but beyond that, what do you think about the return? You
• 7:25
  know, you mentioned it a four player return, you know, four prospects,
• 7:29
  and if we're looking at the Patters prospects, if we're you know,
• 7:32
  just looking at the their top prospect rankings from MLB dot com, we're talking
• 7:36
  about number five, number seven, uh, number eight prospects. Uh.
• 7:42
  And then I know you're you're a big Wilson fan. Uh, So what
• 7:46
  do you think about that return for for Dylan Cease and what does that mean
• 7:50
  for for the White Sox and for those guys. I mean, I think
• 7:54
  it's a pretty solid return. I mean, we've espoused the virtues of gibrary
• 7:59
  right on this pod over the in a West preview that we had a couple
• 8:03
  of weeks ago, he was my deep pick that anybody who's got the strikeout
• 8:09
  potential that he's shown in the minors, it just shows you what sort of
• 8:15
  ceiling you might be able to get out of your RTE. So I think
• 8:18
  he's a great pickup. I mean, I think the range of outcomes is
• 8:22
  pretty wide there in terms of he could be like a number two starter or
• 8:28
  he could end up being like a setup man, But I think he becomes
• 8:31
  a potential useful piece no matter what Drew Thorpe we've also, I think it
• 8:35
  was just the other week that we were tossed with it. Last week we
• 8:39
  were talking about him as a great prospect sleeper for the Padres, and I
• 8:43
  think that still holds. I think Drew Thorpe should still be a pretty solid
• 8:46
  pitcher because I like the skills Steven Wilson. I think this is gonna be
• 8:52
  the sneaky saves option in the White Sox bullpen. He's had a fantastic time
• 9:00
  couple of years here in San Diego, as he was in line as like
• 9:03
  the setup man for a long portion of last year, and Wilson has in
• 9:09
  his one hundred ish innings with the Padres put up a nine point three four
• 9:16
  K nine. The walks are little high at three ninet nine, but I
• 9:18
  mean he's been able to control the overall just zone with uh it's a really
• 9:26
  high flight ball rate, but it's it works for him because I think he's
• 9:30
  just got a talent for inducing weaker contact and making sure that he's getting pop
• 9:35
  flies. So I do think he's the leader in the clubhouse for the twenty
• 9:39
  sakes that the White Sox bullpen is going to provide you. I was actually
• 9:43
  like, I was looking at the twenty twenty three Oakland A's bullpen because I
• 9:46
  think this is gonna be a pretty app comparison to where the White Sox will
• 9:50
  be this year. That the A's last year provided twenty nine saves and twenty
• 9:56
  one of them went to Trevor May and a few other scattered here in there.
• 10:00
  So I think it you can start penciling Stephen Wilson in for eighteen to
• 10:05
  twenty two saves, and especially if you're in an ale only league, like
• 10:09
  you've got to be picking up Steven Wilson immediately. I think in mixed leagues
• 10:16
  you can maybe watch him, but if you're desperate for saves. You just
• 10:18
  found a guy to be able to pick up on if you've already had your
• 10:22
  drafts, your waiver wires this weekend and be able to add him to your
• 10:24
  roster. And then Ciamo Savalla has come through the Padre system as a pretty
• 10:31
  highly touted outfield prospect that I think this is a pretty fair overall return for
• 10:37
  the White Sox, which I'm surprised to like feel those words come out of
• 10:41
  my mouth. Then all the slander that I've thrown Chris gets his way over
• 10:46
  the off season. But I also think that the market handed this to gets
• 10:50
  a little bit in terms of we'll get into the Coal injury news with the
• 10:54
  Yankees in a little bit, but that obviously turned up the heat, as
• 10:58
  the Yankees had been in talks for see some of the past couple of days,
• 11:01
  and on top of it, just like everybody was looking to swooping on
• 11:07
  Dylan cease which he started yesterday and spring training and White Sox Twitter was freaking
• 11:13
  out about like him getting injured and you know, only the White Sox like
• 11:16
  that could have happened to him. But I'm glad that that's pasted us and
• 11:20
  that the White Socks were actually able to juice a pretty decent return out of
• 11:26
  Dylan Ceese's final two years. Yeah, I will say I was just in
• 11:28
  general surprise at the return when it first was reported it was Thorpe area at
• 11:33
  the beginning, I thought that was the deal, and I'm like, this
• 11:35
  is pretty good. Like you're talking to you guys that you know number three's
• 11:39
  is an average outcome, but upside like I really like Drew Thorpe And what
• 11:45
  I like here is I feel like both these guys have a legit shot to
• 11:48
  be to be pitching for the White Sox and the Majors this year, and
• 11:52
  I think I personally think Thorpe has maybe a better chance of getting their first.
• 11:56
  I think he's maybe a little bit more polished. But you know,
• 12:01
  like I'm not sure what's holding you back in the White Sox rotation there,
• 12:05
  so polish might not be everything, But overall, I think, you know,
• 12:09
  for for really all three of them, outside of of all it who's
• 12:13
  just a little bit further away, it's really actually good for all of their
• 12:16
  values. I'm not probably running out and spending all kinds of money on will
• 12:22
  send there and that that back of that bullpen definitely a riskier closer, if
• 12:28
  you may, because it's just you know not He's not lockdown guy. He's
• 12:31
  a two pitch guy, a sweeper fastball type type guy. But he's he's
• 12:37
  made improvements last year year, and so I think there's a lot to like
• 12:39
  there. So Yeah, Dylan Cees going to San Diego, I have to
• 12:43
  think it might open the floodgates here for I'm gonna say, Blake Snell and
• 12:48
  Jordan Montgomery. Do you think that it might be the time we see them
• 12:52
  go, maybe even San Diego on a short deal for bringing Snell back.
• 12:58
  I think that's an absolute possibility now as you look at what you know,
• 13:03
  Broller loves to loves to make a splash. I said, payroll to be
• 13:07
  darned here, it doesn't really matter. I don't even want to look it
• 13:11
  up. It doesn't matter with what a J Preller approaches things. So I
• 13:15
  wouldn't be shocked if you see a short, short term deal for a guy
• 13:18
  like Snell, either the Padres or you know, over over to the Yankees.
• 13:24
  Yeah, and I mean, let's stick in San Diego a little bit,
• 13:26
  just because I do think that I wouldn't be surprised to see one of
• 13:31
  these guys signed there, or you could just see them be aggressive in terms
• 13:37
  of, uh, you know, bringing up other prospects. As we've already
• 13:43
  gotten the news from Mike Shilt's mouth yesterday that Jackson Merrill is going to be
• 13:46
  on the plane to Korea, which I mean, they didn't say that he's
• 13:50
  going to be like the starting center fielder, which he is, which is
• 13:54
  that's the most Mike Shilt thing ever. It's like literally in the interview saying
• 13:58
  Jackson Merrill's going to Korea, he's going to be on the plane and whatever
• 14:03
  comes after, but he's not committing to say he's even on the roster.
• 14:07
  That's just the most Mike Shilt things to do. It's it's kind of like
• 14:11
  you know, in the NFL, not saying if your quarterbacks hurt or not,
• 14:15
  but it doesn't matter in baseball, like everybody's reading between the lines.
• 14:18
  If this guy's on the roster, he is starting. You are not putting
• 14:22
  Jackson Merrill on the opening day roster or flying to Korea just for fun.
• 14:28
  So Jackson Merrill has arrived. I am excited about this one. You have
• 14:33
  exposed the mini exploits of Jackson Merrill. On this podcast multiple times before.
• 14:37
  You've converted me to be a believer, and so I'm excited to see what
• 14:41
  he can do. Yeah, and he was my one of my big sleepers
• 14:46
  on Potapalooza as well. That I mean, you could just kind of see
• 14:48
  this reading the tea leaves the way that the Padres were setting up the spring
• 14:54
  training games, and he spent the past couple of weeks hitting at the top
• 14:58
  of that lineup, playing left in center field and getting lots of at bats.
• 15:03
  And Merrill even came really close to making this roster last year as Preller.
• 15:09
  The heat is on him. He's got to deliver a at least a
• 15:13
  Wild Card berth this year or I think a J. Preller is going to
• 15:16
  be gone from San Diego. So that's why you're seeing these more aggressive moves
• 15:20
  and Jackson Merrill he's gonna be I don't think the power will be there.
• 15:26
  I think if you're in like a dynasty long term keeper situation, you we
• 15:33
  will see some power come out of him, just because the bat is so
• 15:37
  good. But I wouldn't ever think that he's gonna hit maybe more than like
• 15:41
  mid twenties homers in a season and overall, I think his calling card is
• 15:46
  gonna be just like cheap average, and especially if you're taking him at the
• 15:52
  back end of drafts, and I mean, the price will start rising a
• 15:54
  lot for Jackson Merrill. So that is something to keep in mind as people
• 15:58
  are getting in on the hype that Meryl will be rising to a point I
• 16:03
  think eventually where it's just not worth it. But where he's going in drafts
• 16:07
  right now has been wonderful because I think he should be. I mean,
• 16:12
  right now, roster resource has him hanging ninth, but I could easily see
• 16:15
  him moving up the lineup just because he has such a natural feel for hitting.
• 16:21
  And I think you're looking at somebody in Meryll who I mean, I'm
• 16:26
  penciling him for maybe like a two seventy five average, which is way above
• 16:30
  all the projections right now, but I have faith in him and something maybe
• 16:34
  like twelve to fifteen homers, twelve to fifteen storm bases, and like seventy
• 16:41
  five seventy five. So if I was going I was gonna say, like,
• 16:45
  I think what you're hoping for with Meryl is fifteen to fifteen. I'm
• 16:48
  gonna go on the high end of the runs and say like if he's if
• 16:51
  he's got that, yeah, I'm thinking ninety if you're peaking runs, but
• 16:55
  you were probably saying sixty five seventy ribbies. And then I think the the
• 17:00
  two seventy five is reasonable. It might be two seventy, but like that's
• 17:06
  really solid across the board, and it's easy to dream, like to see
• 17:10
  him, you know, learning coming into his own Like that's not like the
• 17:15
  sky is the limit type thing for Meryl. That's like this season and if
• 17:18
  he you know, really clicks quick, it could be more. So I
• 17:23
  think there's a lot to like here with Jackson Marril and I just love the
• 17:26
  fact that they're committing to him and they're just saying, Yep, this is
• 17:30
  this is gonna be the guy. He is young, he's twenty years old,
• 17:33
  and you know he'll be twenty one here in about a month. Yep,
• 17:37
  let's let's see what we got in in our top prospect and let's let's
• 17:41
  go. So I I love it, Very excited to see what he does
• 17:47
  for the Padres. Yeah, and Meryl should be. I mean, he's
• 17:51
  gonna have shortstop eligibility, but he'll pick up outfield pretty quick, which is
• 17:55
  a great combination for our fantasy uses in terms of those are tough spots to
• 18:00
  fill in sometimes, and especially when you're getting that combination of average and you
• 18:06
  know, just production overall, that Jackson Merril should provide a pretty good floor
• 18:10
  for you. And I mean I think he's got to be the leader in
• 18:12
  the clubhouse for you know well, I mean, well, Yamamoto doesn't qualify
• 18:17
  for Rookie of the Year anymore because I think they changed the rules where the
• 18:21
  Japanese players coming over don't qualify for that. I mean, or maybe they
• 18:25
  don't qualify for the bonus, but yeah, something there. Yeah, those
• 18:30
  rules. I don't I wish I knew it off the top of my head,
• 18:33
  but it's something like that. So, I mean, I think that's
• 18:36
  but I'm saying it's part of the Padres calculus overall. I think in bringing
• 18:38
  Merril up in breaking camp, because they also have been gutting the system with
• 18:47
  so many trades over the years, that the Padres would really benefit from getting
• 18:52
  that extra first round comp pick. If Jackson Merrill runs off of a Rookie
• 18:56
  of the Year campaign, yeah, absolutely. I think it's also very possible
• 19:00
  that even though he's going to be playing in the in the outfield this year
• 19:04
  as well, at least what we project. There's a really good chance that
• 19:07
  he sneaks in enough game at shortstop or somewhere in the infield maintain that eligibility
• 19:12
  next year. Just you know, spelling guys things like that. We're you
• 19:17
  know, keeping him fresh because I mean we're talking about a guy that has
• 19:19
  been pretty gosh turned solid, you know at shortstop. He you know,
• 19:23
  last year in Double A, you know, and High A, you know,
• 19:30
  across what's about one hundred and ten games. Guy made twelve hoers.
• 19:37
  You know, that's that's pretty solid. Like it's not not too anything off
• 19:41
  the beaten path, And you don't want to I don't want to guy,
• 19:45
  move the guy completely off short because you got to figure out what your long
• 19:48
  term plan is there. I mean, at the end of the day,
• 19:49
  you got Hawsung Cam, he got Xander Bogert. He's not gonna break that
• 19:55
  anytime soon. But I think it's something that you know, there's a really
• 19:57
  good chance that they move him aroun and try to keep him fresh. Yeah,
• 20:03
  I totally agree. So yeah, I mean this will be I think
• 20:06
  will be Jackson Meryl stands for quite a while because he's gonna even if he
• 20:10
  doesn't paint out, he's so young, he's gonna keep breaking my heart for
• 20:12
  a long time. I fear he's like the next Jared Kellnick, where I
• 20:17
  was like, I don't he could do it. He can do it.
• 20:19
  It's like five years from now. It's like change the scenery. It's gonna
• 20:22
  be time. Yeah, Although I don't think we really have to worry about
• 20:26
  that too much because like the k percentage on Meryll coming through, like,
• 20:30
  it's not even anywhere close to keller Nick. And he has a sense of
• 20:33
  the zone, so he's a lot more suret from a plate approach perspective,
• 20:41
  for sure. Exactly all right, But well, we are also dancing around
• 20:45
  the other major news of the week so far, and that is Garrett Cole's
• 20:48
  elbow is it's turned into quite the saga. So the other day it came
• 20:55
  out that Garrett Cole needed an MRI, which already sends off flat warning signs
• 21:00
  because you do not want to see pictures going in for MRIs on their elbows.
• 21:06
  And the word was that Cole was having trouble recovering from just normal wear
• 21:12
  and tear and usage that he wasn't bouncing back quoy as quickly, which also
• 21:18
  that sends a lot of flashing signs to me too that you know, you
• 21:21
  have somebody like Cole who has been has been pitching for you know, a
• 21:26
  decade or so and knows what his body feels like. That if he's not
• 21:30
  bouncing back the same way, that's that's not a great indicator indicator either.
• 21:36
  This morning it came out that the Yankee said that there's no tear in the
• 21:40
  UCL but he's going to be out for a month or two and they're sending
• 21:44
  him to doctor Neil latrosh in Los Angeles for a second opinion. And if
• 21:48
  you don't know doctor Neil latroshe is the like number one Tommy John surgery guy.
• 21:55
  And he also he performed Ronald'acunya's knee surgery so round Lacuna when he
• 21:59
  had the meniscus issue went to see doctor Neil Atrasha the other week as well.
• 22:04
  But this is not look good right that. I mean, I've got
• 22:10
  to think that Garrett Cole is I mean, he was undraftable for me for
• 22:15
  everything that I've been doing over the past couple of days. And I mean
• 22:19
  the way that this is lining up. I just don't see how Garrett Cole
• 22:25
  pitches at all this season, because I think it's gonna be some sort of
• 22:29
  significant surgery if they're getting the second opinion, and the way that the Yankees
• 22:33
  had been hush hush about it, and the way the Yankees reached out to
• 22:37
  the White Sox for Dylan Cease and now we see this Dylan Ceeese trade to
• 22:41
  the Padres that I'm guessing there was some ability for the Yankees to match it,
• 22:48
  and they probably balked at the price. So brew am I am I
• 22:52
  reading the te les differently than you were? Or what are you thinking we're
• 22:56
  gonna get out Garrett Cole this year? Yeah? I think you know,
• 22:59
  as you look at the reports, you know, you know his MRI was
• 23:02
  reviewed by uh neil ash Trusha I pronounced it a different ways, butcher names
• 23:10
  on this podcast. At least I've got the reputation for it. You don't
• 23:11
  have any excuse, but you know, he didn't see anything, but he
• 23:15
  still wants the second opinion. So I think you can take maybe some reassurance
• 23:21
  there that it's, you know, just inflammation. But you know what they
• 23:25
  say with the smoke. There's like the fire type of thing and the cold
• 23:29
  is such a bulldog, He's not one that's going to ever want to complain
• 23:32
  about not being able to bounce back. I feel like a few years ago
• 23:36
  he he really did kind of struggle, I think in kind of twenty twenty
• 23:38
  two, and it just seemed like his arm wasn't quite right. And then
• 23:41
  he you know, he bounced back a little bit uh last year, but
• 23:45
  that was kind of aided by a little bit of luck. So you know,
• 23:48
  you have to wonder if he's been kind of fighting. He lost two
• 23:53
  k per nine and he lost to tick off the fastball that the fastball was
• 23:57
  down from ninety seven eighteen, So it's kind of been I think like something
• 24:04
  something there, right, Yeah, yeah, And so I think, you
• 24:07
  know that the interesting thing with Cole's like, where's the breaking point? Because
• 24:11
  Cole was I think, you know, you and I both agreed. I
• 24:12
  think he was the clear number two from a starting pitching rank. I think
• 24:17
  this moves up Corbyn Burns to be the clear number two now. But what
• 24:22
  where's where's the break even point for a guy like this that let's just let's
• 24:26
  just assume he's missing at least half the season, best case scenario, and
• 24:30
  if he comes back, you're getting vintage Cole. Like, is that a
• 24:36
  tenth round pick? Is that a fifteenth is? Like? Where where does
• 24:40
  the CBA start to make sense for a guy like this? And to your
• 24:42
  point, it is it just not worth the headache unless you're getting for free
• 24:48
  in the in the you know, empty rounds at the end of the draft.
• 24:51
  I think that's where it is until we know more. And so right
• 24:55
  now, drafting is a worst time possible for Garrett Cole. The only time
• 25:00
  I take him as advice in the Dynasty League. And but you're still talking
• 25:03
  about a thirty three year old Garrett Cole. He's he's not a spring chicken,
• 25:08
  and I don't know with the way he's kind of he is a lot
• 25:11
  of mileage on that arm. And so I think that I don't say this
• 25:15
  is going to spell the end for Garrett Cole. That's maybe a little slippery
• 25:18
  slope or dramatic, but I'm not I'm not too excited by anything about Garrett
• 25:25
  Cole at this point in time. And there's there's a lot of red flags
• 25:30
  here, so I would be sticking away maybe a dart throw late in the
• 25:33
  draft if you need some high upside potential, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't
• 25:40
  be investing here by any means. And hopefully if you if you drafted early,
• 25:45
  this is this is brutal news. This is on the level of a
• 25:48
  Kunya risk here where you know, you you put your number one I mean
• 25:52
  you you're talking a number one or two pick that you had to spend to
• 25:56
  get Garrett Cole and now your whole have to set out the window. So
• 26:02
  that's unfortunate. Yeah, and if the return is a month or two,
• 26:07
  like I assume that's a month or two before he like gets back onto the
• 26:14
  mound and stretching out, like he wasn't fully stretched out at this point.
• 26:17
  So let's I mean, honestly, I'm going to give it more like the
• 26:21
  two months that's putting you into mid may probably another two weeks to actually ramp
• 26:26
  up and stretch out, and then they rehab assignment. You're you're talking July
• 26:30
  at best case right, and then like all Star break, right, that's
• 26:34
  All Star break is like the easy aim for for best case scenario and coal
• 26:38
  here and yeah, is it at that point like it almost becomes like the
• 26:45
  grom honestly, and if that's where I would be taking coal, I think
• 26:51
  if I had drafts coming up, and you're better off taking like a Shurezer
• 26:53
  or something like that at this point saying hey, what I have. But
• 26:57
  Cole's like moving into brandon Woodruf territory here of will he come back? Yeah,
• 27:03
  I don't know. I might take a dart throw at the end and
• 27:06
  hope he's back for the playoffs. Yeah. So I'm sure we'll get a
• 27:10
  little more clarity over the next couple of days. But as we're sitting here
• 27:12
  on March thirteenth, it does not look good at all. Fred Garrett Cole,
• 27:18
  Yeah, And I think you have to you have to think that this
• 27:21
  this does is we talked about Snell and Montgomery, and this is I think
• 27:26
  you made the point that you know, we this is a good chance that
• 27:27
  this kind of raised the bidding war for for cease really quickly. You have
• 27:33
  to think that the Yankees are like in that Blake Snell race. I don't
• 27:37
  think they're gonna be in the Jordan Montgomery race, just based on history.
• 27:41
  I don't think Montgomery wants any part of going back to New York. But
• 27:45
  you have to think that they are, like they're holding a breath, and
• 27:48
  then they they have called Scott Boris and said, I've got an offer.
• 27:52
  Depending on how this this in person visit goes. It doesn't go, well,
• 27:56
  come on over. Yeah, And I don't know, like I would
• 28:00
  hope that they are, because otherwise this entire season could get derailed pretty quickly
• 28:04
  for the Yankees, as Clayton Beeter is currently slotted in as their fifth starter
• 28:10
  and the depth has been gutted because of the trade for Sodo. So you
• 28:14
  got to hear of soda, you better you better use it. I don't
• 28:17
  think so, don't don't, don't come up. Clayton Beeter is your number
• 28:22
  five. Yeah, uh okay. Well, we've got another picture injury which
• 28:26
  has come out today that has been a little less significant, but also I
• 28:32
  think a pretty big blow, and that is Tadj Bradley from the Tampa Bay
• 28:36
  Rays has gone down with a strained pectoral that it sounds right now that he's
• 28:41
  not gonna throw for about two weeks. But I think you're probably looking at
• 28:48
  Taj Bradley maybe missing the first month of the season at this point, and
• 28:52
  who knows how this progresses and I think this hurts because, like I was
• 28:56
  starting to take Taj Bradley in lots of places, partly because you could see
• 29:00
  it in his numbers. Last year he just ran into a lot of poor
• 29:03
  luck in terms of nineteen percent homeer to fly ball rate, which is pretty
• 29:08
  hard to repeat year over year, a left on base rate of sixty seven
• 29:14
  percent, and all of it added up to even though he had a five
• 29:17
  fifty nine ear array in his one hundred and four and two thirds innings for
• 29:21
  the Rays last year, it was an x FIP of three eighty three,
• 29:26
  and especially it came with an eleven K nine and the walks were reasonable at
• 29:30
  three just over three three point three. So I was especially picking up TODJ.
• 29:37
  Bradley in drafts late because the whip productions for him have been pretty solid
• 29:42
  too, like you know in the one mid one twos, and I mean
• 29:48
  in twenty twenty two in triple A he ran a one nineteen whip and so
• 29:52
  he's shown the ability to be a high strikeout, low contact picture, although
• 30:00
  in this kind of flyball mold that watches lots of players are nowadays, but
• 30:06
  Taj Bradley I was really starting to target in the middle rounds just to try
• 30:10
  to find some upside too. That's why I liked you know, Tag Bradley
• 30:14
  is going into his age twenty three season here and it was looking pretty pretty
• 30:19
  still. Actually his birthday is next week on the twenties, So bad birthday
• 30:23
  news for Taj Bradley, but at least he'll be able to hopefully like celebrate
• 30:32
  it now that he doesn't have to worry about like around campus stuff too much.
• 30:36
  But what do you think about the outlook and kind of long term projection
• 30:42
  in twenty twenty four here for Todge Bradley. Yeah, I mean Bradley looked
• 30:47
  you know, I agree with everything he said. Bradley looked really good in
• 30:49
  spring training as well. His loss, he was up, you know,
• 30:52
  and he was a really really good pitcher in the in the miners too,
• 30:56
  Like he just things didn't break his way in the majors and he had some
• 31:02
  injury issues as well. It does feel like a guy that's struggling a little
• 31:04
  bit to stay healthy. But I'm actually a little bit more interested in still
• 31:10
  taking a dart throw and a guy like TODJ. Bradley, just because you
• 31:12
  know, from an injury perspective, you know he's a strain. Peck is
• 31:18
  annoying as a picture, but like that's generally just rest. It's just rest
• 31:23
  and not coming back too soon. And the Rays. For all the craziness
• 31:29
  they cause us in the fancy world of how they handle things and whatnot,
• 31:33
  they are actually very conservative with letting guys get healthy and then coming back.
• 31:37
  They're one of the more conservative teams in that aspect. So I think Bradley
• 31:42
  this is maybe a little bit more time than we expect. But I think
• 31:45
  when he comes back, he is fully healthy. The only concern I have
• 31:49
  is have they found some other guy that's got to take that spot their rotation.
• 31:55
  Then he's like trying to break in all season again, just like he
• 31:57
  was last year's. But I do like a lot about TODG Bradley. I
• 32:01
  think that he was already going kind of late in the draft, yeah,
• 32:06
  just because a lot of uncertainty. I think this makes him relatively a free
• 32:10
  commodity for the most part. And I'll take that all day as a dart
• 32:14
  throw at the end of the draft, throwing your il slot and wait for
• 32:17
  the next about you know, I'd probably say about two months. You know,
• 32:21
  similar conversation to Cole here. You know, Cole probably out a little
• 32:24
  bit longer, but you know, give it a month for him to kind
• 32:28
  of get healthy, build back up, good, a little rehab. He's
• 32:30
  backed by maybe the end of May, and I'm really excited about it.
• 32:35
  So I'm not too concerned with Todge Bradley at the end of the day.
• 32:38
  I think it just gives you a little bit of discount and there's not a
• 32:43
  big, big, big risk that you're taking if you are drafting Todge Bradley.
• 32:49
  Yeah, and I think you made a really good point in terms of
• 32:52
  Bradley battling a peck andrey as opposed to a shoulder or an elbow or bicap
• 32:57
  or anything that involves like the actual arm more so than the peck and the
• 33:01
  chest. That like, that's usually not quite as big of an indicator that
• 33:07
  of you know, really terrible things that it usually is something that once you
• 33:13
  heal it up, you get the connect chane working again. It should help.
• 33:16
  But I'm not too worried about his spot when he gets back, because
• 33:21
  the rays starting pitching is in shambles already with this injury. There are they
• 33:29
  are going to be expecting Girassmusen and Jeffrey Springs back at some point during the
• 33:34
  summers, but right now, Tyler Alexander slated slotted in as their fifth starter,
• 33:39
  which I'm guessing will be a little bit more of like an opener bullpen
• 33:44
  day situation. Shane Baz has been injured. As we've discussed previously, Jacob
• 33:51
  Lopez is the last starting pitcher kind of on their forty man roster, and
• 33:55
  he's not I don't think he's going to be anything special. Like, yeah,
• 34:00
  he throws like ninety miles an hour and it's just like you're asking to
• 34:02
  get pummeled. And then after that they would have to start making forty man
• 34:07
  moves. So I do think that Bradley, I think the Rays were counting
• 34:12
  on Bradley too to really step up and be like a number two in this
• 34:15
  rotation. So they've got a lot writing on putting Taj back into the rotation
• 34:21
  overall. Yeah, so I think there's a lot of upside there. Like
• 34:24
  I said, I it's disappointing, takes a little bit of the helium out
• 34:28
  of a Bradley, But at the end of the day, you know that
• 34:30
  means he's cast off and you can pick him up, I'd absolutely be stashing
• 34:35
  Tag Bradley. Yeah, all right. Another piece of major news that has
• 34:39
  broken since we talked last week was the Cincinnati Reds third baseman Newelvi Marte has
• 34:45
  gone down with an eighty game PED suspension. And I think this is why
• 34:52
  everybody was looking at the Reds and being like, what are they doing with
• 34:57
  this infield in terms of signing Jamber Kine Delario when they already had a full
• 35:00
  infield. That the teams get the reports of the ped suspensions and the ped
• 35:07
  failed test way before the public does, so I wouldn't be surprised if,
• 35:13
  honestly, the Reds signed Jeimer Candelario around the time that they they were informed
• 35:20
  that Welvie Marte was going to have this suspension come out. And because there
• 35:22
  is like a repealing process and an appealing process that happens in the background that
• 35:29
  we don't really hear about, and so I think this is probably what the
• 35:34
  Reds were expecting all along during the off season. So it really does clear
• 35:37
  up a lot of the playing time situation in Cincinnati where all of those infielders
• 35:43
  between Matt McClain, Jimmer Candelerio Elie de la Cruz, well Man, I
• 35:51
  already forgot I missed Christian and on Strand, who'ld I miss Steer here?
• 36:00
  And so that I think it makes it so that everyone has a spot now,
• 36:07
  So that should allow everybody to share, Okay. And if there's anybody
• 36:10
  I think who's probably the number one beneficiary of this, it is actually Cees.
• 36:15
  It is Incarnashian Strand, because he especially in the projections, wasn't and
• 36:21
  still isn't really projected for like a full season of at bats because he seemed
• 36:24
  to be the oddmanned out. And I think the projections are still baking in
• 36:30
  too much risk of him going back to the minors because I think he's sticking
• 36:35
  now and he should be playing first base or d H every day for Cincinnati
• 36:39
  until Marte comes back halfway through the season. Yeah, and I think at
• 36:43
  that point, if you know CS has laid stake to the position, he's
• 36:47
  not given it back. It's it's exactly, he's got half a season to
• 36:52
  go out there makes make things happen. I think you were absolutely right on
• 36:55
  the assessment that you know the Reds knew about this. I don't know how
• 37:00
  long the appeal and all things like that take but they're a good chance they've
• 37:04
  known about this for a few months and that's why India's not moved. That's
• 37:07
  why they they've been you know, careful and even adding to that infield,
• 37:12
  you know, there was when when it was announced, it was basically like,
• 37:15
  this is what it is. We're not going to talk about it.
• 37:16
  Let's move on. And to me, that means they've already digested it,
• 37:21
  that this isn't like, oh, you know, we're surprised, we want
• 37:23
  to follow up and support our player. There was nothing. It was just
• 37:28
  like, yep, we know, we're moving on. Here's the team,
• 37:30
  let's go. So clearly disappointment in Cincinnati, and I know there's a number
• 37:36
  of fantasy writers that were very, very high in the Vale Marte, and
• 37:42
  I think there's there's a lot of potential there. And this just complicates so
• 37:46
  much for Marte because you really don't want to invest in a guy that you
• 37:51
  can get maybe half the season for and you don't know what it looks like
• 37:54
  when he comes back at the end of the day. He'll probably find a
• 37:58
  spot in that lineup, he'll start getting worked in. But if everybody's hitting
• 38:02
  on all cylinders. He is not breaking that lineup when he comes right back.
• 38:07
  It's not like he was guaranteed the spot. He'd already earned it,
• 38:08
  and then he's just somebody's filling in. He was still kind of trying to
• 38:13
  find his way and earn his long term spot with Cincinnati. And so I'm
• 38:17
  steering clear of Marte at this point, not just because of the clubhouse atmosphere.
• 38:22
  I like my clubhouse to be free of peds, but really, I
• 38:27
  just don't know that there's a whole lot for twenty twenty four that I want
• 38:30
  to rely on for a guy like Marte, and you can't use an il
• 38:36
  spot on him in most leagues. He has taking up a bench spot for
• 38:38
  half the year, and do not hamper yourself with the lack of flexibility this
• 38:43
  early in the season. Yeah, I totally agree. And on top of
• 38:46
  it, like Marte, it might just be a totally lost season because after
• 38:50
  he's seriously eighty game suspension, we've already gone over how crowded the outfield is.
• 38:53
  He's going to need a minor league stint to kind of get things back
• 38:59
  in gear, and from that, you know, who knows, Maybe Cincinnati
• 39:02
  decides that Marte just works out better in Triple A that they have two options
• 39:07
  on him and can keep him down there. Although I can see also why
• 39:12
  they were Cincinnati was backfilling this infield because right now they're the backup infield around
• 39:16
  their bench according to roster resource is Tony Kemp, and that is it.
• 39:21
  I mean those shift around India and Steer and everybody. But after that,
• 39:24
  they've also got Josh Harrison down in the miners as an NRI player in spring
• 39:29
  training that there's not there. They've brought up all these rookies, but there
• 39:34
  isn't another crop at all in terms of like depths, so they are also
• 39:38
  counting on hoping that you know, all these dudes can stay healthy in Cincinnati.
• 39:45
  I just I just love Tony Kemp because isn't he isn't he like the
• 39:47
  prototypical guy of like he always finds a job somehow. Yeah, and you
• 39:53
  look at what he does. He's like this guy that's gonna hit like five
• 39:57
  homers and steal five bases and hit like two fifth but play a little bit
• 40:00
  of everywhere on the diamond and be just interesting enough like that. That's like
• 40:06
  being Tom Brady's backup in the NFL, right, like you're like, you're
• 40:10
  just not exciting enough, but exciting you're but you're just useful enough to have
• 40:15
  an everyday job. So Tony Camp always finding a way to make it into
• 40:21
  our hearts exactly. And since we're in Cincinnati, we can talk about another
• 40:27
  kind of minor signing. And it was a minor league signing. I don't
• 40:30
  think it's gonna have too much of an impact for us in the fantasy world.
• 40:32
  But Joey Vado did sign a minor league deal with the Toronto Blue Jays
• 40:37
  this past week, and I'm not totally sure when we can expect him to
• 40:42
  be ready, because he's going to need time to ramp off, and he'll
• 40:45
  probably start the season in Triple A just to get some extra at bats since
• 40:50
  he's missed, you know, a good portion, good chunk of spring training.
• 40:52
  But Vado should be up. I think sometime in probably like late eight
• 41:00
  would be my best guess. I'm not sure you're gonna be looking out of
• 41:02
  looking for too much out of Vado right now, but I mean, if
• 41:07
  I'm in a really really deep league, like something like an eighteen or twenty
• 41:10
  eighteen league or ale only, I'd definitely be throwing a dart at Joey Vado
• 41:15
  just to see if that power does come back, because that is where he
• 41:20
  has shown he's developed his game a little bit as he's turned into an all
• 41:25
  or nothing slugger and selling out for the power. Obviously it's cratered as average,
• 41:30
  but he's also been battling shoulder back issues the past couple of years.
• 41:35
  And if Vado was healthy and has had a pretty good run in Buffalo at
• 41:39
  Triple A for the Blue Jays, I don't think it's gonna be a bad
• 41:44
  spot to be looking, especially if you're really hard up at quarter Enfields Utility
• 41:51
  and a deep league in late April. Yeah, especially if you're an OBP
• 41:54
  league, like you gotta love. I mean, it's not that he's gonna
• 41:58
  blow you away. He's not the botto of you know, four seventy OBP.
• 42:01
  He's the auto of you know, hoping for three twenty OBP. But
• 42:06
  you know the thing I love about this, it has nothing to do with
• 42:08
  fantasy. It's just Joey Vado. You have to love Joey Vado like he's
• 42:13
  like the one guy that forty years old is excited to be back in the
• 42:16
  minors and like taking the bus and like being one of the guys, like
• 42:22
  in his interviews, like in Cincinnati had zero interest on bringing it back,
• 42:24
  which I'm still shocked by if he was willing to take a bench role with
• 42:29
  that young team, Like I mean, he seems like that that lovehouse guy
• 42:34
  that just is the glue. So I do little worry a little bit of
• 42:37
  Cincinnati, like they're just they're gonna be a little lost without that that veteran
• 42:42
  presence. But I'm just so excited to see Joey Evado in Buffalo, like
• 42:45
  Franken Homer's I mean, he's gonna be like on Sports Center just because of
• 42:51
  he's you know, doing something crazy, you know, stealing some fans food.
• 42:53
  I don't know what it is, but Joey Vado is just a delight
• 42:58
  and purely from a revenue perspective, Buffalo is going to do great this year.
• 43:02
  They're gonna sell out to games like nothing because Joey Vado is going to
• 43:07
  be an entertainments He's gonna turn Buffalo into the Savannah Bananas, that's for sure.
• 43:13
  Yeah, all those Canadians coming across the border to come see him.
• 43:15
  But I mean, he's he's put up an eleven percent barrel rate the past
• 43:20
  two years. It has come with like an average that's hovering around the Mendoza
• 43:23
  line, but the power is still there so he can still play. It's
• 43:28
  just kind of figuring out how a really elite hitter like this can find his
• 43:32
  path. And there's certainly room in Toronto because with Justin Turner he could be
• 43:39
  you know, the short side put tune in a dh roll or I mean,
• 43:44
  there's not very much a depth on that bench in Toronto, so it's
• 43:46
  pretty easy for I think Joey Vado to find some sort of playing time up
• 43:51
  there with the Blue Jays. Yeah. Absolutely, It's it'll be fun to
• 43:53
  watch, that's for sure. Okay, the other this one is not depressing
• 43:59
  news, I guess unless you're the Dodgers. But the other piece of news
• 44:02
  that we've got to cover for this week is Mookie Bets is going to be
• 44:07
  the shortstop for the Dodgers for the foreseeable future. As Gavin Lux kind of
• 44:12
  pulled his best Chuck nablock In personation over the past coup, why did you
• 44:15
  have to steal the one thing I had to say on the segments, Chuck
• 44:19
  knoblock was the only value I was going to give the segments. Yeah,
• 44:22
  I mean, I guess we shouldn't make too much fun of people's yips,
• 44:24
  But it was brutal watching Gavin Luck's place and infield during spring training that I
• 44:31
  think it was always a little bit of a question moving Lucks to shortstop last
• 44:36
  year, even before towards ACL But the Dodgers didn't get that hint for last
• 44:42
  year, and so yeah, they don't have a shortstop on their super crazy
• 44:49
  billions and billions of dollars team that they're just winging it with Mookie Bets.
• 44:54
  And from a Fantasy perspective, obviously great to add that shortstop for Mokie Bet,
• 45:00
  but I do worry if they're gonna put Muki there for a significant portion
• 45:06
  of time. It's a pretty labor intensive position to play between shortstop in corner
• 45:10
  or not corner in center fields that those players just put more mileage on their
• 45:16
  bodies between you know, playing the field, running around and making plays and
• 45:23
  at shortstop. It could really wear Moki out. And something that I think
• 45:28
  he's really provided over the past few years for Fantasy is just steady eddy production
• 45:34
  production that you know, the ebbs and flows of the season happened, but
• 45:38
  you can always kind of pencil him for the same spot in terms of average
• 45:44
  RBIs runs. I mean, the homer boost happened last year. But I
• 45:47
  mean, I think all the projections know who Mooky is, and it's gonna
• 45:52
  be tough. I think if he's got to also handle shortstop during the season.
• 45:57
  He's even said in some interviews since he was anointed as the shortstop that
• 46:02
  he's not totally sure it's all going to work out, and so especially given
• 46:07
  how confident Mooky is and how he can do anything all the time, like
• 46:12
  that's not exactly the most encouraging piece of news for me either. But Brew,
• 46:15
  do you have a different take on this for MOOKI Yeah, I mean
• 46:19
  I'm not too terriblely concerned. Mukie's professional, He's a professional hitter. He'll
• 46:23
  be able to separate, you know, what he does in the field from
• 46:27
  what he does the plate. I'm not too concerned about that from fancy perspective.
• 46:30
  I think it just speaks volumes to who MOOKI bets is that he you
• 46:34
  know, he's not you know, he's not your prototypical you know, all
• 46:37
  star you know, cornerstone where he's he must play this position. That's who
• 46:43
  he's gonna be like, He's going to take it what for the team needs
• 46:46
  and make it work. And he's I mean, who else is going to
• 46:50
  come out there and play outfield, second bay shortstop and then have that type
• 46:54
  of production. I get. You got your guys like Tommy Edmonds of the
• 46:58
  world and things like that. They can make that happen and just be a
• 47:00
  fantastic love to Prinedo's attists. You could argue that though I don't think he's
• 47:05
  maybe as good as a fielder that has Muki is, but I think it's
• 47:08
  just impressive that he's able to do that, and uh, it's it's gonna
• 47:13
  give him some flexibility in the lineup. I really like if you have that.
• 47:16
  I mean, and we'll talk a little bit later not to spoil the
• 47:21
  segue of what we're going to talk about later in the show, but Top
• 47:22
  one hundred hitters as I've been starting to roll those out and rasball over the
• 47:27
  last few weeks, Muki is my number two hitter and this just solidifies it
• 47:30
  for me because I'm if you don't grab a Kunia and you grab Muki,
• 47:35
  the flexibility that gives you the rest of the draft to say, I can
• 47:37
  put this guy short, second or outfield, and I do not have to
• 47:40
  decide until later. Is just wonderful flexibility for for a fantasy owner as you're
• 47:46
  trying to draft, because you've got the guy, he's gonna be fantastic,
• 47:51
  and you end up seeing a great shortstop drop in a second, you end
• 47:55
  up seeing a great outfielder drop, you know, moving to the nfield.
• 47:59
  Like you just have that flexibility and throughout the season that usually you're trying to
• 48:05
  draft a guy laid in the round with all this positional flexibility. He brings
• 48:08
  it from day one, and it's and you're not paying for it because he's
• 48:12
  already going at the top of the draft. It's just bonus free money.
• 48:15
  Yeah. And I think on top of it too, it's not even just
• 48:19
  like in the draft you alluded to it a little bit in terms of like
• 48:22
  your in season management allows you to play in every pool from free agency in
• 48:28
  terms of middle infield, second base, shortstop, and outfields, so that
• 48:32
  once you're able to like not be narrowed and locked into a position and you
• 48:37
  can just take the best player available. That is a huge boon as you're
• 48:42
  working through waiver wires and free agency during your in season management. I did
• 48:46
  realize, I buried the lead again that we are going to be talking about
• 48:51
  your your top forty hitters that you've put out, so that will be we're
• 48:53
  gonna have a fantasy only here, Fantasy onlypod here today is we do have
• 49:00
  light Cards news again. I will put the schedule in the show notes in
• 49:04
  terms of releases coming up, because there are releases coming out even this week.
• 49:08
  We have twenty twenty three Bowman Inception finally coming out here on Friday,
• 49:13
  March fifteenth, but then later this month on the twenty seventh, we have
• 49:19
  twenty twenty four Big League coming out. We have twenty twenty four Tribute coming
• 49:22
  out. And one of the I would say like tent polls of the overall
• 49:28
  Tops releases from the year Tops Heritage. It was just announced the other day
• 49:32
  that pre orders are up for twenty twenty four Tops Heritage on Tops dot Com
• 49:37
  that releases on April tenth, and once we get close to that date,
• 49:42
  we'll have a bigger show to overview Tops Heritage for everybody out there. But
• 49:46
  yeah, that was a pretty long and grueling news section as it's been.
• 49:52
  It was funny kind of building this rundown because honestly, before the cold news,
• 49:57
  I didn't know what we would have betting into today, and the past
• 50:00
  couple of days has really escalated quickly. Yeah, we can thank Garrett Cole's
• 50:05
  elbow for our content today. Yeah, it really created a world end of
• 50:09
  transactions between that and the cease, which I think has been just another domino
• 50:15
  to fall. Okay, but yeah, we'll take a short break and then
• 50:17
  we will be back after that to review Bru's top forty hitters that he's put
• 50:23
  out on ras ball so far. Stick around, all right, Welcome back,
• 50:45
  everybody. We are going to get into our categories discussion. As Jeremy
• 50:50
  has put out his first two articles on his top one hundred hitters, and
• 50:55
  so you're doing twenty at a time. That gives us forty to analyze,
• 51:00
  so the cream of the crop of the fantasy bats here. And I think
• 51:05
  this also gives us a good chance to analyze, you know, some of
• 51:07
  the process behind your results and looking at maybe where you vary greatly from current
• 51:15
  NFBC Draft Champions data. I've started using that because I realized the NFBC data
• 51:21
  is pretty noisy in terms of like it leagues all over the place and stuff
• 51:24
  that at least Draft Champions is a pretty standard like five y five format and
• 51:30
  lots of people knowing what they're doing, so it helps kind of cut down
• 51:34
  on the noise a little bit. But yeah, brew it. How are
• 51:37
  you feeling after pumping out this first top forty the two lists of the twenty
• 51:42
  and twenty and we'll obviously link to this in the show notes so that everybody
• 51:45
  can check it out as well. Yeah, I mean, it's I think
• 51:47
  ranking is one of the hardest but most exciting things about fantasy writing. It
• 51:53
  is, you know, Greenfield, it is your opinion and there is not
• 51:58
  a writer wrong answer, and it's just very interesting to see, you know,
• 52:02
  the different approaches and what comes into it. Because I think that the
• 52:07
  value in ranking and I think that there's different ways to look at this.
• 52:12
  The value in ranking isn't this is how you should draft guys. This is
• 52:15
  an opinion or a view of the potential value of players. And so if
• 52:21
  if you align with somebody's methodology and what they think about it can give you
• 52:27
  an edge at the draft table to consider guys you hadn't thought of versus the
• 52:30
  the ADP and where the market's going. It's more about the education and the
• 52:36
  being able to zig and zag or maybe getting called out in the guy that
• 52:40
  you hadn't really looked into to go through. So I think, to me,
• 52:45
  putting rankings together is it's an art. It is not a science.
• 52:50
  It is also one of those things as a fantasy writer, like the most
• 52:52
  vulnerable thing you can do, which is literally like it's it's easy to write
• 52:58
  an article on one guy that you kind of cherry take across everybody, but
• 53:00
  like to be to force yourself to sit down and rank one hundred hitters,
• 53:05
  like you are going from the top of the draft midway through the mid you
• 53:08
  know, mid teens rounds at times, and you are putting it all out
• 53:13
  there. And if and trust me, I've had the comments if you disagree
• 53:15
  on one guy that somebody else is after, it's like you are the worst
• 53:21
  writer of all time. I don't know why anybody would ever hire you to
• 53:24
  ride on this site. Uh. And it's okay, you know it's it's
• 53:28
  you know, cheap labor. From grace perspective, it's Uh, any interactions
• 53:32
  of positive interaction. Right, it's from a media perspective, it doesn't matter.
• 53:37
  But you know, I think that that's the beauty of it is that
• 53:42
  uh and and I welcome that in the articles of like disagree with me?
• 53:45
  Where where would you see things different? Because there's not a right answer,
• 53:49
  but it's it's about seeing a different perspective. So I think the other piece
• 53:53
  of for me is like what what what goes into when I'm thinking about reading
• 53:59
  those ranking a little different for in season than preseason. Preseason is really about
• 54:04
  that overall potential, and there's a little bit more for me of the floor
• 54:09
  versus a upside. When you're doing preseason rankings, you're trying to make sure
• 54:15
  that you are getting really good value that's going to last you the season,
• 54:20
  that's gonna be there through thick and thin. So you're maybe fading the injuries
• 54:23
  a little bit more, fading the risk guys a little bit more in those
• 54:30
  early rankings because you don't want to over invest in the guys that could just
• 54:36
  end your season from day one because they don't make it back in time or
• 54:38
  they don't make the roster. And that's to me, what you're trying to
• 54:45
  prepare against. And you're also looking at not just like how exciting the hitter
• 54:49
  is, and I think that gets lost on people. And we'll talk about
• 54:51
  a few you guys here that definitely fall into this, Like this guy might
• 54:53
  be a really exciting hitter to watch, but from a pure fantasy perspective where
• 54:58
  the game is going, he might not meet the profile of what you think
• 55:01
  he might be an all star, but from a fantasy perspective, like there's
• 55:05
  more clout than really the value is. And like I said, there's a
• 55:09
  few guys that we'll talk about here that really fall into that for me,
• 55:14
  And so you have to be thinking about them relative to as you draft a
• 55:17
  team where the pitfalls are things like that. And we've talked about multiple times
• 55:22
  in this podcast. Speed is the name of the game this year and if
• 55:25
  you aren't drafting speed early, and I'll say I kind of fell into that
• 55:29
  with a draft you and I just had earlier this week where starting with Ronald
• 55:34
  Lacuni on my team, I kind of just like threw speed to the wind
• 55:37
  and I got to the end of the draft, I go, wait a
• 55:38
  second, I've got like two other guys that have any speed, Like there's
• 55:43
  ones what our way to lose a category. So it's a fun experience.
• 55:49
  I'm really excited of the top forty so far. And I will say the
• 55:52
  top forty is easier than the next twenty, the next twenty, the next
• 55:55
  twenty. That's where it gets hard is is you get there the beginning,
• 56:00
  like the top top fifteen is like not too hard. Like you, I
• 56:05
  would say that you're not going to get too controversial. But as you get
• 56:07
  further into the rankings, everybody gets closer and closer and closer. And that
• 56:12
  guy might you might list him ninety and you might be okay with him being
• 56:15
  seventy because that group is so tight together. But there's, like I said,
• 56:21
  there's an emotional reaction from the guy that kept your guy at ninety or
• 56:24
  just draft him yesterday, and they sink an early round pick and when they're
• 56:29
  sitting like going, no way, this is not possible, it's like,
• 56:31
  you know, it gets pretty tied at the end for a lot of these
• 56:35
  guys. Yeah, and yeah, I respect to you for putting together a
• 56:40
  list like this, because you're just asking for cannon fodder in terms of comments.
• 56:45
  And certainly it's a little bit easier when I sit in the waiver wire
• 56:50
  column and picking guys up based on, you know, whatever is happening around
• 56:54
  the league and ownership rates and stuff that it it's a little more fluid that
• 57:00
  what you're looking at here. It certainly I think it is fluid, but
• 57:02
  it's also you've got to keep in mind like who's performed, who's shown what,
• 57:08
  and especially at this point in the spring. I do agree with like
• 57:12
  your overall methodology of being a little bit more of like floor based, because
• 57:19
  until somebody shows these skills outside of you know, this goofy fake baseball that's
• 57:23
  happening during spring training and shows it on a field in April, you've got
• 57:30
  to go with kind of what people have shown in especially October and September,
• 57:37
  and just going off of what you know about those players. So I think
• 57:40
  that overall that makes sense. Yeah. I think the other thing that you
• 57:44
  know, I people might be surprised at is when I do rankings. You
• 57:47
  know, I I like, I don't read Gray's rankings. I don't look
• 57:52
  at his rankings. I might every once in a while, like after the
• 57:54
  fact, or like there's one guy that I'm like, I'm just really torn
• 57:57
  this. I want to see a different perspective. But I do my rankings
• 58:01
  myself. I don't look up there. I might after the fact to your
• 58:05
  point, like compare me, like did I miss something? Like there's a
• 58:07
  double check to see, like I forgot one Soto this this go around,
• 58:13
  Like you want to be careful of that. That there's one way to get
• 58:16
  to get made fun of your rankings as you forget a guy. And trust
• 58:21
  me, I've already got a little grief of not including O'Neil Cruz my top
• 58:24
  forty from a number of ras ballers, but probably all just of Gray's burner
• 58:30
  accounts. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. I think that
• 58:32
  was what Great tweeted out the rankings and question where O'Neil Cruz was. So
• 58:40
  it definitely I think that's an interesting thing for people to know. It's like
• 58:44
  I don't it's my rankings. It's not anybody else's rankings. It's not you
• 58:49
  know, Gray's. And I remember a few years ago I was putting them
• 58:51
  out and Gray was on an al the Barntle Odyssey train and like he was
• 58:54
  in like his top ten or fifty, like he was just all over honestly,
• 58:58
  and I had him like sixty years something like that. I'm like,
• 59:00
  I have no desire to draft this guy, and I just and being on
• 59:05
  rasball, there's some great truthers and I love Gray great, fantastic, but
• 59:07
  there are the guys that's been grade to the death. And I mean,
• 59:12
  I just got I just got a vistorted from my modesty pick and I was
• 59:15
  right. And so hopefully hopefully Gray is not listening. Stick we might only
• 59:21
  get the top four, might only get the top forty this time around.
• 59:23
  So well, with that, I thought it would be good to, like,
• 59:30
  yeah, evaluate some of your like how you made these picks, and
• 59:36
  then we'll line it up with the NFBC data. So first, who was
• 59:39
  really the hardest person for you to place in your top forty? And I
• 59:44
  should explain too that when people are looking at this these top forty and your
• 59:47
  columns, that you've also placed them into tears, which I think is helpful
• 59:51
  because like I I don't think I've got any questions where I tried to be
• 59:58
  pick players to discuss us where like the difference in the NFBC data towards your
• 1:00:05
  rankings was large enough where we're not just talking about like shuffling around within a
• 1:00:08
  tier that you know, there's a little bit more separations, So how do
• 1:00:14
  you how do you determine those tiers and kind of like who was the hardest
• 1:00:16
  to put in those tiers that you've done for your top forty so far.
• 1:00:21
  Yeah, I really kind of the tiers they're trying to look at where there's
• 1:00:24
  a significant difference in profile or risk level as you're going through. And so
• 1:00:31
  you know, I, you know, as I look through the tiers,
• 1:00:35
  and you know, I named them in the first article, didn't name it
• 1:00:37
  a second article because you know, I just felt like being a protagonist.
• 1:00:40
  But you know, as you look through, you know, I you know,
• 1:00:44
  Acune was number one, and then you know, had a group of
• 1:00:46
  like young guys, all with crazy upside, all with the speed that at
• 1:00:52
  the end of the day, like if you pick one versus another, it's
• 1:00:54
  not going to really change your draft, Like it's kind of an opinion of
• 1:00:58
  where you go. But then you you look past them and it's like there's
• 1:01:00
  other guys that have a little speed that could just you know, have MVP
• 1:01:06
  seasons, but there's a little bit more variability to them. So trying to
• 1:01:09
  kind of keep those together as far as what drives making them a little different
• 1:01:15
  from that tier below or tier above them, And so you're you're trying to
• 1:01:20
  really group guys together to say, at the end of the day, you
• 1:01:22
  know, if you drop from ten to fifteen, I'm not gonna argue and
• 1:01:25
  I'm not I'm not I'm not seeing it too different. But you jump from
• 1:01:29
  one tier to the other, You're sitting here going I'm missing out on something,
• 1:01:32
  whether it's speed, whether it's upside, or maybe you're getting to guys
• 1:01:37
  that you know only really are three category contributors versus four or five. Uh,
• 1:01:42
  really trying to break that down. But you know, I think for
• 1:01:45
  me, probably there's two areas that were the hardest to work through this year.
• 1:01:52
  One I'm going to say my second tier, and that was the tier
• 1:01:54
  two through six. This was the MOOKI, Bobby Wit, Kyle Tucker,
• 1:01:59
  whoever he goes, Corby, Carol. I moved those guys around so many
• 1:02:01
  times because there there's really I put in the article, there's not a wrong
• 1:02:07
  choice here. There's not something that you're you're gonna argue about. It's kind
• 1:02:10
  of like, how do you want to build your team and you want to
• 1:02:14
  go a little bit more speed, a little bit more potential upside, like
• 1:02:17
  a Julio and Corbyn. They could go crazy, but there's a little bit
• 1:02:22
  more risk with them versus a Tucker or a Wit or a guy like Bets
• 1:02:27
  who like has has kind of volume baked in, but there's not a right
• 1:02:30
  or wrong. So I move those guys around so many times and kind of
• 1:02:35
  landed at the floor discussion is I think where I came. And then I'd
• 1:02:38
  say the other guys that were really I think hard took place for me.
• 1:02:45
  We're I'd say, kind of the guys that I don't say fallen out of
• 1:02:51
  favor, but like the stars of like a few years ago, really at
• 1:02:55
  the back of the top twenty and move into the to the twenty twenty five,
• 1:03:02
  and that's where we're talking about like the Bryce Harper's, the Francisco Lindor's,
• 1:03:07
  the you know, Marcus Simeons, the Raphael Devers, that the guys
• 1:03:10
  like that where the shines come off to a degree, but they're still really
• 1:03:16
  really reliable. And I think that there's a disconnect to a degree of the
• 1:03:21
  market and the reliability of those guys. So I think those I really struggle
• 1:03:28
  struggled with those guys because I'm sitting there looking and like there's there's really not
• 1:03:31
  a downside. Like Francisco Lindor, for example, he had a fantastic year
• 1:03:37
  last year. There wasn't really that many worrying signs, and like his numbers
• 1:03:40
  weren't that different from those guys were talking on the first round. But then
• 1:03:44
  you look at it and go, but I mean, is this Lindor,
• 1:03:47
  is this really he's aging, Like he's not that young, Like he doesn't
• 1:03:52
  have this huge ceiling at the end of the day, but like he went
• 1:03:54
  thirty thirty, and so it was this really tug and pulls as you kind
• 1:04:00
  of went through. So anyway, you ask who the hardest of the place,
• 1:04:03
  and I gave you like seven guys, but that's okay. Yeah,
• 1:04:10
  and then anybody who when you were working through these rankings that surprised you in
• 1:04:15
  either a good way or a bad way, where it just you change your
• 1:04:18
  opinion of like your preconceived notion of where you thought you would rank them,
• 1:04:24
  or or you know, maybe what your secret algorithm kicked out in the background.
• 1:04:30
  You know me too well, secret algorithms. But yeah, I think
• 1:04:33
  there's two guys that really I really struggled with, and you know, they
• 1:04:38
  kind of go on the upside side here. It's Elie de la Cruz and
• 1:04:41
  Royce Lewis, both of those guys. You know, as I as I
• 1:04:45
  went into the the off season writing I was down on Dela Cruz. I
• 1:04:49
  struggled with him, and you know is the more I spent time looking at
• 1:04:55
  him and the potential upside that he has, you know, I couldn't drop
• 1:05:01
  him much further down because everybody else had some type of wart. His warts
• 1:05:06
  was like I don't know how high the ceiling is, and he could just
• 1:05:12
  be a top two pick, or he could be a in the miners in
• 1:05:17
  a month. Maybe the less now with my Marte being on the shelf shortstop.
• 1:05:27
  Same with like Royce Lewis. You know, I really thought Royce Lewis
• 1:05:30
  had just like blown it for all of us by going like Grand Slam crazy
• 1:05:33
  at the end of last season, and like he looked fantastic. I was.
• 1:05:38
  I was in Royce Lewis train in the last season before he hit Grand
• 1:05:42
  Slam number one, and then he kept doing it. I'm like, will
• 1:05:44
  you please stop it? There just goes all my off season writing for my
• 1:05:46
  sleeper picks, and I started to look at him like I had kind of
• 1:05:49
  written him off just because I'm like, I mean, he is going so
• 1:05:54
  high in UH drafts and everything like that. I'm like, there's just no
• 1:05:58
  way. And I looked at him like, but it's legitimate. It looks
• 1:06:01
  real. And so I struggled there putting Lewis in above guys that seem to
• 1:06:06
  have done it before over longer time frames, you know, things like that.
• 1:06:11
  You know, I got them above like a Randy Rose Arena got them
• 1:06:15
  above Mike Trout. How to they Boba Schett like guys that you're sitting like
• 1:06:20
  you know what you're getting. And the more you look at Royce Lewis,
• 1:06:25
  I'm like, it is really really hard to argue with that profile. I
• 1:06:30
  think maybe injury risk is the only thing I'm seeing that I'm concerned with Royce
• 1:06:34
  Lewis. So the young guys that I wanted to be down on, and
• 1:06:41
  the more I spent time with them, I just couldn't move them further down
• 1:06:43
  the rankings. I think, Yeah, both those guys make sense that they've
• 1:06:46
  been some of my biggest struggles in terms of like what I want to do
• 1:06:49
  with their values too. And what makes Lewis even harder is third base is
• 1:06:54
  super thin, So you've got to make that decision of where you want to
• 1:06:59
  take a third baby and where you want the bottom to go, because it
• 1:07:02
  can it can fall off pretty quick. And so yeah, with that,
• 1:07:06
  I think we'll get into some of your bigger variations that I noticed when I
• 1:07:13
  was lining it up against NFBC draft data, and the biggest one right off
• 1:07:18
  the bat in terms of like a top ten player, top ten draft pick,
• 1:07:26
  and he was in different tiers too, So in terms of looking at
• 1:07:31
  where he's being drafted by NFBC, Fernio Tatus is going seventh and you have
• 1:07:36
  a tenth on your list. So that does push Tattis in drafts right now
• 1:07:43
  up into that more like Julio Rodriguez, Corbyn Carrol range pretty regularly. And
• 1:07:48
  I can see why people are looking at those twenty twenty two and twenty twenty
• 1:07:54
  three or twenty twenty one seasons for Tetus and saw where the sky is.
• 1:08:00
  And so I'm just wondering, like, yeah, what is uh, what's
• 1:08:03
  kind of giving you any sort of unsure feelings about Tattoos going into twenty twenty
• 1:08:10
  four. Yeah, a really good question, And I think it comes down
• 1:08:13
  to really two things here, One of who's above him? Like it it's
• 1:08:15
  almost nothing to do with Tattoos. Who degrees You look who's above him,
• 1:08:19
  and you know it's a question of are you a believer in the Otani,
• 1:08:25
  Freeman Soto tier, Like, are you a believer in those guys over a
• 1:08:29
  guy like Tattoos? And I think I think Otani's actually gotten kind of a
• 1:08:33
  raw deal this this offseason from a draft perspective, because yeah, he's not
• 1:08:38
  gonna pitch, but look at what he did the plate and it was just
• 1:08:41
  phenomenal. He may he may be undervalued at this point. Freeman the same
• 1:08:46
  thing, Like he he has such a such a high floor, Like the
• 1:08:49
  guy was stealing bases and we've never seen that before. Maybe will that keep
• 1:08:54
  happening? I don't know, Like if we knew Otani and Freeman were going
• 1:08:57
  to do what they did last year, I've gotten too low. And I
• 1:09:01
  think Soto you can make the same argument. So I think really one piece
• 1:09:05
  of it is you look at those guys and say, like, I feel
• 1:09:08
  like I might be too low on them. I'm just having a hard time
• 1:09:11
  pushing them past the Kyle Tuckers or who the Rodriguez in the world where like
• 1:09:15
  the sky can might be the limit and then the other piece, you know,
• 1:09:17
  Tatis Like for all he is, there's just these warning signs he the
• 1:09:23
  way he plays is all out love that from a fan perspective, but from
• 1:09:28
  a fantasy perspective, like he's the guy that's going to run the wall on
• 1:09:30
  day one and be out all season. He's also a streaky hitter at times
• 1:09:38
  where he can just go crazy, but then he can go cold. And
• 1:09:43
  that's fine and over the overall length of the season. But if you get
• 1:09:47
  stuck in one of those for too long, it's really it can be really
• 1:09:50
  frustrating as a fantasy owner, and you can start to second guess things because
• 1:09:56
  of that. So for that, you know, he just gets a little
• 1:09:59
  bit further down because that profile is just a little too streaky, and like
• 1:10:04
  I said, I can see him getting hurt. So because that, I'm
• 1:10:08
  just a little further down. If he goes thirty to thirty this season,
• 1:10:11
  I'm not I am not shocked in one bit, but I think the volatility
• 1:10:15
  there for me knocks him down just a little bit more than what the rest
• 1:10:19
  of the industry saying says. Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean,
• 1:10:23
  I do think that I'm closer to where the NFBC draft date is,
• 1:10:28
  just because you hit on it a little bit earlier in our conversation. It's
• 1:10:31
  the stolen basis that the stolen base upside. I think for Tatus's far E
• 1:10:38
  Seeds, Freeman, Otani, and Sodo just I mean, I think Otani
• 1:10:43
  could run, but I don't know if he will, just given that he's
• 1:10:46
  going through elbow surgery rehab, and they want to really preserve Otani's bat for
• 1:10:54
  the entire season to make sure that he's coming back to pitch next year.
• 1:10:57
  So I think Tatis all so last year, you could see his numbers were
• 1:11:01
  hurt. Certainly by in April and May, the hard hit contact was or
• 1:11:06
  the hard hit percentages were down, and obviously he was working his way back
• 1:11:12
  from the shoulder and wrist without the peds, so the recover time probably took
• 1:11:15
  a little longer. But then once he got going too the summer, he
• 1:11:19
  turned into just about the same tattoos that we saw back in twenty twenty one.
• 1:11:25
  And I think if all the kind of pistons are firing for Tattoos this
• 1:11:30
  year and he's over that injury. And he also slumped off at the end
• 1:11:33
  of October last year, or like September October, which between like you know,
• 1:11:39
  being a season back after a season off, between the injuries and suspensions
• 1:11:44
  and just the vibes around the padres last year as that team was flailing down
• 1:11:50
  the stretch, although almost came back in September that I think you can find
• 1:11:56
  a narrative where Tattis does get back to his old level, and so I
• 1:12:00
  do push him a little bit more towards like a five or six ranking just
• 1:12:03
  because of those aspects. For me. Yeah, and you're talking with the
• 1:12:11
  floor versus the upside, right, That's that's kind of where that one comes
• 1:12:13
  in, and how much do you want to invest? And I think there's
• 1:12:17
  other enough other guys for me that can get that and can get close to
• 1:12:21
  that with not as much of the risk, and so I'm taking that.
• 1:12:25
  But at the end of the day, this is where you know, you
• 1:12:27
  get to that it's like ten versus seven or something like that. It's you're
• 1:12:30
  splitting hairs, you're taking a preference, and there's not really a wrong answer
• 1:12:35
  at that point in the draft. Yeah, the next one I think is
• 1:12:40
  definitely a floor versus upside situation going on, and that's you have Marcus Simeon
• 1:12:45
  ranked seventeenth and the draft data has him ranked twenty sixth. And I think
• 1:12:49
  people just sleep on how steady Simeon is that he's I mean, if you
• 1:12:56
  threw out twenty twenty, he would have one, two, three, four,
• 1:12:59
  five straight seasons of seven hundred plus at bats. And sure he was
• 1:13:03
  unsteady during that twenty twenty season in terms of like batting average, and the
• 1:13:06
  first season in Texas started slowly, but by the time twenty twenty two was
• 1:13:13
  over, Marcus Simeon was right back to where he always is in terms of
• 1:13:16
  twenty twenty one hundred runs eighty plus RVII somewhere around like a too sixty ish
• 1:13:24
  average, and last year he gave us a two to seventy six in Texas
• 1:13:27
  during a World championship season that I'm I'm behind you on this one that I've
• 1:13:32
  been noticing. Marcus Simeon does slip a little bit as people are looking for
• 1:13:36
  higher upsides than drafts, But I mean, yeah, if you're gonna give
• 1:13:41
  me the production of Marcus Simeon, who I think pretty much all of the
• 1:13:46
  projection systems are right in the same spot. Like, it's really eerie because
• 1:13:50
  when you get somebody who's produced like this for so many years, at such
• 1:13:55
  a steady level in terms of even all of his rate stats are pretty even
• 1:14:00
  that. Yeah, you can take that projection and plug it in and I
• 1:14:04
  think it's going to kick you out something closer to what you have as a
• 1:14:09
  ranking. Yeah, I think you know, if you look at the projection
• 1:14:11
  systems, they're all projecting him for you know, one hundred and fifty one
• 1:14:15
  hundred and fifty three games, Like they're understating him too, Yeah, from
• 1:14:17
  a volume perspective, And you know you mentioned that outside of twenty twenty,
• 1:14:21
  so the last five full seasons Marcus Simions missed four games. Four games.
• 1:14:30
  We're talking to al Rick and Junior territory here, Like it is absolutely absurd
• 1:14:35
  to your point, and that I mean, you're talking a guy that can
• 1:14:40
  easily go thirty twenty and one hundred runs one hundred RBIs and it's not just
• 1:14:44
  like one hundred like last year he had one hundred and twenty two runs like
• 1:14:47
  he is one of the highest run scores out there, and you're you're talking,
• 1:14:51
  you know, make you know, from an ADP perspective, you're talking
• 1:14:56
  third round value, maybe four, depending on we're number of pitch A going
• 1:15:00
  like that's that's a gimme, Like I am taking this all day. I
• 1:15:04
  think that there's I think Simeon gets, like back in the day, what
• 1:15:08
  Simon was known for his like every other season like breakouts. So be careful
• 1:15:12
  because I guess this is technically his down year from a Marcus Simeon perspective,
• 1:15:16
  where every other year, but like he's been just so so solid, and
• 1:15:23
  I feel like we've had this conversation before, like with Anthony Brindon, so
• 1:15:27
  grain of salt with the hair, because that guy fell off the face of
• 1:15:30
  the earth. But I you hit the nail on the head. That's exactly
• 1:15:34
  where Simon is relative to other guys in that same range. You you talk
• 1:15:39
  about him and you look at and I think it's the speed. It is
• 1:15:42
  that piece that we we both were kind of hinting at, is that you're
• 1:15:46
  talking about him in the same area as like Austin Riley, Bryce Heart Harper,
• 1:15:51
  guys like that. And then you start to get down. You're like,
• 1:15:55
  well there's Devers, Dallas, Garcia, Royce, Lewis, guys that
• 1:15:58
  just don't run and have much more injury risk, probably not gonna play as
• 1:16:02
  many games like a Lewis Robert and so you're sitting there going, I can
• 1:16:08
  plug it and play it with Simeon and never have to like daily league,
• 1:16:12
  weekly league. I don't care what you're playing basketball like, he is going
• 1:16:15
  to be in there at all times. So I'm very very high on Simeon
• 1:16:20
  and I and I didn't think I was high until I looked at the ADP
• 1:16:24
  data, Like I'm like, he just this that makes sense where he's at.
• 1:16:27
  So yeah, I totally agree. And he's also like one of those
• 1:16:32
  players where it's a little bit like Nelson Cruz or JD. Martinez that even
• 1:16:38
  though Simeon is getting older, like I need him to show that like he's
• 1:16:43
  starting to lose bat speed or falling apart that everything from you know, all
• 1:16:47
  the peripherals are holding pretty steady for Marcus Simeon. And yeah, I mean
• 1:16:55
  I think he's really yeah, I mean in some contact rated ninety percent.
• 1:17:00
  That's so amazing, And I think he's just going to continue to get better,
• 1:17:05
  and the Rangers have a great lineup behind Simeon. So the only other
• 1:17:10
  place you can kind of get this quantity of runs out of one player is
• 1:17:14
  Mookie and so getting Simeon, you know, if you do have him sitting
• 1:17:19
  there as like the twenty sixth batter in your draft, Wow, what a
• 1:17:24
  what a steal in the NFBC draft right now? Okay, the next two
• 1:17:30
  guys I'm gonna link together because I think it's a little bit of like the
• 1:17:34
  same sort of discussion with flour versus upside, but they're sitting in kind of
• 1:17:40
  flopped spots between your rankings and the NFBC data, And honestly, I think
• 1:17:44
  I'm a little bit more behind the NFBC data here because one of these guys
• 1:17:48
  is my boy, Michael Harris, the second who I am all in on
• 1:17:53
  this year as he's moved up into the sixth spot in the lineup with Jared
• 1:17:57
  Klnick joining the Braves. But you have of Audolys Garcia is your twenty third
• 1:18:01
  hitter. NFBC data has him as the thirty third hitter, and then Michael
• 1:18:05
  Harris's kind of footplop, you have him as your thirtieth hitter in FBC data
• 1:18:11
  has him as your twenty third hitter. So is this just a little bit
• 1:18:15
  more of that same conversation on ceiling versus floor and what can I do to
• 1:18:19
  push Michael Harris his floor up for you a little bit? Yeah, I
• 1:18:24
  think I think you're right. It is a little more of that conversation,
• 1:18:27
  and I think, you know, a little bit of I'm gonna say,
• 1:18:29
  projection on Garcia from a stolen base perspective. Yeah, you know, this
• 1:18:32
  is a you know, if you look at the stat line, it's not
• 1:18:34
  that different than Marcus saman And we were just talking about, like, again,
• 1:18:39
  guy that's played almost one hundred and fifty games a season, you know,
• 1:18:43
  thirty home runs, one hundred runs, one hundred RBIs in you know,
• 1:18:46
  two fifty ish average, which is really respectable. Last two years he
• 1:18:50
  was at sixteen and twenty five steals, then in twenty twenty three dropped down
• 1:18:54
  to nine. You only got caught once. His speed did drop off a
• 1:18:58
  little bit, but in the time of everybody else's steals taking off, I
• 1:19:01
  think it was just a matter of him kind of adjusting, and I think
• 1:19:05
  that speed's going to come back up there. I don't have anything telling me
• 1:19:08
  that I don't there's not data behind that, Like, it just seems like
• 1:19:11
  he's that kind of guy that has has done that, and I think that
• 1:19:15
  he can continue to do that. So I think there's a very well rounded
• 1:19:18
  profile for Garst yet, and even if he just delivers ten steals, he
• 1:19:21
  goes thirty ten, one hundred hundred into two fifty. That's that's fantastic.
• 1:19:27
  I'm really excited about that. Three years in a row of incredibly solid production.
• 1:19:31
  I'll take that. Harris on the other hand, and I will say
• 1:19:34
  I was actually lower on Harris when I started the rankings, and I moved
• 1:19:39
  him up as I was going through and still ended up lower because to your
• 1:19:43
  point, like he does seem like he's going to move up the lineup,
• 1:19:45
  which has always been the concern that I think you and I have talked about
• 1:19:49
  for Harris. I just I'm not bought into Harris in the power. I'm
• 1:19:55
  just not bought into how much that power translates with his body type. Like,
• 1:20:00
  I just I don't see it long term. I think that he's he's
• 1:20:06
  one of those guys that I would not be shocked if the power drops off
• 1:20:11
  really really quickly. So I think, you know, for Harris, you're
• 1:20:15
  expecting growth and that lineup placement to remain, and I'm just I'm not quite
• 1:20:23
  there. So you might have to sell me a little bit more here on
• 1:20:28
  on Harris and him becoming more of a power hitter than I think he is,
• 1:20:32
  because you know, nothing wrong with twenty twenty guys, but put them
• 1:20:36
  all on the ground almost half the time. I think kind of caps that
• 1:20:41
  power upside. And I think, you know, I'm still not sold that
• 1:20:47
  he's gonna stay in the same spot in the lineup. You know, he's
• 1:20:51
  looked pretty good so far the spring, so maybe the counting staff will come
• 1:20:55
  up. But yeah, I'm I'm still just a little bit low. Sell
• 1:21:00
  me, Convince me I'm not a Michael Harris hater. I'm just a little
• 1:21:05
  bit slow. Well, okay, I've got a few things that I think
• 1:21:14
  are pushing me towards the NFBC data here on Michael Harris. I mean,
• 1:21:18
  I think number one is he's twenty three. So guys who are twenty three
• 1:21:24
  are like in double A usually, and so this will be his third year
• 1:21:30
  with the Braves, and he's obviously going to be on the field with the
• 1:21:33
  superb center field defense, which I think keeps him really engaged as well.
• 1:21:38
  But he's also coming through an organization. Michael Harris in terms of the Braves
• 1:21:43
  have shown that they have the aptitude to develop these bats and get a little
• 1:21:47
  bit more power out of them. I mean, obviously like a Kunya was
• 1:21:51
  able to develop the power, but he's also a different cat. But the
• 1:21:57
  ability for you know, Austin Riley, I think a little bit of just
• 1:22:00
  like a better overall eye and contact rate underneath the Braves tutelage. And you
• 1:22:06
  can see that Harris last year, I mean really honed in as a hitter
• 1:22:13
  as well, that he dropped his k rate from twenty four percent in twenty
• 1:22:17
  twenty two down to eighteen zero point seven percent last year. He increases contact
• 1:22:23
  rates while also maintaining the ten percent barrel rate that he ran in twenty twenty
• 1:22:28
  two. So I think because he's making more contact, he's moving up in
• 1:22:32
  the lineup three spots. You're just gonna see the natural increase in home runs
• 1:22:38
  that the projections are calling for because he's just going to get more opportunities.
• 1:22:42
  And then with that becomes you know, you get the RBIs and the runs,
• 1:22:45
  and that's not even like counting on just growth as a player from Michael
• 1:22:49
  Harris. The second that if you're just taking last year's abilities that he showed,
• 1:22:56
  especially in the second half. That's the other thing is that even his
• 1:23:00
  twenty twenty three numbers are a little clouded by the fact that he battled the
• 1:23:04
  back injury at the beginning of last year and it didn't look great because he
• 1:23:09
  was really struggling with it for a while. He struggled out of the gate
• 1:23:13
  in April, and so he just was torrid during the second half. And
• 1:23:17
  you're looking also in Atlanta at a park for Harris that, according to the
• 1:23:24
  Baseball Perspectives Handbook as a one ZHO nine home run park factor for lefties.
• 1:23:30
  And so I think when to addle those things up as well as the ability
• 1:23:33
  for I think if you're looking at a year of growth for Michael Harris to
• 1:23:38
  even move further up the lineup, I don't think that's outside the rim of
• 1:23:43
  possibilities, because you know, if Michael Harris shows that he can be somewhere
• 1:23:47
  between like a one to twenty five to one four e WRC plus hitter regularly,
• 1:23:53
  the Braves will definitely want to get him even more at bats than the
• 1:23:57
  six holes. So I think that is why I'm sure shading closer to the
• 1:24:00
  NFBC data. And I think Harris, compared to honestly like anybody in the
• 1:24:04
  top forty bats, has the biggest growth potential because of the development of his
• 1:24:12
  fight skills, being only twenty three, should hopefully have a full season and
• 1:24:16
  isn't hitting in that nine hole anymore. That I really love Michael Harris second
• 1:24:19
  and what he might be able to produce here in twenty four, well,
• 1:24:23
  it sounds like I might need to watch a little bit more Michael Harris video
• 1:24:26
  and reevaluate things as we get into the early days that I think you're right.
• 1:24:31
  A lot of it comes down to where he in for me, for
• 1:24:34
  where he's at in that lineup, Like if he can show consistently he's getting
• 1:24:39
  at bats in the middle of that lineup or the top of that lineup,
• 1:24:42
  either one, I think it is much more interesting. I gotta show it
• 1:24:47
  for me a little bit more before I'm willing to do that. But I'll
• 1:24:51
  give you this one. Maybe maybe I'm a little low on Michael Harris.
• 1:24:57
  Yeah, he's also has three homers in a seven thirty one slug in spring,
• 1:25:00
  which I mean is a spring training but like you only use spring train
• 1:25:04
  and stats when they helped you, never when they hurt you. That's true.
• 1:25:09
  Yeah, it does show that he's healthy though, so you can't I
• 1:25:14
  can't complain about that, Okay, Next one we have a big discrepancy on
• 1:25:18
  is Corey Seeger. You have him at thirty third, NFBC data has him
• 1:25:23
  at twenty fourth. I he was my cell when we went through the Al
• 1:25:27
  West, So I think I'm with you on this, and it goes back
• 1:25:30
  to that stolem based conversation as well as he had sports hernia surgery and that
• 1:25:36
  is a just middle of your core surgery where they cut through you. I
• 1:25:43
  do not like that. And so I've actually ended up with one share of
• 1:25:47
  Corey Seger so far in draft season innocent raz Slam, and that's a little
• 1:25:53
  bit just because I think people in the draft didn't realize that it's a points
• 1:25:57
  format in razz Slam, so you don't have to worry about the storm.
• 1:26:00
  You're just looking for big bashers and looking for home runs and hits, and
• 1:26:04
  that's the perfect spot I think for Corey Seger. I would be behind a
• 1:26:10
  high Cory Seer ranking if you're in a points league or a league that doesn't
• 1:26:14
  involve stolen bases. But once you're starting to talk stolen bases, I think
• 1:26:17
  you've got to fade Corey Seger down to roughly where you have. And is
• 1:26:21
  that kind of what you were thinking as well, that Corey Seger is pretty
• 1:26:25
  much a zero in the stolem based department and you've got to start chasing him
• 1:26:28
  somewhere. Yeah, I think it was. It was two pieces. One
• 1:26:30
  absolutely, it's the zero and stolen based apartment. But I will say he
• 1:26:33
  makes up for that a little bit from an average perspective, because then this
• 1:26:36
  is the point where you're starting tuck guys that are hitting two sixty, two
• 1:26:40
  seventy and you're not really worried about average, and Seeger is he's a better
• 1:26:45
  hitter than that, Like, he's definitely somebody that you know, he's hit
• 1:26:48
  three better than three hundred in three the last four years and you know,
• 1:26:54
  small samples twenty twenty, all those kind of things to caveat the other pieces.
• 1:26:58
  You know, when I did the ranking, he was without a timetable
• 1:27:00
  for return. He you know, he was not listed and now you know,
• 1:27:05
  last few days, you know, he's he started started taking swings.
• 1:27:09
  He's you know, he's saying that he could be ready for opening Day.
• 1:27:12
  Don't trust a player when they say when they can be ready. But I
• 1:27:15
  think, you know, as I look at if he is healthy and he's
• 1:27:17
  going to be out there, I you know, he did the top of
• 1:27:19
  a tier for me, I could bump him up maybe into that next tier
• 1:27:24
  in that maybe vlad Aley Rushman type type area. Still probably lower than where
• 1:27:30
  he's going from an ADP perspective, But I'm not you know, maybe in
• 1:27:34
  the late twenties of the top hitters there. I'm not gonna be too too
• 1:27:40
  upset with that if we if we know that he's gonna be healthy. But
• 1:27:43
  you're you're right, it's the it's that speed knocks him down a little bit.
• 1:27:46
  He's not traditionally been the most healthy player. He definitely has a little
• 1:27:50
  bit of history there, so I think you have to to have to bade
• 1:27:55
  him a little bit. I do think he has a nice floor. Uh
• 1:27:59
  And he is, to that point, one of those guys that if you
• 1:28:01
  take risk early Corey Seeker is a really good guy to take late a little
• 1:28:05
  bit later, just because of the average upside and the counting stats things like
• 1:28:10
  that. So like if you're taking like an Elie de la Cruz and you
• 1:28:13
  can somehow then partner that with the Corey Seeger ignoring the positional conflicts potentially there,
• 1:28:19
  I think that's a really interesting pairing because Dela Cruz from an average perspective
• 1:28:25
  is could just kill you, but he's gonna run so much it might be
• 1:28:29
  worth it. And then you put him with some of the stability of a
• 1:28:30
  Seeger that doesn't not gonna run, but it's gonna kind of lift you across
• 1:28:33
  some of those other categories. I really like that type of pairing. Yeah,
• 1:28:38
  I think that makes sense. Okay, next one is the Polar Bear
• 1:28:43
  Pete Alonso. You have him at thirty five. ADP has him at twenty
• 1:28:46
  two, which is super hot that they're really counting on a bounce back out
• 1:28:51
  of Pete Alonso there, which I can kind of see, like last year
• 1:28:56
  was a down year, but you do have to remember he had that risting
• 1:29:00
  in the middle of the year, which you can see sapped his hard hit
• 1:29:02
  percentage pretty badly. He also just swung a lot less that he picked his
• 1:29:10
  pitches, and you can see that because the barrel rate actually increased from twenty
• 1:29:14
  twenty two, even though the hard hit rate went down, that he was
• 1:29:17
  really selective about what he was hitting. And I think that also played into
• 1:29:23
  his overall babbitp in average, because you know, when he was missing,
• 1:29:27
  he was hitting pop flies and not getting it out of the park. But
• 1:29:30
  I think all the projections are again in the same range here as you know,
• 1:29:36
  they all have Pete Alonzo for about a two fifty ish average, around
• 1:29:42
  forty homers with ninety runs and like one hundred and ten RBI. Also,
• 1:29:45
  keep in mind it's a it's a walk gear for Pete Alonzos, so you
• 1:29:48
  would have to think that he's going to want to stay on the field as
• 1:29:53
  much as he can and also just hit as many taters as he can.
• 1:29:58
  So I think that it a little bit of this is just like the New
• 1:30:00
  York Tacks coming into drafts, and every draft that I've been in I haven't
• 1:30:08
  sniffed Pete Alonzo either, just because I don't think I think the the projections
• 1:30:14
  are pretty spot on, but like somebody's always kind of overshooting them in the
• 1:30:18
  drafts that I've seen. Yeah, I think you're right, Like and I
• 1:30:23
  and I struggle with Lonzo, Like I feel like I'm actually maybe a little
• 1:30:26
  too high on Alonso and oh really okay, yeah, I I He's one
• 1:30:30
  of those ones that I really struggle with it. You know, as we
• 1:30:34
  talk about where you place him, because you know, from a Steels perspective,
• 1:30:38
  he's a zero. From an average perspective, he's he's probably a slight
• 1:30:42
  negative even with a bounce back year. You know, he's he's a two
• 1:30:46
  forty two to fifty hitter, and so then you're relying solely on you know,
• 1:30:51
  game changing power. But you know they're last year there was twenty six
• 1:30:57
  guys that hit thirty homers or more. Yeah, I get there was only
• 1:31:00
  six that hit forty plus and that one. Yeah, but like at the
• 1:31:05
  end of the day, like you're sacrificing speed and average for a got player
• 1:31:12
  on not so great of a team that didn't score one hundred runs. You
• 1:31:15
  know, he was definitely up there with the RBIs, But like to be
• 1:31:19
  talking about that guy at like top twenty hitters, like that's just too aggressive
• 1:31:25
  for me. And I'm going to call out a few other guys here,
• 1:31:28
  Marcelo Zuna last year hit forty home runs, had eighty four runs on hundred
• 1:31:33
  RB Eyes and hit two seventy four. That's Pete Alonzo with a better average.
• 1:31:43
  Max Munci thirty six homers, roughly the same run as Arby Eyes as
• 1:31:46
  Alonzo hit two twelve. Neither of those guys are going anywhere near Alonzo,
• 1:31:53
  and I get like there's an upside piece versus versus those like, you know,
• 1:31:58
  that's maybe who they are, and Alonzo maybe has another gear and can
• 1:32:01
  get a little bit better on the average and maybe could you know, he
• 1:32:04
  could hit fifty to fifty five, Like it's it's possible. But the discrepancy
• 1:32:09
  there is so severe the way that we're handling Alonzo almost anybody else in that
• 1:32:17
  general vein that have kind of a low average risk and no steals and are
• 1:32:24
  not on like a fantastic team like that. I really, I really struggle
• 1:32:28
  with that with peed Alonzo, and I think there are I think part of
• 1:32:30
  it is there's so many ped Alonzo truthers out there that you're always paying that
• 1:32:35
  tax, You're always paying it, and I have zero shares of Alonzo.
• 1:32:39
  I will never have shares of Alonzo. It just you look at him like
• 1:32:43
  I'm coming back in the in the very end of the draft and saying,
• 1:32:46
  well, give me Marcello Zuna. It's basically the same thing. And I
• 1:32:51
  know people will one hundred percent disagree with me on that because it isn't the
• 1:32:54
  same thing. I get it. But when you're getting one for free and
• 1:32:57
  you're paying the other, you know, for for a top you know,
• 1:33:00
  five round type guy, and even more than that, it's it just doesn't
• 1:33:04
  make any sense. Yeah, And I think part of it too, is
• 1:33:09
  like there's just no upside if you're taking Pee Alonzo here at you know,
• 1:33:14
  essentially the end of the second round, beginning of the third round, that
• 1:33:16
  there's no you're buying at the peak. You're buying like the full fifty years,
• 1:33:21
  fifty homer season out of Pee Alonzo, and you're buying the best of
• 1:33:25
  all those things we just talked about. You're assuming he hits two sixty and
• 1:33:29
  has one hundred and thirty RBI and hits fifty home runs, like that's what
• 1:33:32
  you have to have to justify that price, because he doesn't do anything for
• 1:33:35
  you in the speed like we just talked about scry Seger who hits three hundred
• 1:33:41
  it's thirty homers and one hundred runs on our RBIs and he's going well after
• 1:33:45
  you know, well well after, he's going slightly after Alonzo here, and
• 1:33:51
  I would so much rather have Seager than Pee Alonso. Yeah, I totally
• 1:33:57
  agree. And I think part of it too is is I've known this too,
• 1:34:00
  is that over draft season, first base is just goofier than I think
• 1:34:04
  it has been historically, where we're used to being really chalk full of lots
• 1:34:11
  of great players, but there's plenty of good first basemen that fall in drafts
• 1:34:16
  and can be found kind of late, and that I think the gap between
• 1:34:23
  Pete Alonso and them just doesn't require this type of pick. And so I
• 1:34:30
  think if you're going at Pete Alonzo in the second or third round, I
• 1:34:34
  mean, if pet Alonzo went in like the fourth round, I'm fine,
• 1:34:39
  Like that's exactly like I wouldn't have any qualms with this. But you're just
• 1:34:43
  paying such a high price without getting the stolen bases, not getting the upside,
• 1:34:46
  not getting probably putting yourself behind in saves and k's as well, because
• 1:34:53
  like you're just trying to get volume out of number one starting pitchers in that
• 1:34:57
  area too. That it just it allow it just allows you to get stuck
• 1:35:03
  in rut in a rut pretty quick in your draft, pretty early on,
• 1:35:06
  where like this is how you end up having to take Estuary Ruize too early
• 1:35:11
  because like you took pet A Lonzo too early, and just like it really
• 1:35:15
  can cascade on you. I feel like Ruiz some of them every week.
• 1:35:18
  I mean, yeah, he's a he's a popular dude. Yeah, uh
• 1:35:23
  okay, and then the last one. I mean this is also part of
• 1:35:25
  why, like first base I think looks shallower than it is, but like
• 1:35:31
  because he's going so late in drafts, and this is Paul goldchmant who you
• 1:35:35
  have in your top forty at thirty seven. The draft data right now has
• 1:35:40
  him running around the forty ninth hitter, which I think they're really just seeing
• 1:35:45
  last year what happened to Paul gold Schmidt and thinking that the end is nigh.
• 1:35:50
  But if you're looking to meet the hood at Paul gold Schmidt, a
• 1:35:55
  lot of the bad at ball data was right in line with where he was
• 1:35:59
  at in twenty two. So twenty twenty three he was a little bit more
• 1:36:05
  unlucky and the twenty twenty two was really lucky. But I especially like gold
• 1:36:10
  Schmidt because I think he should be chipping in double digit stolen bases for you
• 1:36:14
  out of first base, and I think there is a little upside there because
• 1:36:18
  the Cardinals shouldn't be quite as terrible as last year. I would hope not
• 1:36:24
  that that certainly sunk Paul Goldschmith's numbers as well, because some of those games
• 1:36:30
  from the Cardinals were just brutal to watch last year down the stretch that lots
• 1:36:34
  of people on that team, for better or worse, like gave up because
• 1:36:39
  obviously it was a lost season and it just kind of really snowballed on everybody
• 1:36:45
  in that lineup, including Paul gold Schmidt. And so is that what you're
• 1:36:48
  seeing or is there is there something else in Paul Goldschmith that you see in
• 1:36:54
  terms of either skills or maybe even upside growth compared to where he's been over
• 1:37:00
  the past couple of years. Yeah, I think that everything you called out
• 1:37:03
  was right, Like he's a guy if you look at the last you know,
• 1:37:08
  six years out, you know, exclude twenty twenty, I guess,
• 1:37:12
  and he's hit thirty home runs in all but one of those seasons, which
• 1:37:15
  was last year, He's constantly been a guy right about one hundred runs,
• 1:37:18
  hundred RBIs. He's been roughly a two ninety hitter, like very very consistent,
• 1:37:25
  and he titched on those steals. So everything you say is right and
• 1:37:30
  under the covers like didn't change that much last year. The Cardinals were were
• 1:37:33
  worse, and so that definitely hurt him. But the other piece here is
• 1:37:40
  Paul Goldman doesn't rest. He spent the off season in Drive Line, and
• 1:37:44
  I hate to go down that path of like the dangers of like well,
• 1:37:46
  everybody goes to drive line is better, but he increased his his bat speed
• 1:37:50
  dramatically from the reports at drive Line. He and Goldman is one of those
• 1:37:56
  like blue collar worker type guys like he He is absolutely a student of the
• 1:38:00
  game and does not want to ever stop playing baseball, and so he absolutely
• 1:38:04
  has worked on himself, even though last year didn't see like that much of
• 1:38:10
  a drop off from an underlying skills perspective, but it was enough to kick
• 1:38:14
  in the pants for Paul's gold Schmith to really go out and really rework on
• 1:38:17
  his swing and come back sure spring training this year, he hasn't been off
• 1:38:20
  to like a glowing start, but it's you know, I think there's a
• 1:38:25
  lot left in the tank for gold Smith. The fact that he spent the
• 1:38:28
  off season really really you know, putting the work in and you can saw
• 1:38:31
  some of those metrics pick up as far as like the bat speed and things
• 1:38:35
  like that. Like that's the worry as you get older, is that you're
• 1:38:39
  not able to get on top of things that you know, the basketballs are
• 1:38:42
  gonna start getting on you faster. You add that up with every all the
• 1:38:45
  underlying metrics there, Like you it's not hard to argue that I'm low on
• 1:38:51
  where he could end up being. But you know, I think the market
• 1:38:57
  has overreacted and it's the age tax, it's the recency bias. It is
• 1:39:00
  really hurting Paul Goldman here. So you know, there's I've drafted a few
• 1:39:04
  times already the you know this this offseason, and he's not not expensive at
• 1:39:11
  all. And your point, first base does have a kind of a drop
• 1:39:14
  off in the not too far after after gold Smith, and if he gets
• 1:39:17
  some speed there, man, that's that's kind of fun. Yeah, And
• 1:39:23
  because he's he's kind of in like a tier right now, with Christian Walker
• 1:39:26
  who provides a few stone bases, and I think, I mean, Costas
• 1:39:30
  is climbing very quickly, and I think he'll continue to climb because the spring
• 1:39:35
  training results for Cassas have shown that the second half was in a fluke.
• 1:39:40
  You know that some of the things I know that we keep poo pooing overall,
• 1:39:45
  like spring training, uh data, but like what Cassas has shown in
• 1:39:49
  terms of being able to blast Homer's has been pretty significant. So yeah,
• 1:39:58
  maybe I just saw that today because he actually is. Data doesn't show Homer
• 1:40:01
  right now. Maybe I swear I saw a Tristan Cass's Homer at some point
• 1:40:05
  in spring training where he just like left the park. But I really like
• 1:40:10
  him, And yeah, I'm I'm with you on Paul Goldschmid that like,
• 1:40:15
  until I see more skills degradation, I think that he belongs in more of
• 1:40:23
  the upper tiers of first base overall. Okay, well, I'm gonna there
• 1:40:27
  with you not to steal your thunder for your upcoming columns, but anybody in
• 1:40:34
  that were outside the top forty where you really had a hard time keeping them
• 1:40:39
  outside the top forty, and like you're gonna kind of painfully have to write
• 1:40:44
  them into you know, the next tier of forty one to sixty on your
• 1:40:49
  rankings here this weekend. Yeah, I'll I'll just well a few names.
• 1:40:53
  Don want to get him too deep because I don't want to steal the thunder.
• 1:40:56
  But like you know, I think the guys that you're looking at the
• 1:40:58
  next five to ten, we're talking about the O'Neal, Cruz, the Matt
• 1:41:00
  McClain, Christian yellowch Josh Lowe. You start talking about catchers like a Will
• 1:41:06
  Smith, William Contreras. Those are the kind of guys Tristan Cossas that are
• 1:41:13
  definitely in that next tier of conversation, and it starts to really start to
• 1:41:17
  stratify at that point. There's guys that are just missing that. But then
• 1:41:20
  as you get to the forty to sixty and all of a sudden, you're
• 1:41:23
  starting to get guys that definitely have more questions like Janner Diaz, Snick Castiano,
• 1:41:29
  Spencer Stee or things like that. So I think you're gonna start to
• 1:41:31
  see it. And this next week it's column that things are starting to spread
• 1:41:35
  out and there's a lot more variability coming into play. So check it out
• 1:41:42
  coming this Sunday to a rasball sit near you. Yeah, And I do
• 1:41:46
  think that O'Neill Creuz is probably like the one that if I probably like if
• 1:41:53
  I probably just w was snuck him in on the back of forty just to
• 1:41:55
  like he literally wasn't in there. He was literally literally for it. I
• 1:41:59
  got a grief for it. He was in the top forty and then I
• 1:42:00
  was moving things around and he just got just booted out, just barely as
• 1:42:05
  I was moving guys like Boba, schet Manachado, goldschmid Al two v guys
• 1:42:10
  like that around, and I was trying to figure out, honestly, Alonzo
• 1:42:14
  might have been I think fucking Mallards. I'm like, I can't. I'm
• 1:42:15
  not, I can't be that far off on Alonzo. But yeah, yeah,
• 1:42:20
  I mean, because yeah, you want to talk about blasting spring homers
• 1:42:25
  like O'Neal Cruz has been hitting some pretty majestic shots. And what I'm really
• 1:42:30
  actually interested when we get into the season is what we'll see on the base
• 1:42:34
  pass from O'Neal cruise that we have kind of no idea, especially coming off
• 1:42:40
  of that busted ankle, that I think that's where the ceiling for crews will
• 1:42:45
  be made or broken because like when he Doug did come through the miners,
• 1:42:50
  he had pretty elite speed and didn't really get to show off last year in
• 1:42:55
  terms of like the new stolen base regulations that I'm I mean, he's swiped
• 1:43:00
  three in his nine games that I played. That I mean that would have
• 1:43:04
  put him on That's a really small sample to project across, but I mean
• 1:43:10
  that that would put you on like a fifty stolen based pace that all the
• 1:43:13
  projections right now have him in the twenties. But if you get something like
• 1:43:17
  twenty five bombs and thirty stolen bases of Boneal Cruise, yeah, he'll be
• 1:43:21
  up there. And he's so easy to dream on. He is, like
• 1:43:26
  he's an Eli Dela Cruz diet version. I don't want you to call it
• 1:43:30
  a like he's he's so easy to dream upon. We will see. But
• 1:43:34
  yeah, that's when I look at the what I have sitting there, like
• 1:43:38
  the cutting room floor of that last colmonial Cruise was that was the guy that
• 1:43:43
  just kept jumping in and out as as I was making adjustment. So he
• 1:43:45
  will definitely be right there at the top come this Sunday. Well yeah,
• 1:43:49
  now, Gray can't give you too much shrift for not having him in the
• 1:43:54
  top forty. Femous forty one doesn't mean he'll stop. Okay, Well,
• 1:43:59
  yeah, I think that was a good overview of Brew's top forty and kind
• 1:44:02
  of where you're at so far. So, like I said at the top
• 1:44:05
  of the segment, I will link to both the columns in the show notes
• 1:44:10
  so you can check out the top forty and enter the comments and quipple with
• 1:44:14
  Brew on your own leisure. So, Brew, can you let people know
• 1:44:18
  where to find you? Yep, as I just mentioned, find me on
• 1:44:21
  rasball on Sundays doing top one hundred hitters in the season. We'll be rest
• 1:44:26
  of the season rankings and the hitter profiles. Otherwise, find me on Twitter
• 1:44:30
  slash exit Jaybrewer one seven as well, how about you. Yeah, you
• 1:44:33
  can find me on Twitter slash x at and cool seven. Also same handle
• 1:44:41
  for Blue Sky. I will be doing waiver wire columns here in just a
• 1:44:45
  couple of weeks. It's coming up that I get to finally do my magic
• 1:44:49
  over on the ras ball site and chip in and help you figure out the
• 1:44:54
  first few rounds of your babs and waiver wires, because I think It's going
• 1:44:58
  to be another pretty prime season of cycling through pictures and seeing who shakes out
• 1:45:04
  from these last few weeks of spring training and win some jobs. So it
• 1:45:08
  should be a fun first couple columns after we get some actual baseball action,
• 1:45:14
  and you can find the podcast on Twitter, slash x at cards Categories.
• 1:45:19
  You can email the podcast at Cards Categories at gmail dot com. And if
• 1:45:25
  you want any Cards Categories merch as you're working through your draft season and getting
• 1:45:30
  out to baseball games here check out the show notes. We got plenty of
• 1:45:34
  merch in terms of hats. We've got beanies, which maybe you don't need
• 1:45:39
  as much anymore, but regular dad hats, some t shirts to show your
• 1:45:43
  cards and categories podcasts love out there, and yeah if you have, if
• 1:45:47
  you're just checking us out for the first time, certainly go back and check
• 1:45:50
  out some of our divisional previews that we put out over the past couple months
• 1:45:56
  and that'll give you a flavor of what we're looking at for the preview of
• 1:45:59
  the seas. We should be back, same time, same place next week.
• 1:46:02
  Thanks for joining us and sticking through this week. See ya