Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 6 : NL MVP Race, Bowman Chrome, Dynasty Value Gainers

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Ep. 6 : NL MVP Race, Bowman Chrome, Dynasty Value Gainers · Cards & Categories

• 0:14
  Hello, and welcome to episode six of Cards and Categories here brought to you
• 0:19
  by Razball. I'm Mike cool Art from Razball. You can find me on
• 0:23
  I guess we're calling it X. It officially switched to x dot com today,
• 0:27
  but I still call it Twitter at Twitter in Cool seven and I'm joined
• 0:34
  here as always by Jeremy Brewer, also from Razball. Jeremy, how are
• 0:38
  you doing today? I'm doing well. Thanks for joining on today as usual,
• 0:43
  it was a wonderful day here and I was still refusing to call it
• 0:47
  X. I'm not going to give him to Elonzo over on Twitter. Jay
• 0:51
  Brewer one seven and I will convert within the next three to five years.
• 0:56
  I'm actually surprised he got the ownership rights to X dot com. That's uh.
• 1:00
  I wouldn't have been selling that like I would have held out for quite
• 1:03
  the quite the pretty penny. But I know there's some guy out there that
• 1:08
  bought the entire alphabet of A dot com and B dot com and see,
• 1:11
  and he's just like, finally my plan paid off. Al Gore put that
• 1:17
  Internet together and got it. Anyways, Okay, yeah, we can talk
• 1:21
  about actual baseball here. I'm going to get the elephant out of the room,
• 1:25
  just because obviously the biggest story this week in MLB is the wander Franco
• 1:30
  situation with the allegations and investigation into his inappropriate relationship with a minor. Unfortunately,
• 1:38
  this is ratzball dot Com, so you're not coming here for hard hitting
• 1:42
  investigative journalism or anything really that comes near that that. We're just here cracking
• 1:49
  jokes, talking about goofy refractor cards and over and underrated Dynasty players. So
• 1:57
  I think once the situation I settles a little bit, maybe we'll dive into
• 2:01
  it just to like go into, you know, how it might impact the
• 2:07
  Rays going forward and things like that. But the last thing that I checked
• 2:10
  is that the investigation is starting to really expand and it might involve more people.
• 2:16
  I don't know if that means like major leaguers or just like people in
• 2:21
  wander Franco's entourage, but I just kind of wanted to get that elephant onto
• 2:27
  the room and say, this is really all we're gonna talk about it,
• 2:29
  just because it is such a fluid situation and very sensitive. No, I'm
• 2:35
  right there with you. It's there's a lot that we don't know from a
• 2:39
  fantasy perspective, it's wait and find out. But you know, we're not
• 2:45
  a public jury, we're not the MSN or whoever else might be doing reporting
• 2:50
  on it. So we'll wait and see see what comes of it. We'll
• 2:53
  talk about fantasy impact when when something else is known. But yeah, I
• 2:55
  think it's called the elephant out of the room. And then we'll leave all
• 3:00
  on and talk about the important things of the day. Uh, Like I
• 3:05
  don't know if you happen to see the Luke really home run from today?
• 3:08
  Yeah? Yeah, I mean yeah, talking about the Rays talking about Luke
• 3:14
  really hitting it inside the park home run. Uh, and we can we
• 3:16
  can put a link to it in the notes, but uh inside the park
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  home run? I think it was at home run in twenty nine of thirty
• 3:23
  ballparks. Doesn't see something out in San Francisco today hit one of the most
• 3:28
  wild inside the parkers you'll ever see. Did you get a chance to see
• 3:30
  that one? I did, But I will let you go on and describe
• 3:35
  to the listeners to what it looked like. Yeah, so I think we
• 3:38
  all know. Uh San Francisco formerly at and T Park, or Oracle Park.
• 3:43
  Now, Uh, you know, really, first, my friend pac
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  Bell pack Bell First. Oh, I'm sorry I did not do my look
• 3:52
  up before the pod to get my history. But uh again, the top
• 3:58
  top of the six really hit. It's a and Luke Reley is not the
• 4:00
  fastest guy by by any means, so uh really hit a deep fly ball.
• 4:06
  I think it was almost four hundred twenty four hundred and thirty feet there
• 4:11
  in San Francisco to right center. And when the ball actually kind of caramed
• 4:16
  off the brick in right center and somehow managed to ride the top of the
• 4:23
  outfield wall down through center field and all the way down towards left, I
• 4:29
  think it had maybe uh one really strong bounce off the wall and that shot
• 4:34
  at probably a good fifty sixty feet away and so easy stand up up inside
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  the park. Home run for the speedy Luke Raley. But it was just
• 4:45
  interesting to see one of those that, hey, she'll be a home run
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  in every park in the majors except for San Francisco, and a good opportunity,
• 4:51
  uh for it to be a home run in San Francisco thanks to the
• 4:56
  crazy dimensions at that ballpark. So it is a cher's park. But I
• 5:00
  guess your defense has to play with those crazy carabs out there in the outfield.
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  So that was just a fun one. I think we had a call
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  out, like I said, we'll link to it in the notes, but
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  it was definitely an exciting play earlier just today. Yeah, And actually when
• 5:15
  I when you watch it, it's one of those things where you're just like,
• 5:17
  is this like a glitch in the matrix that like, I don't think
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  you could ever recreate that ball bouncing that way, like in kind of like
• 5:28
  the classic chimpanzees, Like if you had a billion chimpanzees typing on a billion
• 5:33
  typewriters, eventually they would make William Shakespeare like, I don't think you could
• 5:39
  do that, just like launching balls at that wall and trying to make that
• 5:43
  happen. It would take like trillions and trillions. And it's it's great because
• 5:47
  like as old as this sport is and as much volume as this sport has,
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  you still see something new every day. And it reminds me of did
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  you see the Luis Medina like mental gaff from this weekend too, when he
• 6:02
  had a grounder hit back to him and he kind of caught caught in between
• 6:05
  going over to first and couldn't decide if he wanted to run all the way
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  through and take the ball all the way to the bag or pitch it over
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  and then didn't do either and the guy was safe at first. Did you
• 6:15
  see this? Yeah? I didn't see that. It's it's the classic baseball
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  play of h This is why this is why you practice. This is fielding
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  practice in spring training. Uh, this is why we do it. And
• 6:30
  clearly somebody missed that day and for spring training or they decided to take the
• 6:35
  White Sox approach and not show up that day. Yeah, or it's like,
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  yeah, I just didn't have enough coffee, Like he just kind of
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  like it's like sometimes when you get caught like going through your house and you're
• 6:46
  like, oh, what did I come into this room for? And that's
• 6:48
  like the look on his face. But I don't know, maybe maybe think
• 6:53
  of the play I was just a few years ago with the Pirates and the
• 6:56
  Cubs, and I don't know, I think Javier Bayas, what did you
• 6:59
  end up with like a double off of like the worst hit possible by running
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  back from first to home back to first two seconds when all the Pirates have
• 7:11
  to do is just touch first face for a fource out and somehow they scored
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  like a run biases a moth a second. So one of those like just
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  stop and think it wasn't wasn't that hard? But hey, base baseball is
• 7:24
  not a not an easy sport. Sometimes it's not the hard things that aren't
• 7:30
  are ones that trip you up. So yeah, and that was what made
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  kind of Will Craig infamous too. The I do you have one correction from
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  when you were talking about Luke Raley though, and I thought this would be
• 7:43
  the case. I want you to take back that you calling him slow,
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  because what do you think his sprint speed is on terms of percentile on baseball
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  Savant? Oh jeezus, well, I mean you're set me up now.
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  I would have guess definitely. I was. I was definitely. If you
• 7:59
  would have put me on, I would have said forty percent tile. I
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  just don't see really as the fastest guy. I see him more as a
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  smart bass runner. But hey, educate me. What is his sprint speed
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  over there on on Savants? Eighty six percentile? My friend eight s yes,
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  eighty six percentile. Yep. I thought that would be the case because
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  he has all those stolen bases this year and he's hustling when you watch that
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  replay, like he is moving. And so the other guy that this always
• 8:33
  happens with is Jake Burger. I would like Jake Burger, you wouldn't think
• 8:37
  just looking at its abilities stocky and just not looking athletic. Also Tores Achilles
• 8:45
  twice, Jake Burger is like seventy fifth percent tile on sprint speed. Like,
• 8:50
  I've been to plenty of games where people have like ood and odd watching
• 8:54
  Jake Burger hustle down the line because you just don't see it coming. And
• 8:58
  it's just I love that stack cast is around for stuff like that because,
• 9:03
  like I think, I find that I'm surprised more this way, where like
• 9:09
  dudes are infinitely faster than I ever would have guessed than the other way around.
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  So it's like really fun to like just find like little oddballs like this
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  With Luke Rayley, I mean, he's a big dude. He's listen at
• 9:20
  six four two thirty five, but he can hustle. I'm still in shock.
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  Yeah, now I'm going out to baseball, supont myself. I'm fact
• 9:31
  checking you fact checking me, so we will have this discussion later. Yeah,
• 9:37
  this is intriguing radio for sure, exactly. But another sake here,
• 9:43
  moving from the Rays to their Al East rivals, We've got to get into
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  a bong dong corner right now and talk about the Baltimore Orioles once again.
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  I think I'm starting to become really partial to the Orioles. They're kind of
• 9:56
  like my bandwagon team to watch right now, partly because I think it's like
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  an affinity of the Cardinals and the White Sox, like meshing, Like I
• 10:05
  like bird themed teams and I like black jerseys, and so the Orioles fit
• 10:13
  that niche pretty well. Also obviously can cheer for Jack Flaherty and they're just
• 10:18
  super fun. They're super fun team. We all remember Adlea Richman's performers during
• 10:22
  the home Run derby. But this weekend was all about Cedric Mullins, who
• 10:26
  recently returned from the IL and literally won a game pretty much by himself on
• 10:33
  Sunday. As much as you can. I know last week, I think
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  it was last week right when we talked about the Julio robbery of the Fi
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  Nato Tatiste catch, and this is a much better catch that Cedric Mullins makes
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  in the ninth inning to rob the Mariners from hitting a walk off homer in
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  the bottom of the ninth in Safeco, he definitely gets more air than Julio
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  did and really yanks the ball back that Fortunately, the next batter, Kade
• 11:01
  Marlowe, ended up hitting a homer to send the game to extras. But
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  that's when Cedric Mullins came back and shined again, hit the home run to
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  give the Orioles the lead and the tenth inning, and just really cemented the
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  game for them that like that was a big game against another team in the
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  playoff race. As much as like Adlie is the heart and soul of the
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  Orioles, like I think Cedric Mullins might be too, because he's been there
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  through really the worst of it. You know, back in twenty eighteen and
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  twenty nineteen when he was playing with them and came up and struggled. I
• 11:37
  was really in on him for a couple of like fantasy leagues, and unfortunately
• 11:41
  I gave up too soon, because ever since twenty twenty started, he's put
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  up almost twelve war and put up a line of two seventy one, three
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  thirty seven, four fifty five, and it's been the heart and soul of
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  the team. Mountain center field. It's really hard not to cheer if we
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  do. Like Cedric. Yeah, and I think what Mulls did was was
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  exciting. I think that there's always that uh I wish there was. You
• 12:07
  know, there's stats for everything in baseball. There's not stats for the you
• 12:11
  know, you make an amazing fielding play and you go deep the next inning.
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  I feel like there's some correlation there. It's the adrenaline from making that
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  amazing defensive play for you doing something the next inning that is just unbelievable in
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  high pressure situations. There feels like it's a correlation. It's probably some other
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  type of bias that a really uh, you know, se seen it once,
• 12:33
  you see it every time type of thing. I think the thing about
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  Mullins that strikes me as I think he unfortunately gets a little bit of a
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  bad rap in the fantasy world in a weird way because he had such an
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  amazing season, you know, two years ago when he went thirty thirty,
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  and you know, he just broke out onto the scene, and he has
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  a level of luck that year and the home run category he's he's not a
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  thirty home run hitter, and so I think for the average fantasy owner going
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  to the draft. You know, people were taking him in that you know,
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  second round, third round there there, he was being taken early.
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  And I think because he did not live up to that standard, he's kind
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  of fallen out of favor for some folks. Uh not, I don't think
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  any follow his own I think if you actually looked at his numbers, he's
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  been pretty gosh darn good, pretty gosh darning solid, what you what you'd
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  expect. But I guess it's the the harm of having a breakout year.
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  Uh. If folks take it to heart that it's the next best thing and
• 13:37
  you're gonna go forty forty or fifty fifty the next year, then yeah,
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  you're gonna get You're gonna be disappointed. So uh you know, I I
• 13:45
  do, I do agree with you. He's that kind of heart and sold
• 13:46
  that team. He's was there through the thick and the thin, him and
• 13:50
  guys like you know, Santander. I kind of missed Trey Man Seni on
• 13:54
  that team. He feels like he should still be there. He doesn't have
• 13:58
  a spot put it. One of the best cheerleading leaders on that team potentially,
• 14:03
  So yeah, what Mullins did was. It was incredible, and I
• 14:05
  do have to say just looking at that that catch that he made there,
• 14:11
  he did not leave anything out on the field. He took every effort and
• 14:18
  sometimes you see the home runs being robbed and you know the announced are going
• 14:24
  crazy, pain going crazy, and you actually look at the replay and the
• 14:26
  guy caught it like five feet from the from the fence and just kind of
• 14:28
  carried his momentum to the fence. His glove went over the fence, but
• 14:31
  like that thing was easily gonna hit the top of the wall and bounce back,
• 14:35
  Mullins brought that one back, brought it back and then his He did
• 14:41
  not get cheated on that home run either. It was a tower shot.
• 14:43
  So not only did he make the play and hit the home run, he
• 14:48
  got the best of both of them. So it was a very exciting chain
• 14:54
  of events vs. May. Yeah, and I'm really excited for the Orioles
• 14:58
  to be in the playoffs, in for a lot of those players to really
• 15:03
  get a bigger audience on the national stage. Cedric Mullins, obviously, I
• 15:07
  think it's going to be one of those two kind of pops everybody kind of
• 15:11
  knows who Addsley and Gunner Are and Felix Batista, but somebody like Cedric Mullins
• 15:16
  could really make a name for himself, or maybe even like Ryan O'Hearn.
• 15:22
  That would be a great comeback story that'd be fun to watch. So I'm
• 15:24
  really looking forward to this Baltimore playoff run because I know that the crowds were
• 15:28
  going to be absolutely bananas too, Like it's going to be a really fun
• 15:33
  atmosphere. Yeah, I fully agree. I think back to when I think
• 15:37
  it was the Pirates gotten a play it in game the number of years ago
• 15:41
  it was almost was one sixty three game or what. I can't remember exactly
• 15:43
  the scenarios, but like that ballpark, since the team have done so bad
• 15:46
  for so long long, it's like when they got there, it's like literally
• 15:50
  the entire city showed up and it was just an unbelieved by atmosphere. I
• 15:54
  think it's gonna be the same way, same way in Baltimore. Yeah,
• 15:58
  And speaking of playoff teams and really good players, we've been kind of tracking
• 16:03
  the Tops Chrome a MVP buyback program, and when we covered the Tops Chrome
• 16:10
  released a few weeks ago, we really said, like hey, Otani's and
• 16:15
  Akunyas it's time to stash those away. They're going to be worth money in
• 16:18
  this buyback program. And I have some news to report. Well, Otani's
• 16:25
  not going awhere. It's Otani's winning MVP like and it's not even gonna be
• 16:29
  close. But the NLIVP race I think is starting to tighten up a little
• 16:33
  bit. And it's not because Ronald Kunia has been playing poorly. I just
• 16:38
  pulled the fan grafts leaders in War since the beginning of June, and here's
• 16:47
  here's your top five right now. Actually, I'll go top six because there's
• 16:51
  a guy that I want to get into the discussion that's six. So in
• 16:56
  that time frame, so we're just about two and a half months. Number
• 17:00
  one, Mookie Betts three point eight War, tied with Ronald Lacuna who's at
• 17:04
  three point eight as well. I like Mookie there just because like he's played
• 17:10
  five year games than Ronald Lacuney over that time, so that shows you how
• 17:14
  hot he's been. And I think he's also getting a little bit of a
• 17:15
  boost from playing short step third at three point four WAR. And this is
• 17:21
  the guy that I mean, I think it's going to give Ronald Lacuni a
• 17:23
  pretty good run for his money as Matt Olson since the beginning of June,
• 17:27
  Madelson has twenty six bombs and sixty five viies that, like, I mean,
• 17:36
  RBI is not exactly the most saber metric staff, but you and I
• 17:40
  play Rotisserie Fantasy Baseball here and watch the RBI, and I mean, those
• 17:45
  power numbers are absolutely outlandish. Fourth hass On Kim at three point three war,
• 17:52
  fifth Francisco Lindor at three point one war, and then six is the
• 17:57
  other guy I want to get into this conversation about out in OLYMPP cards is
• 18:02
  Freddie Freeman three war at six but also looking like he's gonna possibly chased down
• 18:10
  Luser Hies for the batting title, which, honestly, if that happens,
• 18:14
  it might be hard to overcome that narrative, especially given how hard people were
• 18:18
  leaning into the Luisa Rise experience at the beginning of the year. I don't
• 18:22
  know, like I know that Okuni is probably be the leader in the in
• 18:26
  the clubhouse right now, but it's gonna be tough trying to decide which tops
• 18:32
  Crumbs card cards to set aside and kind of figure out who's who and it'll
• 18:36
  be interesting to kind of watch their market here over the next month, month
• 18:40
  and a half. Yeah, I have to say that I was actually looking
• 18:42
  at this just just last night, and I was checking out the prices of
• 18:47
  Mookie Betts cards just to see what, you know, it might take to
• 18:52
  pick up a few of those, Like, hey, can I buy a
• 18:53
  lot of twenty of these for twenty bucks just a's ass away on the on
• 18:56
  the gamble, maybe pick up and lots of all all those guys besides the
• 19:00
  coup and go to see what happens. I mean, if I think you're
• 19:03
  right, I think Akuna is the leader in the clubhouse. You know,
• 19:07
  he's he's at this point, I don't know if he's got the shot to
• 19:10
  do a forty forty season. You know, he has slowed down. I
• 19:14
  mean, he's it's possible, it definitely, it is possible. But you
• 19:18
  know, I think that was part of the allure. He was gonna go
• 19:19
  like forty seventy and slamm eight forty eighty something something crazy. And he's still
• 19:27
  having an outstanding season. So I still think he's that leader in the clubhouse.
• 19:30
  If I had to pick one guy that you listen and I like the
• 19:34
  list he had. I'm gonna go out in the limb and say I would
• 19:38
  pick Mookie bets, and the reason being, you know, Mookie is right
• 19:45
  there across the board with uh, most of those other names. He's already
• 19:52
  hit has thirty one bombs in the season. Probably not what you think in
• 19:53
  MOOKI that's very, very impressive. He's gonna pass one hundred runs here probably
• 20:00
  the week he's you know, he probably is gonna have a hundred RBIs.
• 20:02
  He'll probably finish with ten fifteen steals, and you know he's got a you
• 20:07
  know, he's gonna hit two ninety. Maybe he's gonna push that up a
• 20:10
  little bit. But what I think is crazy about Mookie, where we tend
• 20:15
  to kind of forget is the defensive side of things. He has played all
• 20:21
  over the diamond this year. I believe he actually played some short even and
• 20:25
  from what I recall, we uh he wasn't maybe not as strong at at
• 20:32
  short as you know some folks like might like him to be. He Yeah,
• 20:37
  he's gotten sixteen games, uh in a short and I think he has
• 20:44
  like three ers well while doing it. But on fan graphs, he he
• 20:48
  has ninety eight innings at short stop this year, he's got negative two on
• 20:53
  outs above average with a negative nine point seven UCR. But like I considering,
• 21:00
  it's one of the goofier advanced fielding pages that exists on Fangraphs. You
• 21:06
  scroll down second base, center field, right field, outfield, one season
• 21:11
  of shortstop, and yeah, it's just it's just I think incredible what's he's
• 21:17
  been able to do, like plug the holes for that team. It's it's
• 21:19
  almost like if if we didn't know better, it's kind of like having the
• 21:23
  utility guy that's his thirty bombs goes one hundred, one hundred and it's two
• 21:30
  ninety. Like if I'm gonna go back to our Cardinals, if Brennan Donovan
• 21:36
  or Tommy Edmund, you know, you know perennial utility guys hit thirty bombs
• 21:41
  at one hundred Ribbies underd Ourbis, they're winning the MVP just because the story
• 21:45
  it is that's what Mookie Bets is doing, and he's playing good defense in
• 21:48
  those positions as well. So that's that's that's why I think he's got an
• 21:52
  outside shot. The one downfall I see for for Mookie this is also the
• 21:57
  same thing that the Junia has is some of the best competition he has is
• 22:02
  on his team, Yeah, Mookie and Freddie Freeman, and then over with
• 22:06
  Kudia and Matt Olson. Do you reference they have a chance of stealing votes
• 22:11
  from each other. Now, baseball's not the same thing as as other votings
• 22:15
  where everybody you know votes for their hometown team first, things like that.
• 22:21
  But it's gonna be interesting. I think you can make a very good call
• 22:23
  out here that n l M v. Pevil race is not as certain as
• 22:29
  it as it once was. No, And I think, honestly, my
• 22:33
  dark horse is Matt Olson. Like, I think he might come from behind
• 22:36
  and catch a punia because when everything kind of settles. Right now, Matt
• 22:41
  Olson, I just punched the numbers. He's on pace for fifty eight homers,
• 22:47
  one hundred and fifty ribs. He's one hot week away from making a
• 22:51
  shot at sixty two the way Aaron Judge did that. If he pushes sixty
• 22:56
  homers, like the fanfare of Ronald Coup and whatever Freddie Freeman and and Mookie
• 23:03
  Betts do could totally be lost in just the seas of history of time.
• 23:08
  So I like Matt Olson, like he's been absolutely crushing it. He's I
• 23:17
  haven't looked at his slash line a long time. Here's a slash it's two
• 23:19
  seventy six, three eighty seven, six nineteen. He has a six nineteen
• 23:26
  slug with a three forty three ISO good for aun sixty two w RC plus.
• 23:30
  Like that is absolutely crazy. And so if he can keep rolling,
• 23:38
  and like I said, it only takes another hot week to kind of find
• 23:42
  another notch up of this pace, he couldn't totally come from behind. And
• 23:48
  I think his cards are probably the cheapest, but we should probably do some
• 23:52
  research and actually like look at it, maybe start going forward, just to
• 23:56
  like see where prices are fluctuating, because Matt Olson's collector kind of sphere isn't
• 24:03
  too huge and it's probably dominated mostly by Braves fans, but overall, like,
• 24:11
  yeah, he might end up being the best bang for your buck here
• 24:14
  in this race. And yeah, I really like what Mats Olson could do
• 24:18
  and kind of see what he does down the stretch with making a run of
• 24:22
  this MVP and could be a good payoff if you're stashing away his cards.
• 24:29
  The other thing I wanted to say is that, like I think it'll also
• 24:32
  come down a little bit to like how these races just sort out in terms
• 24:37
  of who gets that number one seed in the NL. That the Dodgers and
• 24:41
  the Braves are two epically great teams, and so it's going to be a
• 24:45
  fun storyline here throughout September just watching these two teams kind of duke get out
• 24:49
  for that number one seed and see which team's going to get that first round
• 24:53
  by So that could also have some weight and some bearing here as we around
• 25:00
  the corner into September. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think
• 25:03
  it's gonna be fun to watch to see what happens, and it's always fun
• 25:07
  when the MVP candidates are actually in the race. I'm not sure we can
• 25:11
  say the same the al even though we're like one week at the deadline,
• 25:17
  the Angels thought they had a chance that Hope maybe fading a little bit in
• 25:22
  that race. But I'm still sticking to Otan. He got as that one
• 25:26
  locked, locked and loaded. He could he could step step back today and
• 25:30
  he's still winning that that award. Yeah exactly. So yeah, that stick
• 25:36
  around here. We've got a great show coming up. We are first gonna
• 25:38
  dive a little bit into Bowman. Chrome was released for pre order yesterday on
• 25:45
  tops dot com. So there's a few more details that have leaked out from
• 25:48
  that set that word will discuss coming up, as well as some other general
• 25:52
  sports sports cards news, baseball card news. I don't know why I said
• 25:56
  sports cards. We're not doing just sports cards. And then after that,
• 26:00
  for our fantasy discussion, we're going to go and each discuss four guys that
• 26:06
  we like from their dynasty value, just jumping overall from either beginning of the
• 26:11
  season or end of last year and kind of like what their trajectory is going
• 26:15
  forward. So stick around, all right, Welcome back, everybody. We're
• 26:34
  going to discuss the baseball cards now. And I think the biggest news that
• 26:40
  really has come out this week is that yesterday Bowman Chrome was released for pre
• 26:44
  order on tops dot com. And I've got a few things to say.
• 26:48
  We've been holding it back pretty good in terms of really going on some soap
• 26:52
  boxes and reaming into tops and fanatics overall for their kind of recent treatment of
• 27:00
  the hobby, but I think they might come through now. And so the
• 27:07
  online release of the pre order was I think just crazy, So I mean
• 27:12
  I'm just gonna like open it up from there. That the twenty twenty three.
• 27:17
  Bowman Chrome prices are absolutely absurd. The hobby box is two hundred and
• 27:22
  seventy bucks before shipping gets you two autos. They have an HTA Box,
• 27:26
  which I'm not exactly sure how that equivalates to, like the light boxes.
• 27:32
  This is a little bit of like my frustration with this process too, in
• 27:36
  terms of tops kind of really juicing everything they can out of the first the
• 27:41
  primary market instead of letting people find deals on the secondary market. Is that
• 27:48
  there haven't been too many details actually about Bowman Chrome overall in terms of checklist
• 27:53
  or parallels or short prints or anything like that, and so they're kind of
• 27:59
  asking you to blindly order these pre orders of Bowman Chrome. So the other
• 28:04
  box that they offered yesterday was the HTA Box, which has three autographs in
• 28:11
  it, and they haven't released any jumbos or any light boxes or blasters or
• 28:17
  anything like that right now. But the HTA Box comes in at three hundred
• 28:22
  and thirty bucks, So that's if you want to get any hobby right now.
• 28:29
  The pre order would have cost you two seventy at least to get the
• 28:33
  actual just regular hobby box. And so these cards are just extremely expensive,
• 28:41
  especially for what I consider a kind of ugly Bowman set this year. That
• 28:47
  Jeremy, what are your thoughts and you're gonna be buying any of these three
• 28:49
  hundred dollar boxes? Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to correct you like
• 28:55
  you correct me on Luke Rayley earlier. Okay, and I'm gonna fail because
• 28:57
  this is really not don't really much of a correction. I was looking out
• 29:00
  of a secondary market. Uh, the HTA boxes, you know HTA boxes
• 29:04
  have three autos per per box, and secondary market you're paying about four hundred
• 29:11
  and eighty dollars for the HDA boxes at this point, so it's it's almost
• 29:17
  out of reach. And uh with only three autos. Uh, if you're
• 29:21
  if you're paying that level the last few years historically you're it's you know,
• 29:26
  maybe three hundred dollars for five autos. Uh. Now now we're talking four
• 29:30
  hundred dollars for three autos. And it's really goes to the print runs.
• 29:34
  What's been happening and where everybody's going. So I'm right with you. I
• 29:40
  think there's there's a few injustices, uh with with this product. First of
• 29:45
  all, there's not a checklist there's not a checklist of what you are getting
• 29:51
  here, so come on pre order the product. I won't tell you what's
• 29:53
  in it exactly right, or what your odds are, or like what parallels
• 29:59
  are availab Bowl or just like any information except for the number of autos.
• 30:03
  Yeah, I feel like, am I going to go to the grocery store
• 30:06
  tomorrow and I'm just gonna drive up and say, hey, load me up.
• 30:08
  Here's one hundred bucks. Let's see what I get. Where's my spaghettios
• 30:14
  and Freedo's, Like, I don't know what I'm getting. That's that's my
• 30:18
  first big knit with with this product. And Bowman's such a core product to
• 30:26
  what TOPS does and there's such a strong hobby following but behind the Bowman first
• 30:34
  as being the first most valuable card you know of a collectiontion for most players.
• 30:42
  And then what's interesting sometimes every once in a while a guy doesn't have
• 30:45
  one, and I'm thinking, like Otadi is a really good example that doesn't
• 30:51
  have the first Bowman chrome, and so that his Bowmen rookie become I was
• 30:56
  really interesting, really exciting, and that brings more to his Tops rookie and
• 31:00
  so those like those quirks about it are are really exciting to me, and
• 31:07
  I think you can guess my second nit. But I'm gonna let you pack
• 31:08
  it because you know exactly where I was gonna go since I've started the transition
• 31:14
  there. But I'm gonna let you bring your biggest knit to this one.
• 31:18
  Yeah, And I mean, so I was gonna say. The one thing
• 31:22
  that we know about from this checklist is that it includes some of the I
• 31:26
  will deem them, honestly, some of the stupidest short prints I think I've
• 31:29
  ever seen, just because like at this point, like it does feel like
• 31:33
  a gambling gimmick. Like I know, I said this like four weeks ago
• 31:40
  about the Taco fractors, and now I'm doing it again. Maybe I'm this
• 31:45
  is just like old man yelling at clouds. But this Bowman Chrome product is
• 31:48
  going to technically include Bowman first of Roberto Clemente and Babe Ruth, which,
• 31:57
  for one, the Babe Ruth one doesn't even make sense because there's been Bowman
• 32:02
  Babe Bruce that I've found and it's been kind of like a big thing within
• 32:07
  like hobby threads on Reddit and stuff that like there was it was only put
• 32:13
  out in packs from the Nationals in twenty sixteen, but there are Bowman Babe
• 32:17
  Ruth cards already out there, so it's not even his first Bowman card.
• 32:22
  But like they also did this with the Tom Brady first cards that were coming
• 32:28
  out this year, and I don't know if they're going to be in this
• 32:30
  product or what product they're going to be mixed into, but like it's just
• 32:35
  like the gimmicks have gotten so ridiculous when you've got a great set already,
• 32:40
  Like you've got a great set where you know Corbyn Carroll and Jordan Walker and
• 32:45
  Gunner Henderson and Massa Naka Yoshida like are gonna lead this product that you don't
• 32:51
  need more of this just strange kind of throwback Hall of Fame cards that honestly,
• 33:00
  I'm a little bit over at this point in terms of like opening them
• 33:02
  and having them and archives and Heritage and all sorts of other sets that like
• 33:08
  I don't mind them being inserts, but once they start being kind of like
• 33:14
  strain short prints like this or just base cards in my set, like it
• 33:20
  really ruins the fun because like part of like collecting baseball cards has always been
• 33:25
  learning about the current players, being able to cheer for them, maybe getting
• 33:30
  the chance to take that card to them in person and get an autographed and
• 33:32
  kind of sharing that connection as well as just learning background information as you kind
• 33:37
  of follow these guys careers and then eventually try to remember them for your immaculate
• 33:43
  grid. So like wasting kind of like people's money and space in your product
• 33:50
  on things like a Roberto Clemente first or Babe Ruth first, or just kind
• 33:54
  of putting in these gimmicky almost an ft items, Like it's just really,
• 34:02
  it's really made a lot of like the recent releases, a lot less fun
• 34:07
  for me. Yeah, I tend to agree. I mean, part of
• 34:13
  the fun of Bowman First is is, you know, watching the players grow,
• 34:17
  mining for the talent, trying to figure out who's gonna become something on
• 34:21
  me, Oh my Heaven forbid, is this Babe Ruth guy gonna pan out?
• 34:27
  I think we know the answer to it, you know what it's It
• 34:30
  reminds me talking about gimmicks when Mona Lisa had a rookie card and gallery and
• 34:39
  it's just like, all right, at the end of the day, I
• 34:44
  think that what's gonna bother me the most? It's just like the Mona Lisa
• 34:46
  having a rookie card. I think that's gonna be valuable, Like not,
• 34:51
  it will be. It's gonna be because it's so divisive in in the hobby
• 34:57
  industry that people like are gonna want to have one just to mock it.
• 35:00
  The others are gonna want to have it because they said they have it.
• 35:02
  Like, I think it's gonna be a valuable card, which is gonna make
• 35:07
  me even more annoyed about the situation here, which is like, you know,
• 35:12
  Tops is kind of yeah, they it feels like a money grap to
• 35:15
  just be frank, and then we're rewarding them for their money grab. Yeah,
• 35:21
  how tom it is? And speaking of money grabs, I got to
• 35:23
  quiz you down here we mentioned taco fractors. Michael Harris Taco fractor just sold
• 35:31
  about a week week and a half ago. How much the Tops and their
• 35:37
  money grab of Taco fractors? How much does the Michael Harris rookie Taco fractor
• 35:43
  five of five go for? Oh so it is the five of five?
• 35:45
  Okay, so I'm the Yoshida one. It was eight fifty and I guessed
• 35:52
  eight hundred, so I was within Well, we're talking Harris. I forgot
• 35:55
  about Michael Harris when I did my bomb and chromework. He rundown, and
• 36:00
  I think he's gonna be higher than Yo Sheeta let me, I don't know,
• 36:06
  because Yoshi just got the big Japanese following. I think I'll still go
• 36:10
  higher. So I'm gonna go twelve fifty one, two hundred and fifty bucks
• 36:16
  on Michael Harris. I you're not right, but you are getting too good
• 36:22
  at this. Oh yeah, Michael Harris Taco fractor sold for one thousand,
• 36:27
  four hundred and twenty five dollars, so you were not too far off.
• 36:30
  But this isn't like best ever accepted. Like this is sold number fourteen hundred
• 36:38
  dollars for Michael Harris taco fractor. That's amazing. It's a card with tacos
• 36:44
  on it, folks. I can't see the value being held. You know,
• 36:49
  you're this is you know, thirty years from now Michael Harris becomes a
• 36:52
  Hall of Famer whatnot. And there's at auctions somewhere, you know, the
• 36:57
  big auction auction house Golden has out there. Here comes the Michael Harris talk
• 37:01
  go fractor five five? Come on, I will say, I think so
• 37:07
  they haven't announced it, but if you remember when they put out the cards,
• 37:12
  they said that there is going to be something special that when the Taco
• 37:15
  fractors, and they haven't. People have been kind of like reading between the
• 37:21
  lines on Reddit and they I agree with it too, that like some of
• 37:24
  the hints that TOPS has been leaving on social media, that it's pointing towards
• 37:30
  whoever has a Taco Fractor will get in all expenses like paid trip to the
• 37:35
  next Mexico series next weekend and or not next weekend next season, and so
• 37:42
  that is something that I think will be a little bit of a factor.
• 37:45
  So like that will honestly maybe raise the price of the bottom ones a lot
• 37:50
  because you would get that trip. But yeah, maybe they'll end up being
• 37:53
  a deal if like you get like a free ticket to that weekend series in
• 37:59
  Mexico and like TOPS pay for your flights or something like that. Yeah,
• 38:02
  that would that would change the dynamic on THOTS significantly. So I don't know
• 38:09
  anyway, but yeah, I mean I think that almost like no, but
• 38:15
  I think that keeps us a little bit on track of like what our frustrations
• 38:17
  have been with TOPS recently, because it's almost like they're putting stuff out so
• 38:22
  fast without like fully divulging details in terms of either like you said, checklists
• 38:28
  or what the special program is with the taco factors, Like how am I
• 38:32
  supposed to judge whether or not I want to buy this product or whether or
• 38:37
  not I want to own a taco fractor, Because like so many things are
• 38:43
  like shifting, and they're really they're really relying on people's just like ravenous appetite
• 38:50
  for these cards and like just the hype that are that's around them with some
• 38:53
  of the breakers and stuff to be able to just blindly sell all these products.
• 38:59
  And it's just it's like it does worry me as somebody who really enjoys
• 39:01
  baseball cards and being in the hobby, because like I don't want people to
• 39:06
  be left with this sour taste in their mouth and like really come away with
• 39:10
  this resentment towards it overall and feel like they're losing money and it's becoming a
• 39:16
  big sinkhole in their finances, because I want them to enjoy what we enjoyed
• 39:21
  about it and when we were growing up in terms of collecting the cards,
• 39:25
  enjoying the cards, enjoying linking at the baseball and maybe yeah, maybe that
• 39:30
  makes me too Sacharin, but like I really enjoyed that part of collecting and
• 39:35
  always will. Yeah, it's to me some of these cards up being like
• 39:38
  back in the day, if you remember you pull a card and it was
• 39:43
  like I pulled the King Griffy Junior and it had the checklist on the back.
• 39:46
  You're like, gosh damn, Like it's I thought it got Griffy and
• 39:50
  it had a checklist on the back. Like those, I feel like it's
• 39:53
  that the taco factor of the nineties, you know, it's just the gimmicks
• 39:59
  are getting a little bit out there. The number of parallels. Uh,
• 40:04
  it does feel like you're trying, you're trying to move back to the junk
• 40:07
  wax area just a little bit. There is some insulation because of the numbering
• 40:12
  and things like that, and the autos that they can so make fun,
• 40:15
  but it, uh, it does make it challenging when it feels like some
• 40:20
  of the things that tops have taken away like Stadium Club for example, and
• 40:23
  then replaced. When you see things like first Bowen, Babe Ruths or the
• 40:30
  Spencer Torkels and Taco Fractor's now listed for two thousand on eBay, Like,
• 40:35
  yeah, it's just it does kind of take away from you know, the
• 40:39
  fun of card collect at least to me, is the collecting. It's it's
• 40:44
  not the flipping is a means to an ends. You know, every pretty
• 40:47
  much every dollar I've ever made off of selling a card is now somewhere else
• 40:51
  in a card. It's it's you know, it's constant moving in and out.
• 40:57
  So yeah, I'm with you. It's gonna be interesting to see what
• 41:00
  happens with those first of Clemente Ruth and I'm just gonna go out of limbs
• 41:07
  day Tie Cob is going to be in there. I wouldn't be surprised if
• 41:10
  well, so you gotta think about people who were before Bowmen or around so
• 41:15
  yeah Cobb, like maybe even like a Satchel Page or no, probably there
• 41:20
  were a Satchel Page Bowman, so like DiMaggio, what might be Yeah,
• 41:24
  Josh Gibson would be a good yea. So, I mean, it'll be
• 41:28
  interesting to see. I I feel like I want to I feel like I'm
• 41:31
  talking with tom One and my kids here. I want to assume the heart
• 41:35
  was in the right place with the decision that was made. But I would
• 41:38
  have just so much rather seen them execute it as you know, a short
• 41:43
  print or a super short print without the first like you were you were close.
• 41:49
  I agree, you just worked quite right, Yeah, And I mean
• 41:52
  the other thing too, is like, don't get me wrong, I do
• 41:53
  love some love oceananigans and gimmicks, like as I'm kind of looking at like
• 41:59
  our release calendar and in a couple of weeks we're going to be talking about
• 42:02
  Allen and Ghinter, But like what I like about Allen and Ginter and even
• 42:07
  Archives with that when Lisa Card, like they're already gimmicky sets, like nobody's
• 42:14
  trying to pull anything over anyone's eyes and say, you know what these are,
• 42:19
  like the cards that you can like invest in and really like have something
• 42:25
  to hold from. What am I going to put away in a safe?
• 42:29
  You know, Archives and Allen and Ginter and even back in our day with
• 42:34
  like Upper Deck Collector's Choice and like I think nowadays with they don't make fire
• 42:38
  anymore, but Fire was like this and Inception is like this where like I
• 42:44
  know what I'm getting because like it's a part of like what that set is,
• 42:49
  and I'm having fun, like enjoying the art of these cards and kind
• 42:52
  of what they are, because they are a goofy set and like I am
• 43:00
  in on that when you're doing this kind of stuff in your base tops,
• 43:05
  in your Bowman Chrome, like some really flagship things that people are like there
• 43:08
  is a level of an investment going on and there's just a little bit more
• 43:13
  of a serious side to it that like that's where like I think the gimmicks
• 43:19
  get a little bit too far, because then at that point, like you're
• 43:22
  just kind of like really yanking people's chains when they're trying to, you know,
• 43:27
  do something in terms of like collecting a piece almost of history the way
• 43:30
  that you know people had when you know you open that eighty nine upper deck
• 43:36
  Ken Griffey Junior or whenever you come across a Mantle card, that like there
• 43:39
  is some gravity to that. And so when you're doing that in Bowman Chrome,
• 43:45
  which people are opening to really get to some of these really big rookie
• 43:50
  cards and first that like that's when it starts getting a little sideways for me.
• 43:55
  Yeah, I tend I tend to agree, So you know, we'll
• 44:00
  see how it plays out. I think is the is the way to look
• 44:02
  at it. But I think it use this as a chance to transition us
• 44:07
  though you're talking about sets that are coming out soon. You know, I'm
• 44:13
  glad I read the script today. But just today we did have one uh
• 44:19
  new release come out. Twenty twenty three. Tops Archives Signature Edition came out
• 44:23
  today. And so for those that don't know, there's a number of signature
• 44:29
  edition products that Tops puts out. There's like an Act of players, there's
• 44:32
  Archives. There's a few of them out there, retired players that come come
• 44:37
  in and generally the concept of these ones are they've taken a card from production
• 44:45
  specialists, especially stamped, it got an autographed by the player. They've slapped
• 44:51
  it in a one touch and it is a box of one card yea.
• 44:57
  So it is a lottery ticket. You can it's not a huge seller.
• 45:02
  You can go buy a box right now on Tops for seventy dollars and you
• 45:07
  know you have a chance of hitting it big on this year's boxes, Albert
• 45:14
  Pools right in the front. You know, the hope of pulling and Albert
• 45:16
  Poole's autograph. The value of that for a seventy dollars box is incredible.
• 45:21
  US. It's so exciting. It is a very unique product. This product
• 45:27
  personally for me, has a soft spot in my heart. The reason being
• 45:30
  I don't think i've I've told you the store before, but back in the
• 45:34
  in the pandemic days, you know, it's twenty twenty. I think you
• 45:37
  and I both kind of got back into card collecting in that time after doing
• 45:40
  it for so long back in the day. This is actually the set that
• 45:45
  got me back into card collect and that the weirdest part of that was I
• 45:52
  just happened to be readings, you know, an article about the hobby coming
• 45:58
  back card collecting, and it just piques my interest, and I was I
• 46:00
  was reading about breakers and how they've made At that time, there was there
• 46:06
  wasn't much controversy around breakers, but they were making the hobby accessible, especially
• 46:10
  for team collectors that wanted to try to get after something. And I just
• 46:15
  happened to have like ten bucks of eBay bucks or whatever the thing was was,
• 46:21
  and I bought in to a Bert bly Leven Archives Signature series break and
• 46:29
  I hit a bly Leven in that break for my five or ten dollars it
• 46:34
  was, and it was just so fun to get the card in the mail.
• 46:37
  The Hall of Famers signed the card and you know, when you're talking
• 46:39
  about ranking the Hall of Famers, your bly levens in the top at least
• 46:44
  ninety seven percent. And so to me that was just such an interesting and
• 46:50
  fun product. It is isn't for everybody. It is, to your point,
• 46:54
  a lottery ticket. It's not one that I would say if you if
• 46:59
  you if you want the thrill of opening the pack, do not go buy
• 47:04
  Archives this. This is like inception a few other products where you get like
• 47:07
  one pack. Yeah, you literally like it takes longer to open the box
• 47:10
  and it does find out what cards you got, And so I don't know
• 47:15
  how you make that one last As a collector, I feel like you have
• 47:17
  to buy like four boxes so that trying to make five minutes to get through
• 47:22
  them. So I don't know, what do you do? You have any
• 47:23
  thoughts on on the Tops Archives Signature Edition, Yeah, I mean I like
• 47:29
  it as an overall product. I like the concept of it, but does
• 47:31
  create a little bit of false scarcity with the weird one of ones that they
• 47:36
  stamp. And there have been instances over the past few years of like guys
• 47:40
  you know, signing some of their old cards and there's a one of one
• 47:45
  of it in like twenty twenty than a one of one of it in twenty
• 47:49
  twenty one, and so like the stamp number is all that's changing. But
• 47:53
  overall I like it because of like it's just kind of cool that it like
• 47:58
  gets the card gets collected, sent back out and signed and then reissued.
• 48:04
  So like just that kind of process intrigues me. But I am with you
• 48:09
  in terms of, like I don't think I'll ever open one unless it is
• 48:15
  like some sort of gift or favor or something, because like I can't justify
• 48:19
  like the short twenty second rip for the price and like getting one card that
• 48:25
  like I've been thinking that, like it would be really cool, like because
• 48:30
  Cops obviously has all these like spare packs slang around, like if somehow they
• 48:35
  interspersed like packs of nineties and eighties and even like some hobbies of like some
• 48:40
  really nice like stuff and you got like some packs to rip with it,
• 48:45
  because then it would be a little more entertaining. And I don't mind like
• 48:51
  ripping some jump wax tops, like it's kind of fun. So yeah,
• 48:54
  that would be cool if like they did that. But it's a cool product,
• 48:59
  and like I have some I love buying the ones that other people rip
• 49:02
  and so like that way you can really hone in and get what you want,
• 49:07
  and especially if you've got somebody who is cheap for your PC, Like,
• 49:10
  it's a great product for you. But I've got some really nice Ozzie
• 49:15
  Smith, like one of One Stadium clubs that I've gotten from this product.
• 49:20
  Yeah, it's it's it's a fun product. But yeah, I'm right there
• 49:22
  with you. It's not something that I'm gonna gonna rush out and buy and
• 49:27
  and spend a ton of time working through this one. So check it out
• 49:31
  if you want, But I think be the right way to do is watch
• 49:35
  see see what people buy, and you can probably go pick something up for
• 49:39
  ten fifteen bucks later of your favorite Hall of Famer after after these are all
• 49:44
  ripped. Yeah, I agree. So yeah, that wraps this up for
• 49:49
  the card segment here, and we'll be back with the fantasy segment and talk
• 49:52
  about some Fantasy Dynasty risers that we like from this season and going forward.
• 50:13
  All right, welcome back here to cards and categories. We're gonna get into
• 50:16
  the categories portion, the Fantasy Baseball portion. So this week we thought we
• 50:21
  would discuss guys who from a dynasty keeper perspective, where we like their trajectory
• 50:28
  from where they started at the beginning of the year or in the off season
• 50:32
  or late last year, and kind of where their value has grown to now
• 50:37
  and where it could go to in the future. So we got some I
• 50:42
  would say, like some breakout candidates, some guys who have kind of just
• 50:45
  found another gear in their careers, and we're going to discuss what we think
• 50:50
  their trajectories will be going forward. So Brew you were the one that brainstormed
• 50:57
  this topic when we were going through topics for this week, given a people
• 51:00
  a little bit of a look into how the sausage is made. But I'll
• 51:05
  let you lead it off because of that, So take the four all right,
• 51:09
  Well, I'm gonna gonna start on the pitchers mound here of talking talking
• 51:14
  about a few guys. My first guy is gonna be from the wonderful Minnesota
• 51:21
  Twins, uh and Joe Ryan and U Joe Ryan not not maybe the guy.
• 51:28
  At first I was like, i'll break out candidate, But Joe Ryan's
• 51:30
  had a really really rough go of it since the beginning, like the beginning
• 51:37
  into June. Since that point, he's had eleven starts. He has an
• 51:42
  ERA of six point two and he has two wins and six losses. So
• 51:51
  he has been dreadful and it's it's it's kind of frustrating for Minnesota Twins team
• 52:00
  that was relying on him probably as their ace for the season. He started
• 52:02
  out the season really really strong. I think he actually was running in the
• 52:07
  you know, high twos, low threez ear a start the season and looking
• 52:13
  really good. So why with the guy that has gone with a six two
• 52:17
  r A since the beginning of June, why why is he a breakout candidate?
• 52:22
  And just for context here, his last game he pitched against was against
• 52:27
  the hapless Saint Louis Cardinals, who just got shut out tonight. He gave
• 52:30
  up seven runs in four innings and so it's it's it's just still a very
• 52:36
  interesting and how far he has fallen since the beginning of the year when he
• 52:40
  actually looked like he was on a breakout season. What's interesting about Joe Ryan
• 52:47
  is his peripherals. During that timeframe, he has eleven case per nine,
• 52:53
  which is solid. He's still continue to strike out guys. He has one
• 52:58
  point seven seven walks per He's locked less than two guys for nine innings during
• 53:04
  that same time frame, and where you know, you're sitting here going,
• 53:08
  okay, it's a babe thing, right, He's gotten the luck's just been
• 53:12
  terrible. Three eleven. Baby, it's a little high, but it's not
• 53:16
  that far out of realms for him to be running a six two e r
• 53:21
  A and from a left on base percentage just not like he's really dropped in
• 53:25
  like the low sixties or something like that. He's you know, kind of
• 53:29
  maybe a little blow average, like seventy two percent leaving guys on base.
• 53:32
  What's really killed him is that he is such a flyball pitcher and home runs
• 53:38
  are leaving the yard at an unbelievable rate for him. He is giving up
• 53:43
  two point eight home runs per nine right now over the last two and a
• 53:47
  half months, which is I didn't look at the league average, but you're
• 53:52
  usually talking in the mid ones as far as guy's giving up home runs for
• 53:59
  nine and Ryan across his career. Is his rookie year, he is one
• 54:06
  point three five home runs from nine one point two two last year and now
• 54:12
  the overall seasons about one point eight this year, but like I said,
• 54:15
  two point eight since the beginning of June and it's it's even not showing up
• 54:21
  so much in his peripherals as far as his FIP or as x FIP,
• 54:24
  it's it's not showing up because it's been so severe that just by not having
• 54:30
  the home runs fly out of the ballpark, he's going to be a ton
• 54:35
  better next year. So Joe Ryan, he's at a discount. He in
• 54:39
  my mind, is a top twenty pitcher. I think he could be next
• 54:44
  year, but you're gonna be paying like top forty, top fifty prices for
• 54:46
  him. So I think Joe Ryan's a guy I, especially if you're in
• 54:51
  the Dynasty League, is a guy to pick up for. Depending us on
• 54:55
  the dollar, most guys are gonna be frustrated to no end with him because
• 54:59
  he has been just so bad and he's gonna be an anchor to staffs next
• 55:07
  year. And I'm putting I'll put myself on the line on that one.
• 55:09
  I'm very very confident that he is going to bounce back from next next year
• 55:14
  with with what he've been doing. Yeah, I agree, And I like
• 55:17
  him just because really he's a great whip asset to like for. He's got
• 55:23
  a career one oh nine whip now in the majors, and like he's got
• 55:30
  just a lot of deception in his delivery that it works with the low walk
• 55:35
  rate and it works for Joe George Kirby in Seattle, and like, obviously
• 55:40
  we've seen what he's done this year is he's kind of honestly put in almost
• 55:45
  a cy young season and Joe Ryan I think could follow that trajectory too.
• 55:51
  So I think that's a great pick. Yeah. I think one thing I
• 55:53
  didn't call all out about him is, you know, one thing we've talked
• 55:57
  about on this pot before is the the k to walk ratio And you know,
• 56:02
  you could just hear just in the numbers they talked about over the season.
• 56:07
  I think he's he's like in the top three behind like Strider and Gossman
• 56:12
  as far as that metrical loan, And that tells you something there that his
• 56:16
  stuff is good And if you're in any conversation with Spencer Strider, then it's
• 56:25
  worth taking a second look. So uh, definitely definitely something to call out.
• 56:30
  So all right, talked to I talked to on my soapbox about Joe
• 56:34
  Ryan. Who who do you want to start out with here? Of guys
• 56:36
  that have a chance to pop and value and should be kind of on our
• 56:39
  targets the end of the year. Yeah, my guy is this is gonna
• 56:43
  make cool up infinitely happy. He's our resident stand for this guy on rats
• 56:47
  ball and it is Zach Eflin. So cool Whip was in on Zach Kaflin
• 56:52
  before the year started, and he's had a lot of really great breakdowns on
• 56:58
  him over the offseason that you should go check out his work. And for
• 57:02
  Eflyn, it's just been a really big renaissance in his value as he's signed
• 57:07
  with the Rays and come over from Philly. The Rays. It's almost like
• 57:12
  a story you could see like coming from millions of miles away in terms of
• 57:17
  this organization that just has all of the analytical tools that in its tool belt,
• 57:24
  and they took this guy who was a spot starter and pushed him to
• 57:30
  relief in Philly as a sinker curveball guy and told him scrap the sinker,
• 57:36
  use this cutter, up the curveball even more and it's worked really well for
• 57:40
  him. I know it looks a little bit rough in terms of first half,
• 57:45
  second half, a little bit like Joe Ryan that Zach Eflin's first half
• 57:49
  year Ray was three twenty five and currently he's got a five ten year ray
• 57:52
  since the All Star break. But what is underlying those numbers is his FIP.
• 58:00
  His f IP hasn't wavered like a bit. His fifth before the first
• 58:05
  half three eleven, his fifth in the second half three zero seven, So
• 58:08
  it's actually gone lower. A lot of that is because his babbit has been
• 58:13
  forty points higher it's three twenty two and the second half, But the bigger
• 58:16
  portion is his left on base percentage, which is a luck metric. I
• 58:22
  think that like, that's the way I treated and usually it hovers in the
• 58:25
  mid seventies. His second half left on base percentage is fifty eight percent,
• 58:30
  so that means the defense his flubbing balls behind him, or relievers are letting
• 58:36
  people score when he is leaving ducks on the pond when he's leaving a game.
• 58:43
  He also like he's actually lowered his walk rate in the second half two
• 58:46
  so it's down from one point three to point nine. So it's just a
• 58:51
  bunch of luck that's not going his way. It's kind of swinging all the
• 58:53
  way back, And honestly, like if you've got somebody who's been frustrated by
• 58:59
  Ethlyn's of latest starts here in the second half. I think he's a great,
• 59:02
  great buy and can be you know, top thirty, twenty five thirty
• 59:07
  picture next year. That like, even with the lower kind of k rate,
• 59:13
  he's only at eight point nine right now in the season eight point nine
• 59:16
  eight, so closer to nine. Like he reminds me a little bit more
• 59:20
  of like a Joe Musgrove kind of where like because he's just solid and puts
• 59:25
  up good ratios from an era and whip perspective, pitches for a good team
• 59:30
  to get those ws for you. He can provide some volume now like he's
• 59:36
  the Rays have no qualms about stretching him out and riding him, especially considering
• 59:40
  they have no other pictures at this point with Shane mcclanakan going down with Tommy
• 59:45
  John So, Zach Eflin, I really like him. If if somebody's out
• 59:50
  there and not liking what his recent production has been in the second half,
• 59:54
  easy buy for keeper in Dynasty Leagues, Yeah, I think one of the
• 1:00:00
  things I like about Ethelyn's just his situation now pitching for for Tampa Bay is
• 1:00:07
  uh, They're They're one of those organizations that seems like they have some secret
• 1:00:12
  Sauce figured out for for their pictures, they always get the most out of
• 1:00:15
  them, and so I think that even though he has struggled, if they're
• 1:00:19
  going to remain committed to him, he's He's definitely something that somebody that you
• 1:00:22
  have to have on your radar. So, you know, the only things
• 1:00:24
  that I worry about with Efflyn is you know how much he's actually mileage is
• 1:00:30
  he's gonna get? Does send to be an injury prone guy? He is
• 1:00:32
  already at the second most Indians pitched in his career this this season, So
• 1:00:38
  the question is, uh, can he be that workhorse uh that that folks
• 1:00:43
  need him to be? But he has a lot that you have to like
• 1:00:46
  about him. I'm I'm a sucker for guys that don't walk walk guys,
• 1:00:51
  and there's not much better than you can do with having your walker nine right
• 1:00:54
  lovery and right right above walk. So definitely a fun guy to to to
• 1:01:00
  watch. Yeah, I agree. So who do you got for your next
• 1:01:04
  pick? Yeah? So I'm gonna go to the younger into the spectrum here,
• 1:01:08
  uh for for my next pick? Uh, And we're gonna talk about
• 1:01:13
  the rookie for the Houston Astros, Hunter Brown Hunter Brown actually just just today
• 1:01:21
  was being used in the bullpen and then later in the day announced that he's
• 1:01:24
  gonna get a start over the weekend. So I'm not sure that the Astros
• 1:01:29
  know what they're what they're doing with him, but he he's had a pretty
• 1:01:32
  strong, uh start to his career. And what I what I like about
• 1:01:38
  him is, you know, he's seems like he's got really solid control.
• 1:01:43
  He's a high groundball guy. He's right about a fifty four percent groundball rate.
• 1:01:49
  He he's had some tough luck this year from going back to what we
• 1:01:55
  talked about with Joe Ryan with the home runs, not nearly as as bad
• 1:02:00
  as Ryan, but for a guy that keeps the ball on the grounds,
• 1:02:04
  he's definitely let a few leave the yard. But we're really strong strikeout rates,
• 1:02:08
  really good walk rates. His you know, his ex fips has been
• 1:02:14
  three three, but his earra is slightly above four. And so he hasn't
• 1:02:20
  got the fanfare this year that I think he deserves. And I think that
• 1:02:23
  he's one of those that, being in a very analytical organization, they're gonna
• 1:02:29
  squeeze the most out of him, especially after having really solid year under his
• 1:02:32
  belt, and he has struggled a little bit more in the second half.
• 1:02:37
  He's not struck out as much as many guys. His era is kind of
• 1:02:40
  ballooned a little bit, but all the peripherals around have looked strong. So
• 1:02:45
  I think he's one of those guys. I'm not going to go out on
• 1:02:46
  the limb and say at last top twenty like I did with with Joe Ryan,
• 1:02:51
  but I think he's one of those guys that has really high potential to
• 1:02:54
  jump next year and really deliver some value you and to your point, playing
• 1:03:00
  a team like the Astros, if you're playing in a five by five,
• 1:03:04
  five rotisse league, he's gonna get some wins. He's gonna get that run
• 1:03:07
  support, and he definitely has the potential to be a really good fantasy asset.
• 1:03:15
  There was a guy that can actually go pretty pretty deep into games.
• 1:03:17
  He can get in the sixth seventh inning pretty easily. So I like Hunter
• 1:03:22
  Brown a lot, and I think he's going to be a guy that I'm
• 1:03:24
  picking up left and right next year. Yeah. No, I think that's
• 1:03:29
  a great call. And like obviously the bouncing to and from the bullpen is
• 1:03:32
  a little bit to limit his innings. He's at one hundred and twenty five
• 1:03:36
  right now, which is last year he threw one hundred and twenty six and
• 1:03:40
  a third and I'm not counting playoff, but he's through playoff innings then two.
• 1:03:46
  This is a very soft thing. But what I also like is if
• 1:03:50
  you watch Hunter Brown, like he looks exactly like Justin Verlander. Now that
• 1:03:54
  Justin Verlander's in town, Like, I don't think that can hurt having somebody
• 1:04:00
  with a very similar mechanical repertoire around to be able to impart just the knowledge
• 1:04:08
  of what Justin Berlander has absorbed over his entire career. So view could like,
• 1:04:13
  if you're trying to find like a soft story to like boost Hunter Brown's
• 1:04:17
  value going forward, that could be good that, like, you know,
• 1:04:23
  Justin Berlander will be there for an entire offseason in a spring training that like,
• 1:04:27
  who knows what conversations they might be having in the background. Yeah,
• 1:04:31
  there's always that value to having having somebody that kind of knows what they're doing
• 1:04:39
  being there to help out. And what I think is really interesting when I
• 1:04:44
  was looking at the Baseball Savant page for Brown, the first two pictures that
• 1:04:49
  jump out as comps for him were Brian Presley and Framber Valdez, also of
• 1:04:56
  Houston, and I think about that struck me as something of maybe product of
• 1:05:00
  the system or something like that, but both guys have been successful. Uh
• 1:05:04
  it was he was actually compared to a number of relievers, which I thought
• 1:05:08
  was was interesting because he is a guy that seems like he has the build
• 1:05:13
  the body to go deep into games. So it'll be interesting to see see
• 1:05:17
  what a little time with a cy young and and taking him under the wings
• 1:05:25
  can do for him. But he's got a lot of potential for next year.
• 1:05:28
  Yeah, I agree. The next guy I have is also another picture,
• 1:05:32
  and so he's actually the number one picture in al War over the last
• 1:05:39
  sixty days. And I'm sure people are like sitting there trying to rack their
• 1:05:43
  brains about who it is, and it's you say, Kikuche from the Toronto
• 1:05:46
  Blue Jays. His value is clearly up because it was zero, so like
• 1:05:53
  there is only one one place to go up when you're at the bottom of
• 1:05:57
  the barrel. And when it comes to pictures like Kikuchi, he's having a
• 1:06:01
  breakout season with his three forty four rara which is a career low, and
• 1:06:08
  nine wins, which is a career high and he's still got a month and
• 1:06:12
  a half left in the season here for the blue Jays, also is gonna
• 1:06:16
  easily clear. I think career high and innings pitched. He had one hundred
• 1:06:20
  and sixty one and two thirds in his rookie year in twenty nineteen with Seattle,
• 1:06:25
  but he should clear that because he's had one hundred and twenty eight and
• 1:06:28
  a third this year. He's kind of become the number two that the Blue
• 1:06:32
  Jays needed behind Gaussman as Manoah has fallen apart and Barrios has just never been
• 1:06:39
  able to find his old magic. And so I have really loved you,
• 1:06:45
  say, Kikuchi ever since he came over, and it's always been a bummer
• 1:06:47
  that the skills and kind of talent has never lined up with the stats and
• 1:06:51
  production. But this week on Fangrafts, Michael Bauman there had a great article
• 1:06:59
  on how he has retooled his pitch mix, and the biggest thing is kuche
• 1:07:04
  has added a curveball that he's throwing. What is it now, it's just
• 1:07:11
  about seven and a half percent of the time. He hadn't thrown it since
• 1:07:14
  his rookie year. But that curveball just provides another element of off speed to
• 1:07:20
  throw to righty's to help retire them. So he's traditionally done the classic lefty
• 1:07:27
  repertoire of pounding right he's inside with fastballs and backfoot sliders, but this curveball
• 1:07:32
  allows him to now just mix it up a little bit and provide a third
• 1:07:38
  level of speed to expect. So when you're sitting there guests hitting and you're
• 1:07:44
  only picking between a cider or a fastball, like you just got to sit
• 1:07:46
  one or the other. But then if this curveball comes out and is got
• 1:07:53
  coming from the you know, the same spot and just barreling in on you
• 1:07:56
  and you've got to guess a third pitch like that cuts down just like so
• 1:08:00
  much noise there. So it's been really great for Kukuchi, and it's overall
• 1:08:05
  he's also like dropped his walk rate considerably, which I know that you love
• 1:08:10
  as you're probably checking out his page that he's down to a career low two
• 1:08:14
  point four five walks per nine. So I think there's a lot of just
• 1:08:18
  really great skills growth that kaku Chi's added to his overall arsenal. And because
• 1:08:25
  like you got him for free, probably this year wherever you picked him up
• 1:08:29
  that going forward for next year, Like even if he's like a top fifty
• 1:08:32
  or sixty pitcher, total win for keepers and dynasty leagues. And right now,
• 1:08:36
  like as I said, like he's running like a top ten pitchers,
• 1:08:40
  so that's not going to keep up. But I think he could settle more
• 1:08:44
  into like a thirty to forty range, and like Toronto's kind of shifted into
• 1:08:48
  a semi pitchers park. We'll see where the new park factors settle after they
• 1:08:55
  change the outfield wall this year. But I have really been enjoying Kuku.
• 1:09:00
  She's worked this year even as he's thirty two years old and we'll be thirty
• 1:09:03
  three going into next year. Yeah, I think Kkuchi to your point,
• 1:09:08
  you know, it's the cost. It was the cost of admission was so
• 1:09:12
  low, and especially in the keeper type league that if you have the right
• 1:09:15
  expectations, we're not expecting an ace here, We're expecting some of the serviceable
• 1:09:20
  that's going to get a meanings. You know that there's there's value. The
• 1:09:24
  one interesting thing that jumps out to me of Cakuchi is he's he's increases spin
• 1:09:30
  rate substantially over the last few years. What are you saying over there?
• 1:09:34
  What are you trying to say when everybody else is getting checked coming off the
• 1:09:40
  mount? I'm not sure what. Maybe Kakuchi's got something figured out here,
• 1:09:44
  some new substance. He's been going to the Garrett Cole School of pitching.
• 1:09:47
  Maple syrup. It's maple syrup, dude. But you know, he used
• 1:09:53
  to be a guy that would be in the lower quarter a little half the
• 1:09:56
  league of spin rate, and he's actually in the top quarter on his fastball
• 1:09:58
  spin rate the this year. So you know, he definitely seems like he's
• 1:10:01
  retooled, and he's one of those guys that's figuring out how to adapt and
• 1:10:05
  learn, and he's probably taking advantage. It reminds me of Sonny Gray a
• 1:10:09
  little bit, another guy that has literally figured out how to pitch more as
• 1:10:13
  he's gotten older and take advantage of the technology and the tools. So's he's
• 1:10:18
  definitely an interesting guy, and I think he's going to sneak by in drafts
• 1:10:24
  next year even though he's played pretty well. Yeah, I mean, I
• 1:10:27
  think especially if you're using kind of the old school Marcel projections, which is
• 1:10:31
  just like three year average, which I think that would obviously understate like what
• 1:10:39
  his overall talent is. And I think a lot of projection systems still kind
• 1:10:45
  of almost lean that way where they are really folding in, you know,
• 1:10:49
  two to three years worth of data. And so he's just changed his arsenal
• 1:10:54
  enough this year that I think when people kick out their values with projection systems
• 1:10:59
  next year, if they don't make that adjustment to what Kukuchi's changed this year,
• 1:11:03
  they might not capture his whole his whole value. Yeah, I'm out
• 1:11:10
  there with you. So I think it's it's time to get off the mound
• 1:11:13
  because I think we we we we spent spent our time there. And I'm
• 1:11:17
  gonna gonna start and with uh out in Detroit with my first hitter that I'm
• 1:11:25
  gonna call out, and it's gonna be Spencer Torkelsen. And I think Spencer
• 1:11:28
  Torkelsen is one of those guys that had a lot of hype coming coming up
• 1:11:32
  from the from the miners. And I might be mixing the card hobby and
• 1:11:38
  the fantasy fantasy hobby here because he had a lot of hype and both of
• 1:11:43
  those, but uh, you know, in the second season here, he's
• 1:11:47
  he's he was also disappointment, uh for for a lot of folks. And
• 1:11:53
  uh, you know, I think a part of that has really been the
• 1:11:57
  fact that he's barely hitting two thirty on the on the season. Uh you
• 1:12:01
  know, he has has hit twenty one homers across the season. And if
• 1:12:05
  you look at his behind the scenes, you know, a lot of the
• 1:12:08
  guys we've been talking about so far as if something's happened mid season, they've
• 1:12:11
  had a bad season, they've had a pick up at the end of the
• 1:12:14
  year. Torkelson has been relatively consistent throughout the season. It's not just been
• 1:12:18
  one thing. It's not gonna you know, terrible luck. It's not been
• 1:12:21
  anything. It's just a lot of little different things have not gone his way.
• 1:12:25
  What's intriguing about him is, you know, if you uh, he's
• 1:12:29
  he's one of those guys that you want to go look at his Baseball Savant
• 1:12:33
  page because it is read across the board. The only place it's not is
• 1:12:41
  strikeouts, and he's he's i mean, bottom third of the league. He's
• 1:12:44
  he's not, you know, absolutely terrible in the strikeout category. And you
• 1:12:49
  know, his uh average X of a lot of loscity top ten percent in
• 1:12:55
  the league hard hit top ten percent in the league. His batting average,
• 1:12:59
  which is two third his ex batting average, is actually in the top forty
• 1:13:03
  percent of the league, and so he's clearly been unlucky. He's probably more
• 1:13:08
  of a two sixty hitter than a two thirty hitter, which two sixties will
• 1:13:11
  what the two eighty of the past, or which used to be to three
• 1:13:14
  hundred. So somehow I've made s Spencer toorkals in a three hundred hitter here,
• 1:13:19
  but it turns three into like a six hundred hitter before long. Here.
• 1:13:24
  Hey, if Luis Arias can go after four hundred, then why can't
• 1:13:26
  I? But you knows his hard hit rate is actually fifty two percent this
• 1:13:31
  year. He's been killing the ball. And what who he makes me think
• 1:13:35
  of when I look at him is Matt Chapman. Uh, he makes me
• 1:13:41
  think of Matt Chapman that similar profile. The one difference though, is Matt
• 1:13:44
  Chapman is one of those guys that like sprays the field, and so he's
• 1:13:48
  hitting the ball hard, but he doesn't seem to pull the ball, so
• 1:13:51
  they don't leave the ballpark. He doesn't lift it. He's just hitting those
• 1:13:56
  like hard shots all over the park, which as a baseball player is fantastic
• 1:14:00
  for fantasy not quite the same. Torkelson is pulling everything. He pulls it,
• 1:14:05
  he lifts it, and it leaves the park. So this is this
• 1:14:10
  is a bat that's definitely a thirty five homer guy in the future. And
• 1:14:14
  I think he's going to live up to his reputation. But the fact that
• 1:14:17
  he doesn't run and his bad average has been terrible, I think people are
• 1:14:20
  gonna look at him and think that he's Adam Dunn. Maybe not that far,
• 1:14:26
  but you know, he's got that kind of profile, and those guys
• 1:14:29
  that hit two thirty two forty with a ton of homers seem to be a
• 1:14:31
  dime a dozen these days, and he's definitely definitely more than that. Yeah,
• 1:14:36
  yeah, yeah, No. I like him a lot too. He's
• 1:14:39
  still I mean, he's only twenty three, which I think will blow a
• 1:14:43
  lot of people's minds just because he's kind of been around as like a big
• 1:14:46
  time college player and been on radars for so long that like it's nice to
• 1:14:51
  see the steady progression like in his slug and like he started to lift the
• 1:14:57
  ball more that like the jump in barrel rate from eight point four percent last
• 1:15:01
  year at thirteen point eight percent this year is huge. So obviously you can't
• 1:15:05
  like add five percent to your barrel rate every year. That would be really
• 1:15:11
  dope if he did. But like that just shows that like he's getting more
• 1:15:15
  comfortable and like he's exactly kind of what we're looking for, I think in
• 1:15:19
  this exercise in terms of guys who you know are dipped down in value from
• 1:15:26
  dynasty and keeper perspectives. And now like you can see the turner being or
• 1:15:30
  the corner being turned, and like that kind of leads me into this next
• 1:15:34
  guy who I know we've been really analytical and just really like spouting great numbers
• 1:15:40
  about like where these people's improvements are coming from. And I'm about to just
• 1:15:46
  go a little bit off the deep end here because I've got honestly nothing statistically
• 1:15:50
  to help me with my next guy, Ezekiel Tovar. You can go to
• 1:15:55
  his Baseball Savants page and it is for all the red Torklsen has. Tovar
• 1:16:02
  is covered in blue, and so he doesn't really hit the ball hard.
• 1:16:06
  He doesn't like do anything particularly great with the bat. I'm not gonna lie
• 1:16:12
  like he whips way too much he doesn't walk, he chases. He's in
• 1:16:16
  the fourth percentile for chasery because he's just up there hack and hack and hacking.
• 1:16:21
  But what I love is that he is known for his glove. He's
• 1:16:27
  got a ninety seven percentile and outs above average, and so he's gonna stick
• 1:16:31
  a short partly because of that as well as the Rockies are stubborn as all
• 1:16:35
  get out and will not ever go away from their players. They love Tovar.
• 1:16:41
  They brought him up when he's really young. This dude only turned twenty
• 1:16:44
  two two weeks ago on August first, and he already has at this point
• 1:16:49
  put in four hundred and eighty played appearances at major leagues. That's just a
• 1:16:55
  lot of reps to get at such a young age. When most of these
• 1:16:59
  dudes at his age you're down and advanced AID if they're lucky in double A.
• 1:17:03
  So like his age to overall level is absurd. There was a study
• 1:17:11
  that came out earlier this year about how like you can add so many percent
• 1:17:16
  or like quantity of WRC plus to your overall line based on your age level.
• 1:17:25
  And the miners that I'll find it in Lincoln in the show notes,
• 1:17:29
  you know Sarrus was really on it, and it comes from this guy who
• 1:17:33
  works I think he works for the A's, but like he is just a
• 1:17:39
  really big math nerd. Like I the article is like I don't even know,
• 1:17:45
  it might honestly be like one hundred thousand words long. Is the most
• 1:17:48
  absurd thing I've ever seen. But really what's saying is like you can add
• 1:17:53
  like I think it was ultimately like twenty five points of w RC plus to
• 1:17:58
  every year age to level that like the person is and so Tovar in his
• 1:18:05
  year twenty one is at a seventy seven right now, but like the average
• 1:18:11
  age, it probably doesn't work like that, like with MLB, but like
• 1:18:14
  he is so much younger to level and with that glove, he's sticking and
• 1:18:18
  just getting rep after rep after rep. And it reminds me a lot of
• 1:18:24
  our old favorite Yadi that like Yaddi couldn't hit a lick when he came up,
• 1:18:29
  and when you just get this meaning this huge number of reps, like
• 1:18:33
  you can learn to hit at the major league level. You get all that
• 1:18:38
  instruction and you're just playing and getting used to it. And so I really
• 1:18:42
  like that Tovar can do that and he's still like, he hasn't been awful
• 1:18:46
  this year, Like, even with all the bad stuff I spouted, he's
• 1:18:48
  still hit two fifty seven, two ninety one, four twenty nine because he's
• 1:18:54
  in Coors Field half of his games. And if anybody listening is also a
• 1:19:00
  reader of my waiver wires, that's what I do. Like, there is
• 1:19:03
  nothing better than finding Rockies players and just using them as home streamers. So
• 1:19:10
  I just went away from a splits page. But like, if you're even
• 1:19:14
  just doing that with Tovar this year, actually, oh yeah, he's been
• 1:19:17
  much better home. I was like, who I ast to myself off?
• 1:19:21
  But the lying at home alone has been two seventy eight, three eighteen,
• 1:19:25
  four fifty nine with he's only got five homers in sixty two games. Oh
• 1:19:31
  no, no, I've misread that he's got six homers in fifty six games.
• 1:19:34
  So it's not that would average out to about, you know, mid
• 1:19:39
  teens. But like, he's a nice batting average asset if that's what you're
• 1:19:43
  using him for. And I just like him because like, from a perspective
• 1:19:47
  of looking at dynasty and keepers, people are probably sick of looking at that
• 1:19:51
  Blue Baseball Savant page so you might be able to buy low. And this
• 1:19:56
  guy is totally a guy that could turn the corner you at anytime because he's
• 1:20:01
  just got the reps and it clicks. Yeah, I don't know that I'm
• 1:20:05
  gonna buying a twelve hours as much as you are with the gut feel there.
• 1:20:11
  But the one thing about him that is intriguing to me is he's been
• 1:20:16
  a speedster in the minors, uh, pretty successful eighty eighty five percent stolen
• 1:20:21
  base success rates. He's only you know, seven for eleven this year,
• 1:20:27
  and so he hasn't been nearly as as good. And I think it's steer
• 1:20:33
  at the point. He's young and he's learning, uh, and so I
• 1:20:36
  think there's a really good chance that he kind of figures some of that out.
• 1:20:40
  And you know, if he just starts to hit a little better,
• 1:20:42
  it gets on base a little bit more, uh, and he you know,
• 1:20:45
  he can get a few more walks here and there. Like he seems
• 1:20:48
  like he's got a potential to surprise a few folks. So I always like
• 1:20:55
  a guy that can fill the stat stat page and give you some some you
• 1:21:00
  know, higher floors, and I think Tovar has a potential to do that,
• 1:21:02
  and to your point, it's always nice to bet on a guy that's
• 1:21:05
  gonna play at Cours. It does honestly feel a little wrong though, to
• 1:21:10
  be trusting the Rockies with anybody below the age of like twenty eight. So
• 1:21:15
  I still think I'm waiting for Brad Hop to break out. That's what's also
• 1:21:20
  been really crazy about this Tovar thing is that, like, look at all
• 1:21:24
  those other people they've buried over the years in terms of like Nolan Jones or
• 1:21:29
  it took them forever to get Charlie Blackman in the lineup or Michael Totally,
• 1:21:32
  and just like all these dudes that they block, and then they're just like,
• 1:21:35
  oh, I mean Tovar can't even drink. Let's just put him at
• 1:21:38
  shortstop. Like it's been really odd, and so I don't know if I
• 1:21:43
  should like trust that the Rockies know what they're doing and that they wanted to
• 1:21:46
  roll them out, but like this is just it's kind of a classic profile
• 1:21:50
  of like just rap after rep after rep that like he's gonna it feels like
• 1:21:55
  he's gonna figure something out and be able to like turn a corner. And
• 1:21:59
  I mean it doesn't take much from where he's at either considering how bad some
• 1:22:03
  of the actual like peripheral stats are, you have to think Brendan Rodgers has
• 1:22:09
  got to be sitting there across the endfield just fuming like you gave this guy
• 1:22:13
  a chance and it took me like four years before you even like I thought
• 1:22:17
  I could actually handle a real workload. So yeah, that's just, uh,
• 1:22:23
  there's something about that team that's special. I'm just gonna be the thought.
• 1:22:29
  Okay, well let's round this out. We're go for your fourth guy
• 1:22:32
  here, Jeremy yep, last guy, and I'm gonna stay in the city
• 1:22:36
  of Detroit with my last one. Carrie Carpenter, and I think similar to
• 1:22:43
  kind of you and Tovar here, though a little bit more positive numbers.
• 1:22:47
  For Carpenter. It's there's not like a single thing that just jumps out as
• 1:22:51
  far as he's had bad luck or he's really come on recently, he just
• 1:22:57
  has a very solid profile, a guy that can can get give you,
• 1:23:02
  uh some power. I mean, he's in just about half a season of
• 1:23:08
  games, he's popped fifteen home runs. He's sitting two eighty two s peripherals
• 1:23:13
  back up, you know, a size a decent batting average, and so
• 1:23:16
  he seems like he's again a guy that's going to hit. There's he also
• 1:23:23
  I think from a strikeout perspective, he only strikes out about twenty percent of
• 1:23:28
  the time, which was pretty consistent with what he did in the low miners
• 1:23:33
  uh. And even when he was h in triple A, he seems to
• 1:23:39
  do do much better with the strikeout. So he's got some some potential there.
• 1:23:43
  So I think a guy like Krry Carpenter does tend to just get penalized
• 1:23:48
  by the city that he plays in. He's not in a great lineup,
• 1:23:51
  he doesn't have a lot of rum producing opportunities, but that is going to
• 1:23:57
  keep the cost low. He is that perfect profile for a guy that's going
• 1:24:01
  to be your fourth outfielder and you just kind of plug him. He's not
• 1:24:05
  gonna hurt your average. He's you know, doesn't have much much speed.
• 1:24:09
  You go fact check me out Luke Railey style here if you want to.
• 1:24:13
  But but you know, he's been hitting uh you know, four or five
• 1:24:19
  for the Tigers uh for a better part of this the season since you know,
• 1:24:26
  really June hit in the middle of that lineups. So they seem to
• 1:24:30
  trust him, and I think he's going to be a guy to get some
• 1:24:34
  draft day values. That said, I think he's also the kind that could
• 1:24:40
  get a little helium in the off season as people start to back off and
• 1:24:45
  look at him. So, like I said, Carry Carpenter is an interesting
• 1:24:48
  guy that I think, uh, we we need to be watching. And
• 1:24:54
  now I'm gonna let you in fact check me on his speed. Uh for
• 1:24:58
  a guy that has stolen a total of let's say, fifteen bases in his
• 1:25:02
  minor league career. Yeah, let's ended up seven five twelve, so fifteen.
• 1:25:11
  Yeah, you are right, I look at that impressive. All Right,
• 1:25:14
  I'll let you guess on this one. Well, I just feel so
• 1:25:17
  I feel so messed up from earlier. I'm mean, he doesn't seem like
• 1:25:23
  a best guy. Everything I've watched about him, I'm gonna say, I'm
• 1:25:27
  I'm just gonna go straight down the middle fifty percentile. You're low, it's
• 1:25:30
  sixty nine. He's on the sixty ninth percentile. All right, to guess
• 1:25:35
  that either that's kind of high. It's so like h But I will also
• 1:25:42
  say that like, even though the home park is a little rough on him,
• 1:25:45
  it's a one fifty nine w RC plus on the year at home,
• 1:25:48
  like he loves sitting in Detroit. I love carry Carpenter like I think it's
• 1:25:54
  a he's cheap, he's dirt cheap, and he's a great get right now
• 1:25:58
  that like he has been heating up, Like I think he makes a great
• 1:26:01
  offseason move because I think whoever owns him probably thinks they're selling a little high.
• 1:26:06
  But I think he could really anchor the middle of that Tiger's lineup with
• 1:26:11
  Spencer Spencer Torkelsen. And this is a guy that, like when you just
• 1:26:15
  watch him play and watch the swing like it's there could be a forty homer
• 1:26:18
  season like in the Bad at some point. Yep, I think I think
• 1:26:24
  you're right. I hope you're right, because I think he's the kind of
• 1:26:27
  guy that can win some win some leagues at the draft table next next year,
• 1:26:31
  or if you're in the dynasty league, he's probably right on the border
• 1:26:34
  because he's played in really really well lately that his owners probably are not gonna
• 1:26:40
  to let him go. So he's kind of one of those guys you need
• 1:26:44
  to sit and wait and see. If he has kind of just a very
• 1:26:46
  average into the season, that's a chance to pick him up, So how
• 1:26:49
  about you bring us home. Who's the last guy that you want to call
• 1:26:53
  out here? Yeah, the last guy I've got is Honestly, his price
• 1:26:58
  is super high right now in dynasty and keeper leagues because he started the first
• 1:27:03
  half of the ninety eight WRC plus even though it felt way way worse,
• 1:27:09
  but he especially because he was at that point hitting only two twenty five.
• 1:27:15
  But in the second half he has a two oh one WRC plus and is
• 1:27:17
  absolutely caught fire. And that is the twenty three year old Tristan Cassas.
• 1:27:21
  That the price of entry, if you're crying, if you're trying to trade
• 1:27:26
  former at this point, has got to be absolutely sky high. But I
• 1:27:30
  am paying it because if you want to talk red Baseball savant Pages Spencer,
• 1:27:40
  total sins is great, Tristan Cassas is is absolutely insane. The barrel rate
• 1:27:45
  is that the ninety first percentile the ex wobas and the ninety second percent tile
• 1:27:50
  x slug ninety first percent, tile walk percentage ninety four percentile. So the
• 1:27:57
  power is legit. Nobody wants to throw it in on him. He's just
• 1:28:01
  absolutely mashing the ball right now. He's got a huge frame and it's really
• 1:28:06
  great because, like I have really come to like him with his antics of
• 1:28:12
  like I don't know if you've seen him before game, he loves to do
• 1:28:16
  shirtless yoga like on the grass and he takes pregame naps and like ruffled some
• 1:28:23
  feathers with some veterans in Boston. But like now that he's hitting, nobody
• 1:28:28
  really cares. And I mean this guy, like I don't know what the
• 1:28:32
  limit is in terms of where it could end, because this hot stretch that
• 1:28:36
  he's shown over the past month is I mean exactly like what can happen in
• 1:28:43
  Boston in the summer, and kind of all the vibes are good and you
• 1:28:45
  got a lefty just pounding the ball at the Pesky Bowl. So Tristan Kasas
• 1:28:50
  is a huge buy for me still right now, Like I would pay whatever
• 1:28:55
  it takes because it's kind of a little bit like Tovar that we were talking
• 1:29:00
  about in a little bit with Torkelson, that he saw so many plate appearances
• 1:29:03
  at a young age, so that like you can just see things slowly clicking
• 1:29:08
  for him and even with all that crazy power, like he's only striking out
• 1:29:13
  twenty five percent at the time, which is not absurd for power hitters in
• 1:29:17
  today's day and age. I mean, I'll take that all day long.
• 1:29:20
  When that comes with the fourteen and a half percent barrel rate, hard hit
• 1:29:24
  percentage in the second half is forty five percent, and so like it is
• 1:29:30
  just he is just hammering it to all fields. It's not even like all
• 1:29:34
  poll power. He's only hitting it thirty six percent to the poll side in
• 1:29:38
  the second half. So it's just it's not even a hot streak. I
• 1:29:42
  don't want to call it a hot streak because like that implies like it's going
• 1:29:45
  to end and isn't who he is. But I think this is obviously it's
• 1:29:48
  not going to be a two a one WRC plus player the rest of his
• 1:29:51
  life. But like this is a guy that I think could be like a
• 1:29:56
  one fifty one sixty And like if you're thinking about, you know, wherever
• 1:30:01
  you're done is kind of going in drafts. I don't know if like Tristan
• 1:30:05
  Cassas is production next year will be lagging terribly far behind, just showing kind
• 1:30:12
  of what he's been able to to turn into over the past two months.
• 1:30:16
  Yeah, I think you're right, he's surprised. I will I will say
• 1:30:20
  that, you know, it was one of those that doesn't sure if he
• 1:30:23
  was gonna get enough chances in Boston. I do wonder if he was coming
• 1:30:28
  up when they had more competitive teams, if he would have got enough chances.
• 1:30:31
  But he seems like he's really, really has proven himself. And I
• 1:30:34
  know you're you've probably got a Savant page up there, so I'm gonna tell
• 1:30:38
  you he's not a scroll. And guess who's the number one comp for Tristan
• 1:30:45
  casas well? I just butchered his name, by the way, but who's
• 1:30:51
  the number one comp from Baseball Savant for Tristan. I'm just gonna go Tristan
• 1:30:59
  at this point, and I've ruined it for for the season. Uh so
• 1:31:03
  on the season m hm. Honestly, I'm gonna go with yardon Spencer Torkelson.
• 1:31:11
  No way, really Spencer Torkelson. So it's it's it's funny the way
• 1:31:15
  that we we finished this out because those two have such identical profiles, and
• 1:31:23
  uh, you know, to your point, I think the market is going
• 1:31:28
  to drive a lot of that. Where Torkelson's value might not be there playing
• 1:31:32
  similar, they're gonna hit similar I think the one big things for Casas is
• 1:31:39
  that he his walk rate is very very strong, So I think it's it's
• 1:31:45
  a good pick to end us on today. Yeah, I liked all the
• 1:31:50
  dudes that we picked that like. I think they all can are very gettable
• 1:31:54
  in dynasties and keepers at like certain prices. Obviously, I think we offered
• 1:31:59
  a couple of different price ranges, but for all of them, I'm willing
• 1:32:01
  to pay for it, and I feel much better than I feel like the
• 1:32:04
  Sprint Speed on this last one here recentile Yeah, I was gonna ask you
• 1:32:11
  about it. Yeah, that one, that one makes a little bit more.
• 1:32:14
  I feel. I feel vindicated. I if for cusses as Sprint Speed
• 1:32:19
  was like, uh you know, eightieth Percentile'm like I'm done, I'm going
• 1:32:23
  home. So okay, Well yeah with that, we'll wrap it up.
• 1:32:28
  Jeremy, can you remind everybody where to find you? Yep. Find me
• 1:32:31
  out on x Slash, Twitter, Jay Brewer one seven, find me on
• 1:32:36
  the weekends on razball doing top one hundred hitters, doing your hitter profiles.
• 1:32:41
  Uh reel free, reach out to me wherever you can. Glad to chat
• 1:32:45
  and I have a little debate on these guys or anybody else Mike, how
• 1:32:48
  about you? Where can we find you? Yeah, you can find me
• 1:32:51
  on x slash, Twitter at m cool seven and on razball dot com.
• 1:32:56
  Writing on weekends on the Waiver Wire and FABS so that runs on Saturdays.
• 1:33:00
  So same thing. If you've got comments questions on this podcast, you can
• 1:33:05
  leave it on the posting on raz ball or you can come and attack us
• 1:33:11
  on our individual articles that run on the weekends. So also just want to
• 1:33:15
  put in another plug for raz ball overall, and getting a subscription gets you
• 1:33:19
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• 1:33:42
  from razball dot com. We appreciate you checking us out and we'll see you
• 1:33:45
  next week. Thank you very much.