Latest / The House Always Wins Media Network | A’s Baseball Podcasts / A’s Rollercoaster Week: Bolte’s Call-Up & Wilson’s Injury

Transcript

A’s Rollercoaster Week: Bolte’s Call-Up & Wilson’s Injury · The House Always Wins Media Network | A’s Baseball Podcasts

• 0:00
  What's up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of where stats meet instinct. I'm
• 0:07
  your host Sam. And if you listen to my show on Monday of last week you wouldn't have even
• 0:11
  had to watch any A's baseball the last few days. So last week I came on here and I said
• 0:18
  the A's are probably going to lose the first two games of the series in Philly and everybody's
• 0:23
  going to freak out. Check and check. Then I said they'd probably win game three and
• 0:27
  then they would go into Baltimore and they would win two out of three. Got those right
• 0:31
  too. I also was talking about how I think they're going to start playing Gelof at third
• 0:36
  after Copsey's press conference. I believe it was last Sunday. And this week he's basically
• 0:41
  played third base the entire week for the first time for him since I believe college
• 0:45
  baseball. And I said it's the right time for the A's to call up Bolte. He made me look
• 0:51
  really smart by going 12 for 12 this week with four home runs in two games. And he just
• 0:57
  got the call up. So hopefully we keep it rolling today with some of the prediction stuff. Overall
• 1:05
  I thought this week was fine for the A's. It was like I said it was what I predicted.
• 1:10
  Philadelphia going in there without Shane Langley facing two of the best pitchers in
• 1:13
  Major League Baseball was always going to be a challenge. They were able to get the
• 1:16
  game that they needed to get in game three and that was huge for the A's. Going into
• 1:21
  Baltimore really interesting series there. The first game I didn't think the A's deserved
• 1:27
  to win at all really. They really basically strung a bunch of bloop hits together and
• 1:34
  got three runs. And if you look at it every hit was a ground ball or it was as much of
• 1:38
  a bloop as there can possibly be right. The Orioles had a couple home runs. Jacob Lopez
• 1:44
  danced around some things. But at the end of the day you don't have to apologize for
• 1:48
  ugly wins. Because at the end of the season you're just going to look at that box score
• 1:52
  and say hey that was a win. We're not going to remember it was an ugly win or a pretty
• 1:55
  win. We're just going to remember that was a win. It goes in the W column. And so that
• 2:00
  was a good first win for the A's of the series. Game two I thought they really put some things
• 2:04
  together. I thought that was one of their better games of the year. Savalle somehow
• 2:11
  he keeps pitching through all this traffic. I don't know if that's going to last forever.
• 2:15
  But let's enjoy him getting through these outings the way he is while it lasts right
• 2:19
  now. He loaded the bases in the fourth was able to get out of it or in the fifth was
• 2:24
  able to get out of it. Give the A's five shutout innings. Like I said he's a guy that I think
• 2:28
  is going to consistently give you five innings. It's just a matter of if it's going to be
• 2:32
  five innings one run or five innings three runs. Right. Or five innings five runs on
• 2:35
  a rough day. But he did his job. They went into the last game and they just didn't really
• 2:41
  hit. It's major league baseball. It doesn't really matter who the opposing pitcher is.
• 2:46
  There's going to be days where they're going to have their way with you a little bit because
• 2:51
  at the end of the day they're major league pitching. They're major league pitchers and
• 2:54
  pitching is going to be hitting on the right day. But still you look back at that series.
• 3:00
  You took two out of three from Baltimore. You got the one win in Philadelphia and you
• 3:05
  kind of kept the momentum rolling forward. Right. They haven't been playing great the
• 3:10
  last few weeks but what they've avoided is the losing streak. Right. They've avoided
• 3:14
  the really bad stretch and they've actually gotten some really good starting pitching
• 3:19
  during that stretch which has been really good to see. Now how long will that last.
• 3:23
  We might touch on that a little bit later. But overall I think it was a solid week. Now
• 3:29
  there's some big news obviously with the A's. So Jacob Wilson goes down yesterday. A's are
• 3:35
  saying as of this moment while I'm recording it that it's a shoulder sprain. We don't know
• 3:40
  how long it's going to he's going to be out for. I thought the way he dove and stuff that
• 3:44
  he might have dislocated it. I think that's still maybe on the table. I don't know. But
• 3:50
  we'll see. It could be a shorter term injury. It could be longer term. Now listen I don't
• 3:56
  think anyone's going to be super excited about the options the A's have to fill in for Jacob
• 4:03
  Wilson. I really think it's just Darryl Hernandez if I'm making the decision. And Darryl Hernandez
• 4:10
  is not exciting. Right. If he's playing shortstop for two weeks no big deal. Right. That's fine.
• 4:16
  If it's going to be like a three month injury then obviously Darryl Hernandez playing shortstop
• 4:21
  might become a little bit more of a problem. But what you're going to get from Darryl Hernandez
• 4:24
  is you're going to get solid defense at shortstop. You're probably going to get a guy if it's
• 4:28
  between 230 and 250 without much power he's not going to strike out a lot though and you're
• 4:34
  going to be able to count on him to put the ball in play. Right. It's boring but it's
• 4:39
  not the end of the world. Now I was trying to think if there was really any other options.
• 4:45
  I don't think there's any other real options that are an improvement on Darryl Hernandez.
• 4:49
  You have Drew Swift in the minor leagues who's supposed to be a really good defender at shortstop
• 4:55
  but the bat is really light there. You're going to get even less power than Hernandez
• 5:00
  and you're going to get even less average than Hernandez and you're not really going
• 5:04
  to get the defense isn't going to be so significantly better that it's worth making a 40 man roster.
• 5:11
  Right. So we're just going to have to ride with Hernandez for a while. It's going to
• 5:16
  be boring but it's probably not going to set the A's back in a super dramatic fashion if
• 5:22
  he's only in there for a couple of weeks. If it's more than that obviously that's over
• 5:25
  an extended period of time is when you're going to start to miss Wilson. It does create
• 5:29
  a little bit of a hole in the lineup right. Hernandez isn't a great hitter. One thing
• 5:33
  the A's have had in the are kind of starting to build is a lineup that's really deep and
• 5:37
  doesn't really have any significant holes in it. Hernandez is just going to be like
• 5:42
  a guy right. He's just going to be league average and he's just going to kind of be
• 5:47
  a guy, a replacement level player which is fine. It's what you need out of a backup that's
• 5:52
  filling in for a few weeks but it's not going to be exciting and that's kind of what it
• 5:57
  is. Now I know there's some people clamoring for Leo, Leo DeVries in the minor leagues.
• 6:03
  I don't really think that the injury to Wilson really affects Leo's timeline at all right.
• 6:10
  I've said that before on here. I think Leo's on his own schedule. When the A's feel he's
• 6:13
  ready for AAA they're going to call him up to AAA. When they feel like he's ready for
• 6:16
  the big leagues they're going to call him up to the big leagues. It doesn't matter what
• 6:20
  the roster construction looks like. It's going to be Leo's timeline because they view him
• 6:24
  as a future cornerstone player. Now Leo's kind of running into a cold stretch in AA.
• 6:28
  I don't put too much stock into that. I don't really think it's worth going up and down
• 6:34
  with a bad week or two. I think he's the same player he was two or three weeks ago. If they
• 6:39
  wanted to call him up they would have and I kind of agree with them right now like let's
• 6:44
  give him more seasoning. Let's give him more seasoning. Another month or two in AA then
• 6:50
  you probably get him up to AAA. Realistically I think unless he just goes on one of these
• 6:56
  Henry Bolt A type tears I don't think you see him until September is like my realistic
• 7:01
  expectation for Leo. So it's going to be an A's. It's not going to be exciting but that's
• 7:05
  kind of the only option. Now it does kind of expose that the A's don't have a ton of
• 7:09
  depth in the minor leagues on the infield. AAA you look through the infielders and there's
• 7:17
  not really anyone there that you can call to the big leagues right now and be excited
• 7:22
  about. You really have to go to AA to find that and so it's just one of those things
• 7:27
  where it's going to be her names. Now maybe they call up Karoda Grauer to AAA to take
• 7:33
  Bolt A's place. I would think that's probably the move because you probably want to get
• 7:37
  another shortstop option up to the highest level of the minor leagues that if her nays
• 7:42
  really really struggles and this guy has a good month then maybe you could move that
• 7:46
  guy into that position. It could be Leo. I think it'll be Karoda Grauer who they move
• 7:50
  up into AAA. At least that's what I hope they do at this point to give him a little bit
• 7:56
  more seasoning at the highest level of minor leagues so that if her nays gets her if her
• 8:02
  nays doesn't perform you have a guy that actually can provide you some level of ceiling
• 8:08
  that is going to can move into that spot. So we'll see. But with that the good news
• 8:14
  is Henry Bolte got called up right. It's a bittersweet transaction because obviously
• 8:19
  it sucks to see Jacob Wilson go down but you do get to see the guy that's absolutely been
• 8:23
  tearing the cover off the ball in AAA and that I've been calling for to be called up
• 8:27
  in Henry Bolte. So Bolte had one of the best weeks in minor league history this last week.
• 8:33
  He went 12 for 12 during a stretch during a two game stretch. He was 10 for 10 with
• 8:39
  four home runs. So he was absolutely on fire. So I want to talk about what to expect from
• 8:44
  Henry Bolte and we'll cover this fairly briefly. I think a lot of people have already touched
• 8:49
  on this a little bit. Bolte is probably going to play center field would be my guess. I
• 8:53
  think he's going to play every day against lefties. I am praying it doesn't turn into
• 8:57
  a straight platoon situation. That's what I don't want these to do because I want the
• 9:01
  A's to give Bolte a little bit of run. But the issue is you just have so many outfielders
• 9:06
  on this roster. I think calling up Bolte was the right thing obviously because he's kicked
• 9:11
  the door down to get to the big leagues. But at the same time it's such a weird roster
• 9:15
  construction now because you have so many outfielders and so few infielders and you
• 9:20
  need to find a way to get all of those outfielders onto the field to some degree. So what I'm
• 9:25
  hoping is that Bolte isn't limited to a platoon. What I'm hoping is that he plays maybe 50%
• 9:30
  of the time against righties and that he plays every day against lefties and in total you
• 9:36
  know you'd get him 60% playing time something like that 75 70% playing time. I don't know
• 9:42
  the math but that you get him a decent amount of playing time where he can actually show
• 9:46
  what he can do. Now Bolte is extremely excited. He's incredibly fast. He has incredible raw power.
• 9:55
  Now he has a very interesting prospect because although he has incredible raw power and although
• 10:00
  he's hit a lot of home runs in the minor leagues very recently, he's a guy that hits a lot of
• 10:05
  ground balls. And so I don't think personally there's going to be a ton of power initially.
• 10:12
  That power might come in a few weeks or in a few months as he kind of gets more mature and gets
• 10:19
  used to facing big league pitching. I think what you're going to get is a guy that hits a lot of
• 10:23
  ground balls. Now sometimes that's a bad thing right like with Denzel Clark it's not great because
• 10:27
  that's literally all he does. Now Bolte hits a few more fly balls than him. Typically a lot of his
• 10:32
  fly balls are to the right side too but he has the power to leave the yard that way. But he's
• 10:36
  going to hit a lot of ground balls. Now with his speed I think a lot of those are going to turn
• 10:40
  into hits and once he gets on base he's going to steal a ton of bases I think. I kind of hope they
• 10:45
  don't hit him in the nine spot because you're not going to be stealing a ton in front of Kurtz
• 10:49
  because then guys are just going to pitch around Kurtz or you just don't want to get thrown out
• 10:56
  in front of the top of the order. So I'm hoping he kind of hits seventh or eighth. I'm hoping
• 11:03
  that he gets on base, he steals a bunch of bases, he is able to make enough contact and hit enough
• 11:09
  balls in the air to be productive at the plate. But regardless I think he's going to be a really
• 11:13
  exciting player to watch. I think he's a guy that can come in and provide a ton of energy, can provide
• 11:20
  just a high motor guy and a guy that can really add a spark to this lineup. That's what I'm really
• 11:25
  hoping for. If the power comes great but it's not absolutely necessary that he hit for power
• 11:31
  right away in the big leagues and I hope he kind of goes in with that mentality of like hey I don't
• 11:34
  have to hit for a ton of power, this lineup's going to have a ton of power regardless and I just
• 11:39
  need to go in there and put the bat on the ball and run and kind of be this guy that ignites the
• 11:44
  back of the line. I think that's what you can expect from him. Now with his defense, there's
• 11:50
  been some questions about his defense. He has a strong arm and he's really fast so I think he's
• 11:55
  going to make some really plus plays in the outfield. What I've read specifically if Fan
• 12:00
  was talking about this a couple weeks ago that I was reading, they said he doesn't have great
• 12:05
  ball skills when the ball's in the air so as he gets closer to the wall he tends to lose feel for
• 12:11
  where the ball is, stuff like that. When he has to leave his feet the ball doesn't end up in his
• 12:15
  glove as much as it should so that kind of causes his defense to play down a little bit compared to
• 12:20
  what the tools say it should be but regardless this is a guy that is going to play centerfield.
• 12:27
  Hopefully he gets on the field enough where he can actually show what he can do. Again as fans,
• 12:32
  I wouldn't expect just a ton of power right from the get-go but expect this guy to be someone that
• 12:37
  ignites the bottom of the line. That's really what I'm hoping for with him. Now this team right now,
• 12:43
  I think I wrote out the amount of guys who can play outfield for this team at this moment and
• 12:47
  I don't know if I've ever seen a major league roster with this many guys who can play or have
• 12:53
  played outfield this year. So you have Bolte who we just talked about, Soderstrom, Butler, Cortez,
• 12:59
  Thomas, Gelof, Rooker, McNeil. Those guys have all played the outfield this year. So that's eight guys
• 13:06
  on the current roster that can play the outfield and that's a really weird construction. Now obviously
• 13:12
  Gelof is going to play third which he's looked good. I think his arm is there's going to be
• 13:18
  times where his arm doesn't allow him to make certain plays at third but his range should kind
• 13:24
  of make up for that and he's looked good over there so far. You got McNeil is going to play second,
• 13:30
  Rooker's going to DH. So that leaves Thomas, Cortez, Butler, Soderstrom, Bolte as the guys
• 13:36
  playing outfield. Now Soderstrom is probably going to play every single day. He's going to
• 13:41
  play every single day. That's just it is what it is. He's not hitting lefties right now but
• 13:45
  other than maybe one day off a week, I think he's playing every single day. I want Bolte
• 13:51
  to play quite a bit. Cortez and Thomas are in a platoon in right field. I think that's at this
• 13:57
  point the right move. You got Cortez who crushes righties. You got Thomas who crushes lefties.
• 14:04
  That's going to work. Now Butler's the interesting one. Now I want to make something clear. A lot of
• 14:10
  people say hey get rid of Butler or trade Butler. Well if you want Butler traded, you want him
• 14:17
  playing every day because that's the only way he's going to get his trade value up to the point
• 14:22
  where you can break even on a trade. I don't mean like get a significant amount in return. I just
• 14:28
  mean being able to move that contract without having to take on another bad contract from
• 14:32
  another team or having to pay a significant amount. The contract is team-friendly right now
• 14:36
  but it gets less team-friendly as it goes and right now he's hitting 180. Odds are you're not
• 14:43
  going to find somebody that's going to take that on. What he's going to need to do is get in the
• 14:47
  lineup to rebuild that trade value. Now if he does what he did last year, if in a month he's
• 14:52
  hitting 230 and instead of three home runs he has seven home runs and he's playing good defense
• 14:57
  and right, yeah at that point you may want to move him but he has to play in order to build up that
• 15:01
  value. It's going to be interesting to see what they do here. They basically have five guys for
• 15:07
  three spots and really if you include Rooker at the DH spot, you have six guys for four spots.
• 15:14
  Rooker is going to play every day. Soderstrom is going to play every day. That really leaves
• 15:18
  Bolte, Butler, Cortez, Thomas with two spots. It's interesting because I'm going back and
• 15:28
  forth. I don't want Bolte to be platooned but I also don't want Butler to just get completely
• 15:33
  buried unless it's temporary. With Butler, you still have to think of the long game if you're
• 15:37
  the A's. You've committed to him for better or worse. You've committed to him and you're still
• 15:42
  going to have to figure out a way to maintain his value or get value out of him. He has to be on the
• 15:50
  field to do that. We'll see what happens there. I really don't think they're going to send him down.
• 15:54
  Maybe I'm wrong about that but I really don't foresee that happening. I'm going to be interested
• 15:57
  to see how that playing time shakes out. Regardless, guys, Bolte's up in the big leagues.
• 16:01
  That's exciting. This is a guy that adds a dynamic element to this offense and could be really,
• 16:07
  really fun to watch. That's a recap of the A's at shortstop which is going to be probably boring
• 16:19
  but steady with Hernandez. I think that's probably what you're going to get out of him.
• 16:24
  It's not that exciting. It is what it is. There's not a lot of depth in the organization.
• 16:29
  Kind of actually makes me think back to when they DFA'd Max Schumann. It would have been
• 16:33
  nice to have him right now as at least an alternative to Hernandez in case Hernandez
• 16:38
  struggled. But obviously, they DFA'd him. He's with the Yankees now. It is what it is.
• 16:43
  But yeah, there's just not really anyone in AAA that you would think can step into that role and
• 16:47
  do any better than Hernandez. So it is Hernandez. That's kind of what it is. I don't think Gelof
• 16:52
  is really a viable option at shortstop. I've heard people throw around Brett Harris in the
• 16:57
  middle infield, Cortez playing the infield. I don't really think either of those are super
• 17:01
  viable options. So I think it just is what it is. It's Hernandez. And on the outfield,
• 17:06
  you have the opposite problem. You have a million different guys for a couple spots. All of them
• 17:12
  bring significant upside. All of them are talented. Every single one of those guys,
• 17:16
  we've seen do really good things at the big league level except Bolte. And Bolte is the
• 17:20
  one we're all excited about right now. So we'll see what happens. One of these episodes, I'll
• 17:25
  kind of touch on trading an outfielder for a starting pitcher. I think there's a very specific
• 17:30
  type of trade that that would have to be. But we'll get into that another day.
• 17:36
  One thing I wanted to talk about now that we're on the topic of future with the A's,
• 17:42
  Bolte's here, I wanted to talk about the draft a little bit. The draft is coming up in June,
• 17:49
  I believe. It's right around the all-star break. So it's still a little ways out,
• 17:54
  but there's a lot of mock drafts coming out now. And there's a lot of buzz surrounding the minor
• 17:59
  league or the amateur draft. And so I kind of wanted to touch on that and kind of share
• 18:06
  some of my thoughts about the draft, break down kind of some things that the A's have done,
• 18:09
  and then some things to look out for the rest of the way leading up to the draft.
• 18:13
  So first of all, the A's have absolutely crushed the draft the last couple of years, right? They've
• 18:20
  absolutely crushed the draft. And this is actually going back a little while now. If you think about
• 18:24
  it, you have Soderstrom, you have Kurtz, you have Wilson. Those are three all-star-ish caliber
• 18:31
  players. I know Soderstrom's off to a little bit of a slow start, but all-star-ish caliber players.
• 18:37
  You have guys like Muncie that they've drafted. You have guys like Gates Jump, who looks really
• 18:42
  good in the minor leagues right now. They drafted Jamie Arnold last year, who was kind of universally
• 18:49
  expected to be taken before the A's pick. And that's a move that the A's have received a lot
• 18:54
  of high praise for. So the A's have absolutely killed the draft at this point. So I wanted to
• 18:59
  talk about what they do. So what the A's have done the last few years is they typically take a guy
• 19:08
  with a long track record of performance, right? So you have Nick Kurtz. He was a three-year
• 19:14
  starter at Wake Forest. He was on the radar that whole time. He put together three solid years. His
• 19:20
  last year was actually, I think, his worst year. But really, really good college player for a long
• 19:25
  time that scouts have been on for a while. Jacob Wilson, same thing, three-year starter, performed
• 19:30
  every single year, was good every single year. Jamie Arnold on the pitching side, very, very
• 19:35
  similar to that, where he was a guy that performed really, really well, especially his last two
• 19:41
  years. But they're taking these guys with a track record of performance. Now, on the offensive side,
• 19:47
  I think the A's just take the hitter they feel the most confident is going to hit.
• 19:51
  So the safest hit tool, right? And that's worked out really, really well for them. I remember when
• 19:56
  they drafted Kurtz, they basically said they thought he was the best combination of power,
• 20:00
  swing decisions, and contact in the draft. And they were right about that, right? They were 100%
• 20:05
  right about that. Jacob Wilson, that pick actually reminds me of kind of how I feel about the A's
• 20:10
  pick this year a little bit. And we'll get into that in a second. But that draft, there was
• 20:14
  basically this consensus that there was a big five at the start of the draft. Well, the A's had the
• 20:20
  sixth pick. So they were going to be basically be taking from the second tier of players after the
• 20:27
  five top prospects were gone. So what they did is they basically took a guy and Jacob Wilson that
• 20:32
  was projected to go around 10 in the draft. And they drafted him and signed him to a little bit
• 20:39
  lower of a bonus than was expected for the sixth slot. And that's something that would
• 20:44
  take too long to get into. But with the baseball draft, it's different from like the NFL draft.
• 20:50
  In the MLB draft, like you can get a first round talent in the third round if you save the money
• 20:55
  for that, right? You can float players down. You can save money in early rounds by drafting guy
• 21:00
  that's maybe like the 20th best prospect at number eight. And then you can save that money that by
• 21:06
  cutting a deal with that player and spend it on higher level talent later in the draft. It's
• 21:11
  totally different than other sports, but regardless, they saved money on Jacob Wilson.
• 21:16
  And that allowed them, I believe, to sign Echeverria in a third round pick. And they signed
• 21:21
  for a lot more than typical third round picks. Even with Nick Kurtz, they cut a deal with him
• 21:26
  to sign for below slot money. And they use that savings to sign Tommy White and Gage Jump in the
• 21:31
  second round and in the compensation round after the third, I believe, or after the second. Both
• 21:38
  those guys signed for over slot, meaning they basically were valued at higher than where they
• 21:42
  would have more money than where they were picked in the draft. So that's kind of what the A's have
• 21:46
  done. They've taken these really safe hitters where maybe there's some questions about like
• 21:50
  positional value, or maybe there's some questions about other tools, like with Jacob Wilson, like
• 21:57
  he didn't have the power or didn't have the plus speed or whatever, but they basically have taken
• 22:01
  really safe hit tools. So on the hitting side, if they take a hitter at number eight, that's kind of
• 22:07
  what I expect them to do. On the pitching side, this is a really weird year for the draft, for
• 22:12
  college pitching specifically. So I know there's this huge group of A's fans, because I see it all
• 22:17
  the time, that's clamoring for the A's to take a pitcher at number eight. Well, this year, the
• 22:24
  college pitching class, I was listening to a podcast by Baseball America, and they were saying
• 22:27
  the college pitching class this year is pretty bad, like it's well below average. So you basically
• 22:32
  have one guy who separated himself at the top, and that's Jackson Flora from UCSB. He is probably
• 22:38
  going to go in the top four picks, top five. I don't really think there's much of a chance he
• 22:44
  slips to the A spot at number eight. And really, in this draft, there's kind of a big four. There's
• 22:50
  really a first tier with like Rock Cholowski and Grady Emerson, who are considered like the clear
• 22:55
  top two players. And then after that, three fours, Flora and Von Lackey, a catcher from Georgia Tech.
• 23:00
  And then after that, you're kind of just in this weird middle ground where it's like, kind of your
• 23:05
  preference of things, right? And that's kind of where the A's fit into this draft. Now, all the
• 23:09
  other college pitchers that were expected to go at the top of the draft have really struggled.
• 23:14
  Cameron Flukie from Coastal Carolina was expected to be like a really high draft pick this year.
• 23:19
  He got hurt, and then he's really struggled since he's been back. So now he's kind of being talked
• 23:23
  about more middle of the first round, or later in the first round than near the top of the draft.
• 23:29
  Liam Peterson was a pitcher from Florida. This is a guy that has all the makings of a
• 23:34
  legit starter, but he has a career five ERA at Florida. He's never really put it together.
• 23:40
  And so he's kind of talked about more towards the middle to back of the first round. So
• 23:47
  those were basically the three guys at the beginning of this draft cycle. It was Flora,
• 23:51
  Flukie, Peterson. Now one seems like he's going to go way ahead of the A spot. The other two seem
• 23:56
  like they would be big time reaches for the A's to draft him at number eight. So there's not really
• 24:02
  a pitcher that fits that pick at number eight, at least how things look at the moment. So there's
• 24:08
  a couple of guys that have risen in the draft. Hunter Dietz from Arkansas. He's a left-handed
• 24:13
  pitcher from Arkansas. He had only thrown one and two thirds innings before this season of
• 24:17
  college baseball, and he's been really good at Arkansas. I don't see the A's drafting that
• 24:21
  because the A's value track record based on their last few draft picks, even with high school players
• 24:26
  like Soderstrom was on the map for a long time when they took him out of high school. So I don't
• 24:31
  really see that being the pick. There's a guy, Cade Townsend from Ole Miss, who's kind of floated
• 24:36
  up draft boards a little bit. Logan Redmond from UCLA was being talked about as like a guy who
• 24:41
  could work his way to like the middle of the first round, but then he's had some injury stuff. So
• 24:46
  there's not really a clear cut pitcher at this moment. Now that doesn't mean a pitcher can't rise
• 24:51
  late, right? That does happen. There's the best example of that is probably Cade Horton,
• 24:56
  who is with the Chicago Cubs right now. And he was in the rookie of the year discussion last year.
• 25:03
  I can't remember if he won it. I don't think he did. I think Drake Baldwin won it, but I think
• 25:06
  he was second in rookie of the year voting. He was a guy that was like projected kind of like a middle
• 25:10
  round pick. And then very, very late in the year, like his last couple of starts, he moved up and
• 25:15
  ended up being drafted in the top 10. So that can happen. But at this moment, it doesn't really look
• 25:21
  like there's any pitchers that fit at number eight, right? That fit at number eight. So
• 25:30
  that's it with the pitchers. Now the college hitters are interesting because around eight,
• 25:34
  there's a handful of guys that are being mocked to the A's. They all have upside, but they all
• 25:40
  have some concerns as well. And none of them are like surefire, like this is the guy. So a couple
• 25:46
  of them that I'll mention, Drew Burris from Texas Tech, he's a guy or Georgia Tech. He's a guy that
• 25:52
  has really performed at the college level his whole career, right? So he fits the A's profile
• 25:57
  in that way. He had one of the best freshmen seasons in the history of college baseball.
• 26:01
  He had a good sophomore season. This season, he actually got off to a little bit of a slow start.
• 26:05
  If you had to rank all the seasons, this would probably be his worst one. But even so he's
• 26:09
  hitting like 370 with like 14 home runs or something like that. He's gotten hot lately.
• 26:14
  And he's done well the last few weeks. He's undersized. He's 5'8", but he's a true center
• 26:21
  fielder that hits for power. And he's performed at the college level. So I could see that being
• 26:26
  a guy that A's are very interested in. Another guy, AJ Garcia, he's an outfielder from Virginia,
• 26:32
  left-handed hitter, probably a corner outfielder, but he's the same thing where he has this long
• 26:37
  track record of hitting. He started his college career at Duke. He's always hit. He went to,
• 26:40
  he's at Virginia, he's hit. So I could see him being a guy that the A's take
• 26:46
  with that spot and being a guy that really fits their profile.
• 26:53
  Ryder Helfrich, I believe his first name is Ryder Helfrich, catcher from Arkansas.
• 26:57
  This is a guy that's kind of in that Shea Langoliers mold. He's viewed as like a really
• 27:01
  good defensive catcher that hits for power. There's actually some questions about the bat,
• 27:05
  although that's improved a little bit this year. So he might not fit like this, like very safe
• 27:10
  bat that the A's usually take, but he's a guy that is the most valuable position in baseball,
• 27:19
  right? Other than pitcher. And he's hitting well and he's doing some good things and he's
• 27:25
  been mocked to the A's as well. Chris Akopian from Texas A&M, he's a college hitter. He's
• 27:32
  viewed as like a really, really good bat, but he hasn't had a great year this year. He's worked
• 27:38
  through some injuries kind of over time, but some teams view him as like the best bat in the draft,
• 27:42
  even though he's only hitting 290 this year. Those are all guys I've seen mocked the A's.
• 27:47
  There's other guys, there's the shortstop from Alabama, Justin LeBron, who's like,
• 27:50
  doesn't really fit the A's profile. He's super toolsy, a ton of tools, but there's some serious
• 27:55
  questions about his ability to actually hit, especially quality pitching. But he's a guy I've
• 28:01
  seen connected with the A's, but these are kind of some guys that fit, I think, what the A's do
• 28:06
  and that are going to be drafted around the range the A's pick if nothing else changes.
• 28:10
  Now, what I think the A's will do is what they've done in the past. Unless there's someone who
• 28:14
  really falls to them, like one of those top four guys falls to them, I think they'll basically
• 28:20
  pick out of this group of college hitters, and there's a few I missed, there's like
• 28:24
  nine or 10 hitters that could be drafted around this range of the college hitters. I think they'll
• 28:30
  basically take the three or four of them they like the best, and we'll see which one will sign
• 28:34
  for the least amount of money, and they'll make that guy their pick, right? So like, hypothetically,
• 28:39
  if it's Drew Burris from Georgia Tech, and he's willing to sign for the least amount of money,
• 28:44
  that's the guy who will be their pick. And then what they'll do is they'll use that savings and
• 28:49
  take a little bit more of an upside guy in round two or three. Now, if you're talking about college
• 28:56
  pitching, at the top of the draft, it's kind of bare, but there's some really interesting college
• 29:01
  pitchers that the A's could probably float to 48 and do what they did with Gage Jump, right? Take
• 29:07
  some savings on a hitter in the first round, and then in a round a little bit later, basically
• 29:12
  draft a college pitcher with a bunch of upside, right? Mason Edwards from USC is having like a
• 29:18
  historically great season at USC. He doesn't throw super hard, but he's a guy, if you look at his
• 29:24
  numbers, they're absolutely ridiculous, like one of the best college seasons you'll ever see.
• 29:30
  Arizona State has a left-hander, I'm forgetting his name off the top of my head right now, I might
• 29:33
  look it up while I'm talking, but he's a left-handed pitcher that is up to 100 miles an hour, and
• 29:40
  is supposed to have like the best slider in this draft, so he's a guy I could see the A's taking
• 29:46
  a shot on. Cole Carlin, that's the guy's name, from Arizona State. Wes Mendez from Florida State
• 29:54
  is another guy around that range. There's some really good college pitchers that you can get in
• 29:59
  the second round, and I think if you're the A's, I totally agree you build pitching through the draft.
• 30:06
  Having said that, pitching is the most risky stock to take highly, just because there's so
• 30:11
  many injuries with pitchers. There's actually this school of thought that you don't take pitchers at
• 30:15
  the top of the draft, what you do is you add volume of pitchers, because what you'll see in
• 30:20
  prospect lists throughout the minor leagues is a ton of those guys that are really highly ranked
• 30:24
  were not actually took first round picks, they were drafted a little later, and that's because
• 30:28
  with pitching there's so much injury, there's so much volatility, stuff like that. The same reason
• 30:33
  it's risky to sign for agent pitchers is the same reason it's risky to draft pitchers in the first
• 30:39
  round. So there is this idea, and I think the A's have kind of stuck to this, unless like there's a
• 30:43
  situation like Jamie Arnold, clearly the best player on the board, where you draft volume of
• 30:48
  pitchers and you basically trust your guys to develop a few of them. So there's some options
• 30:56
  there, there's some hitters that I really like in the second, third round too, we'll probably get
• 31:01
  into those as we get closer to the draft. But yeah, that's kind of what I've gathered from
• 31:07
  researching the draft. At eight, if you really want a pitcher, you're going to have to probably
• 31:12
  seriously reach for a pitcher unless something changes. In the second round though, there's a
• 31:17
  lot of great options. In terms of what the A's have done in the past, like these college performers
• 31:22
  offensively that have a long track record of success, there's definitely a few guys that fit
• 31:27
  that profile for the A's. So keep your eye out for those guys, Drew Burris, AJ Garcia, Ryder Helfrich,
• 31:32
  Chris Akopian, those are some guys that really fit. There's probably a couple others I'm missing as
• 31:38
  well. If you're somebody that is like, hey, I want the A's to draft the highest upside high
• 31:45
  schoolers, because there's always a handful of people in the fan base that are like, the highest
• 31:50
  upside high schooler is what I want because I want a guy that can turn into an absolute superstar.
• 31:55
  I kind of disagree with that line of logic because college players turned into superstars
• 31:59
  just as much, but if you want high schoolers with a ton of upside, Eric Booth Jr. is an outfielder
• 32:07
  from Mississippi, a high school kid who is basically viewed as like the highest upside high,
• 32:14
  like maybe the highest upside player in this entire draft. He's got all the tools to be like a
• 32:20
  big time prospect, but obviously there's a lot of volatility with drafting that type of player.
• 32:25
  Jacob Lombard is an infielder that's almost the same profile that they could take at eight,
• 32:30
  maybe he'll probably be gone before eight, but maybe where it's like he's got every tool in the
• 32:35
  entire book, but there's some questions about the hit tool, but if the hit tool works, he could be
• 32:39
  like one of these guys that's a top 10 prospect in baseball. The pitching version of that, and I
• 32:45
  really don't see the A's taking a high school pitcher with the eighth pick, but if they did,
• 32:51
  Brody Bumilla is a six foot nine left-hander from Massachusetts that's been up to 101 miles an hour.
• 33:00
  They basically say he's like the best fastball in the entire draft, high school or college,
• 33:04
  six foot nine, he's athletic, but again, there's a ton of risk to that pick. But if you're looking
• 33:10
  for the A's to take like the highest upside guys, those would be some guys I named for you.
• 33:15
  But yeah, I just want to do a show where we talk a little bit about the future. A's are rolling into
• 33:19
  a series against St. Louis. St. Louis is a team that is designed a little bit differently from
• 33:24
  the A's, but they're similar in that they're off to a good start this year. They're kind of a young
• 33:28
  developing team that's kind of taking some teams by surprise, but at the same time,
• 33:34
  they're one of these teams that their run differential is not great. They've had some
• 33:40
  ups and downs, but it's going to be a grinded out type series for the A's.
• 33:45
  It'll be really tough to take two of three. Hopefully they're able to pull that off and
• 33:49
  take two of three. That would be a huge series for the A's, but we will be back here on Thursday
• 33:54
  to talk about that. We'll have plenty of time to wrap up the Cardinal series then.
• 33:59
  But that's what I got for you guys today, guys. Again, Henry Bolte got called up. Super,
• 34:05
  super exciting time for the A's. Hopefully they can match their way to a few wins this week.
• 34:09
  The draft is coming up, guys. Keep your eye on some of those names, some of those prospects.
• 34:13
  I love following that stuff. It's one of my favorite things. It's just like following
• 34:16
  prospects, following the draft. It's basically seeing how the A's build a winning roster over
• 34:22
  time. But we'll wrap it up there, guys. Hit like, hit subscribe. It helps our channel a
• 34:27
  ton when you do that. This has been another episode of Where Stats Meet Instinct. I'm your
• 34:32
  host, Sam. You can find me on Twitter at Straight A's. And as always, guys, go A's.