Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 80 : NL Central Preview With Erik Halterman

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Ep. 80 : NL Central Preview With Erik Halterman · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome everybody to episode eighty of Cards and Categories.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I am Mike Coolard from Rasball, joined as always by
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: my very good friend Jeremy Brewer, also from Rasball. How
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: are you doing tonight, buddy?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I am doing just fine. It is nice and freezing
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: here in central Illinois. But we are nineteen days away
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: from pictures and Catchers reporting, ironically, the Cubs being the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: team that is reporting first, so we are within spitting
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: distance of the season and actually having news to talk
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: about as far as on field action, I guess, can
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: you say pictures and casher reporting is on field action?
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Like debatable? But hey, to have guys in camp is exciting.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: We are so gushtarn close to the season. I'm I'm
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: chomping the bit.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: But they already reported. My man, they're like playing baseball
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: games tomorrow?
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Are they? Did I missed?
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: What did I have? No idea? They Welcome to the
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Cards and Categories podcast. But yes, this spring spring training
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: is kicking off.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: What was I looking at?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: What did I?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Maybe?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Nineteen hours? I mean we have a Cubs Dodgers game
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: tomorrow afternoon as we are speaking on February nineteenth, So
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I mean that's what I'm tuning into tomorrow.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I think I hit the first like scrimmage game is
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: while I was thinking to.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: My uh, that would do it.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: That's why I was going on, like, what's the Okay, Well,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I apologize for this this intro. It's it's gone bad already,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: so I.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Think it's been fantastic. I'm keeping it in because you're going.
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: To hold this one over me for a while. So
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like I was looking at like, I know pictures
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: of catchers reported, but like the date dates are off
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: of like, oh, but it's it was it was a
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: game action. Okay, it's gonna be a long night now.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be. Yeah, we've probably got a lot
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: of fantasy projections to update if you were still planning
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: for nineteen more days. But yeah, because we've got pictures
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: and catchers reporting, We've got the new jerseys back with
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the big old names on the back. Pants are still
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: see through. I saw a picture today of where I
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: almost saw all of Otani's junk. So we'll see how
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: that develops over the next next couple weeks if they
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: add any layers of material to those pants. But at
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: least the names are all nice and big. So yeah,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: we have games tomorrow as the Cubs and Dodgers need
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to open early because I think that's probably what you
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: saw actually is the Japanese series that they're going to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: be playing here pretty soon. So that's why the Cubs
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and Dodgers are gonna have to start spring training tomorrow.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: But we've got lots of news and notes to get
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: into before we do our and our central preview. We
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: have a great guest this week, Eric Alterman from Rode
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Wire joined us, so we are going to do you
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: are pre standard preview of each team in a buy
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: selling prospect pick to click. We've got lots of great
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: options within the NL Central, so make sure to stick
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: around for that conversation after we do these news and notes.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: But with that, let's get into the news and notes.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So we've got a big one right off the bat
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: in terms of third baseman, maybe second basement now, Alex
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Bregman signing with the Boston Red Sox. It is a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: three year, one hundred and twenty million dollar deal. Looks
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: like it's forty million dollars a year, but when all
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the deferrals and everything are added up, it looks like
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: it's more of like a thirty million dollar a year deal,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: So not quite as fantastic as a deal as it
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: looks on the surface of it, but should be a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: relatively good landing spot for Alex Bregman, who obviously used
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to call Houston home and took great advantage of those
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Crawford boxes, now gets to hit towards the Green Monster.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I guess with that set up Brew, especially being our
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: top one hundred hitters. Guy, do you think is it
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: pretty much just a copy and paste for Bregman here
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in the move to Boston or do you think there's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: up arrow or a down arrow compared to what value
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: you were assigning to him before he signed with the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Red Sox.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's generally just a copy and paste
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: for me. I mean, maybe a slight up arrow, depend
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: on that the position that he gets, because second base
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: definitely has a big old cliff after your first I'll
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: call it, six guys, and then it's just like question mark,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: question mark, question mark after that. And so I think
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Bregman gets a little bit of a take up because
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: I just don't feel like Devers is gonna move off
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: of third, and I think he has that cloud to
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: stay there or at least you know, maybe they rotate
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: around or something like that. So I think he has
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: a good chance to pick up second basaligibility. But yeah,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: like the ballpark's very similar for his profile. He's been
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: storing consistent the last you know, three or four years
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: as far as what he's done with the bat, so
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I don't see a whole lot of that changing. And
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: I'm yeah, I'm kind of copying and pasting last year
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to this year and lineup similar ballpark similar. Yeah, this
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: is this is probably as good as it was gonna
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: be for Bregman unless he went back to Houston.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So yeah, his is one of the most consistent performers
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: in our fantasy game past three years. Average twenty four homers,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: ninety one runs, eighty eight RBI with a two sixty average.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Is that just essentially your projection for him.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's it's it's it's right there. Like I
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: maybe there's a little like green monster attraction there and
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: he gets a little more pole happy. I don't know,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: but I I think he's also kind of slowed as
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: he's got into his thirties a little bit, so that
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: probably offsets But like, yeah, I just I think that
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: that's kind of right where where you have him, unless
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: he gets a little luck bug or something like that.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: But he's he's just very Gus Starn consistent, and maybe
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: I'll take it at ninety five percent of what is
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: been because I think there's just the aiding curve as
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: the only concern I have with them. I feel like
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I've had had this conversation with like Anthony Rendon when
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: he went over to the Angels years ago, like so consistent,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: you know, just a new place, a similar lineup all that.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: I feel like we've had this before, and that's give
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: me just a little bit of pause. But Bregman's not Rendon, So,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: like I said, give me a ninety five percent of
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: what projections you're saying, and I'm happy.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, Okay. Next signing that we've had in the past
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: week is Nick Pivetta's signing in San Diego. So it
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: is a very stringlogy structured deal four years, fifty five million,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: but in the first year he's only getting a three
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: million dollar signing bonus and a one million dollar salary,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: just to kind of help out the Padres with their
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: cash flow issues as the ownership is kind of still
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: in flux there, and I mean I think if you
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: were looking at landing spots for Paveda, this is a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: pretty solid one. But I will say that Petco does
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: not play quite as picture friendly as I think people
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: have gotten used to. Part of it is that there
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: have been much more picture friendly parks that have been
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: kind of coming through in terms of like Saint Louis
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: is really like shifted into a heavy pictures park given
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I think especially some of like the construction around that park.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: But same thing I think with San Diego. Some of
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: that downtown construction has allowed especially the right handed homer
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: factor to increase much more significantly than you would think.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: That is Piveta's bugaboo is the home run ball. Also,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: just the lack of consistency and kind of getting late
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: into the games. You can already tell I'm always anti Paveta.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: He was your cell when we were doing our Ale
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: East preview. So this is a very anti Nick Pivetta
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: podcast overall. Even though stuff numbers are pretty solid, the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: k rates are pretty solid, It's just been burned by
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: this player so many times in the past. Do you
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: think that burning continues in San Diego or does the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: park in the movie to the National League help him
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: reach his whole potential.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you don't have what it used to
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: be moving from American League to the National League. You know, DH,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: non DH, that's just not the difference, you know, going
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: to to you know, a division where you have to
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: pitch in Colorado, you have to pitch against the Dodgers,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: you have to pitch in Arizona. Like, yeah, the home
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: ballpark is a little bit better, but the away ballparks,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I feel like are not doing any favors, are probably worse.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: And he was in a decent spot in Boston, Like,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: he had a decent lineup behind him, he had decent defense.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Like there's just not a big upgrade somewhere here. And
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, this is still a
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: guy that has never had an URRA in the threes.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Like he's never really been that successful at his best.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: He's won ten games with a four point zero four
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: ERA with the three three walks for nine Like that's
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: you know, and what's his whip at that point, probably
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: like fifteen hundred, No, like like a one point one
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: one two whip, which is the best case outcome for him.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: So like I'm just not excited about it. Too many
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: fly balls. Just it's just not the profile that I
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: think you should rely on, and it's too easy to
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: get stuck in that a little bit higher strikeout rate.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Last year he had his best walk rate by far
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: of his career, and it's just not sustainable. So yeah, Paveta,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: the big contracts is going to probably get people excited
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: to be like, man, look, the padre Is actually spent
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: some money after they tried to shed money all off season,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: and clearly we should buy Paveta. And I just don't
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: think it's a good idea by any way, shape or
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: form or any point in the draft. I'm just I'm
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: I think you are too excited about what you think
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: you can get and it's just not going to come
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: to fruition. And he's gonna have some he's gonna have
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: some big blow up games. I think they're in the
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: in the in l West.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And I mean I think especially it's
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: mostly that draft price, Like if it was significantly cheaper,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I think I would be interested in Paveta, but especially
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: where he going in drafts. It's right around like pick
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: two hundred and NFBC Draft Champions data. But other pictures
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: starting pitchers going in that range, and I think I'd
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: rather have all of them over Paveta. TAJH. Bradley's going
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in that range, Louis Heel's going in that range, Nathan
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Eovaldi's going in that range, Spencer Arraghetti. Let's see if
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I can find one that tannor Hawk is maybe one
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: where I would take Pavetta over Hawk. But like at
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: that point, how is even going like twenty to fifteen
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: picks later? So that is mostly what it is. That
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: there's lots more interesting arms I think than Paveta in
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: that range, just with more solid profiles. Okay, next transactions
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: we have, we're actually I'm gonna pair them together because
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of first baseman corner guys signed
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: one year deals over the past week and especially we've
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: kept hitting this throughout our preview series, is that first
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: base after the first few options in our fancy drafts
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: is a mess, and so I'm going to put you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: put your feet to the fire here and make you
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: pick one of these. First one we have is Ty
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: France signing with the Minnesota Twins, where Rocco Baldelli actually
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: this week said that he's gonna get most of the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: playing time at first base. So really, since the pick
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: that I had last week for the Al Central in
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Jose Miranda, obviously it's still a little bit up in
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the air. Ty France is going to have to performance
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: bring training to be able to fully take over that job.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: But right now he is the leader in the clubhouse
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: for the first base job in Minnesota. Other signing we had,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: which I think it just happened earlier today, I don't
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: been working a lot, so I'm really losing sense of time.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: It did just happen earlier today, Justin Turner signing with
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Cubs, where again he should be slated for
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: some sort of starting role between first base or DH
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and maybe a little time at third. I'd be very
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: surprised given how old he is, but it's possible. And
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: if I had to make you pick one of these
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: guys to put on your fantasy team and ride all year,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: which one would it be? Between Typhrance and Justin Turner?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, do I have to Yeah, you gotta fear
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: the beard here with Justin Turner, I think that's where
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: you have to go. I just I think that the
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: France downside is more than the Turner downside here. I
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: think Turner has a you know, he's historically been an
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: asset in the average category. Even last year hit two
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: fifty nine, which was relatively average for what you're looking
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: for a fantasy team. But before that, his career low
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: outside of like his early early years coming up with
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: the Mets was like two was the year before actually
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: a few years ago, two Sunday five with the Dodgers,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: back in sixteen, two Sunday six with Boston twenty twenty three.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: He seems to always be good for at least ten
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: to fifteen homers, and he's always been relatively a clutch hitter,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: which you know, you can't measure that, I get it,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: but he always just seems to get the guy over.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: He does all the little things right. And I think
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: he's been brought in not to like what he was
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: last year when he when he came into the Blue Jays.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I think that you know that he was brought in
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: to do things right. He was brought into be a
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: big part, and this year he seems like he's brought
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: being brought into I don't be kind of like a
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: shepherd of the youth, and you know those types of things.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: So I'll take Turner if I have to, But neither
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: guy really really excites me here. How about you? If
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: is turn of the odds on pick here?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so, because I mean just a lot
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of those factors that you said, and I just don't
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: know if ty Franz can win that job in Minnesota
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that Baldelli is showing faith in him, but like I
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: want to see him actually earn it in spring training,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: which I think he'll have to do considering there's a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: pretty easy path to a Miranda Julian put tune there
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: for the Twins that like, I think they would prefer
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to go that route and have just brought in France
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: to kind of push those young players. But certainly, if
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: ty Franz starts looking good in the spring, I think
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: it could switch because then at that point, I think
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Turner probably won't play as much as France and it's
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: going to be fascinating to watch, I think unfold over
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks. But yeah, if I had to
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: pick one today, it'd be justin Turner. Okay, well, let's
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: get into some other news in terms of injuries and
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: just other updates, because it is that time of year,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: We're going to condense it down to really what I
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: think is the most fascinating piece of news that's kind
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: of come out over the last couple of days, and
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: it is out of Anaheim. The Angels have announced that
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Mike Trout is going to be moving to right field,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: so that should take off the wear and tear of
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: him being in center field. And again, given your your
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: history of writing the top one hundred hitters for us
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and kind of Mike Trout's been right in your crosshairs
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: for years and years. Now, what do you do with
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: news like this where you have a veteran player who
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: especially you know, has been nicked up significantly over the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: past few years, but still has an elite bat and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: has to overcome the injuries. Does the downgrade in the
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: taxing of the position boost the value for you? Or
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: is it just too small of a change to really
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: move that noodle for you, move that needle for you.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Not a noodle, but I guess he could move the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: noodle too.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It's still not as bad as me forgetting when spring
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: training starts.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: But.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: It does move the noodle a little bit here, and
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I think for most players it doesn't. But Mike Trout
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: is one of those guys that kind of like a
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Bryce Harper, just doesn't have an off switch, and that's
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: really what his downfall's been because he's been an absolutely
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: elite hitter when healthy, like he still can just absolutely rake.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And I think this is the first admission by Trout
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: and the Angels that they have to focus on his
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: health when the past was just like, oh, it's just
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: a you know, just unfortunate, unfortunate, unfortunate where there's finally
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: going like Mike Trout's in the you know, the waning
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: years of his career. He's he's gonna be thirty three,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: gonna turn thirty four across the season. And I think
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: that it's one of those where it's just a simple
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: recognition that they got to keep him healthy. Is gonna
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: bump him for me a round or two because you're
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: risking against him making it another month kind of like
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: last year. But if they if they've really got that recognition,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: they're gonna probably give him an extra day or two off.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: They're gonna not you know, he might not run as much.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: But we weren't really caring about Trout running Like that's
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: not what we were investing. We're investing in this bath
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: that can hit forty bombs and driving a lot of runs.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Maybe that lineup doesn't have that many runs left to
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: drive in, but that's just baked into the price. So
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not I'm knocking him up a few notches because
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: I think it's just a finally the Angels are recognizing
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: they need to protect Mike Trout from Mike Trout, and
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: I think that's a big win for Hardy Moreno, like
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: that's the it's just it's personal growth, Its ultimately what
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: this comes down to.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I agree that, Like you look
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: at what Trott has done over the past two years,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: even battling some of those really brutal injuries and the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: back injury that is kind of like a chronic condition
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: that he has still in one hundred and eleven games,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: put up twenty homers, twenty eight homers last year, was
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: on like a fifty homer pace out the gate before
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the injury, and so I think it's really gonna help that,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Like he's got a pretty easy pathway if he can
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: stay healthier in right field to where you can get
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: thirty five homers out of him and maybe only need
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty games.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: And if that's the case, that's huge because then when
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: he's out, you can then bolster that with whatever you
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: can find on the waiver wire, and then that's where
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: maybe you can find somebody who provides a little more
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: speed to make up for that lack of speed that
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Trout has. But yeah, I certainly will be more interested
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: in Trout in draft rooms now that we know that
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: he's gonna be in right field much more often. Okay,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: next one, we're gonna stay with the Angels. You alluded
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to him a little bit. It's to the flip side
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of Alex Bregman. We have Anthony Rendon. Looks like he's
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: going to be out for the year with a hip injury.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: It feels like we almost missed the wave of this
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: this kind of news anyway, because certainly all of the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: baseball social media spheres were lit a blaze when this
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: news came out, because apparently Rendon was working all off
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: season to rehabit a hip injury just never kind of
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: got back to the point he wanted it to and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: now is undergoing the knife. Looks to be out for
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: all twenty twenty four or twenty twenty five. Sorry, I
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that is proof that I've been working too much, because
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: as an accountant, I work in the past at the
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: beginning of the year, so everything I've been punching has
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: been twenty twenty four. The question here is Rendon done.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I think he's probably done. Personally, I think he's done.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Like it's it's one of those that like it's just
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: like the Chris Davis territory of like you just kind
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: of kind of cut the guy and just move on,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: like it's just it's not worth the headache. Like now
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: it's like you gotta pay for an extra hotel room on
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: every road trip, or he's not going to road trips
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: to the jury.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: But I don't think he was.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: He's he's still showing up in the dugout, like why
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: why are we here? Like it's just it's a distraction
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: at this point, and they just they don't need it.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: And he comes back next year, what are you hoping
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: for out of that? Like it's he's so far gone,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the skills have degraded, like it's just not worth it.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: So I'd be I'd be really surprised if if he
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: isn't getting cut at some point, and yeah, Rendon, I think, man,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: that was that was such a career that was derailed
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: by a new face and a new place type of thing.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: That's unfortunate.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was just the peak was insane and it
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: is crazy to watch how quickly and unfolded. It's gonna
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: probably go down as the worst contract and maybe sports history,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: like considering the production the Angels got out of Rendon.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: You know you're looking at uh, let me look at
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: his career. Give me just a second. I have to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: add up all the you know, the shifts, you know,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I mean he played two hundred fifty seven games, twenty
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: two bombs, ten stolen bases, two forty two, three forty eight,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: three sixty nine, one oh two worc plus. Uh. Those
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: two hundred fifty seven games came across five seasons, so
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: started with age thirty season. That is brutal considering that
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: making two hundred forty five million dollars in total for
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Anthony Rendon. As much as like we point to the
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Angel's mismanagement of Otani and everything going on, I mean
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: you can kind of point right to this Rendon contract
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: that they needed this superstar to work out, and it's
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: really kind of of set back the franchise a full
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: decade because it's going to take them forever to recover
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: from this.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of you don't want to make
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: light of it, but look at this twenty nineteen season
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: in Washington. It's literally a better season than the entire
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: five years he played with the Angels and double the games. Like,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: he had more RBI, more and more runs, more home runs,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: a better average. The only thing was different to the
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: steals and he basically had an extra one hundred and
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: ten games with the Angels for the next five years
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: and couldn't even match that one season's worth of line
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: like the Angels bought him for that one season and
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: he and again the guy, this is a guy that
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: was basically six straight years of elite production and it
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: just literally just ended when that contract signed. So yeah, again,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Chris Davis might argue with you if we're going to
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: get that discussion on the worst contract, but man, yeah,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: that's unfortunate.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay. Other piece of injury news that we've had
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that's broken is Frankie Montas from the New York Mets
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: going down six to eight weeks with the lat strain.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I just kind of want to check your your kind
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of temperature on these types of injuries going into draft season,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: because you do have an m of drafting the injured players,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: but when you do run into situations like this in
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the spring where it's a significant injury like Montas, at
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: this point, it looks like the six to eight weeks
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: is just like shut down that doesn't include kind of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the tail end of him getting back and revved up.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: And then you kind of also think back to like
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: last year with Blake Snell. I think a lot about
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: like how an incongruent start to the season just cascaded
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and threw them off for a significant portion of the year.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: What like what hallmarks of injuries are you looking at
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: this point early early in spring training that the it's
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: too much to be able to like draft him at all,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: because I did have interest four Montes going into the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: draft season, given the landing spot in New York and
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: some of the changes he made down the stretch in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, But this injury has totally wiped him
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: off the board. For me, I don't want any part
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of anybody who's got an injury that they're not even
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: going to be like looking to rehab for six weeks
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and then you're not gonna have all that ramp up
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: time in spring training. You have to like rehab get
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: into the season. It's a totally different set of gears.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to kind of gauge what your take
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: is on this and what strategy you kind of take
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: with these injuries going throughout the spring.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, especially on the pitching side, when you run into
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: an injury that is not a freak injury, right, you're
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: not talking about the guy stubbed his toe or you know,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: broke a finger on his non pitching hand or something
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: like that. Any you know, for a pitcher, that whole
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: kinetic system has to has to work together. So the
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: alat anything with the shoulder, elbow, honestly, anything with you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: kind of a knee or even you know, you're a
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: hamstring or something like that, like they're they're worrisome. And
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: then you add the the comment in a shut down,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: which means we don't really know how bad this is
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: and we're gonna try it out again in like two months,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: and then we need to build it up for like
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: a month and a half and have a typical spring
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: training like we are really now talking like a best
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: case early summer that he would be at all available,
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: and that's probably very very optimistic. And so these type
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: of guys are the ones that I'm not excited about.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: I'm the one. The injury guys I'm willing to take
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: a shot on. Are the ones that are coming back
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: from injury or they're getting a slow start to spring cranks.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: They want to bring them along to make sure that
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: they're they are healthy or like I said, the freak
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: injury that really seems to have nothing to do with
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: that full kinetic chain. So it's like, yeah, it's like
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: a guy tore his fingernail, office is non throwing a
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: hand or something like that, or you know, you get
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: a hitter that it gets a bone bruise. Even those
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: are kind of canna be kind of scary, but like
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: you got to hit by pitch and they sit out
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: for a little while. Like those kind of things are
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the ones that I'm willing to go for. And when
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: it happens during the spring. But once you start getting
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: into anything that's undefined, I think you gotta be very
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: very careful about that unless you are playing the free
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: game at the end of the draft and even then
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: with pitchers, I don't want to play that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that makes sense. Okay, well, we've got
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a pretty light card news week because we're still all
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: basking in the glow of Top Series Series Top Series
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: one from twenty twenty five coming out last week. Certainly
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: check out that podcast. It was number seventy eight if
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you're looking for an overview, because still plenty of great
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: cards out there to rip. I've been enjoying watching all
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of them come through on social media. Gorgeous set, I
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: think for twenty twenty five, so it's going to be
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: pretty popular as we especially get into the Roki Sasaki
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: of it all into series two and update, so something
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: to certainly check out. We do still have the calendar
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: in the show notes if you're looking for next sets
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: of releases, but it's not going to be for a
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks because TOPS usually kind of takes a
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: step back to let series one do its thing for
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, So check that out in the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: show notes or anything else that we've talked about. In
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: terms of those news and notes, you can also see
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the link to Rasball subscriptions, the link to some cards
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and categories Gear so lots of great stuff and obviously
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: if we've been talking about it, we've got it in
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: those show notes. So we're gonna take a quick break,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: but once we come back from that, we are gonna
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: dive right into our NL Central preview with Eric Alterman
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: from Rotabire. So stick around all right, Well, welcome back everybody.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: We are going to dive right into our NL Central preview,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and just like we've been doing with the rest of
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: these previews throughout the preseason, here we have a guest
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: on and this week we are joined by my friend
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Eric Halterman from rode a Wire and hosts of the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: podcast there also some of the serious XM shows. Welcome
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to the show, Eric, and how you doing tonight, Buddy.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: I'm doing great, a little bit cold, nothing like a
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: polar vortex here in Chicago to really get you in
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: the mood for baseball season. Really can almost hear the
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: crack of the bat. We've got so much snow here,
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: it's a no nowhere close. Having to do a little
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: bit of imagining to get me in the mood. But
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: really excited to spend the evening with you tonight talking
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: baseball and maybe by the end of the night, we'll
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: be smelling some hot dogs.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean especially you're pretty close to Wrigley, so
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you get a few wafts here and there.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But on top of it, too, the winter weather kind
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: of still sets the tone for the NL Central as
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: it should be a relatively competitive division where I think
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: a few of these previews we've gone through it's very lopsided.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: At least, the NL Central provides quite a bit of intrigue.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I think between all the team's top to bottom, I
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: think when we get to making our picks for the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: division winner the end of our preview year, I wouldn't
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: be surprised to hear either of you guys make a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: case for any of these teams. I think personally, I
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: think there's pass for all of them. So we are
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: going to go through each team alphabetically by city name
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: per our usual preview rules. We are going to pick
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: three players a person from each team. So, yes, you
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: are right, that is supposed to be forty five dudes
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: we're about to get through and chat about We're gonna
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: have one buy one cell based on both the for
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: both of those the NFBC ADP data from Draft Champions.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at since jan one. You can use the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Draft Champions data or other ADP of your choice. No
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: big deal there. And then the third player that we're
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: gonna pick from each team is they prospect picked to click.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: So this would be a young player who could be
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: either the low miners, upper miners, even maybe was on
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the bench last year that you think can really break
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: out and provide extra value in dynasty keeper leagues or
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: just kind of be that league winner at the end
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of your redraft league. So with all that in mind,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: let's dive right into the Chicago Cubs right down the
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: street from you, Eric, right down the street from me.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And it has been I would say an interesting offseason
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: for these Cubs as obviously they brought in Kyle Tucker
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: but then went right to arbitration and argued with him.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Brought in Ryan Presley to replace the young arm that
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: they have brought in just the yesterday Justin Turner to
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: block everybody's favorite Matt Shaw possibly. So it's a team
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of kind of ups and downs that is dealing with
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a bunch of self contained budget woes that I think
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it's a it is a very fascinating way to run
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a franchise. Because I think at the Cubs and the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Rickets really want to invest in this team, they would
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: blow everybody away in this division. But I think because
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: of all those ups and downs, there's lots of intriguing buys,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: sells and picks to click on this team because of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the great farm system. So Eric, I know this is
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: probably the team that you see most in person. So
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: probably some extra insights here from the Cubs. Who are
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you going to pick for your bye?
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an interesting team, like you said, some good
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: new pieces, some young up and coming players, And rather
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: than starting with one of the young up and coming players,
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: let's start with a boring, compiling veteran Ian Happ. He's
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: been going maybe twenty five picks outside the top one
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: hundred round pick one twenty five or so, I've got
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: him about twenty five picks inside the top one hundred.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: I think he should be going a lot more. Similar
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: to his teammates Saya Suzuki. I think both of them
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: to strike out a little bit more than average, but
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: make up for it with more than enough power and
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: a decent number of steals as well. Should be about
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: mid teams for both of them, and Ian Happ is
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: the more durable one of those two outfielders. I have
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: him ranked pretty much back to back, would probably take
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: Hap first. He's become this really steady, solid player, which
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: is pretty interesting given the way he started his career
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: with a ton of strikeouts in an early demotion unexpectedly
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: at looked like he'd be some sort of volatile, inconsistent player,
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: But the last three years WRC plus of one twenty two,
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: one twenty and one twenty two, this is just who
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Ian Happ is. He's an incredibly solid compiler. He's fifteenth
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: in plate appearances over the last three years in the
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: entire league, and he's projected to be the leadoff man
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: for a good team. So I don't really understand why
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: you can still get Ian Happ around pick one twenty
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: five or so. Maybe there's not a lot more upside here,
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: but just an incredibly solid player who again should lead
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: off and play all the time for a good team.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: A Gold Glove defender too, so there's not even a
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: reason to give him some more days off if the
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: offense starts slipping. I think he's a totally solid way
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: to start out your team with somebody who's going to
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: help you pretty much everywhere, and I don't know why
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: you can get him where you can get him in drafts.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I totally agree. I actually leveraged this last year in
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of leagues that Ian Happ with those twenty
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: five homers thirteen steals was a solid piece. I should
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: have actually explained in the intro too, that these are
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: all surprise picks. It's it's great to kind of like
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: see who everyone's gonna pick. And I think this is
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: a good one, partly because like he just gets to
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: mid teens dollar values in our raspball player raiders every
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: single time and just isn't picked that way. So Brew,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I know that you're into the top one hundred hitters.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: So Hap is in there? Where do you usually put
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: a player like this?
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, guy like Halp, you know he's in probably the
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: I would say the latter third is probably where I'm
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: looking at him, maybe depending on injuries and things like
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: that creeping up a little bit. The thing with a
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: guy like Hap that actually rises him up. And to
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: be frank, I haven't finished my top one hundred yet.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: I'm just in the middle of it right now. I
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: haven't got the back half where AHAP's gonna be but
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: he brings stability. I think Eric you hit on that.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: He is day in, day out, the guy that's gonna
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: play almost every day. And because of that, he gives
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: you volume and you don't have to worry about that position.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: There's there's a not enough credit given to that in
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: the in the fantasy game. And so because of that,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: even though his skill set like it's probably peaked at
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: what he did in twenty three twenty four, he's not
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: probably beyond a two point fifty hitter with twenty homers
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: fifteen steals. But that's absolutely fine when you know that's
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: exactly what you're getting and you're playing every day. So
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I like it. Half. The only problem I ever have
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: is I seem to get Nico horn Ian Half confused
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason all the time. So that's my that's
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: my only thing on ian Half that he confuses me.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, those h names. So who's your pick here,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: brew for the buy on the Cubs.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm buying a guy that everybody else is
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: in drafts data selling right now. I am buying Porter Hodge.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And that's just as much about Porter Hodge is about
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Ryan Presley. You know Ryan Presley, You've definitely seen the
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: skills starts to degrade over the last few years. He
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: has not been that shut down guy that he had
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: been for a number of few years there in Houston.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: And then at the same time you look at Hodge
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: under the under the covers and he looks very very
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: strong controls. Maybe not the best, but hey, when you're
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: in the bullpen walking a guy, when you can strike out
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: twelve guys, it doesn't really matter. You can do a
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: lot of good. He keeps the ball on the ground,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: he doesn't let you know it barely gives up any homers.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: And I think he's just got a high, high ceiling.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: He is the closer of the future. And I'm banking on,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: you know, the fact that he's dropped like I think
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: about one hundred points in ADP just since the Presley signing.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: He's going in like the mid threes somewhere in there. Coolly.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: I'm not using Draft Champions data because it was just
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: with them. It even lower there.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Picks since jan one is four to twenty three.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So at the end of the day, like he
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: has fallen way off the radar, and I would be
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: surprised to see him get maybe a half season of saves,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: like it's he he has that talent level, and so
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: if I'm looking at some guy to fill my back
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: into my roster, Porter Hodge has a ton of upside
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: even if he's not saving games. So pretty simple here,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: I'm betting against Ryan Presley and I'm buying Porter Hodge.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I like it because I do think if there's one
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: soft underbelly on this Cubs team, it is that bullpen
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that Hodge certainly came guns blazing into last year. And
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I like that pick. So I can't always count on
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: run Presley nowadays. Okay, for my pick, I'm actually kind
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: of going along Eric's line here that I'm going with
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a pretty boring veteran who's going relatively late in those
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: kind of middle rounds, and it's Dansby Swanson, so I
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: love him. Shortstop is super duper deep this year. I mean,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I guess there might be situations where you are drafting
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: that leaves you left Wiswonson as you're starting shortstop, which
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: wouldn't kill you, I think at the end of the day,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: because I think you can just about pencil men for
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: like a fifteen fifteen, like two fifty ish season while
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: hitting towards the upper part of this kind of you know,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: good Cubs lineup, but right now going about pick one
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: seventy five and makes just a really intriguing MI option.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: I think on top of it all, Swanson has admitted
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that the core injury that he was dealing with last
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: year bothered him maybe for like the last eighteen months
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: or so. Has come into spring saying that he feels
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: fully healed from that injury, and so I think you're
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: looking at a really good possibility of a bounce back.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: And I meant to say this with Hap too, that
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: like you do like see that two forty five or
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: like the two forty four and forty two average from
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Swanson and like wretch a little bit, but you have
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind that the league batting average has
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: significantly sunk that it doesn't take much more than like
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a two sixty team average to be able to like
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: really stay competitive in that category nowadays, and so it
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't hurt quite the way I think it used to.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: And when you're getting the great counting stats, I think
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Swanson could be a great buy for where he's going. Okay,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: let's get into those cells. So Eric, we are going
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to pass it over to you first to see who
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: your cell is here on the Cubs.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I almost had Ryan Presley on there for pretty
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: much the same reasons that Jeremy likes Porter Hodge. I
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: think in leagues where drafting the setup man who seems
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: more talented than the closer is something you can afford
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: to do. Absolutely, I'm on board with that one. But
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: my number one sell here, I'm gonna go Nico Horner,
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: all right, upright, Horner. I was about to say, maybe
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: the price is dropped to a point where it shouldn't
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: be a cell, but I guess not. I guess if
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: we're all still in agreement here. Horner is just somebody
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: who's got downside and he doesn't have upside, and everything
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: has to go right with these zero power guys. And
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: he really is a zero power guy. One point two
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: percent barrel rate last year, one point six percent for
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: his career. That's a Stephen Kuan territory, and players like
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: him are certainly useful, and you don't have to draft
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: him that early. By the time you get to the
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: Nico Horner range of the draft, you should know whether
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: or not you want somebody who's going to steal bases
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: and score some runs and do nothing else. I guess
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: hit for a decent average as well, but I should
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: mention that adding average, Nico Horner had a ten point
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: three percent strikeout rate last year, which is excellent, but
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: he only hit two seventy three a two eighty expected
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: batting average. I mean, that's good, but that's not elite,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: and I think that's because his quality of contact is
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: so poor. You can put it in play all the time.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: But if your bottom of the scale exit velocities and
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: bottom of the scale hard hit rates and that sort
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: of thing, maybe you're only going to hit about too eighty. Also,
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: for the speed Nico Horner's main strength, he's only seventy
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: eight percent island sprint speed, So I don't know if
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: he's a lock to every year finish in the very
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: top of the leader board. I think maybe thirty steals
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: is probably more realistic than fifty. So I just see
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: a lot of ways for Nico Horner to come up short,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: and there's just no way that he's suddenly going to
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: add something to his game. There is not a world
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: in which Nico Horner makes a swing change and hits
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty two Homers. He's just not strong enough to
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: do that. So I I don't know. Maybe this part
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: of the draft, there are teams where you need him,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: but in general, I want guys where I can understand
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: what world, what the world would have to look like
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: for them to finish three to five rounds ahead of
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: their draft price. And I just can't see that with
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: Eco Horner at all.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: All right, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm just gonna jump on
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: the train here exactly. I think it's all the right points,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: all the right points. And then you look at a
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: guy like that who last year split time in between
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: leadoff and middle of the order, and this year he
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: projects to be probably more middle of the order, just
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: with the way that the lineup's uh coming together, and
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: he barely he still had you know what, forty eight
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: RBIs well playing basically a four season, a full season, Like,
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: how do you can't even make that up at this
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: point in the draft if you draft that, And I
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: think the point eric you make you gets the draft,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: and maybe that's you need to draft a guy like this.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: I'd argue, if you got to the draft and needed
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: a draft a guy like this, your draft's already gone,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Like You've made poor choices to get to this point
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: in life, and you need to reassess your your priorities
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: in the first five rounds. So I'm right there with you.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Things have to go right. And you're anchoring down on
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: runs and steals and hoping for a decent batting average.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: And we've said it before in this podcast, that's the
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: loose Rias strategy and it does not work. Don't fall
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: down that hole. And if you're gonna do it, I
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: guess just do it with a rise. At least you
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: get an elite batting average when you're doing it, So
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: I might as well not play that game. So coolly,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: last last dump you You you dump on him the
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: best you can.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Surprisingly, I still have more dirt to throw into this grave.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Nico Hoerner had flexer tendon surgery late in the year,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: although he might not even be ready for Opening Day.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: You put that on top of everything else you guys
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: just said about the lack of power. I'm not feeling
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: great about somebody who's still nursing a flexer tendon surgery
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: injury and trying to recover and trying to find any
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: more power in that bat that unlike our boy Brent
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Rooker who had that same surgery. Rooker is ready to go.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Like Rooker has no sort of lingering issues that I've
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: heard of and has healed appropriately. Horner doesn't appear to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: be in that same boat. And then the other piece
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: here is I mean I alluded to the deep farm
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: system here in the Cubs. Middle infield is where they're deep.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: I think they're already setting up to ship Nico Horner
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: here out of town. That like the contract that he signed,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: he did sign that extension that goes through twenty twenty six,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: but like you've got lots of middle infielders coming behind him,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and I think that the writing's starting to get on
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: the wall here for Horner as the Cubs have starting
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: to sour on them as well on him as well. So, yeah,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: that's everything we've got against Nico Horner. That's great. That's
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: the first time we've is that, the first sweep we've
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: had this whole series.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Is awesome.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's get into some of those prospects. Eric,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: who is your pick to click?
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think if it was any other time
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: but this week, it would be match And I'm sort
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: of hoping one of you is still gonna be on
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Matt Shaw because he does deserve to be talked about.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: I think he's an exciting rookie who's a you know,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: five tool player, could help you out everywhere. But the
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: Cubs did just sign Justin Turner to maybe start over
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: him at third base, and Shaw is dealing with an
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: oblique issue, which it seems like isn't too big of
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: a deal. But you know, if I'm drafting right now,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: I'm a lot less interested than I was two weeks ago.
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: So that means my prospect for now is gonna be
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Moyses by Asteros, who is an Alejandro Kirkish catching prospect,
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: I think is the best way to describe him. Not
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: quite as round maybe, but not somebody who's guaranteed to
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: stick behind the plate. Also somebody who makes a lot
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: of contact over everything else. By STOs is still quite young.
• 42:48
  Speaker 4: He reached Triple A for sixty eight games last year
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: in his age twenty season. That that's quite young for
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: the level, especially for a catcher, and he held his
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: own there seven ninety four. That was after having an
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: eight sixty seven ops at the Double A level a
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: nineteen homers between those two. So maybe not just a
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: batting average guy. The glove is really dicey with Moyes's Biasteros,
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: so you'd also want to be looking at potential other
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: past the playing time, and maybe say a Suzuki if
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: he has to move into the outfield. He's blocking the
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: dhpot now, but one injury away from Suzuki returning to
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: the outfield at first base maybe, but that's probably Michael Bush.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: So I don't know exactly if Biasterios has a path
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: early in the season, but Miguel Amaya and Chris and
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Kelly they're not exactly obstacles behind the plate. So as
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: long as Biastaros is just able to convince the Cubs
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: to keep him behind home plate for another year or two,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: I think he's got an opening. And you know, if
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: he gets a shot early in the year, there's a
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: path here. Again, He's already played sixty eight Triple A
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: games and he looked good in them, so he's major
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: league ready despite being quite a young catcher. If either
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Amaya or Kelly get hurt early in the year, I
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: think he has a pathway into the major league roster
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: and he may well stick there, especially given the very
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: low offensive bar catcher so potentially a very cheap again
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Alejandro Kirkish offensive profile there behind the plate in Biasteros.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this was I considered Biasteris as well, great bat
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: and I think I love that he can platoon with
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: either Kelly or a Maaya if needed for the Cubs
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and kind of settle in. I was also intrigued. I
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: was reading the Cubs their essay and like all their
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: previews and the BP Annual this afternoon, and the comps
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: for Biasteros are are insane. They're hilarious. From the bottom
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the top three here in the BP Annual Nolan Nolan Gorman,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Francisco Alvarez number one, Xander Bogart's which I don't I
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: don't know if that was a typo or if that
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: is something in his offensive profile where just the ability
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: for him to hit for average comes through.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: So I've ever heard that those three guys is the
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: same list, right, Like Gorman strikes out like thirty seven
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: percent of the time, Like was it like a guy
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: with we were just gonna find a random guy with power,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a random guy that catches, and a grand guy that
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: doesn't strike out too much, and just well, clearly that's
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: that's boys pot Staros.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no idea, so that'll be intriguing if
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: he does turn out like Xander Bogart's. But who's your
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: pick to click here? Brup.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I'm glad Eric set me up here because I am
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: not jumping off the train. I am going to call
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: out Matt Shaw, and I'm actually more excited about him
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: now than I was before the Justin Turner signing, because
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I might actually be able before him, because I think
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: that the hype train was already leaving the station almost
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: a little too much for my liking. I'm not sure
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: whatever's ever readaching like Chris Bryant levels from back in
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: the day, But I mean Shaw looks unbelievable. The speed
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: is absolutely there. You know sold thirty one bases last
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: year in the Miners hit twenty one Homers. You know,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: was had a WRC plus one forty six. Looks like
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: an absolutely mature hitter. He was doing that at the
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: age of twenty two. And the reason I'm not too
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: too scared, first of all, is, yeah, there are some
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: things blocking and we just talked about Ego Horner, how
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: he just doesn't really do it for any of us.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: We're talking about Justin Turner, you know, even a roster
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: resource is still putting on the bench behind Matt Shaw
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: at this point in time, And like, you know, I
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: saw a tweet that was saying, I feel like Justin
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Turner was old seven years ago. Like it feels like
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: every year it's like Justin Turner is like the old
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: veteran and I feel like we've been talking about that
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: for like half decade. So I don't see Justin Turner
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: standing necessarily in the way. And the big kicker for
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: me is, you know, if I'm the Cubs, a team
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: that has historically really struggled, in my opinion, to develop talent,
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: you've got to start taking advantage that CBA the bargaining
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: agreement here and start the season with the guy that
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: was had the third best odds for mL Rookie of
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: the year, because you can get draft picks coming back
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: if you are actually aggressive with this this type of thing,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: and that's the kind of the thing that the Cubs need,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: because there are always this team that's just good enough
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: to miss out on what they can get, and they don't.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: They're the big markets. They don't get any of the
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: little special picks on the back of the first and
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: second round there, so to me, like if I'm running
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: the Cubs, yeah, justin Turner's insurance, he's nice to have
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: play few spots. Matt Shaw played three infield positions last
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: year across the Miners, and he did a pretty gosh
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: start well, so he could easily be their their Swiss
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: utility infielder here and make a big impact. So I
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: like him just for the fact that the value has
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: now dropped. People are scared thinking Turner has the job.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not buying it. I'm not convinced of it, and
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: I think that he is more attractive than ever.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I like it. I like it, Okay, I might pick
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I alluded to a little bit with Horner and all
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: the other prospect talk it's James Tranto's because essentially it's
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: a little bit of like a if you like this,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: you probably will like that. I mean, why take Niko
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Horn when you can get the exact same player, I
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: think in James Toronto's but for free and so you
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: don't have to put any sort of draft capital into him.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: And I think that this is where the Cubs kind
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of infield is headed. I do agree with you Brew
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: that like Turner's in there, is more of like a
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: making sure that they have enough players and if Shaw
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: doesn't quite break out and secure that job and in
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: in camp, he can go back to the miners for
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit before you know, justin Turner gets banged
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: up and he can come up. I think it's the
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: same thing with Toronto's that like if Horner doesn't start
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: off great between like the injury, and Tronto's has a
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: good camp and opens back up at Triple A pretty well.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: This is a guy who last year across two levels
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: pops seven homers with forty seven stolen bases, a three
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: hundred and three forty six four two seven slash line
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: that I think he can just walk right in and
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: be free Nico Horner. So part of it is that,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: like Nico Horner does provide value in Roto, but you
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: don't want to be taking that draft pick on him.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: If you can get this that type of player at
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: the for free at the end of year draft, like
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: you can with Trianto's, That's why I'm interested in Like
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the Trianto's line is that like that will provide value.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: It fills in needs a second base in middle endfield,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: but certainly it's not going to cost you anything because
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: he is going I didn't even really check. Yeah, I
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: mean since the beginning of January's only gone in fifteen
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: DC's average pick of seven to forty two. But the
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: way that he's risen through the minors, I think Tranto's
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: probably gets major league playing time this year for the Cubs.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's funny that you say you call
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: that out because I'm looking at his line. First of all,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: you know you talk about it. We don't know these
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: pictsu are coming. So throwing Tranto's out here and having
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: me try to search his stat line, I could not,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: for the life of me spell his last name to
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: get started. But as you look at him like you're
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: absolutely right, like this is I'm looking at go my man,
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: like this is Nico Horner, Like his best case outcome
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: is Nico Horner. The difference is he's free and this
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: this is the kind of guy. The why why are
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: you finding me? Like look what I found. I got
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: all these free steals and a good average I can
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: plug and play and when I need it in my
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: road to lineup. You're thrilled with that, but you don't
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: want to play it. Pay Nico Horner prices so it'll
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: be real, really interesting to see what they kind of do.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Because they do. It does feel like the clubs all
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: of a sudden have this log jam to a degree
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: at the upper miners, and I don't feel like they're
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: all in yet, Like it feels like the I feel
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: like that's usually the Cubs mantra, like they don't always
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: ever want to go all in, and so I would.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: I would love to see them let loose a number
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: of these guys that we talked about and see what happens.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: But time will tell.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, well, let's move on to our next club,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: That is the Cincinnati Reds, who are coming off a
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: just seventy seven wins last year, but and have kept
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: relatively I'm just looking at I think it's just about
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: the same roster top to bottom, except for swap out
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: Jonathan India for Brady Singer. The big X factor here, though,
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: is Terry Francona showing up and going to be managing
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: this squad into twenty twenty five, which I think in
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: my mind, I mean, we'll get into our picks, but
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some Cincinnati
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Reds talk because it is an up and coming team.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Those young players and prospects that we've talked about for
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: the past couple of years are coming to fruition. They're
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: starting to build out some nice pitching development just through
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: draft picks, and then the bullpen is kind of being
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: put together as one of the last pieces. So I
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: think this team is going to be very interesting going
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: into twenty twenty five. Again, just like the Cubs, lots
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: of opportunities for buying and selling, especially given the great
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: home park that they play in. So, Eric, who is
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: your buy from the Cincinnati Reds.
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of different directions I could have gone in.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: For some reason, I'm willing to take Hunter Green everywhere
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: whereas other people aren't. I'm still a Nicolodolo guy. But
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: the number one name I'm gonna throw out here is
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Gavin Lux. I've got him ranked in the two forties.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: I think he's been going in the three forties in
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: February NFBC Drafts, and I was already kind of interested
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: in him in theory before he was traded from the
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: Dodgers to the Reds, But after this deal, I think
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: that I could hardly be more interested. Kevin Lux is
• 52:09
  Speaker 4: exactly in that tier of player that I think exactly
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: the time of career that makes for really interesting sleeper
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: somebody who was formerly a genuinely elite prospect. He was
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: top prospect in baseball, that kind of player, and he's
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: not old yet. He's only twenty seven this year. So
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: this is the type of player who was supposed to
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: be really good and still has time to get there.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: I don't think he could get all the way to
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: the player he was supposed to be, but he showed
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: something last year. Namely, he decided to swing harder in
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: the second half, which sounds like the dumbest, simplest thing,
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: but it worked. That seems to be the case. He
• 52:47
  Speaker 4: just said, what if I actually swung really hard? And
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: he did and it happened. I mean, he added about
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: one and a half miles per hour to his bat speed.
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: After the All Star break, he struck out more, as
• 52:57
  Speaker 4: you'd expect. That strikeout rate one from twelve percent to
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: twenty percent, but hard hit rate jumped from thirty eight
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: to fifty percent. A barrel rate jumped from three percent
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: to eleven percent. Now it's only you know, about a
• 53:10
  Speaker 4: two to two and a half month sample. First last
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: year second half. But this is a player who was
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: supposed to be really good. Again, he's not that old yet,
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: and he just made a change and that change worked,
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: and now we have him moving to a much more
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: hitter friendly park. He still has to beat out the
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: rest of the crowd on the Reds and maybe he's
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: not going to play every day, maybe he's gonna sit
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: against lefties. That sort of thing is going to keep
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: his price modest. But man, a guy who's in the
• 53:36
  Speaker 4: prime of his career, who was supposed to be great,
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: who finally started showing signs of being more than just good,
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: and now he's playing in Cincinnati and you can get
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: him after pick three hundred. That is incredibly exciting to me.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's solid. What do you think, bru.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I know, we talked about Gavin Lux a little bit
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: when he got traded over to Cincinnati, But I think
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of good factors here, especially considering his price.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's absolutely the change of scenery poster child type
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: of guy. Like you look back and see that this
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: went well, You're like, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: And he always had all the things that you looked
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: at as a prospect coming up, he had pedigree, he
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: had a great minor set, he had in theory a
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: high floor, and unfortunately he's just performed really at that
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: floor throughout his time with the Dodgers, and some guys
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: like this is literally just a mind shift. It's the
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: bright lights in LA and shifting somewhere else. A wonderful
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: ballpark in Great America there that can really pump anybody up.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: I feel like I can hit out of that park.
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: But it's you know, I think that that's the kind
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: of guy that at this point, like I love grabbing
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: a guy like Lux really late in the draft as
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: a flyer, and if it doesn't work out, you're fine,
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: but it could be a really good gem for kind
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: of your m I position.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's great.
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: Brew.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Here's your pick here on the Reds.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Well, Cooley, we've been through this before. You know who
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: I'm going to pick off the Reds. Eric called him out.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I love Nick Lodolo. It's an obsession, it's an issue.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: It's okay. I've come to terms with it. Nickelodola last year.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna read you the stat line here
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: and the I'm gonna tell you the caveat Nicolodolo had
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: a nine point three K for nine two and a
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: half walk for nine forty eight percent ground ball rate,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: all with reasonable luck metrics. It wasn't like he had
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: a babe of or left on base issue or anything
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: like that. With the three forty five ra supported by
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: his his FIP and other metrics until the last five
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: starts of the season and then he just fell apart.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: He was dreadful for the last five starts of the season.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: And remember this is a guy that has not pitched
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: deep into any season ever. It just has not been
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: his things. He's not the point of health. But when
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: he is healthy and he is pitching and he's not exhausted,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: he is fantastic. There's nothing wrong with it. And he's
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: going around like pick two point fifty. And this is
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: where we're talking about Ronel Blanco or you know, Jose Barrios, Bowden,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Francis Drew Rasmussen, a Zeus Luzardo, like all those guys
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: have big old concerns. We know Nicolodolo's concerns. We know
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: he just doesn't have that much in the tank when
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: he gets to the end of the season to just
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: be careful or more likely he's gonna get hurt before
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: he gets there and cut you off. But if you
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: can get one hundred innings of those kind of stats,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I am buying that all day because it is really,
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: really cheap, and others are going to be scared about it.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: So I love me some Nicolodolo. I own him everywhere,
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: all the time, and ain't gonna change.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: He's back, He's back, all right, my bye.
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: Here.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going with Tyler Stevenson catcher for the Reds here,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: And the more and more I look at it, I'm
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: just confounded by his draft price, currently going off the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: board as the eleventh catcher by ADP and Draft Champions.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: He's only twenty eight years old. Came off a fantastic
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: season last year in which he was the eighth best catcher.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Last year plays in Cincinnati. In the second half of
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the season. He went on the paternity list at the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: beginning of July, and part of it is like he
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: finally got healthy. He dealt with concussions, a thumb injury,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: all sorts of things little Nixon nax from catching. But
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: from July on he hit two seventy three with thirteen
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: taters for forty runs forty two RBI in seventy one games.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: That came with an eight point five percent barrel rate
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: of forty one point eight percent hard hit rate. He's
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: a heck of a hitter, and he plays in Cincinnati.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I think there's a pretty good pathway for Tyler Stevenson
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: to be like a top five or six catcher because
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: you just look at like, like I said, what he
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: did last year was already a pretty solid season with
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: a two fifty eight average in nineteen homers. It's not
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: out of the question that this guy could hit two
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: sixty with twenty five bombs going to this next year
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: and at that point, yeah, that is a top five catcher.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: So I think there's probably some helium here too. I
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: think people will start picking up on this as they
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: like kind of put two and two together. But in
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the early draft season, there hasn't been much hype around
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Tyler Stevenson so far.
• 58:14
  Speaker 4: I think there might be lingering durability concerns, so that
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: I might be wrong. I think that's part of the
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: reason why I don't have him ranked as high as
• 58:21
  Speaker 4: he's been going, because in my head, he's somebody who
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: we can't trust to stay on the field, but last
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: two years five hundred and seventeen and five hundred and
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: fifteen plade appearances, So I'm not sure that's really the
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: case anymore. So I think I've been looking at moving
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: Stevenson up.
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I look at guys I love the savant comparisons.
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: And you look at the guys there and you go,
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: I'm going to read the listener and go, eh, it's okay,
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: And then you remember, but if they were a Catcher,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: you know, and we're talking about Josh Bell, Danzy Swanson,
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Brandon Nimo, Jared Duran, Jazz Chism, you know, the speed.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: Tyler Stevenson doesn't have any the speed of some of
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: those guys. But if you take those guys with their profile,
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: which again they're all jazz, I think he's probably a
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: little bit higher, and so as Duran. But you look
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: at some of those guys and say, like, if I'm
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: getting that line without the speed at Catcher, sure I'm in.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: And so I think you're right, Like there's there's unfounded concerns,
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: and I think there's upside here because he didn't get
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: a full run at it last year, and I think
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: he gets even more playing time this year.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get to those cells. Eric, who's your
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: cell here on Cincinnati.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna go with Spencer Steer, who finished second
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: on the Reds in plate appearances last year with six
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: hundred and fifty six. That was tied for thirty first
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: in the entire league. Is he gonna get nearly that
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: many this year? Nearly all of his playing time came
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: at first base or left field. I made seven he
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: appeared in seven games at second base. Actually even got
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: into one game at short step. He used to be
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: somebody who played everywhere, And if that were still the case,
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: then you'd look at his ninety six WRC plus last
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: season and say, sure, he's a fine hitter who can
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: play all around the diamond and we get a little
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: bit of a boost from him playing in Cincinnati. That's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: a player I want. But we've mentioned already the Reds
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: even this year again, they still have more players than
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: they need. Somebody is not going to start every day,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: and last year that guy was never Steer. I just
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: think it's going to be Steer a lot more often
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: this year. I don't think you can have a league
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: average batting line as a first baseman slash left fielder.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: Now he does give you some decent speed. He's still
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: twenty five bases last year. That's a great speed for
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: a first baseman, of course, but he's not necessarily a
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: burner a seventy third percentile sprint speed and the year
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: before last year only stole fifteen bases. So if we
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: don't consider him a lock for you know, twenty plus,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 4: if he's more you know, fifteen to twenty and twenty
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: five in a good year, he could still get up
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: to quite a good season. It was a twenty three
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: to fifteen season two years ago, in a twenty twenty
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: five season last year. That is why he's still going fairly,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: But it took a ton of plate appearances. I'm just
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: not sure the bat is really good enough to demand
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: that many plate appearances unless the defense was good enough
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: to keep him up the middle. And also he's now
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: dealing with a sore shoulder. Not sure how big of
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: a deal that is. But if I'm drafting today, do
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: I want to take a guy who's a subpar hitter,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 4: who's a compiler, you know, a compiler who isn't necessarily
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: good enough to stay in the lineup and is currently hurt.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: I'm not sure he's going to compile, So I'm staying
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: away from Spencer Steer for now.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He was the subject of Rodosurgeons Ambulance Chasers are
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: the Past Saturday on ras Ball. The headline is steer
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: away from Spencer. So he goes and he went into
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of the things you did. I think that
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: there is a lot of risk in that profile, especially
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: given some of the bats in Cincinnati. So Brew, who
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: is your cell here for the Reds.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm going to be selling the closer for Cincinnati.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: Alexis Dzo that same tonight. Look at that and I, God,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: this is so easy. This is so easy to sell.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: I went back and looked at Alexis daz stat cast
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: in his Baseball Savat page and compared compared it to
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: another guy that gives everybody headaches and scares him to
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: death when he's closing games and no longer is a closer,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Camillo Duvall, and compare Alexis dias Is twenty twenty three
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: to Kamila Dwall's twenty twenty four. They're basically identifi or identical.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: The problem with that is Alexis das Is twenty twenty
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: four looks so much worse, and like he doesn't know
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: where the ball's going, he doesn't know what pitched the throat,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: like he can't keep it on the ground, And like
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: if all ballparks to be pitching on and putting the ball,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: putting guys on base through walks, putting it in the air,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: and generally just having a notch down on your overall stuff,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: like this guy shouldn't be closing come like June, and
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty gushed. Aren't confident in that, And he's being
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: drafted like a legitimate closer, And I think that's the
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: big problem here. Everybody thinks he's got the job full on,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: and that's why they're drafting them there. Even though there's
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: red flags, his overall line didn't look as bad like it,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: It didn't look dreadful. But under the covers, he took
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: a big old step back last year. And it's not
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: just the strikeouts dropping. It is just generally the overall
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: quality of the pitching. So coolly, what did I miss there?
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: If you're selling them to it, I mean, this is.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Just this one's just easy. Yeah, I mean there's only
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: really two stats. I was even gonna list off it's
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: a last year and he had a walk rate of
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: four point nine to five over nine and his k
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: mis BB was less than ten. It was nine point
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: nine percent. This dude, I agree if the Reds have
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: any aspirations of making any playoff run, I don't see
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: how Terry Francona allows Diez to maintain this closer job
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: with those types of peripherals. That there has to be something,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: really a significant overhaul in his arsenal to be able
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: for that to continue. And I just don't see it
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: coming because this is who community who almost like commulayd
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Deval Alexis Diaz has been for three straight years that
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: I think it's a pretty easy sell. This is not
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: a closer you want to be risking anything with, especially
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: given his draft price of looks like he's going on
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: average in DC since the beginning year one forty three,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: which is pretty deep, but like, that's still not deep
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: enough for me. Okay, let's get to those pics to click. So, Eric,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: who is yours from the Reds?
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah? So, I'm mostly looking for prospects who could potentially
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: help people this year, and that's a little bit tougher
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: to do on the Reds at least they're very top
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: guys are I think still lowered down in the minors.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: But Rhett Louder, who we have as the number six
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: prospect for the Reds over at Rhodewaire, he has already
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 4: shown some made six arts in the majors and really
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: good by ERA in those starts, a one to seventeen ERA,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: but the strikeout of walk numbers really shaky, seventeen percent
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: strikeout rate against an eleven percent walk rate. Also couldn't
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: keep the ball on the ground well either, so I'm
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: a little bit nervous about what happened in those six starts.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: The reason why I still like him is because in
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: twenty two starts in the miners last year, the ERA
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: was up at three sixty four, which is pretty good.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: But I really like all three of his strikeout walk
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: in ground ball rates. The twenty five percent strikeout rate
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: that's slightly above average, a five percent walk rate is
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 4: very good, and a fifty two percent ground ball rate
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: also very good. I am willing to lean on those
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: for a little bit more. Again, those six starts in
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: the majors were nowhere close, but this is somebody who
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: was in his first season actually playing games as a professional.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: He was the seventh overall pick in the twenty twenty
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: three draft, but didn't throw a professional pitch the rest
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: of that season. So he began the year with five
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: starts at high A. Last year ended it was six
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: in the Major So even if the underlying numbers were
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: a little bit shaky there, I'm willing to give him
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: a bit of a pass. Unfortunately, if I were drafting
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: right now, though, I'm not sure i'd want him because
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: he is dealing with his sore elbow early in camp.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: It's being talked about as if it's a minor issue.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: He's resuming throwing on Monday, so probably going to be fine.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 4: But any hopes of pushing for an open day roster
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 4: spot that would take a blow with this injury, even
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: though I think that was probably a long shot anyway.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: But Red Ladder the Reds have already looked to him once.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: I think he's probably going to show up at some
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: point this year, and I'm willing to look past some
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: shaky strikeout and walk numbers from that brief debut last
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 4: year because I think there's a decent amount there.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I like Louder's propel too, so Brew who is
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: your pick to click here for the Reds?
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: I mean cool, you could have just done this whole
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: and for me, let's just let's just let's just put
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: this up. If if you get this wrong and you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: have to ext to try, I'll give Eric a hundred
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: bucks because there is no way you get my pick
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: to click wrong unless you've been ignoring me for the
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: last six months. Come on, is it uh?
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Booper Coman?
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: It is Cooper Bowman. You own I can't now talk
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: after that that it is Cooper Bowman, the Rule five
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: draft pick of the Cincinnati Reds coming over from Oakland.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: I absolutely love this guy. Yeah, he has the perfect
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: under the radar profile. He has multipositional capability, and he
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: is going to be the best bat on the bench
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: to plug any holes for the Reds. And being a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: Rule five draftee who is twenty four years old, he
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: is going to actually sorry, he just turned twenty five.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: He's not twenty five years old. There's no reason to
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: send him back down. He has proven everything he needs
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: to prove in the minors. This is the kind of
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: guy that I love. He has a a strong walk
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: rate unless you're in the minors. He had eleven percent
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: walk rate, k rate down twenty one percent range. He
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: knocked out twelve homers, so he has a strong, strong
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: potential with the bat. I think that only grows in Cincinnati.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: He also stole forty three bases and get it, forty
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: nine attempts. He was forty three and six. That is
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: just incredible. The guy can absolutely move and he gets
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: on base to utilize it. So he's that kind of
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: guy that has a very well rounded profile. He's not
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: going to kill you with the power, but he's just
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: going to plug all the holes. And I see him
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: in that super utility role for the Reds this year.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: I do recognize the Reds have a lot of guys
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: for a lot of spots, but those are the guys
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: that they're trying to get consistent playing time. This is
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: the guy kind of guy that's giving everybody rest. So
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: I'm really excited about it. And I think he starts
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: like I think he's the next Spencer Steer for the Reds.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: I think he starts to carve out that that type
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: of role. So I can go on and on about
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: Cooper Bowman, I'm probably the only one and I'm fine
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: with that. I will own him everywhere and nobody else
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: could have him.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're all did you not see my comment
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: on your post from Sunday.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: That like aren't working? But I did see it.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: All of the RAS ball tags on Cooper Bowman going
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: back to the beginning of time are you and I?
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Because I'm I'm on board too. This would have been
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: my pick if I had known that you weren't going
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: to pick him.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: So you don't get one hundred dollars because well there's
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: there's like one podcast out in the Fantacy Baseball World
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: talking about Cooper Bowman, so you can.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 4: Find another reason to give me a hundred bucks.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Been taken twice in DC six since January. One
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: of those was me.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. My pick though, is it's in the similar vein
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: of what you explained with Louder, Eric, and that is
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: Chase Petty. So I think Chase Petty is honestly right
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: in that same vein with Ret Louder, pretty similar profile
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: where not the most like outlandish strikeout stuff, but has
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: been a steady riser through the minor leagues. I've loved
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: the fips that he's put up at every stop and
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: just seems to be like one of those players who
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: just is a great pitcher and has good, good mound presence.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: This Reds starting rotation, I think is going to require
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of help to get the season between. Like,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: you know, you're looking at a thirty five year old
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Nick Martinez Hunter Green throws at one hundred and one
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: miles an hour, Nick Lodolo, I know you love them, brew,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: but dude has not ever stayed healthy. And then you've
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: also got Andrew Rabbit and Brady Singer, who you know
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: have not necessarily been the bastions of health and kind
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: of being workhorses themselves. So there's lots of opportunities I
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: think for starting pitching in Cincinnati. And then the nice
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: thing is a lot of these NL central offenses outside
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: of the Cubs are relatively weak, so you can stash
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: somebody like a Chase Petty for streaming starts against the
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: now centrals. Obviously, I'm I'm little iffy with him in
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: Great American Ballpark, but I think given the profile and everything,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: he's got a lot of traits that I look for
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: in terms of the scouting where I think he can
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: outstrip the projections that have him putting up you know,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: like a upper six is K nine and something like
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: a five RA. I don't think that's what you're looking
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: at in petty going into twenty twenty five. I think
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: you're looking at more of like a four RA and
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: something like an eight K nine. So just kind of
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: like a solid back of your rotation option for leagues
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: out there. Okay, well, let's dive into the next team,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: which is the Milwaukee Brewers, who somehow rattled off ninety
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: three wins last year with new manager Pat Murphy, and
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: you know, looked fantastic from the get go that I
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: remember reading some of the recaps of this team that
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: they were charting along like they're the way that they
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: were trying to get to the playoffs, and they just
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: kind of kept meeting every milestone and every challenge that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: came in front of them. Had a huge breakout season
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: for Jackson Curio. Obviously, no more Devin Williams because it
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: is Milwaukee as they kind of need to retool and
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: rebuild year in year out. But again because of that,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: just like we've said with these other first teams, lots
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: of opportunities for buying in selling up and down the
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: roster because there's just lots of different choices. So, Eric,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: who is your buy out of the Milwaukee Brewers.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 4: My buye is going to be Garrett Mitchell, who is
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: going in the two fifties in February NFBC Drafts. I
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: have him in the one eighties. If I were to
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: list out some characteristics of a flawed hitter that would
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 4: be going in the two fifties, who I would want
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 4: to take a chance on. If he has to have
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: a flaw, I'd say, okay, fine, he probably strikes out
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: too much, but he does everything else right. That's exactly
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: the sort of player I would like to take a
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 4: chance on as a sleeper, and that's Garrett Mitchell. It
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: was a thirty two percent strikeout rate in sixty nine
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: games last year. He's at thirty four percent for his
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: career in one hundred and sixteen games. But pretty much
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: everything else is there. A nine and a half percent
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: barler rate that's quite good. That's helped him hit respectable
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: thirteen homers in three hundred and sixty five played appearance.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: He's also stolen twenty bases, could probably even steal more.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 4: He's got ninety fifth percentile sprint speed. He also has
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: a good glove play center fielder or be a very
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: good right fielder as well. That could help keep him
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: in the lineup even if he's slumping, which you know,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 4: a guy strikes out as often as he is, he's
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: going to have some slumps. As a lefty, you're a
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 4: little bit worried that maybe he will just fill the
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: large side of a platoon. But if you're getting him
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: in the two fifties, a large side platoon outfielder who's
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: got some power, good speed, and yeah, probably going to
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: hurt your batting average. But again, if you're going to
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 4: be poor in one area, absolutely you want that area
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: to be batting average, because hey, what if you get
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: some good babbit bluck like Mitchell last year he had
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 4: a three fifty nine Babbitts that let him hit two
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: fifty five. Probably it'll hit more like his two thirty
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: two expected batting average said he should have. But you know,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: if I'm gonna have a guy with some flaws, this
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: is the combination of flaws and strengths that I want
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: in this part of the draft. So I really like
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: Garrett Mitchell. I think he's going to carve out at
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: least the large side of a platoon with maybe even
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: upside for more depending on what the rest of the
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: Brewers outfield does.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love this pick. He was in my consideration
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: too for all those factors, and especially if you're in
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a redraft league where you have waiver wires or anything.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Given where Mitchell's going, like if he does get hurt,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: if the shoulder acts up on him, you can move
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: on pretty quickly. I know that brew I might take
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: your thunder a little bit here in terms of like
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: you loving the savant comparables. Here's Mitchell's top five Ellie
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: De la Cruz, James Wood Edward, Julian Jackson, Holliday, Ryan McMahon.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: Pretty solid list, especially given his draft price.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: So I like it, and that's the perfect list for
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: his profile. It is all our nothing right that those
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: type of guys, and I think that's those are the
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: guys that you can dream on because we uh, I know,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: late last year we did an article on Brett Rooker
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: and trying to find the guys that have one thing
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 2: to fix to unlock you know, really the potential, and
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: I think with a guy like Mitchell, it might be
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: maybe two things to unlock here, but you know, he
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: you know, if he can just bring those strikeouts down
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: within reason and really utilize the fact that he actually
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: is a pretty patient hitter and gets on base, like
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: those numbers can just jump through the roof, right, They
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: absolutely can't. It's just can he can he builds some
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: consistency in the game, It's hard to look at it
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: and see why couldn't. He's he's still a young guy.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: He's still got a lot of growth to go. He's
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: still on the upward trend of figuring out the major league.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: So yeah, there's there's definitely upside here for a price
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: that's pretty gosh.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: Start reasonable, all right, who's your pick here?
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm gonna go against my last year's New
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 2: Year's resolution of afting guys that have injury issues because
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: that one lasts like a whole week, and I'm gonna
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: go with Christian Yelich. And I look at a guy
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: like Yelich who finally had the back surgery and is
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: supposed to be ready for opening Day. Yeah, I know,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: we see it type of thing, But this is one
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 2: of those guys that when he is actually on the field,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: he produces. He's there's no question about it, And he's
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: one of the few guys that like actually can bring
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: you a strong batting average with other things. At that
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: point in the draft, he's going to pick like one
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: oh four at the least of the overall ADP that
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: I'm seeing, and there there's not a whole lot around there.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're talking Spencer Steer stratgy category here, and
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: I'll definitely take Christian Elge over him because in a fold,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: if you extrapolated his season last year over a whole season,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: he would have been Low's twenties homers, he would probably
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: around forty steals, hitting three fifteen with solid counting stats.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: He's in bat number two or three in that order.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: There's a lot to like there. Yeah, the guy might
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: not get the full season, but this, like this is
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: the year with actually getting the issue, the back issue
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: for all these multiple seasons taken care of, if it
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: truly is taken care of, like the sky is the
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: limit for the guy that's won the MVP. Like that,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: you know, you could be looking at an easy, easy
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: All Star here. And the downside at that point in
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: the draft is not so bad. It's not like you're
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: you're always you're picking other guys that very well could
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: be heard or have all these other awards. I'll take
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: the guy that I see the potential for. So I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: love Christian Yelich. Yeah. All the haters on the injury bug, Yeah,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: I'm fine with.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: It, all right, I like it. Okay, I'm gonna go
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: with one of my favorites here for my bye on
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: the Milwaukee Brewers is Aaron Safali, who is going extremely
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: late in drafts that he is down. I've got a
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: scroll quite a bit to be able to find him
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: average pick three seventy two since the beginning of the year,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: and mostly it's I love the work that he put
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: in with Milwaukee after he arrived at the trade deadline.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: So when he went to Tampa, uh, they've really started
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: moving him away from like a ground ball profile that
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: just kind of I don't think it worked for Fally's mix.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: When he came up with Cleveland, his bread and butter
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: was the sinker. Milwaukee moved him back to that sinker,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: and you can see it right across the board. Thirty
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: two point eight percent ground ball rate with Tampa, thirty
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: nine point one percent with Milwaukee. You're also looking at
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: he cut the ray from five oh seven to three
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: p fifty three. A lot of the fifth metrics and
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: stuff are still relatively the same. But Milwaukee's got a
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: really fantastic defense, and I think that's actually part of
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: the reason how they won the ninety three games last
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: year is the solid defense that they put up behind
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: their pitchers. And I think that you're looking at, especially
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: the price where you're paying for Savali, you know somebody
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: who could if you're also looking for somebody who could
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: almost morph into like that next Seth Lugo where you
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: don't have to worry about any concerns in terms of
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: like the workload. I think Savali could walk in next
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: year and put up one hundred and eighty innings for
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: the Brewers with something you know, in a high three
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: s RA and pick up all the wins that the
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: Brewers will give him because he's gonna be going deep
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: into games. Really just about one of the only traditional
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: starters that they have on this roster, so I think
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: they're gonna let him cook. So you look at where
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: he's going in drafts, I think this is a great
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: guy to take towards the end of the drafts and
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: slot Sevali into that back into your rotation to get
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: you know, take advantage some of these weaker NL central
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: offenses and then also you know stream great matchups and
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: two starts. So I love Aaran Savali going to twenty
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: twenty five always kind of have. I think I picked
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: him last year for the Rays too.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I I've probably got to be on
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: this Vali train just because I've got a thing with
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: you actually have to strike out guys before I draft you.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 2: But I think your Seth Lugo komps point on here
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: because that's kind of what you're looking with Savali's You're
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: looking at volume that is stable, and if you're drafting,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: especially if you're getting kind of one of those deep
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: leagues that you need to make sure that you get innings,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: I think Savali is much more attractive in those types
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: of leagues because you're not you don't want to rely
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: on Aaron Savali, but he's a guy that you probably
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: will end up relying on at some point in the
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: season because he's pitching, he's reliable, he's getting innings, and
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: he's providing a little bit here and there. So I
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: think Seth Lugo is a really really good comp there.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the cells here on the Brewers, Eric,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: who's yourself.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I almost went with Christian Yelich. Count me as
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 4: skeptical of the thirty three year old coming off of
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: back surgery. I hear the case that maybe the back
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 4: surgery fixed things, and then we're going to get the
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: awesome Christian Yelich, the MVP winning Christian Yelich. And I
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 4: hear the case that he's going late enough that you
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 4: can afford to take that risk, which is fine. I
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 4: will not go with him as my guy for that reason.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 4: I think he is right on the borderline of late
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: enough to take that risk versus I don't know, still
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 4: kind of early. So it's league dependent there. My actual
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 4: cell here will be William Contreras, and I think William
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: Contreras is really good. I have no qualms with him
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 4: being the number one catcher, But do I think that
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 4: he should be so far ahead of the rest of
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 4: the pack. And that's what I'm not so sure about.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 4: Looking at the catcher ADP at NFBC since the start
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 4: of February, Contreras is a pick twenty three, and then
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: you've got four catchers between pick fifty three and pick
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 4: seventy nine or Diaz, Adlie Richmand, Salvador Perez, and Wilson Contraras,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 4: And I again, William should be catcher one, and maybe
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 4: he should even separate himself by a little bit from
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 4: that group. But there's a decent number of catchers, and
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 4: catchers can go at different points from league to league.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you're in a league where they just like early catchers.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 4: Sometimes you're in a league where they're not. And if
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 4: you are taking the first catcher who goes, you know,
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 4: two rounds before other catchers at that part of the draft,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 4: well you don't know yet where everybody else is a
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 4: price catchers, especially in say a one catcher league. I mean,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 4: if you're doing, you know, a draft champions league and
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 4: you have you know, one hundred Draft Champions league's worth
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: of ADP data to look back at, you have a
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: pretty good idea, but especially in a one catcher league
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 4: where you just don't know how much people are gonna wait.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 4: I don't think I want to start the catcher trend
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 4: with Conceras because I don't think he's that much better
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: than the rest. I think a lot of the reason
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 4: he's going so far ahead is playing time, because last
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 4: year he came to the plate six hundred and seventy
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 4: nine times. That was fifty one or sorry, there was
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: only one two catchers within fifty of that. I mean,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: it's so I'm already counteracting that point. Salvador Perez got
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: to six fifty two. Adley Richmand he got to six
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 4: thirty eight. This is not way ahead of everyone else,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 4: and that was just one year. Contreras two years ago
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 4: he got to six eleven, but Adley Richmond got to
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: six eighty seven. And can we sit here right now
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: and say that William Contreras definitely going to be the
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 4: plate appearance leader among catchers, and you know, by thirty
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 4: or fifty, I can't say that at all. If he
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 4: finishes second Adleyrichmond or third behind Rechmond in Perez wouldn't
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 4: be at all surprised. And so if it's just this
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 4: outlier plate appearance total, again, he's better than pretty much
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: every catcher at everything, but he's just not that much better.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: It just wouldn't shock me at all. If Adley Richmond,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 4: who was a bigger prospect and who's already had a
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: super high plate appearance workload two years ago, wouldn't shuck
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 4: me at all. If he plays more than Contreras and
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: racks up slightly better counting stats as a result. Maybe
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: he steals one base versus Contreras is seven, but I
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: don't think the fact that Catreras can, you know, get
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: near ten steals, I just don't think that's enough. I
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: think people overreact to that from catchers. Yes, it's a
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: lot of steals for a catcher, but at the end
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: of the day, your speed guys. What if your speed
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 4: guy this year had thirty five steals instead of forty five,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 4: you would hardly even notice. And that's a bigger difference
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: than William Catreras has over every other catcher. So I
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 4: wouldn't overcount that either. I think he's just being pushed
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: up a little bit too much, even though I do
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 4: think he is really a very good baseball.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: Play I think it's just a common like rule of
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: thumb at this point, the first catcher is going too early.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: Like every year, it seems like that's the case, whichever
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 2: catcher it is, you know, whether it's ad Lei, whether
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 2: it's Contrere's like it feels like whoever is like I got,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: I got, I want to get my catcher position scarcity
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: addressed and get the best thing, and that's gonna be
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: a big leg up on the competition. But I feel
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: like that's ten year ago thinking because Ketcher's continued to
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: get deeper, deeper, deeper, and so that that advantage isn't
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: what it used to be. But I feel like we're
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: still playing that same game. So I regardless of who
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: it is, I think Eric, you have a great point.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 2: That is just it's not the player, it's the it's
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: the theory, and that's the strategy, which is not wise
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: to go down.
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was thinking. I was like, man, this is
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: kind of a spicy take. But then I was like,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: I've ever been come close to drafting William Contrast this year,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: Like it's never even been the consideration because he goes
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: so early, which it inherently means he's a selling my book.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: So I think this is a great call out brew
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: Who is your cell on the Brewers?
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm selling a guy that I've actually liked
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: for a long time on the Brewers. But I just
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: it's it's degrading, and I'm selling Freddy Peralta. I I
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: was going and looking at his uh savant page and
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: for fun, anybody should do this and go click through
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: from twenty twenty one through twenty twenty two to twenty
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: twenty three, twenty twenty four, and just watch every bar
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: that looks really really good, like regress every single year
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 2: and step back, and his metrics haven't changed that much,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: and so you start to look and be like, well
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: he twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, he had really
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: strong years, and everyone's like, man, look at this guy.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: He had unbelievably low babe ips his He was lucky
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: from a home run perspective, and those have come back
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: to like normal ranges last few years, and from his
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: pitch mixed perspective, like he's like become almost a two
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: pitch pitcher. He's stole a three pitch pitcher. Uh, but
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: he's his curveball, which was his fourth pitch, used to
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: be used very frequently. It's just not a good curveball,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: and so now he's barely throwing it. He's throwing his
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: fastball fifty four percent of the time last year. You
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: know it's coming. It's either the fastball or a slider
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: that's not that doesn't have that bite to it, and
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: so it's it's not that scary and so I think
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: Peralta because the slide has been so gradual people aren't
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: seeing it. And then you start to look at the
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: other guys going that same point in the draft. He's
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: going at one fourteen overall for pitchers. That's Joe Ryan Grason, Rodriguez,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: Hunter Brown, Sonny Gray, Spencer Streider. Like you're paying up
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: for Freddy Peralta, and I would take every single one
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 2: of those other guys that I mentioned, And I feel
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: like they could be jumping five rounds in value where
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: I see like Peralta at best is dropping multiple rounds
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: in value there. So I'm off the Freddy Perolta train.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: I've loved him for many years. It's just man. Every
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: year it seems like he is aging so much faster
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: than everybody else. So I don't know what's going on there.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: May we should check the birth certificate. Maybe he's actually
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: thirty eight, not twenty eight, because if he's pitching like that,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: that's that's my age. So let's yeah, I can probably
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: get over the play of that road, right, So yeah, No,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: I think this is a fair take.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, worst fit minus of his career last year,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: first time that he was blowly gaveraged and it reminds
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: me a little bit of like Luis Castillo, where the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: stuff just kind of slowly but surely backed up. Maybe
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: we're seeing that from Freddie Peralta, as he now has
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: just over seven hundred and fifty career innings on that arm,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: so it'll be interesting to see where it goes. All right,
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: My cell here is Trevor McGill, So this was even
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: before he kind of came into camp, and I the
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: some sort of undisclosed injury or illness or something going
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: on where doesn't seem like he's gonna get a full
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: start to camp right now, so he might be a
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: little bit delayed even starting into the season. That's a
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: consideration as your tam. But he is just flying off
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: the board so high since Devin Williams got sent out,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: so right around pick one oh seven in the Draft
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: Champions STADIU, I'm looking at minpick of seventy two, so
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: somebody was dropping like a fifth round pick on him
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: to fill in that closer spot. And currently just about
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: every projection system has McGill lined up for twenty eight saves.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: I will hammer the under on that because if there's
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: any team other than the Rays that I don't trust
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: to like give my closer saves to. It's the Milwaukee Brewers.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: This is another pretty solid bullpen that they've got going
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: again this year, and they haven't even like put Jacob
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: miss Serowski on the roster resource bullpen where I think
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: he's gonna end up. You know come mid season that
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different arms. The Brewers are great
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: at developing the arms, and so this is just way
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: too risky of a pick to be taking somebody like
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: McGill between all these factors going on, love the profile,
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: love the skills, but not somebody. I mean at that price,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: he's your closer won. So I'm not looking to invest
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: at that kind of level on Trevor. McGill. Had to
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: make sure I had the right McGill there, because there's
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: a handful of them.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: Either way, Taylor Trevor doesn't really matter. I'm fine, fine
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: with your analysis.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it. Okay, let's get into some of those picks
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: to click. So, Eric, who are you going with as
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: the prospect pick to click from Milwaukee?
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah? As I said, I'm mostly looking for guys who
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: could help out fantasy teams this year, and there's one
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: guy near the top of the Brewers prospect list that
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 4: that describes. That's Caleb Durban came over in the Devin
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 4: Williams trade. Is maybe a future utility man, but he
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 4: might be more than that. The reason I think he
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: might be more than that is because he has truly
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: elite strikeout rates in the minors. He was at nine
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 4: point nine percent last year in the Yankee system, and
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 4: that looks like somebody who could be you know, Nico
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 4: Horner territory to mention him yet again, but this is
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: also player who has maybe more than Nico Horner's bottom
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: of the scale power take it up to ten homers
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 4: in ninety games last season. I'm seeing a future thirty
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 4: five on his game power for his scouting report over
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 4: at Fangrass, which is not good. Fifty is average on
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 4: the twenty to eighty scale. Thirty five is you know,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 4: more than one standard deviation below, but it's not a twenty,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 4: which is probably about where Nico Horner is. So if
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 4: we get somebody who makes contact all the time also
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 4: walks a lot. He had a thirteen percent walk grate
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 4: to go with his nine point nine percent strikeout rate
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 4: last year. Did Durbin So we get he gets on
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 4: first base a ton through those walks through mostly singles,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: and he's got speed as well. Still thirty one bases
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 4: in those ninety games last season, so I see a
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: profile a lot like those you know, Nico hornerish type
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 4: hit or somebody who's going to hit for average, steal
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 4: a bunch of bases, and you know, maybe not have
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: zero homers. The question is just what it's the playing
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 4: time this year, and the Brewers aren't necessarily an organization
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: that I trust to give opportunities to all their prospects
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 4: right away, although I guess I mean, Jackson Curio got
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 4: his chances last year, so maybe a lesser prospect like
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 4: Durban will, especially when you look at the rest of
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 4: that depth chart at third base, which is where Durbin
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 4: probably will end up all over done. Andrew Monasterio, I mean,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 4: does south Freelick move back into the infield, But he's
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 4: already starting it, right Tyler Black. We already tried that
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 4: one last year. So the path is wide open for
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 4: Caleb Durban to start at third and I think he's
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 4: going to start most of the year, and I think
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 4: he's going to steal a lot of bases.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is a great pick because another
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: guy that I considered for sel Loki, I wouldn't be
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: surprised if Bryce Ring loses his job. This dude put
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: up a fifty eight WORC plus in the second half,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: and if that slides and that keeps up, I think
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: you look at Durbin taking over that job at second
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: base two. So great pick here, Eric brew who is
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: your pick to click on.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: The I was falling along so well with Eric until
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: he just dished on my pick to click because everything
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: he said about his pick applies to mine, except for
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: the fact that he denegrated Tyler Black at the very
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: end of it. Because if you look at a guy
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: in the miners, ignore what he tried in the majors
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: last year, because remember he had eighteen games in the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: majors last year, so it's not like he got a
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 2: full run at it, and they kind of, you know,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: jerked him around quite a bit. But in the miners
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: leading up to that, not the same level of plate
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: patients there, his strikeout rates and the miners really ranged
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: generally between kind of fifteen and eighteen percent, but he
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: was walking in a thirteen to fifteen percent range. Guy
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: that's in twenty twenty three, stole fifty five bases across
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: a few levels, and stole twenty and just one hundred
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: and two games last year in the miners, and typically
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 2: he has been a fifteen to twenty homer guy with
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 2: a decent average, and so like again, it's kind of
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: that guy that you could look at by almost think
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: like a Dansby Swanson with a little more speed. I
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: think he has that type of profile. He just I
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: don't think he got the space to run last year.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: And then I'm just gonna say whatever Eric said, I
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: was gonna make the same points about Done, uh trying
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: to play third base and all those things, Like it's
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: just the same thing. And you look at the death
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 2: chart here for the Brewers and it's Tyler Black and
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: Cale Durban trying to figure out how to get playing time.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: And so I think they both fit that same profile
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: that they're like Terang even Joy Ortiz. I'm just not
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: buying it. Oliver Done, Like there's there's Raishe Hoskins is
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: gonna get hurt, Like I know I draft hurt guys,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: but like Raish Austin's gonna get hurt. Like that's when
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: I watched the guy play, like I just I'm just
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: not buying it. So there's there's so much opportunity in
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: a good lineup in a ballpark that's fun to hit him.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm I'm I'm all game for it.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: I like it. I like it. Okay, mine picked to
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: click a little bit deeper in the minor league system,
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: But because I there's actually two dudes that I love here,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: I will pick one, but I'm gonna mention both because
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, the Brewers took two six foot
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: four prep draft shortstops in the same draft, and they've
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: been coming through the miners together. That is, the first
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: one is Eric Bittoni, who is left handed. He's not
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: my pick. Mine's Cooper Pratt the other one. So what
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: gives me Pratt over Beatoni. I actually love both of
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: their profiles. They're actually pretty dang similar. But Tony does
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: walk a little bit more, strike out a little bit more,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: Cooper Pratt a little bit more well rounded. But Pratt
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: has moved up to High A while Battoni has been
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: at only Low A so far, and Pratt actually has
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: an nrite getting into the spring. So the Brewers see
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: something in that profile too, And I think this is
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: also part of the reason why some of that the
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: middle infield, shortstop, second base, third base that we were
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: just talking about is kind of a mess on Milwaukee
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: is because they're waiting for Betony and Pratt to come
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: through here, and so I think now is probably the
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: time to buy in on them in keeper in dynasty leagues,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: because the profiles are pretty high end. I mean, I
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: guess I'm already pairing them together, so you can get
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: Pratt and PTONI but if you're gonna go for one,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: I'd go for Pratt because of the proximity to the majors.
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: Pratt also, I think is gonna run a little bit
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: more as well as just kind of has a more
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: well rounded hit tool, and I at the plate just
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: kind of given their stats and the miners and the
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: lower strikeout rate for Pratt, so you can already see it,
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: like in the projections, I mean, they're they're projecting like
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: a two twenty batting average for a twenty year old
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: on zips for Pratt that I think there's a lot
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: of great things in this profile where when we're coming
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: around to talk about guys that are like Matt Shaw,
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: for next year. I think both of these guys are
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: going to be in that conversation where great power, speed, profile,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: and just great profiles all round that. I think the
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: Brewers hit two really great prep here in the twenty
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: twenty three draft with be Tony and Pratt.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: The only thing I have to say is I have
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: to correct you slightly. He did get promoted to double
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: A last year for the playoffs, so he doesn't show
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: up in the stat line because they called him up
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: and he just played in the playoffs for Double A,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: so clearly he's only one step away.
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: Now, yeah, I mean that might explain the NRI then,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: so that does make more sense than Cooper Pratt. So
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: something keep an eye on. I think as we get
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: into spring. All right, let's move on to the Pittsburgh
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: Pirates from your home state, Eric of Pennsylvania. And so
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: we got another interesting team here where the talent is
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: certainly there. But this team keeps on nutting away with
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: Bob Nutting just holding back the overall budget, and they
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: have made some moves in the off season to improve.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I really love Spencer Horwitz coming in, and
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: then they are bringing back Tommy fam to give him
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: a job. So I'm sure I considered him as a
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: bike because he's always a buye in my heart and
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: will appear in just about every Waiver Wire column. I
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: think probably this summer as he continues to lead off
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: for the Pittsburgh Pirates and just play. So I think
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: this is one of the most fascinating teams in this
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: division because you could see this team possibly winning it,
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: but you could also see this team like winning sixty games,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: just depending on how things all break and kind of
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: how quickly they unravel if they do break. So with
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: all those considerations, Eric, who is your bye on the Pirates?
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an interesting young team that has some really
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 4: good young stars and then just not quite enough around it.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 4: You really wish that the Pirates well. As a neutral
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 4: fan here, you wish they did something more than Spencer
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 4: Horwitz this offseason. Who could have been my bye? I
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 4: do really like Spencer Horwitz, but he's currently coming back
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: from hand surgery, which is the bummer. Puts the situation
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 4: dicey enough for a fringe player like him that I
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 4: think he's more going to be a target for shallower
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 4: leagues once he gets off the il and that sort
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 4: of thing. The name I've gone with here is Jared Jones.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 4: This is mind certain a good well, we'll see if
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 4: we like him for the same reasons. He's certainly a risk.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 4: It didn't all go well last year. But he's going
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 4: just outside the top one fifty in February NFBC Drafts.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 4: I think that's a pretty affordable price. I would happily
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 4: take him a couple of rounds before that. I really
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 4: liked this huge strikeout upside with you know, sub the
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 4: enough downside to offset it, certainly, otherwise he'd be going
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 4: a lot earlier. I think of the pictures who hit
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: that category, he's one of the more interesting ones. Because
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 4: you got to cast your mind back to the beginning
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: of last season. You remember, you know, both in spring
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 4: training Jared Jones was the talk of spring training and
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 4: in the early part of the regular season as well,
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 4: he was absolutely dominating. Was looking like one of the
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 4: most exciting young pitchers in the league. Then he missed
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 4: two months with a lat injury. And actually his downfall
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 4: happened a little bit before that. His five starts before
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 4: hitting the IL, I think the era was up over
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 4: five and we came back. He wasn't necessarily great either,
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 4: which isn't a great sign. Although really he got rocked
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 4: in his first start back and then was mostly pretty
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 4: good the five starts after that, which also means we've
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 4: now seen him back on the mound for a good
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 4: six starts, the last of which also had his highest
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 4: fastball velocity of the year. So if there's any worry
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 4: about him not being back to being that guy, I
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: don't think that's the case. So if we might see
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 4: the early season Jared Jones that we got last year,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 4: far from guaranteed, but if that guy's still in there,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 4: that was a picture people were talking about as you know,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 4: a potential fantasy ace next year. Again, the injuries and
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 4: a bit of a downturn and performance sidetracked that. But
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 4: I think that you know, a couple months missed with
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 4: a that issue that he came back from. Compared to
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 4: other pictures, I mean, every picture's got a pretty worrisome
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 4: medical history, that's not that bad. And so if we
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 4: can get that picture who was as exciting as anybody
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 4: over those first even starts. He had a thirty four
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 4: percent strikeout rate. He was incredible. If that guy's still
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 4: in there and you can get him at pick one fifty.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 4: I'm taking that chance.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you hit pretty much like every point
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: on top of it. Two is like it was a
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: career high in innings, So you have to consider that.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: You know, he was a twenty three year old grinding
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: through that process and now you're gonna get him back,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: and hopefully you look at who's going around him too.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: You know he's going behind Spencer Streider, He's going behind
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: Brian wo has been battling elbow issues for a couple
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: of years now, going right around Jack Flaherty. I think
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: the upside for Jared Jones far exceeds all those guys.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: Great home park and also just one of those players
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: too where I see what the projections say, but when
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: you watch this guy pick, nobody looks comfortable against him,
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: and it's just a really electric profile that like, I'm
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: surprised it doesn't pop in stuff. Plus, but I think
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: because the velocity is so significant from Jones, it really
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: throws lots of other batters off. And so yeah, I
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: love this pick that if there's anybody who I think
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: really can rise up the ranks in terms of the
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: starting pitching, like just landscape, especially where they're going in
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: the draft, Jones has got to be my number one
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: pick for somebody who can really kind of like far
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: exceed his draft value. That when I once I saw
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: where he was going, I was like, there's no way.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: It's crazy that there's not more hype.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I should just picture of Jones now.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: Guessn't convince me.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: Isn't that price for the ADP crazy?
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at it, and I'm just like they're
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: like Jared Jones or Jeff Hoffman, Like I'll like, the
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: guy's arm has already fallen off. We're well aware of that,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: and like it's just literally peppered with like guys with
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: issues and questions around that point in the draft, and
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: like why not talk like I'm always in favor at
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: that point and taking the guy that you could easily say, well,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: next year clearly is a top five round or something
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: like that. Like those are the kind of guys just
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: like I can't stay and when we sit here, take
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 2: the guy that we hope delivers that draft value. When
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: you there's a guy next to him that you can
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: easily project taking a big step forward. There's always a
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: reason for that, right, There's injury histories or something like that.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: But man, man, I'm just I'm jealous. That was a
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: that was a good pick.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you, we appreciate it. Who's hereby on the pirates?
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: Then, well, this is probably why I'm jealous, is I'm
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: buying Andrew McCutcheon. I don't feel right about it.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, last year and you're back on the train.
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: I'm back on the train. And it's the price. It's free.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: I think guse adp is like seven hundred, which I'm like,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: I don't like. Who's still like I'm on auto draft
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: pick seven hundred guys like at that point. And the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: thing with m and like, you know, it's he's one
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: of those guys that, first of all, he's great for
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 2: the fantasy clubhouse and I'm was always a big thing
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: for a club clubhouse atmosphere. But he's he's just gonna
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: when when he plays, like he gives you exciting value
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: across the board, Like it's not it's not break the bank,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: but when you got injuries and you're trying to plug
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: a hole and you're maybe a league that is really
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: deep like McCutcheon and still poke it out of the ballpark,
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: hit twenty homers last year. He only played one hundred
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: and twenty games, so he still had sixty six runs
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: and fifty RB guys. Yeah, the average was down, but
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 2: like we talked about earlier, I think in two thirty two,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: when everybody else is hitting like two forty, like a
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: big deal, right when the guys when the guy's free.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: So I just think that there there's a lot worse
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: guys later in the draft everybody's signed, you know, casting
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: aside the Justin Turners and the entr mcutsons of the world,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: that there's nothing wrong with good or reliable when you're
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: looking to plug a hole. So I'm not suggesting he's
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: gonna break the bank like a Jared Jones. But I
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: got no problem with inter McCutcheon.
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think people would be surprised to
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: hear in fifteen team standard leagues last year and our
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: player he was worth four bucks. So you take him
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: at that draft value, you put him at the end
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: of your roster, that's free money. That's literal free money.
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a depict Okay, who is your
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: cell here, Eric?
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was kind of tough to find a sell
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 4: because people in general don't seem to be that excited
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 4: about too many pirates. If you yourself don't happen to
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 4: be out on Paul Schiins or O'Neil Cruz, then it's
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 4: hard to be two out on anybody. So I went
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 4: with Joey Bart, and I should probably keep this short
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 4: because he's catcher twenty. How out can you be on
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 4: catcher twenty? But Bart fine, he had good numbers and
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 4: a small sample size. But is that enough to offset
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 4: is six twenty three ops with eleven homers in one
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 4: hundred and sixty two games with the Giants. I don't know.
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 4: It was the more most recent sample size, but it
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 4: was small, and we've seen him struggle for much longer.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 4: And even in that small sample size last year where
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 4: he had better results at twenty six percent strikeout rate,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 4: that's worse than average, only thirty nine percent hard y
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 4: at rate, nothing too special with his bat. I think
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 4: Bart should get the first chance behind the plate, But
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 4: there's two other young catchers with talent in Pittsburgh. And
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 4: this's the real reason. Henry Davis, a former first overall pick,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 4: he struggled at the majors, but he looked really good
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 4: at Triple A last year. They're gonna give him another
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 4: chance at some point, aren't they? And same with Andy Rodriguez.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 4: He was a really highly rated catching prospect who struggled
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 4: in the majors as a rookie two years ago, missed
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 4: most of last year due to elbow surgery, but it
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 4: looks like he's ready to return. The odds of Bart
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 4: holding off both of those guys all year, I don't
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 4: know if they're that high. There's two guys who if
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 4: they you know, if they get right this year, they'll
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 4: be better than what Bart has shown over the course
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 4: of his major league career. So if I'm taking a
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 4: guy who just has the job and is fine, I'd
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 4: rather not take somebody who has Davis and Rodriguez breathed
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 4: down his neck. So in those deep two catcher leagues,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 4: I'd go somewhere else other than Joey Bart.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's fair. And he did have an
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: inter history too that Yeah, I think it's It'll be
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: interesting to see what he does because there's a lot
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: of catching talent there in Pittsburgh, which is really rare
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: to see, and so they can go a lot of
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: different directions. I'm gonna jump you here, Brew because Eric
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: did mention myself it is Paul Skins, and I wanted
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: to kind of a lot of it is just I
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: can't do a picture in the first round, and I
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: just don't know, like what we're gonna get from Paul Skins.
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: Obviously that year last year was electric, and you have
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: to wonder if that is the peak year and then
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: what happens when he goes through more volume. I do
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: love like his ability overall, and like you can see
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: the huge picture frame. But Eric, I thought this would
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: be good to kind of bring you on because I
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: should have also in the intro mentioned that at first
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: Pitch Arizona, we were in a gladiator draft together on
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the Friday night. If you're not familiar where the gladiator
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: draft is, you just have twenty three picks. That's your
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: starting up, set it and forget it for the rest
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: of the year. We were doing this on what like
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: November first, and so it is interesting going back and
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: seeing some of those picks. But you took Paul Skeen's
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: twelfth overall, Honestly, I think that you did pretty well
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: with that team, because I think one of the problems
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: is when you take Skins that early in the first round,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: you are behind the gun on stolen bases and power
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: as you kind of cascade down. But I wanted to
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: see how do you think that that worked out? And
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: do you find yourself taking Paul Skins a lot or
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: is it just kind of like a Hey, I'm in
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: a gladiator. Let's have a little fun on a Friday
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: night and see how this goes.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely. Some of it was let's see what it
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 4: looks like when you start out with a pitcher, because
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 4: you're not gonna have many chances to do it. There's
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 4: only one, maybe two entire schoole who are going in
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 4: the first round. So given that it was, you know,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 4: in October draft, I wanted to see what it looked like.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 4: And I don't think I've done it much other than that,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 4: and I don't think I would In general, you're setting
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 4: yourself up for more of a chance that your season's
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 4: over in April. It's not over. Of course, everybody can
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 4: lose a first round pick and be fine, but in general,
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 4: that's not the way I wanted to go. And I
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 4: think if you take a first round pitcher, you probably
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 4: should stay away from starting pitchers for several rounds, which
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 4: is what I did in that one. I didn't get
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 4: my second starter until round six because this was before
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 4: the ADP was set for the new year. I managed
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 4: to slip in some guys who are going way earlier now.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 4: So if you could get a sixth round Chris Sale
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 4: and somehow Garrett Crochet, nobody was thinking about him until
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 4: the eighth round. Yeah, that's about six rounds too late.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 4: So there was specific things that can happen in an
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 4: October draft when everybody's looking at last year's ADP. That
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 4: maybe made that Paul Skins pick a little bit earlier.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, if I was pairing him with the normal
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 4: starting pitchers who are now going in rounds six and eight,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 4: I don't know if I'd like the team as much.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 4: So it really does just screw with your overall build
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 4: because you're a whole hitter down. Everybody else has a hitter,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 4: and even if you go through the first two rounds,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 4: it's probably you know, ten of your league mates are
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 4: gonna have two hitters and you're gonna have only one.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 4: So it really does put you in a tough position.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 4: Now that we're in an era where very few pitchers
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 4: do go in the first round, you really are behind,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 4: and you really have to contort the rest of your
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 4: draft to make up for it. And I don't know
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 4: if I love.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: It, yeah, because I'm looking at like the rest of
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: your team, because then like second round you went Julio
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: and then third round you went with Jazz. But does
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: maybe put you a little behind on stolen bases and speed,
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: but like that's kind of the tradeoff, and so like,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: if you are a good drafter, I think maybe there
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: are pathways that you can use schemes, but I just
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: it's so difficult. And I think a lot of the
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: leagues that we play in, the three of Us and
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: some of the really like you know, just grindy leagues
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: that we're in, I don't know if you can necessarily
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: tread that path quite as easily. So that's mostly why
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: Paul Skeens is my cell that I love him, but
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: I just can't do it in the first round. Okay,
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: brew is you have no.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 2: No, I don't have Paul skin. Well, I don't disagree.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 2: I think you guys are pointing on there. I can't
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: do that. The thing that I laugh at is Eric said, well,
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: there's only really two guys on the Pirates that if
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: you're going to consider selling to really make a true
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: cell would be Paul Skans and O'Neil Cruz. And here
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: I'm saying, I'm selling O'Neil Cruz. So so thank you
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: Eric for the for the assist on that one. O'Neil Cruz, like,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: I was actually surprised when I started looking at his
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: his lyne because I think there's this I think the
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: talent and uh impact he makes in the athletic ability
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: far exceeds what he actually does, and I was surprised
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: this w r C plus there's only one ten for
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 2: what he did last year, and I think people are
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: drafting him like it's way above that. And he has
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: this trifecta of like he's like bound to be injured,
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: like is the way he played, and it's coming from
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: a guy that loves drafting injured guys. He strikes out
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: just way too much, which means as a volatile profile,
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: and he's relied on his best years, which is one
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: year on a pretty gush darn high babeip almost three fifty,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: and so all right, one of those drops off and
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: he has a worse year. Two of those drops off,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 2: and he could torpedoes your entire fantasy season and you're
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: picking him in the third round, maybe the fourth round,
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 2: depends on where you're going, and you can absolutly like
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: we we say this time and time again, like you
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: don't win fantasy drafts in the first like five rounds,
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: but you can certainly lose them. And I think drafting
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: a guy like O'Neil Kruz or Paul Skeens absolutely can
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: lose you the draft. And I have zero qualms if
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting there. So the same thing with like La
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: de la Cruz last year and I and I owned
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 2: him in only one league, and that's because it was
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: a keeper league. And I have no problem looking back
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: at the end of the year and going and this
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 2: guy goes thirty forty and I'm like, okay, that's okay,
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: because it's he could have easily gone like ten to
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: five and played in thirteen games, Like it'll have been
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: great thirteen games. But you know, there's you lose. You
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: lose drafts at this point when you take profiles like that.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: So I'm staying away from Neil O'Neil Cruz, even though
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: he is incredibly fun to watch.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think that's fair and you also factor
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: in the whole learning center field portion of it all.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: You never know how that's gonna go.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: He's probably gonna hur himself under the walls. What's gonna happen,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: It's very likely.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get to those picks to click Eric, who's
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: yours for the Pirates?
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we're gonna go the pitcher here. And
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 4: there's two pitchers who could help out fantasy teams this year.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 4: There's Bubba Chandler, who is one of the top pitching
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 4: prospects in baseball. He's the number two behind Roki Sasaki
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 4: and James Anderson's top four hundred at rode Wire. But
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 4: I'm actually gonna go with Braxton Ashcraft, who is not
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 4: quite an elite, top tier potential future ACE, but has
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 4: had some good numbers in the upper miners and is
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 4: perhaps a hair more MLB or just a little bit
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 4: closer to being on the major league roster. Simply because
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 4: he's already on the forty man whereas Bubba Chandler is not,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 4: it would be easier for the Pirates to include Ashcraft
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 4: in the opening day roster. That means Chandler certainly could
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 4: force his way into the rotation with a good camp.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 4: But Ashcraft can have a pretty good, you know, a
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 4: merely decent camp and still has a shot there or
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 4: maybe would get the first opportunity in the case of
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 4: a spot start. And he's pretty good in his own right.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 4: Actually had pretty much the same strikeout minus walk rate
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 4: as Chandler last year, and really it's just pick which
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 4: profile you like more. Bubba Chandler, the very elite prospect,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 4: was a thirty one percent strikeout rate with a nine
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 4: percent walk rate, whereas Ashcraft to take five off of
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 4: both of those twenty six percent strikeout rate and just
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 4: a four percent walk rate. That is pretty compelling to
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 4: see a guy with that kind of control and still
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 4: an above average strikeout rate. So I want to see
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 4: what a Pirates pitching coaching staff, who's you know, producing
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 4: some excellent starters. Well maybe maybe we don't say they
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 4: produced Paul Skeens. He was kind of already Paul Skeens.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 4: But with Jared Jones at least, it seems like this
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 4: is a team that knows a couple things about developing pitchers.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 4: I like Bubba Chandler just fine, but you have to
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 4: make a real draft pick on him. He's going around
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 4: pick three hundred, whereas Braxton Ashcraft going far later. So
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 4: I would take a shot on him late in a
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 4: draft champions league, and I'd keep his name in mind
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 4: for re draft leagues that have a in season waivers.
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: I love this pick and I'm just gonna I'm gonna
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 2: throw mine out there now because Eric did a great
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 2: job on it as well, because I picked Bubba Chandler
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 2: just because I felt like we had to talk about him,
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: and like it's it's it's it's clear and and and Eric,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: you did a good job just outlining all the same reasons.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: Like right, it's just the they're two different profiles, but
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: just I feel like Chandler is just an amped up
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: version of Ashcraft, Like he's gonna strike out more guys,
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 2: he's gonna walk more guys, he's gonna gonna be a
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: little more flashy. But they're both successful profiles, are both
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: in a good system for development. All of those things
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 2: come true. And like Ashcraft, I actually love the walk rate.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: I love guys that can keep it on the ground
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: like that, and so like I think that Chandler has
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: higher upside but also a little bit more risk overall
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: that profile, Ashcraft has a higher floor and he's that
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: kind of guy that you know, you can just be
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: looking back at this season be like, oh man, he
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: had a three five ERA and won ten games and
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: struck out a guy for any like and I got
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: that for free, Like yeah, I'm really excited about that.
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 2: So any of these prospect young pictures for Pittsburgh right now,
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: like I don't think you can do anymore else is
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: just draft the young pictures from Pittsburgh and be pretty happy.
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's great pick right there too.
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: My pick to click is I'm going with the Sammy Siani,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: brother of Michael Siani, from the Saint Louis Cardinals, partly
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: because this is the only other like center fielder they
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: really like kind of have on the whole like path
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: of like being able to replace O'Neil Cruz. So I,
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: especially when you're considering where Sianni is being like valued
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: and keeper in dynasty leagues, I don't think that he's
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: gonna He might even just be on waiver wires and
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: like super deep dynasties and keeper leagues. You're looking at
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: a twenty four year old who plays pretty solid defense
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: and honestly, it's Mike Siani, but with a better hit tool.
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: So he's got great speed, and I think you're looking
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: at somebody who could be just like a low key
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: like twelve twelve player, where especially when you're in situations
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: where you need somebody to hit and like play in
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: that fifth outfield spot in deep dynasty and keeper leagues,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: it is hard during the season, and so I think
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: you're looking at somebody in Sianni who could walk in
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: to a job in Pittsburgh, play every day and just
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: kind of produce value. So it's not I think anything
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: super flashy, but when you look at kind of the
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: system up to down, uh, Siani's really one of their
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: best inner field options that the O'Neal Cruz experiment goes awry, and.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: We would just over that that's there's a there's a
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 2: non zero likelihood, and I would say double digit likelihood
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 2: though that one's going awry.
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Okay, Well, we have made it to the
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: Saint Louis Cardinals, and I am excited here because Brew
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you're gonna have some goofy picks just like
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: I do, given our knowledge of the depth of the system.
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: But this is going to be a team in flux,
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: but will oddly, I think, still kind of be in
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: the mix for this division just because we're it does
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: look like Aeronatto is sticking around.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 2: It's solely because of no trade clauses, yes, exactly.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: But the pitching staff is pretty solid, the bullpen's pretty good.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: That like, I think they're going to be more competitive
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: than people give them credit for. There's lots of players
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: coming through the system as well too, so I think
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: it's even though it's going to be like a mix
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: of a year for Saint Louis going forward, that I
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: think that this team has lots of interesting options on
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: it that I know I've been saying this on every
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: team here in this in this Central, but like the
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: Cardinals have lots of different ways to go and lots
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: of players who are gonna get opportunities and have great
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: skill packages. So all those things considered, Eric, who is
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: your buy from the Saint Louis Cardinals.
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an interesting team where I think in some
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 4: you know, deep leagues, there's gonna be a ton of
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 4: Cardinals who are interesting because probably more than nine hitters
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 4: are going to get a legitimate shot at playing times
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 4: so if you're in an NL only league, tons of names.
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 4: If you're in a shallower league, though, how many guys
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 4: are going to play a lot? It's hard to find
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 4: any in a lot of ways. But I think that
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 4: in most leagues, regardless of settings. Two of my top
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 4: catching targets are Cardinals Yvonne Herrera, who's probably, I hope
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 4: going to be the starting catcher. Maybe one of you
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 4: guys can tell me whether or not I'm actually should
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 4: be worrying about Pedro Paez there. But my main catcher
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 4: target is Wilson Contraras because he's a first base If
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 4: you can get a player with a first baseman's workload
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 4: and a first baseman's bat yet catcher eligibility for fantasy purposes,
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 4: that is incredible. And I don't have any doubt that
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 4: Candras is gonna hit like a first baseman. He already
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 4: does for his career. He has an eight fourteen ops
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 4: that's first basement of a one te WRC. Plus he's
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 4: had a double digit barrel rate for six straight seasons.
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 4: He doesn't hit like a star first baseman, but he
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 4: absolutely hits like a middle of the pack type first baseman.
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 4: And you know, I think he's gonna get a ton
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 4: of plate appearances, provided he stays healthy. He missed a
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 4: lot of time with injury last year, but that was
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 4: you know from catching right that it was just last
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 4: year where he had that picture framing broken forearm. So
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 4: that's not gonna happen anymore. So we talked earlier with
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 4: his brother about the importance of workload at the catcher position.
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure the guy who's moved to first base
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 4: is going to be top five, maybe top three, or
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 4: even top one at plate appearances at catcher, and he
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 4: already hits like a first base and not like a catcher.
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 4: So I think he's gonna be a big help to
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 4: a whole lot of fantasy teams this year, unless a
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 4: tiny part of me worries that. You know, the Cardinals
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 4: have been weird to Wilson Cadres. They've jerked him around
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 4: ever since he's got there. He's thirty three years old,
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 4: he bat's right handed. There's a bunch of lefty, young
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 4: bat first players on the Cardinals. Where should I be
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 4: worried at all? You Cardinals fans that you know, if
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 4: Contreras has a bad April, that we're gonna see Alec
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 4: Burlison at first in the Whole World at DH or
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 4: do you think Contrera's absolutely lock for six hundred plus
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 4: play appearances as long as he's healthy, he.
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 2: Is an absolute lock as long as he's not catching,
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 2: because that's where the issues are is that he doesn't
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: want to call a game. I can't imagine the guy
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: in the pitchers and catchers room working through Phil like
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: I think he's a hitter, That's what he is. He's
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: not a catcher, and so I think that you're absolutely fine.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 2: It will also be very clear, Pa Hayes is not
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 2: Vona Herrera by any way, shape or form. If I
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 2: saw a pull the other trade rumors on that discussion,
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: I'm like, why are we even talking about this? This is
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 2: clearly von Herrera's job. Until he absolutely falls apart like
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: three months of the season like that, he's going to
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 2: get a long leash. So no problem with this whatsoever.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: I'm fully on board with it, and I just I'm
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: just so proud that you managed to get both Contrara's
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 2: brothers into the same podcast discussion. For by self, that's
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: just that's impressive.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 4: Do they have any other siblings that I should be
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 4: googling real quick to get in there before the other show.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, the same the Molina Brothers. Now it's just brothers.
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I think great pick. And especially like all
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: the things that you were talking about with William Contreras,
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: why not just wait for Wilson and get in on
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: the catcher pool there because it is crazy how late
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: I think Contra's is going. Wilson Contraras. That is especially
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: given that he should play every day. You can get
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty five games playing for base Brew
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: who is here by here on the Cardinals.
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I guy, I absolutely love and you know,
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: whether whether it's playing for Japan the World Baseball Classic
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: or finally getting the solid playing time for the Cardinals,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: it's Lars new Bar uh and new Bar looks just
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: fantastic when he actually gets the playing time. But I
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 2: think Eric you calls out, well, the Cardinals just like
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: to jerk everybody around and not like commit to guys,
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 2: and that really I think hurt a guy like Lars
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 2: Newbar because at the end of the day last year
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: he got one hundred and nine games, hit twelve homers,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 2: still seven bases two forty four like it was just
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 2: all pedestrian, and a lot of that is that, like
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: it was not consistent playing time, they weren't really fully
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 2: leveraging them. But you look at what he was able
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: to do from a like quality of contact, Like this
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: guy has one of the best played approaches out there.
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: He is one hundredth percentile in his chase rate for
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: his stack cast, like it is just unbelievable. He's in
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: the top quarterly league. And all his contact metrics, his
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 2: hard hit rate, you know, his ability to get on base,
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 2: all of those things. Play he struck out less than
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 2: twenty percent of the time last year. On his career,
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 2: he's a thirteen to forty percent walk. Great type of guy.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: It just feels like he needs a little bit of
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 2: improvement on kind of his his launch angle to for
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 2: that hour to truly truly unlock. And I mean he's
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 2: going to those age twenty seven season, Like we've all
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: seen the research that's that's the season, that's the prime
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 2: season for a hitter to be at the top of
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: their peak. And so you're you're talking early draft season,
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: we were talking around guys like Jake McCarthy and Jesus Sanchez.
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: He's jumped up a little bit now and we're now
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 2: in the Michael Conforto, JJ Bledet, Joe Adell, Luke Rayley area.
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: And I'm still buying him all day over those types
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 2: of guys because there is true, true upside here and
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: I see an easy season for him, whether it's this
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 2: year or someone in the future. We're well twenty twenty
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: five homers, fifteen steels hitting you know, two seventy and
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: looking back and go. He's always been that guy. It's
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: just they didn't give him the plane time to do it,
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: and there's too much pressure. They're committed to their young
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 2: guys this year. They're literally trying to trade all stars
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: as much as possible. Like I said, there are no
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: trade clause. Is their only reason Contrere's Sunny Gray and
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 2: Nolan and Aroando are still on the team because they
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: fully want to go youth movement. And this is the
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 2: first time, and I've been a Cardinals fan for nearly
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 2: forty years, this is the first time that I've actually
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: seen them commit to a strategy. And so the fact
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 2: that they stated the strategy it like means light years
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: for the way they approach it. So I'm taking Lars.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 2: I just want to chant news at every ball game.
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 2: That's really what it comes down to.
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: I love it. Great pick, okay, just the way that
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: I was able to predict your Cooper Bowman pick, I
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 1: bet you could have predicted mine. My buye is obviously
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: my boy Michael McGreevey. He is currently not slated be
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: in the rotation, but I think he's gonna make it
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: pretty easily given some of what you were just saying
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: brew about, like the Cardinals wanting to play the younger
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: players see what they do. And honestly, at this point,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: I don't even know why McGreevey wasn't in the rotation
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 1: all the way down the stretch. It's an elite approach
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: at the at the on the mound, one of the
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: most like insane sinkers from a ground ball rate that
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: I think exists in baseball. Right now. You can see
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: the ground ball rates he ran through the miners, but
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: non zero strikeouts because he's got pretty good stuff, like
• 2:05:32
  Speaker 1: the stuff didn't pop in the models as well last year,
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: but just because he's pounding that sinker so much, and
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: what it is is elite elite command. It is like
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: plus plus command in his ability to work the bottom
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: of the zone, and then when he does offer that
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: is works a little bit of like a fastball, cutter
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: and slider to be able to get strikeouts. So the
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: strikeouts I think can be around eight k per nine,
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: you're looking at a very minuscule walk rate. And then
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: because of that ground ball rate, he keeps the ball
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: out of the sky, reduces that overall home run risk.
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 1: And on top of it all, you're playing in front
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: of a pretty good infield defense. The outfield defense can
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: get a little suspect on the Cardinals, but when you
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: got Mason Wynn and Nolan Arnatto behind you, that's what
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: drove a lot of his great whip in the starts
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: that he got last year. Came up and had that
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: electric start in his debut. Yeah, he put up at
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: one ninety six ERA and twenty three innings and only
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: got into four games three starts for the Cardinals down
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: the stretch between Stephen Motts always being injured and maybe
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: a better bullpen piece anyway to be able to sell
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: at the deadline. Andre Polante kind of in the same
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: boat where I don't see Polante long term as a starter,
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: and Miles Nicholas honestly is kind of in like Dallas
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: Kyicele territory at this point where he's maybe like a
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: few starts from just being cut because like, what's the
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: point of rolling him out every five days? That I
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: really love Michael McGreevy. It's a super cheap price, and
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: I think this is a guy who can really rise
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: to be like honestly, like a logan web is maybe
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: like logan Web in Saint Louis is where I see
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: the peak at but maybe not this year, but maybe
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: like next year. And so I'm buying McGreevy everywhere I can.
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 2: I could have predicted this, I could have seen it coming.
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 2: So I'm not gonna pine because we've gone down this
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: road before. Mcgreevy's really exciting. I want to I want
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 2: to see those strikeouts Spike. I want to see what
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: that happens. But like it feels like he can do that.
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: It's just a matter of can get comfortable and is
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: he gonna give up a few ground balls for a
• 2:07:40
  Speaker 2: few swings and swings and misses. But you're right, the
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 2: left side of that endfield can play defense. The right
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 2: side I don't believe can. And so we'll see when
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 2: they roll out. Nolan Gorman and William Wilson Contrari's on
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 2: the right side there, that's gonna be a questionable. But
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 2: you know, when Gorman's at the DH and Brendan Donovan's
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: in there, it'll it'll be pretty gusch darning good. So
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: there's some gold glove defense there. The questions can confur
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 2: catch it when I throw it first? Yeah, the minor
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: deal exactly.
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the cells here on the Cardinal.
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: So Eric, who's yours?
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going to go with Alec Burlson, who was
• 2:08:18
  Speaker 4: pretty fringy as a prospect, and I think he's still
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 4: pretty fringey.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 4: I mean last year he hit a thirteen percent strikeout rate.
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 4: That's excellent, But what else did he do? I'm not
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 4: really sure there's enough else there for somebody who is
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 4: limited to first base and the corner outfield. He's too
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 4: aggressive as a hitter, doesn't take his walks walk great,
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 4: just under six percent last year, and he doesn't actually
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 4: hit the ball all that hard. If six and a
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 4: half percent barrel rate is subpar, it added up to
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 4: twenty one homers. Sure, that's pretty good because I guess
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 4: he makes so much contact because he's not taking his walks,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 4: and he's not striking out too much. But I worry
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 4: that what we just saw might be the best that
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 4: we can get out of Alc Burlson's skill set. A
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 4: guy who puts the ball in play a lot with
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 4: about average exit velocity and doesn't do a lot else.
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, he got up to nine steals. I guess
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 4: that's good for him. He's not somebody who was expected
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 4: to have much speeds, So I just think he's not
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 4: necessarily a full time player for a good team. I
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 4: don't think the bat, which added up to one zero
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 4: six WORC plus, that's just not enough for a first base,
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 4: slash corner outfield. So he needs to get better there,
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 4: or he needs the Cardinals to just have a lost
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 4: season where a lot of guys get hurt and they
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 4: have to use him all year as a lefty. I've
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 4: got to imagine he's at least platooning, and there's a
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 4: potential for him to even lose that, because again, if
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 4: your bat is just barely above average and all you
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 4: have is a bat, that's a bench player. And this
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 4: whole thing. In five hundred and ninety five played appearances
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 4: last year added up to zero point six fangrafts war.
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 4: That's the kind of player Alec Burlson is. Maybe if
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 4: the Cardinals have a terrible season, then he gets his
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 4: full year's worth of playing time anyway, but I don't
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 4: see a path towards him doing much more. And I
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 4: see it definitely plenty of paths towards him retreating to
• 2:10:09
  Speaker 4: the bench and not being useful. So you still have
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 4: to give an actual draft pick for him. He's going
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 4: pick two twenty six in February NFPC drafts, and I
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 4: don't know. There's just not enough there for me.
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 2: So so Eric, one of the favorite things that we'd
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 2: like to do in this podcast is put somebody to
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 2: test on predicting a stat and hopefully they haven't looked
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 2: at it already. And I'm gonna try to ask this
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 2: as objectively as possible to not give it away. Alec
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: Broson hit twenty one home runs last year. If you're
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 2: a believer or not in Baseball Savant in their no
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: doubter category, how many of his twenty one home runs
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 2: were no doubters last year?
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna guess that it's a very low number. Should
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 4: I guess one?
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 2: It's it's four, but you were in the right you
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 2: got four.
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: He was four.
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 2: Like if you look great for a guy, you look
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: at his spray chart like literally everything's barely And I
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 2: mean I've watched the guy. I watched a lot of
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 2: Cardinal games and like literally it's always like the first
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 2: or second row and there were the bolden shots things
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 2: like that. Like you are talking about the epitome of
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 2: a of a quada player here, Like that's what it is.
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 2: He's he's too good of a guy for triple A
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 2: because he he can just he's a good hitter for
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 2: that type of environment. He's patient enough.
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 1: He can uh just score.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: He doesn't square everything up, but he has like his
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 2: medium hit rate is really high because he just hits
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 2: everything just okay. And so like he is that epitome
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 2: of a quada player. And the Cardinals did of all
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 2: the guys that like like give a run last year,
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: like Burlsten was always in the lineup and was like
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 2: but why, but like like I guess he's just good
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 2: enough that we couldn't give Jordan Walker ago Like sorry.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is a great sell. So brew
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 1: who is yourself from the Cardinals.
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 2: I mean it's it's it's almost too easy. I'm selling
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: Nolan Aeronado. Okay, it's. I mean he he dropped off
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 2: a cliff last year, and I mean he's saying all
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 2: the right things so far in spring training, but like
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 2: you just talked about trading the guy for like five
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: straight months and then literally nobody wanted him like he is.
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, his defenses started to drop off a little bit,
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 2: like he's showing his age and his value is really
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 2: coming into from a volume perspective. And as the Cardinals
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 2: really go for that youth movement, they're gonna give more
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 2: days off, and all of a sudden, you start looking
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 2: at a guy that you know barely hit sixteen homers
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 2: last year, seventy runs, seventy one RBIs, doesn't doesn't steal.
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 2: His batting average has really dropped. It's more of like
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 2: a two fifty two sixty hitter now, Like all of
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 2: those things are just regressing, and I just I hate
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 2: to play the mental game of things, Like the numbers
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: aren't fantastic by any means relative who you think he
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 2: is just based on all those years of high quality production,
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 2: But just play the mental game like he's he's not
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 2: gonna be fully in it. They they they've talked about
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: trading you literally the entire offseason, like it was their
• 2:12:57
  Speaker 2: known strategy. He wasn't invited to their off season like FanFest.
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 2: He was invited to that, and he would have been
• 2:13:04
  Speaker 2: the guy the poster child. Instead it was you know,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it was probably Alan Burlison.
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 2: And so I didn't go this year, uh, clearly, But
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: and so I'm I'm sorry, I'm just I love the guy.
• 2:13:18
  Speaker 2: I think he's a fantastic competitor, but like there's just
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 2: gotta be a mental edge that just isn't there, because
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 2: as soon as somebody comes knocking, they're they're moving them
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 2: and he has to know that and that that's got
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 2: to be frustrating on so many levels.
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was a rough, rough year at the
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: plate that he certainly looks all of his thirty three
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: years old. I was just looking to see, uh, the
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: similar batter is not great Jeff McNeil, brooks Lee, Bryce
• 2:13:46
  Speaker 1: and Scott Willie Calhoun, Like that's where Nolan Arenano has fallen. Two.
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: So it's a it's a rough profile. Yeah, My sol
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 1: is Ryan Helsley because currently looks like He's going to
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 1: third round of ADP of Draft Champions, and that is
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: such a rich price for somebody who between everything that
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: we've talked about the Cardinals of obviously I was a
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: little bit maybe glowing in the setup, but I think
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: they are likely to take a step back. They've got
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: lots of different bullpen options, and if there's like one
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: player that, like you could if I had to pick,
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: and like, if there was one pitcher just based on
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: like you watching them throw and I didn't even get
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: to see any of the analytics or anything, and you're
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: just asking me, like, who would blow out next? Ryan
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: Helsley would probably be my pick. Is the most high
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: effort delivery I have ever seen, and every pitch looks
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: like he's about to just shred his elbow. He's been
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: dealing with elbow issues on and off. All of the
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 1: statistics took a back up last year in terms of
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: like walk rates and K minus bbs and things like
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: that that I think it's just quite the land mine
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: sitting there that saves and clothes. This is gonna be
• 2:15:01
  Speaker 1: an absolute dog fight for twenty twenty five. But I
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: don't think Helsley's quite the way to go. Just because
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna be spending that type of draft capital
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: on him, you need somebody that has a super super
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: high floor and I just don't know if Helsley's got
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: that for me to be able to be picked in
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: that range.
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 2: And I'm gonna add on with Helsley here because first
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 2: of all, you know, you look at what the Cardinal's
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 2: trying to do, kind of reset and go over things.
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 2: He's like the best trade ship they have. He should
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: be traded. He frankly, he should have been traded this offseason.
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: I'm glad they didn't as a Cardinals fan, but like
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 2: just pure logic says like he's the kind of guy
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 2: you should be trading, and he's getting traded to a
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 2: contender come July, and it's probably the Dodgers, because why not.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 2: It's like they don't They clearly need help, and he
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 2: you know, there's a fifty to fifty chance that even
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: though he's a fantastic arm but he's getting traded into
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 2: a situation where where you know, the Yankees Devin Williams
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 2: is the closer, or you go to the Rodgers and Tanner,
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 2: Scott and literally seventeen other guys, you're trying to fight
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 2: for saves. You're you're drafting them expecting him to have that,
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 2: and you're right, like the arm is an issue, Like
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 2: he's he's not too far from blowing that thing out
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 2: with the way that he throws, and it just feels
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: like a ticking time bomb. But there's there's a lot
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 2: of risk there with with that profile, they'll be in
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 2: plenty of close games, Like that's the one thing you
• 2:16:23
  Speaker 2: can say for him. They're not gonna be blowing everybody out,
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 2: that's for sure.
• 2:16:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, let's get to those pics to click. So, Eric,
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: who's yours here for the Cardinals?
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 4: Well, my guy was going to be someone you already mentioned,
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 4: Michael McGreevy. I think he's a rookie who could make
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 4: an impact this season, but sincerity talked about him. I
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 4: will pivot to the other Cardinals rookie starter who could
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 4: make quite a few starts for the major league team,
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 4: and that's Quinn Matthews, a bigger prospect than McGreevy, but
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 4: slightly behind him. If we go to James Anderson's top
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 4: four hundred prospects at Rodewire, McGreevy is the nineteenth ranked
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 4: pitch sure, Matthews is the eighth ringth pitcher, tink Kent's
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 4: is the thirty seven, so there's help on the way
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 4: for that cardinal's rotation. Hens is a little further away.
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 4: McGreevy has already made four major league appearances, so probably
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 4: gets a look before Matthews, who was making his professional
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 4: debut last year and started in Low A, but he
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 4: actually finished in Triple A with four starts. They didn't
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 4: go quite as well. But for Matthews, over the course
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 4: of twenty six starts across those four levels, a thirty
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 4: five percent strikeout rate is excellent. And now I know
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 4: that when we were just in the Pirate section, I
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 4: took the lower strikeout, lower walk starter. But McGreevy really
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 4: does not get strikeouts. He was twenty one and a
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 4: half percent in the miners and right about that in
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 4: his very brief major league time. And McGreevy is just
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 4: a avoid walks, keep the ball in the ground guy.
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 4: He's never going to help your strikeout rate. Whereas Quinn Matthews,
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 4: judging by his strikeout numbers in the miners, he has
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 4: that possibility certainly, and it's not like he has a
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 4: control problem either, So some with that. Again, a thirty
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 4: five percent strikeout rate in the miners, with fine numbers
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 4: everywhere else. That gets me pretty excited. And this is
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 4: a team that should have I think plenty of starts
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 4: available before too long. Again, I think McGreevy gets the
• 2:18:12
  Speaker 4: chance before Matthews. So if you're drafting somebody for your
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 4: last round pick and that you hope breaks camp with
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 4: the team unexpectedly, maybe it's McGreevy. But I think Matthews
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 4: when he eventually shows up mid season is going to
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 4: generate a real fab bidding war. So in leagues where
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 4: it makes sense to try to get ahead of that,
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 4: if you got room, maybe take a shot at Quinn Matthews.
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 2: Yep, great pick, No arguments here, Yeah, you're right on.
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 2: It's just kind of the same Pittsburgh conversation again, which
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 2: which guy? Which guy you want to know? We want
• 2:18:40
  Speaker 2: to go the high end arsenal or the guy that's
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 2: got a little bit more under the radar, But both
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 2: both great picks. So love it. I think Matthews will
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 2: he'll be up probably My guess is June timeframe. They're
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 2: gonna make sure that they get that the maybe even
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 2: try to clear the Super two and then they're gonna
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 2: let him run the rest of the season, really try
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 2: to get his innings under him, trying to build that
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 2: up so that really coming into twenty six that they're
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 2: that they know what they got with him. So good,
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 2: good pick for myself, I'm going with the guy that's
• 2:19:11
  Speaker 2: just fun to say. I'm going with Thomas the JC
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 2: for the Cardinals here and the miners. He did get
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 2: a cup of coffee last year. Please do not look
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: at his Baseball Savant page because it doesn't even have
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 2: blue on it because this bars are so far to
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 2: the left. Usually there's a little blue. He only you know,
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 2: he was league leading in launch angle, sweet spot and
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 2: then everything else was like third percent percentile. So the
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: thing I like about him he is a true multi
• 2:19:41
  Speaker 2: positional player. He played three positions all across the enfield, second, third,
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 2: and short almost you know evenly keeled across that. You know,
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 2: he's trying to fit into that Brendan Donnovan type of
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 2: role for the Cardinals. Historically, until last year, he was
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 2: like a three hundred hitter throughout the whole Miners. He
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 2: he was a twenty ish homer guy. Maybe shows a
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 2: little bit more pop twenty five potentially, and he ships
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 2: in probably ten and fifteen steals. Like he's just the
• 2:20:08
  Speaker 2: solid across the board guy that can do a little
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 2: bit of everything. And that's the kind of guy that
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 2: the Cardinals absolutely love. And with their intent this year
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 2: to give guys a chance, he's already met the majors.
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 2: He's on the forty man. There's there's no question that
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 2: he's the kind of guy that would like to give
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 2: more playing time to Ernando. Sticking around is gonna cause
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit of problem to that. Same with Contreras,
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 2: like they would have liked to give him a little
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 2: bit more run, but they're still gonna be opportunities, and
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 2: so I think he's the guy that can easily start
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 2: to carve out that kind of said Brendan Nothavan type
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 2: role as that roster starts to shed some things over
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 2: the years. I do think that they're gonna move some guys,
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 2: So I like to JC. Nobody's really talking about him.
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 2: He looked terrible last year in his cup of coffee,
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: but I think there's a really good upside long term
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 2: once he gets up there and gets a solid playing time.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 5: Yep.
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: I'm in on Tadashy too. So I am going uber
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: deep for my pick because it's more of a Dynasty play,
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 1: and mostly it's kind of like a get on board
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: now because I think this dude's about to shoot through
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: the prospect like lists and all the miners, and just
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: he only was in the DSL last year, so should
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: hit stateside this year. That is Yairo Padilla, who was
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: there in international signing in January of last year, turning
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: just eighteen this summer, but coming off of a summer
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: last year in the DSL when he put up a
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: one to twenty one WRC plus with twenty two stolen bases,
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: good strikeout rate, good ie with the double digit walk rate,
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: switch hitting shortstop. But everybody has been starting to rave
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: him about him in terms of like the scouting reports
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 1: and prospect reports that I've been reading. Certainly all of
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: the arrows I think are pointing up on Padilla. And
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: once this guy, I think gets stateside, the hype is
• 2:21:53
  Speaker 1: just really going to start snowballing that he's going to
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: really rise up lists for the Cardinals, and just like
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: overall Dynasty lists out there, he's gonna be super young
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: as he kind of makes a lot of these moves.
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 1: It's gonna just be interesting to see how quickly Saint
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: Louis moves them through the system, because it's the type
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: of high end talent that they need to be pushing
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: along and moving up to the major leagues. And so
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: I think Hiropadia could be that player that like. Certainly
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 1: it's one of those aspects of dynasty leagues where if
• 2:22:23
  Speaker 1: you're trying to get in early before the price rises
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: too much. Now is the time, I think on Padia
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: before he really starts hitting a ball and complex ball
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: here Stateside, and there's more and more data. Obviously, the
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: DSL can be a little wonky statistically, and this is
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: a pretty high risk play. But yeah, certainly I would
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: be moving in any dynasty dynasty leagues. I could to
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 1: add Padella where I could looks.
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 2: Like somebody's spend a little to much time with her
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 2: odd new watch list, is all I'm gonna say, Yes,
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: just a smidge.
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, well we did it. Who are we going to
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: pick here for the l Central to win it all?
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: Eric is, what's your team of choice?
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 4: I guess it's probably the Cubs. I think I agree
• 2:23:11
  Speaker 4: with you that it is quite close I'm just looking
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 4: for some of the projected standings. Looks like Pakoda actually
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 4: has the Cubs comfortably ten wins ahead of everyone else.
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 4: That doesn't stay right with me. Yeah, over at the
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 4: depth chart projected standings at Fangrafts, it's much closer. They
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 4: still have the Cubs, but it's all within six wins,
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 4: much tighter, And I think I would probably take the
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 4: field over the Cubs, but certainly I would take the
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 4: Cubs over any individual team. I think there's the most
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 4: talent here. They are still adding pieces, but I kind
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 4: of thought that they already were the best team last
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 4: year and they come up well short of the Brewers.
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 4: I was somebody who believed in the Craig Council effect
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 4: and thought that he was giving the Brewers five extra
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 4: wins and that they would lose those and now they
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 4: would go to the Cubs, and that did not happen
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 4: at all. So I might have to rethink that one one.
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 4: I've got the Cubs, but with no confidence behind it
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 4: is how I would say.
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: I think that's fair. Who's yours?
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I don't really argue with Eric's assessment here,
• 2:24:11
  Speaker 2: but I'm gonna go with the Brewers. And there's two
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 2: pieces to this. I don't want to go pick the
• 2:24:17
  Speaker 2: Cubs and they're they're they're the you know, the Brewers
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 2: are kind of like that thing, the team that won't die.
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 2: It feels like they're always like not talented enough, but
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 2: like they have a very complete team and really restly
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 2: a deep team, and so like a guy's I'm performing,
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 2: there's there's guys that can kind of step in.
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 2: They got decent pitching, they've got decent defense. Like they're
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 2: just decent all across the board. And that's I kind
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 2: of unfortunately, what's been winning the Nlcentral the last handful
• 2:24:43
  Speaker 2: of years is just whatever team's decent. I like Eric's pick,
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 2: have just picked the field because you know, somebody's gonna
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 2: come through and they're gonna really light the world on
• 2:24:51
  Speaker 2: fire and they're gonna win eighty seven games and just
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 2: run away with this division because that's all it's it's
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 2: gonna take. Uh So, yeah, I Brewers low confidence, but
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 2: it's the best option I got.
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's actually my pick too. I'm going with the
• 2:25:06
  Speaker 1: Brewers here, but mostly I think I'm aboard the Jackson
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: Churio train. I was actually half tempted to make my
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: buy because I think that, like we're going to be
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: talking Jackson Cheerio MVP votes this year, that you look
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: at the second half that he put together and kind
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: of after those initial early struggles in twenty twenty four,
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: he shot to the moon. And that's exactly the type
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: of players of the Brewers missing, and they can always
• 2:25:31
  Speaker 1: fill in the holes around a star like that. In
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: terms of all the infield pieces, all the pitching, I
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 1: think I like the Brewers just to be able to
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: maintain the course and stay steady going to twenty twenty five. Okay,
• 2:25:44
  Speaker 1: well yeah, let's wrap it up here for this segment. Eric,
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you coming down. It was a blast and
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: talking ball with you and these n all Central teams.
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: I guess I should have when I introed you ask
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: for your handles on socials and where to reach your
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 1: work can find you. But we can do that now,
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: So where can people contact you?
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 4: Well real quick? More importantly, I want to make sure
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 4: I get all the contrerast brothers in there. There's an
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 4: older brother named Wilmer who doesn't appear to be a
• 2:26:12
  Speaker 4: professional baseball player.
• 2:26:14
  Speaker 2: It sounds like an insurance asion if I've ever heard one.
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 4: And their dad is named William and their mom is
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 4: named Olga. So there we go. We've got the whole
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 4: Contreras family into the show today. My social media is
• 2:26:27
  Speaker 4: a little bit less important. You can find me on
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 4: Twitter at Eric underscore Halterman. That's Eric with a K.
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 4: You can find me on Blue Sky, where I have
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 4: no posts yet. I believe it's Eric dot Halterman, and hey,
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 4: maybe if a couple people find me there, I'll start
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 4: up posting there as well. You can find my writing
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 4: at rodwire dot com. I also host a couple episodes
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 4: of the podcast over there Thursdays and Saturdays, and I
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 4: host a couple of our shows on SiriusXM on the
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 4: Fantasy Sports Radio channel and the MLB Network Radio channel
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 4: as well. So plenty of places to hear if you
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 4: want to hear more about Contraras brothers and similar things.
• 2:27:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks Eric, we appreciate it. Brew Let everybody know where
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: they can find you. Yep, you can.
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 2: Find me a Jay Brewer one seven over on Twitter
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 2: and or blue Sky. I've got a few more posts
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 2: than Eric out there was probably like five, So my
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 2: following is just taken off over on Blue Sky, but
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 2: you can also find me a ras Ball on the
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 2: weekends doing your top one hundred hitters. We will be
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 2: releasing our first twenty hitters for the season this coming Sunday,
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 2: so make sure to jump in and tell me where
• 2:27:36
  Speaker 2: I've gone wrong. And I know you will not be shy,
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 2: so I appreciate that. Cooley, where can folks find you?
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, you can find me on Blue Sky at m
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: cool seven. I'm getting closer and closer right on Rasball.
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: It's been fun, but obviously this podcast is still running
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: there every week. You can check out the post there
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: and interact with us. You can also find the podcast
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: on Blue Sky at cards categories or email thepod at
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: cardscategories at gmail dot com. Make sure to check out
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: those show notes for any links to things that we've discussed,
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: as well as subscription details for Rasball. Lots of great
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: tools there to help you through your twenty twenty five season,
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: and we appreciate you checking out this podcast. So if
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: it is your first time and you haven't rated and
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: reviewed us on whatever platform you're listening to us, we
• 2:28:25
  Speaker 1: would certainly appreciate that only if it is a full
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: five star rating, So thanks again for checking us out
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 1: and sticking around with us for the in All Central
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 1: preview this week. We are getting to the end of
• 2:28:36
  Speaker 1: our previews, so we've got al West next week and
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: that will wrap us up, I believe. So we are
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: going to call it a night now and we will
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: see you same time, same place next week.
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 5: Thanks everybody.
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: E