Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 46 : Stashable Prospects

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Ep. 46 : Stashable Prospects · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode forty six of Cards and Categories. I
• 0:20
  am Mike Coolard from Rasball, joined as always by my very good friend Jeremy
• 0:24
  Brewer, also from Rasball. How you doing tonight, Bud. I am
• 0:28
  hanging in there tonight. I'm glad to get on here and talk. Unfortunately,
• 0:31
  we have things to talk about when we have like a few weeks of
• 0:34
  free free injuries. That sounds really bad, but a few weeks without major
• 0:37
  injuries, and I think we have to talk about some of this week.
• 0:39
  So looking forward to it. Ready to go, how about you? Yeah,
• 0:43
  definitely, I mean, at least in terms of significance. The injuries
• 0:47
  this week since we talked last week, have gotten a little bit out of
• 0:50
  hand. But we'll also preview the episode here a little bit in terms of
• 0:56
  our main subject is going to be speaking on my leaguers that we're going to
• 1:00
  be stashing on our benches in relatively shallow leagues. I would think like either
• 1:04
  ten, twelve, fifteen team leagues where it should start getting into more and
• 1:11
  more minor league prospect call ups. As we're well past the Super two deadline,
• 1:15
  so I know in my article this weekend lots of people were asking about
• 1:21
  kid Povich with some of the injuries to the Baltimore Orioles pitching staff. So
• 1:25
  we're going to delve into maybe some of the deeper cuts, especially because I
• 1:29
  think lots of the big names like your James Woods and Junior Camanio's and Kobe
• 1:34
  Mayo's might be stashed away. But we'll give you a few more that you
• 1:38
  know you might want to look into. But we are going to get into
• 1:44
  our news and notes first. And the injury, like you alluded to,
• 1:48
  it's a big one here. We're speaking here on May twenty ninth, this
• 1:52
  past Sunday, And I saw it live when I was watching this game.
• 1:55
  Actually, Ronald Lacuna Junior goes down with a torn left acl. He was
• 2:00
  making some sort of motion to either steel third base or fame like a fake
• 2:06
  of stealing third base, and just crumpled a heap on the infield dirt.
• 2:10
  It looked bad immediately, you could just tell that his left knee gave way.
• 2:15
  The Braves later underwent imaging and testing and announced later that evening that he
• 2:21
  will indeed be out for this season. And Brew, I mean, you've
• 2:23
  got to think it's going to be maybe going into next year as well,
• 2:28
  Right, Like, where do you do you see this kind of maybe affecting
• 2:32
  his twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six performance going forward. Yeah, I
• 2:37
  think this is it's so interesting because you're right at the timing of it.
• 2:42
  You know, this is one of those that really could take nine months to
• 2:46
  come back from, depending on on on the recovery, you know, could
• 2:51
  be shorter. But it's it's it's hard to say. What I'm what I'm
• 2:54
  worried about with a Kunya is what does this mean for him running? This
• 2:59
  is now both a cls in the last few years, and that's a lot
• 3:02
  too to come back from. I mean, it doesn't look like clearly last
• 3:07
  year didn't slow him down, stealing seventy three bases, and he was off
• 3:10
  to a pretty healthy start this year, not quite the same pace that he
• 3:15
  was last year, but I think that had more about him not getting on
• 3:19
  base as well as last year than anything. So I'm a little concerned that,
• 3:23
  you know, he's he's gonna be slowed by this a little bit or
• 3:28
  maybe just a little more tentative. That's probably not Ronald Cunya's you know,
• 3:34
  mo o he think makes me think more of the Bryce Harper than that Cal
• 3:37
  Ripken type of mold there. But I do think that you have to now
• 3:44
  that there's been two major knee injuries and he's really the last you know,
• 3:50
  four years, he's only got one season over one hundred and twenty games,
• 3:54
  and that's Aaron Judge's territory for me to a degree. And it's it's hard
• 4:00
  because the talent is so unbelievable, but I think he's got to be ticked
• 4:03
  down a little bit coming into the next year, ignoring whether he's healthy or
• 4:08
  not getting rid of the season, just overall hitter profile wise, he's probably
• 4:13
  gonna get down a few notches behind Betts and Otani and a few others,
• 4:17
  just because we can't be fully confident in Acunia at this point. So maybe
• 4:23
  I'm overreacting. What do you think? No, I don't think so,
• 4:26
  Like I think I almost do wonder if maybe there was something in the knee
• 4:30
  that was bothering him before, you know, during the season. As you
• 4:33
  can see, like when he returned from the ACL injury in twenty twenty two,
• 4:39
  the iso, I mean, the k rate's exactly identical from twenty twenty
• 4:44
  two and twenty twenty four in terms of twenty three point six on the strikeout
• 4:47
  rate, the ISOs were both middling and the hundreds that I wonder if a
• 4:53
  Kunya was already kind of trying to tough it out. And I mean,
• 4:58
  I've seen this a lot being a a Bolls fan here in Chicago with Derrick
• 5:01
  Rose, just when he tore that first ACL, how much it can throw
• 5:04
  off the kinetic chain. And you just wonder if that finally caught up with
• 5:08
  Ronald Acunya from his twenty one ADL injury. I think, yeah, I
• 5:14
  there's plenty of players that I would be taking ahead of him going into the
• 5:17
  first round next year. Before he went down, he was only sixtieth in
• 5:21
  our player raider worth eighteen dollars in a standard twelve teen league. And I
• 5:25
  think you've got a point to that twenty twenty two season when he only played
• 5:29
  one hundred and nineteen games with fifteen bombs and twenty nine stolen bases two sixty
• 5:33
  six average. That shows you where recovering Acunya can be. And obviously that's
• 5:40
  still like a back of the first round, early second round player, but
• 5:45
  certainly not cemented as your number one pick going into twenty twenty five. Yeah,
• 5:49
  and if you actually look at his numbers, like it's it's so clear
• 5:54
  that last year was such an aberration for Akunya. Don't get me wrong,
• 5:57
  Acunya is really really good. Last year sticks out like a sore thumb from
• 6:01
  a hard hit rate, a strikeout rate is soo whatever you want to look
• 6:08
  at, Like, he just had an incredible year last year, and this
• 6:11
  year looks very much like twenty two or twenty one or twenty Like he's still
• 6:15
  a you know, guy that could probably hit twenty five homers and steal forty
• 6:19
  bases. That's still pretty good. But you know, if you were hoping
• 6:25
  for forty seventy, it looks like last year's becoming more of an outlier for
• 6:29
  Acunya. Yeah, and if you add in the injuries, I think you're
• 6:32
  starting to tick him down mid first round, even just because of the risk
• 6:38
  that comes with it. So I don't know how far down I'm going to
• 6:41
  go, But with the way guys that performed this year, right, there's
• 6:45
  there's a handful for sure I'm willing to take before Acuna come next year.
• 6:49
  Yeah. Absolutely, Well, what this means for the Braves offense and our
• 6:56
  fantasy baseball game is actually, I mean the entire kind of Braves outfield shuffles
• 7:00
  around as Michael Harris the second should move up to the leadoff spot against right
• 7:05
  handed pitchers. They should give Jared Kellnick full time in the outfield, playing
• 7:11
  against both right e's and lefties. He was in a strong side platoon and
• 7:15
  this enters m Duball into the everyday lineup at right field. So Brew,
• 7:21
  what are you doing with kind of all those balls juggling in the air down
• 7:25
  in Atlanta? Yeah, I mean, I don't hate to say I'm happy
• 7:30
  to see Acuna hurt, like I'm not, but it is kind of like
• 7:33
  I'm glad to see kel Nick get getting that opportunity. I think he's one
• 7:36
  of those guys that we really hope coming to the season that he was going
• 7:40
  to get a change of scenery and then really acting as kind of a platoon
• 7:45
  bat hasn't really given him that pure consistency. You know, at this point
• 7:49
  in the season, he has a whole seven plate appearances against lefties there,
• 7:55
  and so like I of course, he's not gonna hit well, like going
• 7:59
  one for seven, you can't really why on that and not being the lineup
• 8:01
  day after day, not having the faith as a player. I'd like to
• 8:05
  see what he can do. But the more interesting piece is almost like Adam
• 8:09
  Duval, Like, how many times have we had this conversation midway through the
• 8:13
  season where here comes Adam Duval and he just goes on a ridiculous tear and
• 8:18
  nobody wants to believe in it, and finally when you believe in it's too
• 8:22
  late. So I'm looking at a guy like Adam Duval if I got the
• 8:26
  spot in the outfield. There's like no pure analysis here. It's just like,
• 8:30
  I feel like we've seen this play a few times. You gotta take
• 8:33
  a shot on Adam Duval, don't you? Is it just me? Yeah?
• 8:37
  You totally took the the like trail I left for you in the bait
• 8:41
  in terms of where I want this conversation to go, because yeah, absolutely,
• 8:43
  I think Adam Duvall is ownable in like fifteen team leagues. Absolutely,
• 8:50
  twelve teams probably as well, because he just he's like a outfielder cockroach or
• 8:54
  something. You just cannot get rid of this guy. You know, he
• 8:58
  continues whenever he gets a chance to play he will hit like two thirty ish
• 9:05
  in pace for like twenty five to thirty bombs, and like, man,
• 9:09
  that's fantastic, especially given that Atlanta offense. Actually, I'm I'm fading Kelnick
• 9:15
  a little bit because I don't want him ever facing lefties, and so this
• 9:18
  really does kill that average. I mean, it was already a low batting
• 9:22
  average for you as Kelnick was batting two fifty four on the season coming in
• 9:26
  today, and you got to think that's only going to be sinking lower as
• 9:31
  he's getting more and more left handed chances because it just doesn't work. It's
• 9:35
  never looked good with his swing. I am if you are in a league
• 9:39
  where maybe the Michael Harris owner is getting restless, I think that is a
• 9:43
  good decent buying opportunity because the next evs are there, the hard hit rate
• 9:48
  is there. He just doesn't quite hit as many barrels as last year,
• 9:52
  so the barrel rate looks low. But like we're still early enough where Bell
• 9:58
  right is still stayble overall, and I do think that moving Michael Harris up
• 10:03
  to the top of this lineup down in Atlanta is going to yield some pretty
• 10:07
  significant things in terms of just runs and RBI opportunities for him. Yeah,
• 10:13
  I think you're right. You know that has always been the downfall of Harris
• 10:16
  is just where he bad than the order and the counting stats. So I
• 10:20
  think this is only good news for him. It's gonna be interesting to see
• 10:24
  how the Braves shuffle things around and if anybody else starts to pick up a
• 10:28
  load. Olsen kind of gets off the schneid here. It does a little
• 10:33
  bit more work and make up for Acuna struggling. Yeah, absolutely, all
• 10:39
  right, We're going to get into another injury here. And when we recorded
• 10:43
  a day early last week, I knew somebody was gonna a major injury was
• 10:48
  going to kind of fall into our laps from that just jinks that I think
• 10:52
  we seem to have. I thought maybe it would just be Eloy going down
• 10:56
  again, as he was injured live while we recorded last week, But Xander
• 11:01
  Bogarts went down with a shoulder injury. It was actually last Wednesday night when
• 11:05
  we were supposed to be recording, and he fractured a part of his scapula.
• 11:09
  Is also out for the season for the San Diego Padres, although I
• 11:13
  mean the way that he was playing that might be a boon to your team
• 11:18
  if you owned Xander Bogarts, is he entered the game with actually a negative
• 11:24
  run value in twelve teen leagues and our player Raider it is about negative three
• 11:31
  point eight, And that's because he was slashing two nineteen, two sixty five
• 11:35
  three sixteen in our Dropable Bats episode back in episode forty four. He was
• 11:39
  a guy that both of us were already moving on from. So this allows
• 11:45
  you to fully make that move. If you're in a redraft league, in
• 11:48
  keeper leagues and you were maybe thinking about Bogarts as a foundational or building piece
• 11:54
  while you were coming into this year, are you also moving on in those
• 11:58
  situations? Brew is it is it time to just kind of really push the
• 12:01
  value down for Bogarts here in all leagues across the board. Yeah, I
• 12:07
  think I'm moving Bogarts into the Trevor story category right now, which is if
• 12:11
  I can get him for free as a keeper, I'm happy to try to
• 12:15
  roll the dice in the middle and field next year. But if I'm paying
• 12:18
  Xander Bogart's prices like coming into the year, I'm moving on like I.
• 12:20
  If it's you're giving up the round you drafted them in or something like that.
• 12:24
  Then yeah, I think you have to move on at this point and
• 12:28
  just re reset the deck. It's it's it's not looked good this year.
• 12:31
  The injury is certainly not going to help, uh, fractured shoulders, Like
• 12:37
  yeah for a hitter. I mean, I I don't know that I've seen
• 12:41
  a really good table or comparison to other players coming back from that, but
• 12:46
  it's it's not good. Besides, I said, Trevor story is maybe a
• 12:50
  good example, got his struggle struggled with that as well. So yeah,
• 12:56
  I'm I'm kind of moving on from Xander. Like I said, I if
• 13:00
  somebody's not him and you can pick him up for pennies on the dollar stash
• 13:03
  and take a free flyer next year, I'm all for it, all for
• 13:05
  it, because he would fit in a good year as a really helpful middle
• 13:11
  endfielder. But that's not the kind of guy you want to rely on as
• 13:15
  a locked and keeper where you're actually spending some dollars or high round picks at
• 13:18
  this point. Yeah, I totally agree. All right. Next injury we
• 13:22
  have is actually it comes with the flurry of moves. So the Texas Rangers
• 13:26
  have put Evan Carter the rookie outfielder on the al with a back injury.
• 13:31
  He's been nursing over the past week week and a half, and in conjunction
• 13:37
  with that, they have activated Whitet Langford and also activated Nathan Airvaldi. Alevaldi
• 13:43
  pitched a short outing yesterday and Langford today came back and went two for four,
• 13:50
  So he looks like he's back and right into the middle of the Rangers
• 13:56
  lineup. I have to assume that if you're in any league is where Langford
• 14:00
  got dropped, you're moving immediately to Adam right, you're you need to quit
• 14:05
  that league and find a better one with Sorry, no, yeah, you're
• 14:09
  absolutely right. If you're in a league where Langford was was dropped, uh,
• 14:13
  he should have already been picked up. You need to pick him up
• 14:16
  immediately. Stopped listening to us. We'll pause. You can come back in
• 14:20
  a little bit. That that's an easy call. You know, Langford was
• 14:24
  so amazing in spring training and there you know, he's looked still pretty good
• 14:28
  even in the time that he was kind of struggling early this season. It's
• 14:33
  you know, when I say struggle, it's not like he was terrible.
• 14:37
  Things just weren't falling his way yet, and so I think, you know,
• 14:39
  I think we actually talked about it at one point. I'm not gonna
• 14:43
  get the episode number right, but I remember we talked about like he's the
• 14:46
  kind of guy that actually almost like benefit from that injury, just benefit from
• 14:50
  a step back, reset and get back in here. So I got high
• 14:54
  hopes for uh for for Langford coming coming back here. I'm actually more excited
• 14:58
  for an Athany Waldi, because I think that's where it's possible that you know,
• 15:03
  he would have been dropped or somebody's moved on, got a roster crun
• 15:07
  something like that. Evaldi, to me, is one of those pictures that
• 15:09
  he could easily run off a top twenty month or two without without blinking twice.
• 15:16
  And he's just one of those set it and forget it. Strike out
• 15:20
  eight to nine guys for ending walk two to three, give you ten to
• 15:26
  twelve wins, keep your era and the threes. Like he's just like that
• 15:31
  perfect epitoony of like a number four starter. And if somebody let him go,
• 15:35
  I'm picking him up all day and just plugging him right back in because
• 15:39
  I've got no questions about him. He's a bulldog he's gonna be out there
• 15:43
  pretty much every game. Yeah, I absolutely agree. It's been a long
• 15:46
  time since we've been Nathan Yovaldi be anything but that, And that was back
• 15:52
  in twenty nineteen when he had that five ninety nine air ray and was moving
• 15:56
  around the bullpen and the starting rotation for the Red Sox, but came through
• 16:00
  for them on that World Series run there. So yeah, I think a
• 16:03
  of all these like the same. It almost like a Verlander, if not
• 16:07
  maybe even better than Verlander. Now, just that like old Vet, when
• 16:12
  he's healthy, he's in, and when he's not, try to stash him
• 16:15
  as long as you can. But honestly also understand if you run into that
• 16:19
  roster crunch and have to drop him. So whenever he's out there, I'm
• 16:23
  certainly picking him up and putting him into roster spots. I think you were.
• 16:27
  You're spot on with Langford that that that's a great opportunity for him to
• 16:33
  sit and watch that video while he was out. I'm actually thinking maybe the
• 16:36
  same might happen with Evan Carter, as he was struggling a lot before he
• 16:41
  hit the il with this back in back issue. You know, it was
• 16:47
  tough out the gate as he was hitting only one eighty eight and striking out
• 16:52
  twenty six point five percent of the time. I've read reports that there were
• 16:56
  people in the Texas front office and just in the the coaching staff that wanted
• 17:00
  Evan Carter to be more aggressive in the strike zone. That I think a
• 17:06
  lot of what's happening is he worked the strike zone down in the minor leagues
• 17:10
  and was able to walk, and he's starting to learn how to adjust that
• 17:14
  to the majors. So I think this is a great opportunity for Evan Carter
• 17:18
  to take a little time off the way length dad as a rookie, get
• 17:22
  the headset right, see some video, get some coaching, and just be
• 17:26
  able to hit the ground running when he comes back, because it doesn't seem
• 17:30
  like this back issues significant for Carter is just more of a nagging issue that
• 17:34
  he needed a few weeks off to recover from. Yeah, I think,
• 17:38
  and you know, if you look at the you know Rangers, they're not
• 17:44
  doing great right now, but you know, defending World Series champs, a
• 17:48
  few games below five hundred, but they're only three bank three games back for
• 17:52
  the division. You know, I think that there they just need to try
• 17:56
  to get healthy is really what they're trying to do. Don't don't force the
• 18:00
  thing and regret it later in the season. So yeah, I've got no
• 18:02
  problem with what they're trying to do here. And they can easily move you
• 18:06
  know, Garcia from dh to the outfield, Phil fill In where needed.
• 18:10
  They've they've got options. So it'll be, you know, horribly back before
• 18:15
  you know at Langford will be hitting and we'll be talking here in a month
• 18:17
  about how how good these young guys are in Yeah, Okay. The next
• 18:21
  flurry of move moves we have is actually also in Texas, just up the
• 18:26
  road drive might know I have my Texas geography wrong. Down the road Dallas
• 18:30
  is excuseness. South of Dallas, we're going down to Houston. The Houston
• 18:34
  Astros placed Christian Haavier on the IL as he's dealing with forum discomfort. But
• 18:41
  we also have jose A Braye returning from the injured list, and that meant
• 18:45
  that Joey Loperfdo was sent down to Triple A down in Sugarland. But I
• 18:52
  will say that it does sound like they're also sending low Perfito down with a
• 18:56
  plan to play more first base specifically, so it does seem that this is
• 19:02
  kind of time for jose A bray You to show whether or not he's going
• 19:06
  to stick into this roster spot, and so far it's I can tell you
• 19:10
  it's not looking great. The strikeouts are still there. He did knock a
• 19:12
  single, a Narbi single in his first game back, but the bat speed
• 19:18
  seems to not be there. So I am wondering, am I reading this
• 19:22
  right that I think this is more of like a two week audition for jose
• 19:26
  A bray You in two week tool up of Joey Loperpiedo to go down and
• 19:30
  learn first base before low Perfito is back. Right, Yeah, I think
• 19:33
  you're absolutely right. This is the You have to give a brew another chance
• 19:37
  because you gave him the contract. He is the vet like. You have
• 19:41
  to give him that chance. He accepted the ability to go down like and
• 19:45
  comeback, so you have to give him a chance. At the same time,
• 19:48
  Liberfido, his strikeouts were a little concerned in the majors. His babeip
• 19:52
  was impressive five seventy one, so you know he wasn't just the cover off
• 20:00
  the ball or anything like that. His hard hit rate was a whole thirteen
• 20:03
  percent, but This is still a guy with a lot of talent, and
• 20:06
  so I think it's kind of that recent. He wasn't blowing anybody away,
• 20:08
  so it's not gonna hurt you. Give a brew a chance, give him
• 20:12
  down there, give him a little more work at first, get that back
• 20:15
  kind of back and going again, and then bring him back to the same
• 20:18
  thing we talked about with Langford and Carter, like, uh, it's given
• 20:22
  that he got that taste, and it'll be fun to see him back.
• 20:23
  I can't imagine a Brell last morning a few weeks here. Yeah, And
• 20:27
  getting back to the Javier injury with the forearm stream that is a precursor to
• 20:32
  Tommy John. And it does look like Christpher Xavier has been broken now for
• 20:38
  multiple seasons after you know, the twenty twenty two year was absolutely brilliant,
• 20:42
  with a two fifty four era over twenty five starts, it came into eleven
• 20:48
  point seven K nine. These past two years, combined with twenty twenty two
• 20:52
  or twenty twenty three and twenty four, his last one hundred and ninety six
• 20:56
  and two thirds innings have come with a four to forty four year in an
• 21:00
  eight and a half K nine, So I do think that Javier has maybe
• 21:04
  been battling this for a little bit, and it looks like, you know,
• 21:08
  that long term elbow injury might just be around the corner. What are
• 21:14
  you doing with Hoavier in any leagues that you might own him group? Yeah,
• 21:18
  I think you're you're right. I think Javier, you know, you
• 21:19
  always want to hold these guys just to make sure, but Javier is one
• 21:23
  that I probably just let go as it is. I wouldn't wait for the
• 21:26
  news. Javier's you know, across the board, the numbers haven't looked good,
• 21:30
  the velocity has been down. I think you're reading it right. There's
• 21:33
  a very good chance that that he is hurt or has been hurt and they're
• 21:37
  finally just recognizing it. And he just hasn't lived up to you know,
• 21:41
  the player he was in really twenty twenty two. His stuff's just out looked
• 21:47
  looked as good. And you know, this year he's he's actually been relying
• 21:51
  on the changeup a heck of a lot more than than he has uh in
• 21:55
  the in the past, and he's cut down the fastball. So you're sitting
• 21:59
  here just asking questions like what's he trying to hide? Like what's really going
• 22:03
  on. So yeah, I'm moving on from Haavier. If if I still
• 22:07
  had him, it's not really worth sticking around to find out the news.
• 22:11
  Maybe somebody else pick him up and get that burn. When when we hear
• 22:15
  Tommy John on this one, yeah, I hear you. Well, that's
• 22:18
  gonna wrap up our injury segment because we got some other big MLB news to
• 22:25
  get into first. Angel Hernandez announced that he is retiring or retired, Like
• 22:30
  I think he already is out the door and has signed the package to go
• 22:36
  off and do whatever he wants with his free time that isn't involved with just
• 22:41
  egging everybody on in the game, because I do see say that, Like
• 22:47
  I don't think by the umpire rankings and everything, Angel Hernandaz didn't rink at
• 22:52
  the bottom, but in terms of the rank corps and just really riling people
• 22:59
  up, getting underneath their skins, becoming a main character, he's really one
• 23:03
  of the worst ones that we had left after we lost Joe West to retirement
• 23:08
  a couple of years ago. So yeah, drewe do you have any great
• 23:14
  Angel Hernandez moments that you want to fondly remember here on this podcast? I
• 23:21
  mean it's Angel Hernandez, like any any game he umpired. I mean,
• 23:27
  I don't know want to to say, like, I don't think there's a
• 23:30
  single moment that sticks out to me. I'm sure you'll mention one, and
• 23:33
  it was like, yeah, that's it, But it's just it's just the
• 23:36
  fact that you can be blatantly so bad at what you do and so confident
• 23:42
  that you don't care that you're that bad. And I don't know about you,
• 23:45
  but this just has the reading of the guy got fired, like it's
• 23:52
  the h I give you a package here to decide if you want to stick
• 23:55
  around, but you retired mid stream of the season, like nobody does that.
• 24:03
  And unless he was so self aware that he was just gonna get put
• 24:06
  through the ring or the rest of the year by every single fan, I
• 24:10
  had to say, maybe it's hard to see him go because we lost we
• 24:12
  lost somebody to go on here throughout the season. I mean, who else
• 24:17
  are we gonna pick on? From a umpire perspective at this point, after
• 24:21
  Wes is gone, Angel Hernandez is gone, who's the next guy? I
• 24:23
  don't know, I don't know. We don't have the villain anymore to pick
• 24:27
  on. With the Angel Hernandez. Oh, I think we do. I
• 24:30
  think it's C. B. Buckner, ce B. Buckner, Okay,
• 24:33
  okay, fair, fair, okay. And Angel Hernandez was i think approached
• 24:38
  by the league with the package to finally and then finally cross the line in
• 24:42
  terms of enough money and enough kind of incentives to finally see him leave the
• 24:48
  profession. And I'm not actually sure I have like one great Angel hernianda his
• 24:52
  memory as much as like the memes that have been going around since he did
• 24:57
  retire in terms of the you know, the classic like selfie of Angel Hernandez
• 25:03
  and it's like totally off center, which is like his eye in the corner.
• 25:07
  Or the other joke that I've been seeing going around is Angel Hernandez signed
• 25:12
  his retirement papers and it's like the end of a contract with the line of
• 25:15
  Angel Hernandez and the signature is like way outside, you know, there's a
• 25:22
  box. And so all all of those jokes have been fantastic. I mean,
• 25:27
  they're gonna get rehashed when C. B. Buckner also retires, because
• 25:32
  you want to talk about one of the worst umpires by zone rating, I'm
• 25:36
  pretty sure C. B. Bucker is down there and yeah, as Cardinals
• 25:40
  fans, we know the contentious relationship that Buckner and Ali mar Moles certainly have.
• 25:47
  Yeah, you know, I agree, So it's it doesn't end yet.
• 25:51
  We're also the robot. I did. I did find it funny.
• 25:55
  I saw the stat that last year due to a back injury, because Angel
• 26:00
  her name's is out of back injury, he only had uh ten ten games,
• 26:07
  but he managed to rack up one hundred and sixty one bad calls by
• 26:10
  the umpire auditors out there. I don't know the rate there, but I'm
• 26:17
  I'm not that bad at math. I can tell about sixteen a game,
• 26:18
  and usually like your good umpires are missing like three borderline calls again a game.
• 26:25
  Like these guys are really actually good at what they do, and it's
• 26:29
  it's incredibly impressive when you actually see some of those graphics that say, okay,
• 26:33
  what what did they actually miss? And it's like they barely missed.
• 26:36
  The bad call was like it was just veryly outside the zone. You know,
• 26:38
  the catcher was set up outside the zone. Like it's it's hard to
• 26:41
  get those right, but Angel Hernand has just consistently missed everything. So like,
• 26:48
  I don't know if you if you're a pitcher, if you wanted to
• 26:51
  pitch with Angel, her name is behind behind the bump, because you could
• 26:52
  just throw it all around the zone and strike you guys out, or throw
• 26:56
  it down the middle and walk a guy you just didn't know. Yeah,
• 26:59
  I mean, I absolutely the latter part there in terms of the not knowing
• 27:03
  if a ball in the zone was going to be in the zone. I
• 27:07
  do feel like that was a pretty good Angel Hernanda's signature compared to a lot
• 27:11
  of the other arms will expand the zone and usually what's in the zone is
• 27:14
  pretty consistent. But Angel on the edges was just you had no idea what
• 27:18
  it was going to be day in, day out. So it's not even
• 27:22
  the edges that's the problem. It was like belt hide down the middle,
• 27:27
  the catcher was out a little outside, but no, that's that's a ball.
• 27:32
  Your intent was off. Yeah, lost it in the sun. Yeah.
• 27:37
  Okay. The other piece of news that we have is extremely significant and
• 27:41
  I'm really excited about this. The Major League Baseball like Statistical Record and official
• 27:48
  MLB dot Com stats are now going to include negro league stats going forward.
• 27:52
  So that just happened today as we're talking today on Wednesday, May ninth,
• 28:00
  that the MLB dot Com stats are now updated with all the Negro League's stats
• 28:04
  from over the years. This was announced back in twenty twenty when MLB said
• 28:11
  that they were going to work on this project going forward, And there's been
• 28:14
  tons and tons of work that I've really followed along with this process a lot
• 28:18
  in terms of listening to podcasts and reading articles and stuff, And it's been
• 28:22
  something that I've been trying to work on improving and learning about, especially because
• 28:30
  I think you're kind of in the same boat as me, where a lot
• 28:33
  of like what I learned about baseball and remember about baseball and has been like
• 28:37
  integrated into me came from reading as a young age. You know, lots
• 28:42
  of like biographies, just reading lists of stats, like literally just like leaderboards
• 28:49
  of Hall of Fame players and reading the backup baseball cards and things like that.
• 28:55
  So lots of the stats that like we know and love are going to
• 28:57
  be reconfigured. For example, the new batting average career leaders Josh Kipson sits
• 29:03
  at the top of that list now with a three seventy two career batting average.
• 29:07
  Ty Cobb is second with three sixty seven Oscar Charleston. Charleston at third
• 29:12
  with three sixty three, Roger Sportensby at three fifty eight, jud Wilson,
• 29:17
  another Negro League's player at three fifty, Turkey Sterns at three forty eight.
• 29:22
  So it's really great to see some of these all time legends from the Negro
• 29:26
  leagues get their due and be included in these stats. I will say it's
• 29:30
  also like a little bit of like a bittersweet moment considering a lot of like
• 29:34
  the pain of the history that comes behind this in terms of these players not
• 29:40
  getting their opportunity to play in Major League Baseball, the fight that former Negro
• 29:45
  League players have gone through in terms of getting pensions and being recognized by mob
• 29:51
  Baseball, their families also fighting for the same and just writers, historians,
• 29:56
  all sorts of people out there really pulling for these Negro League's statistics to be
• 30:03
  recognized and the players to be included in just all the greatest conversations. So
• 30:08
  I'm really excited to see this finally come to fruition, and it's going to
• 30:12
  be I'm really looking forward to just kind of like relearning, reconfiguring all the
• 30:18
  leader boards that I've known and loved and making sure that I understand where these
• 30:23
  players came from and what their histories were. Yeah, I think I think
• 30:26
  you're right that you know the the The reactions can be all across the board
• 30:30
  from a purist of like, these are the stats, and but I don't
• 30:34
  care, like this is great for the game. This to your point,
• 30:37
  you can learn more about different players, you can you can see the greatness
• 30:41
  of all. Does it diminish Ty Cobb as one of the best hitters that
• 30:47
  was out ever out there? No it doesn't. Does this meant Josh Gibson
• 30:49
  is one of the best hitters out there? No, it didn't. It's
• 30:52
  just he was, He already was, and it's just nice to see that
• 30:56
  recognized. And you know, I think what's interesting scene is that they don't
• 31:00
  even have complete box scorers and things for all these games. So even what
• 31:06
  we have in the numbers aren't the actual real numbers. But that's okay.
• 31:10
  It doesn't have to actually reflect every single events and things like that. Let's
• 31:15
  just recognize that there was some amazing baseball being played and regardless of color of
• 31:21
  a skin or and who you were where you played, you went and did
• 31:25
  the best you could at that time and took advantage of the opportunity. And
• 31:29
  that's what everybody should do, and you know, the game's only better for
• 31:33
  it. So I'm right with you there. I absolutely love this. I
• 31:36
  think it's great. I think there's gonna be some fun nuggets we also find
• 31:38
  in here. I didn't know if you saw the notes about Willie Mays and
• 31:41
  now we had a home run in a Negro League game, but they didn't
• 31:45
  actually have the full box score, so it wasn't included, And like,
• 31:48
  how interesting will it be to say, like, Willie Mays had six hundred
• 31:52
  and sixty one home runs, not six sixty, like you know, some
• 31:56
  of the intricacies there. Again, it doesn't change the players, it doesn't
• 32:00
  change the end results. It just finishes the story. And so I love
• 32:06
  it. I think it's great, and it will be interesting to see kind
• 32:09
  of what we learn over time, and it's gonna be I think you're gonna
• 32:14
  end up with these just random stats that all of a sudden somebody pops out
• 32:17
  that you didn't even know about, and the journey you can go on learning
• 32:22
  them. I do, however, think there's some television crews that are going
• 32:24
  to really a struggle when you come up with a really obscure stats every baseball
• 32:29
  game, like, well, never before has there been a got with two
• 32:31
  outs? The sky was blue with seventy two degrees out and he foul tipped
• 32:36
  it three times? Like where are those stats gonna come? Do we just
• 32:39
  ruin all those stats for those stat guys potentially? And I'm also fine with
• 32:44
  that. Yeah, I mean a lot of that stuff didn't exist. That's
• 32:46
  why, like they always have like the caveat of like not before nineteen eighty
• 32:52
  four, nineteen eighty seven when they had a lot of like that pitch by
• 32:53
  pitch data and things like that. But yeah, I do agree that this
• 32:59
  is going to be just a really fantastic treasure trove of new information to dive
• 33:05
  into. It's like opening a new set of cards or relearning baseball history.
• 33:09
  Again that especially in my day profession, I'm a CPA, and you always
• 33:15
  have to like continue doing education to like keep up with that license, and
• 33:19
  so it's always great to kind of have something to keep you fresh and sharpen
• 33:24
  your wits about you. So I'm gonna link to a lot of great materials
• 33:30
  that I've learned from over the years in the show notes here. So the
• 33:34
  first one is obviously the article that the great Tyler Kepner wrote from The Athletic
• 33:42
  that goes over the overview of kind of how they determined what stats would be
• 33:46
  included and what process they're going to go through, And as you said,
• 33:50
  like they're still working through a lot of these bits of information out there.
• 33:53
  As you know, they uncover more and more box scores from either newspapers of
• 34:00
  old or finding like scorecards and people's attics. So I mean, yeah,
• 34:05
  if you do know somebody out there that might have that scorecard from that willly
• 34:07
  May's home run game in the negro leagues, First, like that'd be crazy
• 34:13
  that this is the first time you're hanging about it on this card and Categories
• 34:16
  podcast. But second, get into the hands of Major League Baseball so that
• 34:21
  we can get that on the register. The other pieces that I'm going to
• 34:24
  link to are first, Shakiah Taylor. She had a great piece when all
• 34:29
  this was announced back in the day when she posted a baseball perspective. She
• 34:35
  writes at the Chicago Tribune. She's a fantastic voice on all of these negro
• 34:39
  leagues kind of like integration and just all the history and background. I've learned
• 34:45
  a lot from Bob Kendrick's Black Diamonds podcast, And Bob Kendrick is the president
• 34:52
  of the Negro League's Hall of Fame and Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
• 34:55
  So I've never been to that museum, have you. No, I have
• 35:00
  not, which is disappointing. But I'll make it there sometime. Yeah,
• 35:04
  I say, I've been wanting to go to a Royals game mostly just to
• 35:07
  go see that museum. Like it. I think it would be like really
• 35:10
  foundational and life changing. Honestly, it would be really awesome to see.
• 35:15
  But Bob Kendrick's Black Diamonds podcast has always had great information. I learned a
• 35:19
  lot from Vanessa Ivy Rose's Reclaimed the Forgotten League podcast, which covered her journey
• 35:24
  in tracking down information about her grandfather, Turkey Stearns. And so it's just
• 35:31
  a great journey in terms of not only learning Turkey Stearns's story, but also
• 35:37
  it follows the path of how some of these families of former Negro League players
• 35:43
  have gone through the process of being recognized by Major League Baseball and just it
• 35:46
  gives a lot of history behind that. And then the last thing I'm going
• 35:51
  to link to is Robert Peterson's Only the Ball Was White, which was a
• 35:57
  great book that I read a couple of years ago, and it's really just
• 36:01
  a great background on kind of the Negro league's history and gives you lots of
• 36:07
  information on individual players that I keep the book as more of like a reference
• 36:12
  point because, like, especially as I'm going through these new leader boards and
• 36:15
  seeing some of these players where I might not recognize their name, a lot
• 36:19
  of that information is in Robert Peterson's book and gives either like a small biography
• 36:24
  of them or you can kind of see how they related to the whole history
• 36:28
  of the Negro leagues in total. So if you've got more resources out there,
• 36:31
  certainly reach out to us at Cardscategories at gmail dot com. This is
• 36:37
  something I love learning about and diving into, so I'm open to all sorts
• 36:43
  of new podcasts, articles, and books if you've got suggestions out there.
• 36:45
  Okay, But with that, we will wrap up our first segment here and
• 36:51
  we will be back discussing prospects in the minor leagues that we might be stashing
• 36:57
  away in our fantasy teams. So stick around, all right, Welcome back,
• 37:20
  everybody, we are going to get into discussion of minor league prospects that
• 37:25
  we are stashing away on reserves, and obviously, when you're playing fantasy sports
• 37:31
  and fantasy baseball specifically, those reserve spots are very precious and very limited.
• 37:37
  So these guys, they're not up and playing right now, but that's how
• 37:42
  highly that we think of them, that they're game changing enough that their players
• 37:46
  that I think do warrant one of those reserve spots. You know, obviously,
• 37:51
  if you have a minor league spot, I'm pretty sure all these guys
• 37:54
  will be gone in your league because these are like the hottest names in terms
• 38:00
  of making a twenty twenty four impact that you're going to probably see out of
• 38:02
  any minor leaguers in terms of they're just advanced enough along in their development.
• 38:09
  You know, they're in Double A, Triple A and could be called up
• 38:13
  kind of at a moment's notice. So that's I think a lot of also
• 38:17
  why we're considering stashing these players right now. That traditionally this is when we
• 38:22
  start seeing more and more prospects come up as we're well past what's called the
• 38:27
  Super two deadline, when that adds an extra year of arbitration. That could
• 38:31
  be an entire another podcast, but just google Super two status, trust me,
• 38:36
  you'll get there. But that does play into a lot of why these
• 38:39
  players are still kind of down in the minor leagues that we've seen teams feign
• 38:45
  things they need to work on to be called up, but ultimately sometimes those
• 38:50
  things just kind of disappear. So Brew, I thought we would have maybe
• 38:53
  like a little bit of discussion before we get into the names that we're thinking
• 38:57
  of of kind of how we're analyzing the situations of why we might be sacrificing
• 39:04
  one of those precious spen spots for any of these players. Yeah, I
• 39:08
  think that's a great topic. It's it's art not science. If you ask
• 39:13
  me, I think you know you're you're looking for a few different things here.
• 39:16
  You're you're looking for, you know, clearly the player, right,
• 39:21
  the player that has i'm gonna say significant upside. They can come up.
• 39:24
  It looks like they could come in and make an impact. Now you're this
• 39:29
  is not the You're not looking for players that long term have projectability, things
• 39:34
  like that, Like I'll throw like a Pete Crow Armstrong into that kind of
• 39:36
  conversation. You're out looking for somebody's like it'll be a great defense right now
• 39:39
  and over the next three to four years, they'll they'll move into you know,
• 39:43
  having a good hitting profile. Like, that's not what we're talking about.
• 39:46
  We'll looking at the guys have really shown in the minors that they can
• 39:50
  do, they can hit, they can pitch, whatever it is, and
• 39:52
  that they've they've shown that growth and it looks like it's going to translate.
• 39:55
  So you're generally talking what I consider a high floor type of guy in here.
• 40:01
  You're not looking for the high variability type of player. I think that
• 40:07
  the other thing you're looking for is the situation. Right You're looking for what
• 40:13
  that major league roster looks like. Is this a team that is in a
• 40:15
  pennant race? Is going to go over it? Or are they the exact
• 40:20
  opposite side of the spectrum. Right now, we're to your point, we're
• 40:23
  after the Super two. So we're in that timeframe where it's it's still early
• 40:30
  enough in the season that if somebody looks good like you're calling them up,
• 40:34
  you're getting a really good look. It's a really good development opportunity for them.
• 40:37
  So you're likely not holding anybody down because you have to hold them down
• 40:42
  for like a full another year and then just almost stunts their development, especially
• 40:45
  a guy that's been at one of the upper levels for a year, year
• 40:50
  and a half something like that, if you're a double A or triple A.
• 40:52
  But you also have to look to see what player is in their spot,
• 40:55
  right if you've got, you know, somebody up and coming for the
• 41:00
  Braves as the first basement, going back to Matt Olsen, you know you're
• 41:06
  going to have to find your spot somewhere, and they're not going to immediately
• 41:08
  call the guy off when there's clearly somebody in that position. Maybe I should
• 41:13
  have talked about Ooze Bray and Joey Loperfido is a better example. But relating
• 41:19
  that back, that's why we even suggested like maybe hanging on to Liberfito or
• 41:23
  even kind of like scoping him out, because that opportunity is sitting there with
• 41:29
  Jose Brady. You struggles that either these players, you know, I mean,
• 41:34
  especially with pitchers. Like with pitchers, the classic kind of like there
• 41:37
  is no such thing as a pitching prospect is actually not because they all blow
• 41:40
  out. It's because once they're good and ready, like they should be in
• 41:44
  the Major's pitching right away. So there's that factor that like you can always
• 41:49
  rely on that, but some of the bats that we're going to go over,
• 41:52
  like there is the path on those teams to find the every day at
• 41:55
  bats as well. Yeah, absolutely, So you know a lot of things
• 42:00
  to look for, a lot of guys are gonna pop out. But I
• 42:02
  also think you have to be selective because if if you're if you wait too
• 42:07
  long, you missed the lottery ticket, you missed that chance at a regular
• 42:12
  If you jump too early, you really can hamper yourself by losing that bench
• 42:15
  spot, losing the guys that you can cycle in when you get an injury,
• 42:19
  things like that. So you have to be pretty confident. And to
• 42:22
  me, the best way I get there the beat writers. Read you know,
• 42:25
  if you're a big Twitter or ex fan, even if not just jump
• 42:31
  out, you know, read the news. There's all kinds of great,
• 42:36
  great information on these guys. Just just type them in, read all the
• 42:39
  notes the scuttle on them, and you'll get a pretty good idea of where
• 42:44
  they stand. And that's that's I do that a lot of times, even
• 42:47
  more impressive than what the actual stats are saying. It's the guys that are
• 42:51
  watching them day and day out in the minor leagues. That really give you
• 42:53
  a good read on the opportunity. Yeah, and I think on top of
• 42:58
  that too, when we're getting into this timeframe, you know, moving from
• 43:01
  May into June, a lot of these players were also going to be talking
• 43:06
  about that. As these teams move deeper and deeper into contention, you know,
• 43:10
  they know where they're at and they need to kind of find every single
• 43:15
  edge. You alluded to this a little bit, but like now that they're
• 43:19
  looking for those edges, these players are likely better than some of the players
• 43:23
  that are on the current rosters, and so that's why we're also looking at
• 43:28
  them. On top of it too, another factor that I consider is whether
• 43:31
  or not the players on the forty man roster. If they're on the forty
• 43:35
  man roster, like that is a huge bonus because then they can just be
• 43:39
  optioned up or down immediately right away. There's no kind of corresponding move that
• 43:45
  needs to be made by that team to get that forty man roster spot open,
• 43:50
  or also looking at the team and trying to find the easy forty man
• 43:54
  roster spot. So like again the example with the Astros, the astros,
• 43:59
  Like there's not an astro we're going to discuss here, but like it's pretty
• 44:04
  easy to see where they find the forty man roster spot by cutting jose A
• 44:07
  Bray, you that some of these other players, there are players on that
• 44:10
  forty man roster that have you know, just kind of fallen out of favor
• 44:15
  or aren't serving their purpose, or have gotten injured. There's also easy moves
• 44:21
  sometimes where teams have players that have been injured for a long time on the
• 44:25
  fifteen day aisl that could be easily switched to a sixty day spot and that
• 44:30
  makes an open spot. So that's another thing where especially I'm going through roster
• 44:35
  resource to look at these situations. That's how I'm kind of identifying them between
• 44:39
  like just knowing the overall environment that the players in in terms of his team,
• 44:45
  that team's position, and then all these other pieces. So, like
• 44:47
  you said, it's definitely an art because you're trying to pull together all these
• 44:52
  different pieces of data that are scattered all sorts of different spots as well,
• 45:00
  is like trying to predict what these front offices and coaching staffs are thinking,
• 45:04
  and so you're just trying to read it. I don't. I don't think
• 45:07
  that there's any way to really get better at it other than just kind of
• 45:13
  going with the ebbs and flows and the experience of it all. Yeah,
• 45:16
  I think the more you dig, the more you read, the more you
• 45:19
  look. We'll just give you that better pulse on wind to hold the trigger,
• 45:22
  and you're gonna be wrong more often you're you're right, but that you're
• 45:28
  really playing the game of is there more upside on taking one of these guys
• 45:32
  and tossing on my bench versus picking up Adam Duval and rolling the dice Like
• 45:37
  that's what you're that's what you're measuring yourself against here, And I'm not ashamed.
• 45:42
  I'm one of those guys that's picked up the same guy dropped him next
• 45:44
  month or next week, pick him up a week, a week later,
• 45:45
  like and just rotating them through Like I want to take that gamble. I
• 45:50
  want to see because I think he's got a potential. And at the end
• 45:52
  of the day the guy comes up and it's two weeks in, he looks
• 45:53
  like he's lost. Let him go, like nobody else is going to pick
• 45:55
  him up at that point. You want to be the first first the market
• 46:00
  on these kind of guys. Yeah, And I think that's also an important
• 46:02
  point too, is that like this usually happens when you sometimes run into situations
• 46:07
  where you know you're starting roster is pretty set, and you're not using those
• 46:13
  reserve spots in an efficient manner either, kind of like holding a utility man
• 46:19
  to cover for some of the kids injured, or waiting on better starts for
• 46:23
  some pictures that you're you're benching, or maybe you have a reliever with a
• 46:28
  five game week coming up, and you know, like the volume of saves
• 46:34
  just isn't going to be there. So certainly for all these players, that
• 46:38
  is a consideration as well, because I think we're going to get into some
• 46:42
  deeper cuts. This wouldn't apply to what I'd say are some of like the
• 46:45
  blue chip guys who you probably can't even trade for because the value just can't
• 46:52
  be aligned, and they're certainly already on rosters, they were probably drafted on
• 46:57
  draft day. I'm talking about guys who win they come up, would immediately
• 47:00
  slot into your top one hundred hits probably. And these are the likes of
• 47:05
  your junior Camenaro, who did get hurt with an oblique injury, should be
• 47:09
  out four to six weeks. We just got that news, So that's a
• 47:13
  kind of separate consideration which might make him droppable in some cases because it's gonna
• 47:19
  be hard for cam Andero to work back from that. We have James Wood
• 47:22
  who's also injured, but it's a minor hamstring injury, Jackson Holliday, and
• 47:28
  I would say Kobe Mayo's in that list too, who's working his way back
• 47:31
  from a cracked rib right now. But I would say those four guys that
• 47:36
  like you can't touch them in trades, they're already rostered, and once they
• 47:42
  get called up, I think they're top one hundred bats probably the rest of
• 47:45
  the year. Yeah, I don't disgree it all there. I think those
• 47:47
  are the kind of guys that they have shown everything they can at that level
• 47:52
  now that we're aft of the Super two, and most of them would have
• 47:55
  already been called up if not for injuries, And honestly, a few of
• 48:00
  the injuries, I guess James would, I'm not so sure he's heard if
• 48:02
  they're just biding their time there with him, giving them a little rest before
• 48:07
  they actually make that move. So those those are the guys that you know,
• 48:12
  if for some reason they're out there really short benches something like that,
• 48:15
  Like I'm picking them up even if I have to take a little hit somewhere
• 48:19
  else, because they can be league winners if they really deliver on their promise.
• 48:23
  But those aren't the kind of guys we're talking about today. We'realking about
• 48:27
  that next cut blow where the guys actually might be available, and you should
• 48:30
  be making that consideration, all right. Well, with that, let's get
• 48:35
  into our first player who actually was kind of the inspiration for this as I
• 48:39
  was receiving questions about him on my waiver wire piece this weekend. That is
• 48:45
  left hander Kaid Povich for the Baltimore Orioles. He is currently absolutely lights out
• 48:51
  right now in TRIPLEA at Norfolk. He's pitched fifty three and two thirds to
• 48:55
  the tune of an eleven point nine K nine with a two five ERA.
• 49:00
  He's easily the best pitching prospect that the Orioles have in their system right now.
• 49:07
  And I think that the biggest thing holding back Povich right now is that
• 49:10
  he's not on the forty man roster. But the reason that I think we're
• 49:15
  considering rostering him is this week Baltimore had both John Means and Dean Kramer go
• 49:22
  down with injuries, Means with a strained form and he was complaining about elbow
• 49:28
  issues again. Dean Kramer is dealing with a strange triceps. Again. Both
• 49:34
  of those injuries are in the elbow area. Not good news. They're currently
• 49:37
  on the fifteen DAYIL, and that's I think exactly where you can see the
• 49:43
  situation I was talking about, where if one of these players has something more
• 49:46
  significant, they moved to the sixty day IL. Povich comes up and can
• 49:51
  hit that rotation in Baltimore, and I think from there on out, Povich
• 49:57
  is probably like a must own, must start across the board in all leagues.
• 50:01
  Do you what do you think? I mean? Is he that caliber
• 50:04
  of picture for us? Yeah, I'm probably a little bit further back on
• 50:09
  Povich than most. I actually considered picking him up in one of our leagues,
• 50:14
  oh, probably about a month ago, and then you picked him up
• 50:16
  like the week after, and so we would have just fought for him.
• 50:22
  But as I look at Covid, he's one of those that you know,
• 50:25
  the stuff's good, but there's definitely been an element of luck. And you
• 50:30
  know me, I look for a certain type of picture and he like just
• 50:34
  like tickle some of those boxes, but doesn't actually check any of them,
• 50:37
  and that's that's what concerns me. His control this year has been good,
• 50:42
  but the last you know, two years has been questionable, and so that
• 50:47
  kind is a drawback. He you know, he puts the ball in the
• 50:51
  air a little bit more, which actually in Baltimore is a little better than
• 50:52
  he used to be, so a little less concerning. He definitely has luck
• 50:57
  with leaving guys on base, Like I could see him struggling a little bit
• 51:02
  here and there or having a higher volatility, but that doesn't mean you don't
• 51:08
  take the gamble on this guy. And I think that's where it is at
• 51:12
  this point. He is one of those guys that I think you if you
• 51:15
  have the spot, I'm not like cutting clear guys that you need to use
• 51:20
  for your team here, but if you're struggling in pitching, especially in the
• 51:22
  strikeout category, I think Povich is a guy that is worth monitoring and any
• 51:28
  inkling, you know, bring him up. And to your point, there's
• 51:30
  a really good chance that that's coming very soon as we see those injuries developing
• 51:37
  in Baltimore. So I'm a little further back on the pack with Povich.
• 51:40
  But I do think there's a lot to like there. I think he's going
• 51:45
  to be a pretty high strikeout guy. He's gonna get some wins from a
• 51:49
  pretty good lineup, but probably setting more middle of the rotation type of guy
• 51:54
  at the end of the day. Okay, yeah, I think that's fair,
• 51:58
  and I think maybe even like what pushes him further into this conversation is
• 52:02
  kind of like being our kickoff guy is just the situation in Baltimore at that.
• 52:07
  Yeah, I think we're gonna talk about a few more talented pictures,
• 52:09
  but the pathway towards just there entering the rotation is a little bit murkier than
• 52:15
  I think Povich is is. Yeah, exactly, Like if you if you're
• 52:19
  looking for a guy that's gonna be called up in the next week, well
• 52:22
  Povich, Like he's probably the guy on this list. Maybe one other guy
• 52:27
  that I could see, you know, sneaking past that, but Povich is
• 52:30
  the guy that I would not be shocked at all to be looking this time
• 52:32
  next week and seeing him making his debut. Okay, well with that,
• 52:37
  we are going to move into our next guy who actually already has made his
• 52:42
  major league debut and is really becoming one of maybe like the patron saints of
• 52:46
  this podcast, as we seem to talk about him about every other month.
• 52:52
  It seems like that is Tyer Black infielder, like third baseman, first baseman
• 52:57
  for the Milwaukee Brewers. And when we saw the debut for him just the
• 53:04
  other month, I guess it was actually earlier this month. Man, it
• 53:07
  has been a long month of May. But Black didn't get I think like
• 53:14
  what I considered his fair shake because he it's actually a little bit like what
• 53:20
  Langford went through. I watched enough of Blacks at bats where he was getting
• 53:24
  the rookie strike zone. And especially given that Black came through the minor leagues
• 53:30
  with like a plus I mean, over a fifteen percent walk rate pretty much
• 53:36
  every stop, a fantastic plate approach. That like, if he's going to
• 53:40
  be called for balls outside of the strike zone, like I don't know what
• 53:44
  he's gonna do. That's kind of tough. You know that if his game
• 53:46
  is predicated on making sure that the balls on the zone before he hits it,
• 53:51
  that's a pretty big factor for him. But I do think that when
• 53:55
  he comes back, like some of that will start swinging back his way.
• 53:59
  He has struggled a little bit going back to Triple A since he was sent
• 54:02
  down a few weeks ago, But this is kind of like, I think
• 54:07
  maybe the best buying opportunity you could have found for Tyler Black. That his
• 54:12
  biggest asset is his speed, and finding somebody like this in season who can
• 54:19
  provide probably a pretty decent batting average to go with you know what would pace
• 54:22
  out to be thirty ish steals per season, especially at a corner spot,
• 54:30
  is really difficult to find. So when I'm looking kind of like reading all
• 54:35
  the tea leaves here for Black, I do see that you know, gets
• 54:38
  back sent back down Triple A, is a little bit bummed out. Maybe
• 54:42
  he's even trying to tweak some things that the Brewers have told him to work
• 54:45
  on. But given that he's already been up, you know that the Brewers
• 54:49
  know his talent level. And this is a team in Milwaukee that is scrapping
• 54:52
  for that NOL Central. So I'm seeing just like a great buying opportunity here
• 54:58
  for Tyler Black. About you were you maybe making any moves to put him
• 55:02
  on your rosters and move him into some reserve spots. If he's available.
• 55:07
  Yeah, I really really like Tyler Black, and to your point there,
• 55:10
  he has some flexibility. You know, i'd say his peak, he could
• 55:15
  be a twenty thirty guy, and without squinting too hard, it's just a
• 55:19
  matter of him getting getting the chance. And then I think it's true that
• 55:23
  the number of hitters have struggled with moving from the miners and the strike zones
• 55:29
  and some from of the automation that we're dealing with to the major leagues and
• 55:32
  getting squeezed or not squeezed. A kind of a combination there at the same
• 55:37
  time, like, there's not that much blocking Black at this point. We're
• 55:42
  talking to Jake Bowers, we talked, we talked about him last week,
• 55:45
  and I think he's got a full four hits in the last like ten twelve
• 55:51
  games. And that's just Jake Bowers. There isn't a whole lot holding Black
• 55:57
  back here. And I know Hoskins is be up back at some point,
• 56:00
  but you know, Black's not gonna be any worse than what Bower's doing,
• 56:05
  so they might as well give him a chance. He's already in the forty
• 56:07
  man, to your point, he's already had a cup of coffee, so
• 56:09
  I think he's a guy that absolutely should get a chance to get called called
• 56:14
  up. And what I do like about when he gets called up, they're
• 56:16
  not calling him up unless he is playing every day. He's the kind of
• 56:21
  down right now. Yeah, he's not hesting Karstad Baltimore. Still don't understand
• 56:24
  what they were doing there, But when they call him up, he is
• 56:29
  gonna play every day. And you're right, that's why he's down right now
• 56:30
  is because there they wanted to try to give Bowers that chance, and they
• 56:37
  learned what they should have already known. And so I think Black will be
• 56:39
  up here. I'd say the next two weeks, two three weeks. Maybe
• 56:44
  that's a little aggressive, but I think that they they give him a chance
• 56:46
  here, and I think he runs with it when he gets called back up.
• 56:52
  Yeah, I agree. I'm impressed that you said bringing Black back.
• 56:58
  Like when that came off your tongue, I was like, oh man,
• 57:00
  there's no way I would have rattled that off like that. Yeah, I
• 57:04
  mean, I've been practicing all black back. Oh we've devolved. Actually,
• 57:12
  sorry, we just came back to the mean. For us, that's called
• 57:14
  regression of the mean. Yeah, okay, next player, we have is
• 57:21
  a pitcher that we were alluding to, and this kind of coincides. This
• 57:25
  is a little bit of like a I buried the lead on maybe one of
• 57:29
  the news items we should have talked about, and that is Spencer Schwellenbeck.
• 57:32
  I think it's swrolling back or Schwellenbach. Either way, fantastic, great a
• 57:37
  name for the Atlanta Braves. Came up and made his major league debut tonight.
• 57:42
  Struggled a little bit, but the strikeouts were there. And this is
• 57:45
  a guy who came straight from Double A. He started this season in High
• 57:49
  A as a twenty four year old. He replaced A. J. Smith
• 57:52
  Shover in the Atlanta rotation, and Smith Shover had this same meteoric rise last
• 57:59
  year. Atlanta is not an organization that's afraid to just roll these guys through
• 58:05
  the organization, even if they've only pitched thirteen innings at Double A the way
• 58:09
  Schwellenbach was. But I think it kind of just coincided that Schwellenbach was on
• 58:16
  the correct schedule to be able to pitch tonight for Smith Chavre as he went
• 58:22
  down for a strange oblique So I think the guy that I'm looking towards maybe
• 58:27
  actually owning in Atlanta. Is Hurston Waldrip, who we have talked about before.
• 58:32
  I think maybe, well, we're going to get into who I think
• 58:37
  is the most talented pitcher in the minor leagues here pretty soon. But I
• 58:42
  think Waldrip is right up there in terms of the splitter, the command,
• 58:46
  and the mound presence. He was just an absolute, like nasty pitcher when
• 58:54
  he was in Florida. That like it's a little bit of like He's obviously
• 58:59
  not as is Paul Skins, but there is a little bit of like translation
• 59:01
  in terms of mound presence, seeing it in college and copying over to MLB
• 59:06
  that I think Kirsten Waldrip could be able to do quite easily. He's been
• 59:10
  pitching pretty well now over the past month. He struggled a little bit out
• 59:15
  of the gate. I think the other issue that we're going to have right
• 59:19
  now with Hrston Waldrip is that he doesn't have a forty man spot, and
• 59:22
  Schwellenbach took that spot from him. So this is also a team that has
• 59:29
  yet to put a Kunya on the sixty day il it looks like so there
• 59:32
  are Strider on the fort the sixty man. I think our sixteen sixty sixty
• 59:37
  day. Yeah, so I think that they've got some they've got some flexibility
• 59:42
  there. Yeah, and so right now, actually, well, Waldrip's dropped
• 59:45
  his eraate to two ninety two down in double A. That is even including
• 59:50
  a seven run outing for his first outing of the year. So it's been
• 59:53
  one seventy four over the past forty six and two thirds in double A.
• 59:59
  I'm actually a little surprise if I think if it hadn't been for the scheduling
• 1:00:01
  of the starts, this would have been Waldrop's start. But yeah, what
• 1:00:07
  do you think about Waldrop down in Atlanta and putting him on your reserve roster?
• 1:00:14
  Yeah, I think you know, we talked about Waldrop in in the
• 1:00:16
  preseason, and I think you're right. He's that high octing kind of guy
• 1:00:21
  that really really looks good, and of all the teams to be playing for,
• 1:00:27
  he is in Atlanta, which is where he needs to be to kind
• 1:00:30
  of earnest that you know, he's he's got a lot that he can can
• 1:00:35
  bring. To your point, he's his ear I think excluding the first two
• 1:00:38
  starts to the last seven, it's like a one, you know, kpe
• 1:00:44
  Rinning type of guy. His his walk rate, is very reasonable. He's
• 1:00:51
  just looked fantastic and I think he's, uh, he's gonna be a guy
• 1:00:55
  long term that that can really do some some damage. I think some folks
• 1:00:59
  think he might up in the bullpen, which case he could be a just
• 1:01:02
  absolute lockdown closer if that's where it ends up being. But I think they're
• 1:01:07
  gonna give him every chance to start, and the Brace tend to do that
• 1:01:10
  right. They're they're not looking to take those guys and starting a bullpen come
• 1:01:16
  up fresh. So I think Waldrop's definitely gonna be up sometime soon. I
• 1:01:21
  also think Schwellenbach might stick around a little bit. It'll be interesting to see
• 1:01:25
  what happens there. He does have a very very limited track record to your
• 1:01:30
  point, but he is that kind of guy that they really tend to like,
• 1:01:35
  where he doesn't give a p lot of walks, he keeps the ball
• 1:01:37
  on the ground, He's doing all those little things right, and so I
• 1:01:42
  wouldn't be shocked if they, you know, try to give him a little
• 1:01:45
  bit of leash just to kind of see if he can adapt, and then
• 1:01:49
  if he doesn't, send him back down to double A and no harm,
• 1:01:52
  no foul, because Schwellenbach, I think, is almost twenty four years old.
• 1:01:58
  Twenty four year olds old here in like two days, I was not
• 1:02:02
  citing as a twenty four year old because it's his four year old season,
• 1:02:07
  but Waldrop is about two years younger, and so I think that part of
• 1:02:10
  what goes into this giving Schwellenbach a little bit longer leash is that age and
• 1:02:15
  say, hey, see what you got and see if you can do something,
• 1:02:20
  and no harm, no foul if it doesn't work out. But the
• 1:02:22
  only other thing I'd say is if there's a single player that's maybe miss Harry
• 1:02:25
  Carey, it is Spencer Schwellenbach, because I mean, I can't imagine that
• 1:02:30
  that pronunciation there in Wrigley. It would have been an all time er,
• 1:02:35
  that's for sure. And I mean, yeah, I think that's a great
• 1:02:38
  point that both Schwellenbach and Waldrop might be in this rotation that they could move
• 1:02:43
  to a six man. I think in terms of like Reynaldo Lopez is getting
• 1:02:47
  back into his first year of starting, Max Freed has had elbow in forearm
• 1:02:52
  issues the past couple of years. Charlie Morton's forty Chris Saale is Chris Sale
• 1:02:59
  so it it is possible that they find a spot for Waldrip, because yeah,
• 1:03:02
  now that they don't have a Kunya and have been down Strider, they're
• 1:03:07
  going to be in an absolute dogfight for making the playoffs, and I think
• 1:03:10
  no better way to do that than with Waldrip. Yeah, you gotta find
• 1:03:15
  out what you got, and then I think, but Waldrip for sure not
• 1:03:19
  much more to prove in the minors. Agreed. Okay. The next player
• 1:03:24
  that we have is Jordan Walker, outfielder for the Saint Louis Cardinals. Very
• 1:03:30
  well known. I think at this point in terms of it's just been a
• 1:03:32
  real rough start to his major league career, you would think at least is
• 1:03:38
  I think maybe how I phrased that, because the way that the Cardinals have
• 1:03:43
  been treating him, you would think that this is like some next coming of
• 1:03:49
  like someone worse than Jared Klnick or Dominic Brown or But this Walker has produced
• 1:03:57
  in one hundred and thirty seven games now in the main two sixty two,
• 1:04:00
  three, twenty nine, four twenty three line with sixteen bombs. That's fine,
• 1:04:05
  And so I think that's maybe my main point why, like I'm including
• 1:04:12
  Walker as a reserve possibility, even though he has struggled this year, you
• 1:04:16
  know, was hitting only one fifty five. Uh that was over sixty seven
• 1:04:20
  played appearances. When the rest of the Cardinals look dead in the water,
• 1:04:25
  they're back at five hundred now, so they're coming back. And this,
• 1:04:30
  I think just this is a player where the talent is there and maybe the
• 1:04:35
  ceiling is not quite as high as we had always wanted. But especially like
• 1:04:40
  if you're looking for somebody who could make that next step for you and give
• 1:04:43
  you a big impact down the line here in a twenty twenty four redraft league,
• 1:04:47
  I'm not sure if there's many better outside of obviously those four bats that
• 1:04:54
  we talked about that are super elite of Walker kind of being able to provide
• 1:04:58
  that for you down the stretch. What do you think, Yeah, I
• 1:05:00
  think you make a good point. It's it's you know, I think he's
• 1:05:03
  been hitting the ball better since he got sent down. It is still,
• 1:05:08
  you know, kind of shocking. The last time he hit a home run
• 1:05:12
  was mid September of last year. Including the miners, I guess I didn't
• 1:05:15
  look to see spring training. Does he do anything in spring Okay, he
• 1:05:19
  hit one training, so he does know the feeling. But he is a
• 1:05:26
  really really good hitter and so and that Cardinals team looked just dreadful to start
• 1:05:31
  the season. I don't know what it is there, whether it's the hitting
• 1:05:36
  coach, whether it's the manager, whether it's the wind, the cold,
• 1:05:40
  the hot. I don't know. Something fell off in the water. And
• 1:05:44
  so I think Walker should be back before too long. Once he kind of
• 1:05:48
  gets gets going, starts hitting the ball hard, and there will be a
• 1:05:54
  lot to like once he actually does get back. He has cut the strikeouts
• 1:05:58
  down pretty consider since he went back down to the minors. Has that down
• 1:06:02
  to about a sixteen percent rate when it was twenty seven percent in the majors,
• 1:06:06
  And so, you know, he definitely seems like he's kind of,
• 1:06:10
  you know, working things out, and when he comes back he can be
• 1:06:15
  a very solid player. I think you make the good point that don't expect
• 1:06:18
  him to be an All Star. If you're expecting him to be a fifteen
• 1:06:23
  to ten kind of guy with a good average, you should be very very
• 1:06:27
  happy. And he's the kind of guy I'd be plugging into the back of
• 1:06:30
  my outfield to give him a chance. But you don't want to be sitting
• 1:06:33
  there looking at Jordan Walker on the on the waiver wire and just let let
• 1:06:39
  somebody else pick him up when he does kind of put things together because of
• 1:06:44
  anybody putting things together with that body, Man, things could look really good,
• 1:06:47
  really quick for Jordan Walker. Yeah. And man, it's also like
• 1:06:54
  the way that the Cardinals used to back end their roster is like you can
• 1:06:58
  see why they can't keep up with the likes of like the Milwaukee Brewers,
• 1:07:01
  like Brandon Crawford hasn't played since May nineteenth. Man, he's just like sitting
• 1:07:05
  there occupying a roster spot. Like it is a real strange way of conducting
• 1:07:12
  a team. Yeah, and I don't know if you saw this, but
• 1:07:16
  just tonight it looked like Lars Newtbar left the game early with a's injury to
• 1:07:25
  his side, and I do do I dare see say what that looks like
• 1:07:29
  potentially an oblique So you know that that calls for maybe it is that that
• 1:07:34
  opportunity. I hate to say, because it was nice to see new Bar
• 1:07:39
  actually get back and try to get in the swing of things. So there's,
• 1:07:41
  yeah, there's potential potential there. But it does look like that he
• 1:07:45
  may have tweaked something tonight, which might be just the opportunity that the Cardinals
• 1:07:49
  need to get Walker back up into Saint Louis. All right, well,
• 1:07:55
  let's get back to the pitching side, as the next player that we have
• 1:08:00
  is David Festa, the twenty four year old right hander for the Minnesota Twins.
• 1:08:04
  He's currently down in Triple A where he's thrown thirty nine innings to the
• 1:08:10
  tune of a two to seventy seven ERA. But this is probably the biggest
• 1:08:15
  strikeout opportunity that we have right in terms of he's down in Triple A right
• 1:08:18
  now punching out thirteen point nine per nine. And he's also this is the
• 1:08:27
  type of guy you love. The ground ball rate has been hovering in the
• 1:08:30
  forties the entire time, if not above that, in his time in the
• 1:08:34
  minors, so he's been very solid. The projections going forward, I think
• 1:08:40
  are, yeah, they're just a little bit better than k Povic. Most
• 1:08:42
  of them have him a right around a four ERA, few more strikeouts,
• 1:08:47
  a few less walks. But this is another team up in Minnesota where it's
• 1:08:55
  kind of starting to get into a little bit of an all hand decks,
• 1:08:59
  all hands on situation as the Guardians and Royals are running away with the division,
• 1:09:03
  and if Minnesota wants to hang, they really need to bring up their
• 1:09:06
  best arms. And Festa is not on the forty man roster right now.
• 1:09:11
  But I do think that like this is the next arm to come up and
• 1:09:16
  pop that if you're looking for. I mean, this is a very wild
• 1:09:23
  comparison. This is like when players like as prospects get compared to Hall of
• 1:09:28
  Fame players as their projections or whatever. But this is maybe like a Paul
• 1:09:31
  Skin's light in terms of what you're looking for. Festa is six six,
• 1:09:34
  He's intimidating on the mound electric fastball. I maybe like, if you're looking
• 1:09:44
  at an opportunity where you need somebody immediately, that's maybe where I would prefer
• 1:09:47
  Kovich. But if you have the flexibility to wait a week to three weeks,
• 1:09:54
  I think Festa is the guy to be stashing away up in Minnesota.
• 1:09:58
  Yeah means I don't know. I don't know about that. It might be
• 1:10:01
  going a little far there, but its size, Okay, then I'm ball
• 1:10:08
  skiins. Okay, I'm not even six slippers. But I think you're right,
• 1:10:15
  like as far as guys that have an opportunity to come up and what
• 1:10:18
  I what I like about him is when you talk about the strikeouts, like
• 1:10:23
  he does have some control issues, but he definitely has the strikeouts, and
• 1:10:27
  I feel like the projections are actually getting a little light from a strikeout perspective
• 1:10:30
  for what he can actually do. And you know, he's looked pretty pretty
• 1:10:34
  good this year. The drawback that I see is how deep is he actually
• 1:10:40
  going to go into games? And you know, he does have about two
• 1:10:45
  years now at the upper miners levels, one hundred and thirty hundred and forty
• 1:10:47
  innings something like that. I didn't do the great math there, but he's
• 1:10:53
  only actually gone beyond five innings once this year, and he's actually only to
• 1:11:00
  five innings and three starts out of his ten games started. So I'm not
• 1:11:04
  sure what I don't know, and I haven't looked close enough. So no,
• 1:11:09
  is that because he's a little all over the place and trying to kind
• 1:11:13
  of figure some things out because he is striking guys out that takes a lot
• 1:11:15
  of pitches at times. So is there some efficiency concerns or is it more
• 1:11:20
  of a managing workload concern for later in the season where they might see the
• 1:11:26
  need for him. And so I do lean towards a little bit more.
• 1:11:29
  It's the managing workload type of perspective here, but I think that's an area
• 1:11:33
  to keep an eye on and see if he is getting a little bit more
• 1:11:39
  leash in the miners as they're kind of stretching him out to get called up.
• 1:11:42
  If he gets another few stars here of five or six innings and looks
• 1:11:45
  as good as he has, then I think, yeah, I think you're
• 1:11:47
  right, he's going to get called up before too long. Yeah, And
• 1:11:51
  that's a good point that I before we came into this conversation, I probably
• 1:11:56
  would have had him over a wall trip. But I might actually flip that
• 1:11:59
  now because what's actually freaky about Waldrop is when you go into that game log,
• 1:12:02
  he's facing a lot of batters he's been facing mid twenties. He's got
• 1:12:08
  a complete game in there, like he is being developed as a starting pitcher
• 1:12:12
  that I don't think Braves have any intentions to put Waldrop in the bullpen.
• 1:12:16
  That they want to see this as a fully operational death star. I know
• 1:12:23
  it was not the term that I thought we would get on this podcasts.
• 1:12:25
  I have fully operational death star. Yeah. So the three Brian Cashman also
• 1:12:30
  I know he's a C and C pod fan, so I had to get
• 1:12:32
  that out there for him. All right, Well, we got two more
• 1:12:35
  pictures that we're considering stashing here, and I think both of these guys are
• 1:12:40
  probably more deeper league, just because the first kind of batch of players that
• 1:12:45
  we've talked about are pretty eminently like on the edge of being called up and
• 1:12:50
  have the talent level to really make that change in terms of where your fantasy
• 1:12:56
  standings are. This first guy certainly does, but he's in Double A right
• 1:13:00
  now and the Detroit Tigers are kind of treating him with kid gloves. That
• 1:13:05
  is Jackson job, who I alluded to being the number one pitcher probably in
• 1:13:12
  all the minor leagues. I would put that label on this guy, as
• 1:13:16
  he was absolutely brilliant last year. You know, down the stretch he threw,
• 1:13:21
  he flew through four levels from complex ball a ball I A up to
• 1:13:27
  Double A and just looked absolutely fantastic all the way along. I know that
• 1:13:32
  the ground ball rate here is low, but I mean people were making so
• 1:13:35
  little contact. I've been sure we know it is true kind of ground ball
• 1:13:41
  rate talent is and he kept that rolling right into the Fall League. That
• 1:13:45
  all the reports of the Fall League made it seem like this is the kind
• 1:13:50
  of pre eminent number one pitcher coming down the pipeline now that schemes is up
• 1:13:57
  in the majors and so Jackson Job is working with a pretty steady fastball,
• 1:14:02
  but by all accounts, the change up and the slider are just like absolutely
• 1:14:08
  superb. Like I said, I think that the real thing kind of holding
• 1:14:12
  him back from being considered in slightly shallow of leagues is he has been down
• 1:14:18
  with an injury for a little bit, but it does seem like he's working
• 1:14:20
  his way back. But a little bit is like the Tigers are wanting to
• 1:14:25
  make sure that they bring Job up and use them when the team is ready
• 1:14:30
  to compete, because it does seem like almost like a Yuri Perez situation where
• 1:14:35
  you know that Job's probably gonna get hurt just like every other picture at some
• 1:14:39
  point. It's just kind of like you want to get these innings in when
• 1:14:42
  they matter the most to the Tigers. So what type of like depth of
• 1:14:46
  league are you maybe looking in to owning and stashing Jackson Joe Brew, Yeah,
• 1:14:53
  I think Job is probably more than that fourteen team, maybe fifteen team
• 1:14:57
  kind of situation here because you look at it and you can argue both sides.
• 1:15:01
  That's why I kind of say that there, I'm in the twelve ten
• 1:15:04
  twelve, I'm still kind of just watching him. If you look at that
• 1:15:08
  Tiger's team, they are basically I haven't seen how they played today, but
• 1:15:12
  they're basically a five hundred team right now, which that's it's been a while
• 1:15:17
  since the Tigers have really been threatening. And they have a one two punch
• 1:15:21
  right now with's arryk Skubele and Jack Flaherty that looks unbeatable. Another former cardinal
• 1:15:30
  that just flourishes what he leaves. But once you get past that, Kintamata
• 1:15:34
  has not looked great. Reese Olsen's actually looked pretty decent. Casey Myes has
• 1:15:39
  been i'd say iffy. And so there's not a big bearers or entry.
• 1:15:45
  I think you make a great comp with Uri Perez there, not from a
• 1:15:47
  skill perspective, just from the it does feel like the Tigers are one of
• 1:15:50
  those that are willing to try to just push these minor leaguers up a little
• 1:15:54
  bit, not quite what they do in Atlanta, but to like, hey,
• 1:15:59
  get healthy. We're to see if we can get you in the majors
• 1:16:00
  and get some Allians out of you before you get hurt. I think Job's
• 1:16:04
  a little further off, and I think it's going to take a little bit
• 1:16:06
  more time. But if they are trying to be in contention and be a
• 1:16:11
  potential playoff team, they get a little hot here. But my Ada or
• 1:16:15
  miz are still struggling. I think they have to give Job a chance.
• 1:16:18
  And so to your point, with the upside that Job has the absolute potential,
• 1:16:24
  I'm willing to take a gamble there. And because I don't want to
• 1:16:27
  be chasing, I don't want to be racing somebody else the waiver wire to
• 1:16:30
  pick up Job. And this is the kind of guy that I mentioned earlier
• 1:16:33
  that I would pick up, drop him next week when I need something else,
• 1:16:36
  pick him up again, like he's my extra bench spot that doesn't really
• 1:16:41
  exist type of guy, and just hope that when he doesn't get the call,
• 1:16:45
  he just happens to be on my team. Yeah, he's also like
• 1:16:47
  one of those players a little bit like Schwell and Back where you just don't
• 1:16:50
  know, like when the Tigers might end up calling him up. So I
• 1:16:55
  think that's why Job makes sense in those deeper situations, especially where like,
• 1:17:00
  yeah, you're out there considering some just really horrid options on your waiver wires,
• 1:17:05
  where I've noticed in a lot of leagues you know, that are more
• 1:17:10
  than twelve teams at this point, the waiver wire is just like White Sox
• 1:17:15
  A's Marlins and Rockies pitchers. It's just like all the drags. And so
• 1:17:23
  with that in mind, let's get into a White Sox pitcher that maybe might
• 1:17:27
  get added into that mix, and that is Drew Thorpe, left hander who
• 1:17:30
  came over in the Dylan Cea. Steele used to be in the Yankee system
• 1:17:35
  because he was traded in the Won Soto deal as well, so he's been
• 1:17:40
  traded twice within the past calendar year. Drew Thorpe is down in Double A,
• 1:17:45
  not on the forty man roster, but he's been around long enough that
• 1:17:48
  he's got the repertoire, I think to be able to come up and start
• 1:17:53
  right away. You know, last year he was knocking on the door with
• 1:17:56
  the Yankees in terms of being called up to the majors and through through one
• 1:18:00
  hundred and thirty nine and a third inning. So this is a guy who
• 1:18:03
  is very stretched out very ready to be a starter, and probably if he,
• 1:18:09
  if and when he gets called up, might have the best change in
• 1:18:13
  the majors. Like the change up on Drew Thorp. I'm mostly just excited
• 1:18:17
  to see that, like on my TV screen, watching that thing fade out
• 1:18:23
  of a lefty hand. There's nothing better, I think than watching a great
• 1:18:26
  changeup. But this is one where I don't think we even really have to
• 1:18:30
  worry about the opportunity because like it's mostly when Chris gets is finally ready to
• 1:18:35
  let Drew Thorpe up and cook. Like, I don't see anything in the
• 1:18:39
  repertoire as to why Thorpe shouldn't be making a start every fifth day in the
• 1:18:45
  sock's rotation. Because Chris Flexen's out there taking a spot and it's bad in
• 1:18:49
  Chicago, why not just bring up Thorpe. And I think you're probably a
• 1:18:54
  little bit in the same boat too, right, Like you're just kind of
• 1:18:56
  waiting for Thorpe to be one of these surprise call ups. Yeah, I'm
• 1:19:00
  absolutely there because to your point, Chris Flexen, Jake Woodward not doing a
• 1:19:05
  whole lot to keep Thorpe down, and Thorpe has you know, he's got
• 1:19:12
  some good innings under him, He's really had an opportunity to pitch his stuff.
• 1:19:16
  Not look as good this year from a strike up perspective, he hasn't
• 1:19:21
  racked up quite as many strikeouts. And I haven't been able to get this
• 1:19:25
  game logged open, so I couldn't tell you how he looks the last few
• 1:19:27
  games here. But what I like about Thorpe is he just has a very
• 1:19:32
  consistent profile. He keeps the ball in the park, he keeps on the
• 1:19:35
  ground, he doesn't walk a lot of guys like he is that high floor
• 1:19:39
  type of guy. And I think he's you know, Guests has already said
• 1:19:43
  at some point he's get called up this year and the White Sox are out
• 1:19:45
  of it of it and we're after Super two, Like, there's really very
• 1:19:51
  little reason to keep Thorpe in the miners at this point, because you really
• 1:19:56
  want to give him a long leash to kind of get accustomed to the majors
• 1:19:59
  and figure out what he's doing. So I think he's the kind of guy
• 1:20:02
  that you give a chance. Now. You know, as I look at
• 1:20:06
  what he's done this season, you know he's he's gone either six or seven
• 1:20:11
  innings in over half of his games like he's going deep, like he's facing
• 1:20:15
  a lot of batters. He's he's never walked more than two guys in a
• 1:20:19
  single game all season. He hasn't given up more than three runs or more
• 1:20:25
  than two runs more than twice. Like, he's just a really, really
• 1:20:30
  solid pitcher. And I think I think there's a lot to like there.
• 1:20:32
  And he's not going to blow the league away. He's not going to you
• 1:20:35
  know, he's not gonna get like any wins pitched in Chicago. But he's
• 1:20:40
  that kind of guy that, especially if you're in a in a league where
• 1:20:43
  you need to hit your innings cap. I really like Drew Thorpe because he's
• 1:20:46
  going to strike out about one per inning, and he's gonna keep your ratios
• 1:20:51
  reasonable and he's not going to go off the deep end every other game,
• 1:20:56
  like you don't have to worry about that. So I love Thorpe. I
• 1:21:00
  think he's gonna gonna be up soon than people people think. I'm probably not
• 1:21:03
  rostering him right now on a ten team or twelve teamer probably not either,
• 1:21:09
  but I'm watching very closely. As soon as his name's called, I'm making
• 1:21:13
  a move. Yeah, and it's this is a player where sometimes I just
• 1:21:17
  like, do not get the projections and everything's calling for him to be like
• 1:21:23
  a four twenty something Erra and a whip in the one thirties. I mean,
• 1:21:28
  maybe the whip is because like he'll have the White Sox defense behind him.
• 1:21:31
  But this is a guy who in the minors has absolutely limited you know,
• 1:21:39
  bats in terms of getting any sorts of runs or hits off of him.
• 1:21:44
  That it's somebody who I mean in terms of I'm just trying to look
• 1:21:47
  at like maybe somebody in terms of like their k rate and walk rate that
• 1:21:53
  I would consider an equivalent talent, And I'm thinking somewhere like between Javier Asad
• 1:22:01
  and like Nestor Cortez, where not huge like strikeout rate players, but they
• 1:22:08
  give you the strikeouts in volumes, especially Cortez because he is pitching long enough
• 1:22:13
  and just like making those starts for you. That I think that's kind of
• 1:22:16
  right in the class of pitcher where you're looking at where Thorpe would enter,
• 1:22:19
  which doesn't sound like world beating, but especially if you're in some of these
• 1:22:27
  deeper leagues and desperate for pitching just needs some sort of volume. It doesn't
• 1:22:30
  get better than somebody like a Nestor Cortez or Javier Aside that you know is
• 1:22:34
  just gonna make a start every week. Yeah, and I think you know,
• 1:22:39
  especially in like a dynasty type league, I think Thorpe's is really interesting
• 1:22:43
  because I think he's just gonna get better. I think he actually has a
• 1:22:45
  really high starting point and then he's not gonna He's not gonna be the guy
• 1:22:49
  that you know just wins the cy young out of nowhere. But I think
• 1:22:53
  he's gonna consistently get better. And he's that kind of guy that you you
• 1:22:57
  look at and I'm gonna make this comp which is fair on a number of
• 1:23:00
  reasons, especially because he got lit up tonight, but makes me think of
• 1:23:02
  like a Bailey over and where it was like he doesn't get talked about,
• 1:23:08
  doesn't play on the best team, but he just consistently looks good and gets
• 1:23:13
  good numbers. Ober's kind of hurt a little bit this year because he's done
• 1:23:17
  that except for every other start he's blown up. So he's really ruining my
• 1:23:21
  comps at this point. But I do I do like Drew Thorpe, and
• 1:23:25
  I think there's a lot to be said for when he gets gets the call
• 1:23:29
  for the toile in white sox. There. Yeah, and I should correct
• 1:23:33
  myself now I think I called him the left He's actually a righty. He
• 1:23:38
  bats left handed, which I saw at the top of his page. But
• 1:23:41
  he's the right handed pitcher, which should make it even more valuable. So
• 1:23:44
  there you go. I'm glad we still talk about how picture's bat when they
• 1:23:47
  have batted. Ever, yeah, you can never be too sure. But
• 1:23:54
  I figured, since we've kind of gone through a little bit of like the
• 1:23:56
  strategy on how we're identifying these players and then actually identified some of the players,
• 1:24:01
  what are maybe some of the players that we aren't doing this strategy with
• 1:24:06
  where we see enough of the red flags where it is certainly a wait and
• 1:24:12
  see and we'll let them wait on the waiver wire because even considering all the
• 1:24:16
  other factors that might be surrounding them, they just are too risky to be
• 1:24:21
  able to hold on our overall reserve roster. And so I think the first
• 1:24:27
  one is a guy that I was actually looking forward to returning and had stashed
• 1:24:31
  him away in a couple of leagues when he was on the injured list,
• 1:24:34
  but he made a return and then was optioned right away by the Rays,
• 1:24:40
  I am talking about Shane Boz down there as mostly this is a guy who
• 1:24:46
  has barely pitched. He's got all the talent in the world in that arm,
• 1:24:51
  but the innings he has struggled to post, and the injuries have always
• 1:24:57
  been throughout his game. I think they're right there right now. Is he
• 1:25:00
  has struggled in Triple A. He has sixteen innings down there as he's been
• 1:25:04
  kind of working his way back from Tommy John surgery, and it's been ugly.
• 1:25:09
  He's got more walks down there than case. He's giving up a homer
• 1:25:13
  per game. It's all amounted to a seven to seventy one era and the
• 1:25:17
  reports just haven't been great either. And on top of it too, he's
• 1:25:23
  battled an oblique injury while rehaving So this is certainly somebody who I was sashon
• 1:25:30
  just like a week or two ago, because all the other indicators that we
• 1:25:33
  talked about at the beginning of the segment were lining up correctly. But I
• 1:25:38
  think this is a good like also showing how quickly it can unravel on you
• 1:25:45
  and how quickly you should move on. And that is Shane Baz I don't
• 1:25:49
  think is worth owning in just about any league right now because I'm just worried
• 1:25:55
  about him ever making it back. Yeah, I think all the potential in
• 1:25:59
  the world they were Shane Baz, it's just a matter of is he going
• 1:26:02
  to be healthy and be able to capitalize it? And I think he's.
• 1:26:06
  Tampa's going to have kid gloves with Baz for some time, like they want
• 1:26:11
  him to get fully healthy and fully back before they even give him another shot.
• 1:26:15
  And so yeah, I think you're right. He's a guy that even
• 1:26:18
  coming to the season, I was kind of excited to, you know,
• 1:26:20
  maybe grab a cheap share and stash him until he ut back. And at
• 1:26:26
  this point he's kind of kind of ruined that for any of us prospect towns.
• 1:26:30
  Yeah, And I mean on top of it too, the Ray's rotation.
• 1:26:33
  Obviously, they keep finding guys out of nowhere and cycling them in and
• 1:26:38
  out. They kind of are a well oiled machine. Because the next guy
• 1:26:42
  we're going to talk about, I think kind of like that raise pitching machine,
• 1:26:46
  boxing Shane Baz out of a potential spot there. I think that's happened
• 1:26:51
  a little bit in Arizona to Jordan Lawler as well as he's also been working
• 1:26:56
  his way back from a thumb injury, which I really don't like. But
• 1:27:00
  I think if you had asked me at the beginning of the season, I
• 1:27:04
  still maybe would have stash Lawler here and there, just because the talent ceiling
• 1:27:11
  is so incredible for him, and there was a great opportunity on that Arizona
• 1:27:15
  infield as it looked like, you know, Heraldo Perdomo was slated for a
• 1:27:21
  shortstop and you know, things were just a little dicier on the infield than
• 1:27:27
  they are now. As Kevin Newman has taken over with Blaise Alexander brought backing
• 1:27:30
  up the shortstop, Perdomo should be back here in a few weeks, you
• 1:27:35
  would think. And then so that's kind of a couple of reasons why,
• 1:27:41
  like I'm not using one of those roster spots and my reserve bench for Jordan
• 1:27:45
  Lawler because a lot of these factors that we've kind of been aligning in this
• 1:27:50
  art in applying them, it just doesn't line up for him right now.
• 1:27:54
  For me. Yeah, And this is more of one of those where the
• 1:27:58
  situation is just not calling for it. It's not that the guy's not talented,
• 1:28:01
  it's not that the guy isn't going to be a good player for many
• 1:28:04
  years. It's just that he didn't hit the ground running when he got an
• 1:28:09
  opportunity, and they don't really need him right now, so give him a
• 1:28:15
  chance to get some more seasoning and then call him up. He's the kind
• 1:28:17
  of guy that I'm thinking a cup of coffee late summer into the fall,
• 1:28:21
  they'll kind of see what they have here, especially as their fate is determined
• 1:28:27
  playoffs or not. And then next year is really where we might talk about
• 1:28:31
  Lawler a little bit more. But remember, this guy is just he's twenty
• 1:28:34
  one. He's still got some time to go, and so they're not going
• 1:28:38
  to rush their number six overall pick from a twenty twenty one draft like he's
• 1:28:43
  got a spot he's going to be a key piece to that to that team.
• 1:28:46
  But you're right, he's not imminent by any means, so we're not
• 1:28:50
  stashing him, not even watching that closely at this point. Yeah, I
• 1:28:55
  mean, he's still working his way back from that thumb injury, so that's
• 1:28:58
  part of it, and so it's be nearing, but I'm gonna let somebody
• 1:29:01
  else take that chance on sucking up a roster spot. On him anybody else
• 1:29:08
  where You've seen in leagues that people might be stashing and you are thinking,
• 1:29:13
  I'm not sure I would be doing that. Yeah, I think the one
• 1:29:16
  that kind of jumps out to me is or Elvis Martinez for Toronto. He's
• 1:29:21
  in his second go round with Triple A and he is he say, he's
• 1:29:28
  tearing the cover off the ball in Triple A for Toronto, for a team
• 1:29:32
  that's really struggled to hit the ball to major league level. He's already got
• 1:29:35
  thirteen long balls this year, thirty nine RBI. He's sitting two fifty,
• 1:29:41
  and strikeouts have which has always been a concern for him, have been relatively
• 1:29:45
  maintained twenty four percent strikeout rate. So the question is like, why why
• 1:29:49
  wouldn't he be worth worth keeping? And I'm gonna for the eighteenth time this
• 1:29:55
  podcast call out Adam Duvall like that is who are Elvis Martinez is like,
• 1:30:00
  if you look at the projections, he's like, he's lucky that he's hit
• 1:30:03
  two fifty this year. He is. He is not necessarily a fleet of
• 1:30:10
  foot. He doesn't put the ball on the ground. It's either in the
• 1:30:14
  air and caught or over the fence. And so he's one of those guys
• 1:30:17
  that's gonna hit power, hit for incredibly low average, and he's gonna get
• 1:30:23
  hot and be great for a few weeks, and he's can get cold and
• 1:30:26
  be absolutely dreadful. So I think his transition to the majors is gonna be
• 1:30:30
  tough, and I don't think he's gonna hit the ground running, which is
• 1:30:32
  what you want in this type of prospect. So I've heard a lot of
• 1:30:35
  folks kind of begging to see him come up because that Toronto offense needs a
• 1:30:41
  jolt in the arm. I just don't think you get what you pay for
• 1:30:44
  with or all of this Martinez. Yeah, And I think it's another guy
• 1:30:47
  who the major league team has really solidified itself, even though they've been bad,
• 1:30:54
  like the spots where he would play second base, David Schneider is probably
• 1:30:59
  going to be there All Star in Toronto, like he's really come through.
• 1:31:04
  Isaiah Kiner Falafa has been actually the most solid player on the entire team.
• 1:31:10
  He's played great defense at their base, has been worth one point one war
• 1:31:14
  already, and obviously Boba Schet's not going anywhere unless they trade them. So
• 1:31:18
  I think that's maybe like when I would start looking at a Relvis Martinez is
• 1:31:23
  like closer to the trade deadline, as it does look like this Blue Jays
• 1:31:27
  team is kind of dead in the water and they're going to start peeling pieces
• 1:31:30
  off of it. But that's probably like the next time where I start dipping
• 1:31:34
  down into like that next layer of prospects where Ralvis Martinez is, where there's
• 1:31:42
  more warts, but the playing time might be shaping up for the trade deadline,
• 1:31:46
  So like maybe we'll even revisit this topic then in a couple of months.
• 1:31:51
  Yeah, absolutely, So, a lot lots of guys out there.
• 1:31:55
  I'd say the pickings have gotten thinner, but the big names have been called
• 1:31:59
  up, they're or they're on their way, and you're looking one tier down.
• 1:32:04
  But there's still a lot to like across the minor league landscape. So
• 1:32:08
  lots of fun guys. We'll we'll see which one's were right on, which
• 1:32:11
  ones were wrong, and where do we waste the bench spot? Yeah yeah,
• 1:32:16
  yeah, I cut them in two weeks time or whatever. Like we
• 1:32:19
  were saying, all right, well with that brew, let's wrap it up
• 1:32:23
  here for this week. Let everybody know where they can find you for your
• 1:32:28
  articles and on socials. Yeah, you can buy me out for my socials
• 1:32:31
  over on Twitter slash x at j Brewer one seven. Uh find me on
• 1:32:35
  the weekends in ras ball Sundays doing your top one hundred hitter rankings for the
• 1:32:40
  rest of the season and hitter profiles. We should be dropping some some more
• 1:32:45
  rankings, uh this this weekend as we kind of make some adjustments and uh
• 1:32:49
  see Ronald Dukuna take take a tumble uh in the in those rankings, and
• 1:32:55
  you know, it's it's kind of funny. I I I mean to go
• 1:32:59
  off on a soap, but the number of folks I get asking why does
• 1:33:01
  this guy's keep going off the rankings. It's not the guys going for the
• 1:33:03
  rankings. It's the guys that keep getting hurt and going down the rankings that
• 1:33:10
  keep making the job hard. But please stop buy criticize the rankings, tell
• 1:33:15
  me where I'm wrong. That's that's the fun of it. So Cooley,
• 1:33:18
  what about you? Yeah, you can find me on ras ball on Saturdays
• 1:33:23
  doing that waiver wire report. So yeah, we should have plenty on probably
• 1:33:29
  Adam Duvall. Sure it is actually going to get one of my features because
• 1:33:32
  of everything that we've espoused on with him here as well as Tommy fam because
• 1:33:38
  I think Tommy fan people still don't realize he's in the majors. Tommy,
• 1:33:43
  I know he's gonna win people some leaks this year. It's gonna be great.
• 1:33:46
  But you can find me on Twitter slash x at in Cool seven,
• 1:33:50
  same handle for Blue Sky. You can find the podcast on Twitter slash x
• 1:33:56
  at cards Categories or email the pod at cards Categories at gmail dot com.
• 1:34:01
  We've got lots of great merchandise. The link is in the show detail,
• 1:34:05
  so check it out there if you're looking for a new hat or new shirt
• 1:34:09
  to rep the pod, and if you've listened to this entire pod, we
• 1:34:13
  would appreciate you rating, reviewing it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 1:34:17
  else you're listening to us. We appreciate all feedback and look forward to hearing
• 1:34:24
  from some of our listeners out there. So we will be back again next
• 1:34:28
  week. We will have to actually next week will be the Player of the
• 1:34:31
  Month PC, so that is the new segment that we're doing monthly. That
• 1:34:36
  will come back next week. If you want to check out pictures of cards,
• 1:34:41
  I know we didn't discuss them on this pod. But if you go
• 1:34:44
  back to some of the other pods and notice that you're listening to segments about
• 1:34:48
  cards, those are all posted on rasball dot com now going back to the
• 1:34:55
  last PC post that we had, so if you're looking for pictures of the
• 1:35:00
  the cards, that's where you'll be able to find them. Like I said,
• 1:35:02
  we'll be back again next week with that May PC Players of the Month,
• 1:35:09
  So find us here next week, same time, same place. We'll see you