Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 22 : Ohtani The $700M Man, Bowman Draft

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Ep. 22 : Ohtani The $700M Man, Bowman Draft · Cards & Categories

• 0:16
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode twenty two of Cards and Categories. I'm
• 0:20
  Mike Coolard from ras Ball, joined by my great friend Jeremy Brewer, also
• 0:25
  from ras Ball. Jeremy, how are you doing tonight? I am doing
• 0:29
  fantastic. It is a great night. It's been a fun week of baseball
• 0:33
  news, all fun stuff, big fantasy impacts, big card impacts, lots
• 0:39
  for us to talk about. So I'm excited for the next five hours of
• 0:43
  our show. So buckle up, get ready, because we got some stuff
• 0:48
  to talk about. I'm looking forward to when we put this pot out and
• 0:52
  it's gonna end up being like a six hour pod and they look down like,
• 0:54
  whoa, only five. Maybe there's like a lot of bads built in
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  or something, but we should get into it. It is, ironically,
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  or I guess maybe funnily enough, just a huge news week after like sometimes
• 1:06
  during the season we would struggle to come up with topics, We've got tons
• 1:10
  of transactions as one of the biggest pieces of news in baseball history broke recently
• 1:17
  that the White Sox won the Reddit Marble simulation. Here for the regular season,
• 1:22
  they're predicting the White Sox. No, I'm kidding. It's of course,
• 1:26
  we'll get back into it. But shoheo Tani signing with the Los Angeles
• 1:32
  Dodgers over the weekend, and I'm not even totally sure and up to date
• 1:36
  on like what bit of like the contract clauses we're discussing on social media now
• 1:42
  that every time I check my phone something else new leaks. Obviously, he
• 1:47
  signed for what sounded like a ten year, seven hundred million dollar deal over
• 1:52
  the weekend, but has been walked back with absolutely insane deferments that he's taking
• 1:57
  two million dollars a year for the first ten years than getting sixty eight million
• 2:01
  dollars a year deferred after that, so it works out to roughly four hundred
• 2:07
  and fifty million dollars in present day value. It was also I enjoyed over
• 2:10
  the weekend people knew that part of this was deferred, but didn't know how
• 2:15
  much, so they're like, oh, maybe it's like twenty million, and
• 2:16
  like people were net present valuing the seven hundred and also funny watching like all
• 2:22
  these people use the net present value function and excel. But ultimately, I
• 2:29
  mean, it's an insane contract for the two million dollars a year and the
• 2:31
  deferment that obviously he wants the Dodgers to acquire more players and bring in more
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  talent around him. Brew what's your first take on this move in terms of
• 2:42
  what it means for Otani and the Dodgers. Yeah, I, first of
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  all, I think it's it's brilliant by Otani. I know, so there's
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  some people out there saying, oh my goodness, what he's doing is saddling
• 2:53
  the team all these things like ignore that, like that's the future, like
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  you're looking at when now it's a prime team that can go after and try
• 3:00
  to bring multiple championships and that's what they're looking to do. And on Otade's
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  part, like it was brilliant, Like he had the opportunity to set his
• 3:09
  market and what better way to try to ensure the team that you go to
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  is going to be in it. And like everything that you see that continues
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  to break with this deal is that he really thought it through. He thought
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  through exactly what he was doing, and he was going to control that bidding,
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  that bidding war, and so he you know, he has to say
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  he's got everything he wants. It wasn't about the money. He's getting two
• 3:32
  million a year while he's getting what fifty million a year and sponsorships and things
• 3:37
  like that. He doesn't need the money right now, so I don't know
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  about you next twenty years, making roughly fifty million a year, I think
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  I could make it by I don't really care about the net present value at
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  this point. If i'm Motani. It wasn't an amazing deal to hit seven
• 3:53
  hundred million. I don't think anybody could have predicted that we hit that number.
• 3:59
  It makes a lot more sense now with the deferral, so I think
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  it makes a lot of sense. I think the Dodgers still have a ton
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  of flexibility. Next collective bargaining agreement is going to probably address this. But
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  I think that there the Dodgers are. They're scary. They're going to be
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  scary. Probably the best one two three in the game, Maybe the best
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  one, two, three, four in the lineup in the game, depends
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  on your opinion the will Smith, But I love the move. I'm not
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  shocked at all by Otani landing with the Dodgers. I'm curious that he keeps
• 4:30
  the same apartment there in Los Angeles. Yeah, I'm not sure where it
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  is, so that that's one factor because driving I five. There is maybe
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  like the worst experience like that exists in the entire world. Yeah, this
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  really was just so solely this was just a commute decision by Otani. He
• 4:48
  just wanted to turn right out of the neighborhoodste left and I'll get to work
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  a little easier every day. Had nothing to do with the money. Is
• 4:54
  everything about the commute, the daily commute. Yeah, I mean I think
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  I got that highway right. I mean, I guess Southern California people can
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  chime in after the pod here. I've driven around there a couple times,
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  but yeah, which is every time I've been there something on fire. Okay,
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  we can revisit that some other points, but I will say that,
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  like it was very obvious from the get go when the contract term started leaking
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  out that oh Tani had this set up, and it's almost like a personal
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  goal or something that he set in going into free agency that he was like,
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  I want to make seven hundred million dollars. And honestly, if it
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  hadn't come to the torn UCL from the pitching side down the stretch, I
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  think he would have been in the market for seven hundred mili at ten years
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  with a lot less deferred, but then still had to check off that box
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  on his like personal goal list, so came up with this crazy deferment.
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  And it does sound like the Giants were offered the same deal. So I
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  have a feeling he just kind of picked the team that he wanted to go
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  to and said, here's the contract, whether you liked or not. And
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  I'm sure whoever was in the market, especially when you're talking about two million
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  dollars a year for ten years, if with a cap hit or a CBT
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  hit of you know, in the mid forties, that every team could have
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  signed up for this. So especially when you consider that whatever GM is signing
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  him to this deal, they don't even have to care about that deferred sixteen
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  million dollars a year. They're going to be long gone and now the job
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  most likely. Oh yeah, I mean, this could be a disaster for
• 6:29
  the Dodgers in ten years, absolutely saddling them with this, with this,
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  pay this payment. But at that point they don't care. They they do
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  not care if they win, you know, one World Series. You know,
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  I think that they'd be happy, but I think they're trying to set
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  themselves up to win like two, three, four World series in the next
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  few years, and I don't think they're done this offseason. You know,
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  I am not going to be shocked to see them reel in a good starting
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  pitcher or maybe a top level starting pitcher with the money that they've could they
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  say, can they say saved with Shohea Tani? But I'm not sure if
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  you can say that they saved money by signing a seven hundred million dollars contract,
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  But somehow it feels like they did. I agree that it is I
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  think a steal in the long run, because I think it also just guarantees
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  a lot of rights to marketing with Otani into the future too. That you
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  know, if this does end up being a Hall of Fame career, you'll
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  likely be going in with the Dodgers hat and just everything else that comes around
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  with the advertising you get from Japanese companies and YadA YadA. That it was
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  a really easy decision, I think for the Dodgers in the long run,
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  it wasn't it. I don't know. Did you see the news that just
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  broke late today of his opt out opportunity? Yes, yeah, I did.
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  That was that was that was news? You know, it was first
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  reported that he didn't have an opt out, but he has the most unique
• 7:50
  opt out I think that we've heard in the game, and I don't it's
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  almost like negotiating your own job security by Andrew Friedman. I'm not sure if
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  that's if that's fair, but he has an opt out that either the controlling
• 8:05
  owner Mark Walter or I guess it's not the GM because it gives the wonderful
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  title of President Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman. If either leaves the organization, he
• 8:16
  gets an opt out after that season, and that's like golden handcuffs for Friedman.
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  He can do he can do anything. First of all, he sacrificed
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  all the future ten years out and so he's like, I got ten years,
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  I'm going to do this. I can make any crazy move I want
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  because they're not getting rid of me because they're losing Tani. Yeah, and
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  I think that, I mean, that's really an interesting clause and I don't
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  know, we'll see like what it means in the long run, because I
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  think it also just maybe gives leverage for more money or whatever if Push does
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  come to shove with I think it also lines up that Otani knows that if
• 8:56
  Friedman is getting fired like something has gone drastically wrong with the Dodgers, and
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  it gives them a reset button to get out and go find another franchise that
• 9:07
  will take a similar deal. And at that point you would think that he's
• 9:11
  also healthy from a pitching perspective as well. Yeah, so this this deal
• 9:16
  continues to be in you know, interesting. I don't know when we'll get
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  all the full details. I don't think it's also actually fully approved by the
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  Commissioner's office at this point. So you buckle up and hold on because we
• 9:28
  still might have some fireworks to go on this one. But finally the free
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  agent market is open. Shohetani has his decisions, so now the flood gates
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  open. I think it's a time for others to start making their decision and
• 9:45
  I think teams are chopping out a bit to really get things going now that
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  Atani's off the market. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think that Yamamoto
• 9:54
  will probably sign here over the weekend or within the week to our next pot.
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  I think that lots of teams are pushing hard for him, including the
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  Dodgers, the Mets, with Steve Cohen actually visiting him in Japan. So
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  I think he's the next Domino to really fall here. But let's with Otani.
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  Let's look at his fantasy value overall he's currently going. I honestly,
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  I think right where he belongs in terms of drafts. I'm looking at NFBC
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  data since last Wednesday just to align with our pod, and he's been going
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  fifteenth thoughts board behind Jose Ramirez, Garrett Cole, Aaron Judge, Trey Turner.
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  And here's the guy that we actually exactly where we slotted him and moved
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  him up to with his trade after the Yankees. Is Juan Soto going at
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  the ten spot. So Otani going at the back of the first round beginning
• 10:43
  the second round. I think that's probably the right spot for him, because
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  I think ultimately I would rather have Juan Soto that the ceiling is higher putting
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  him in Yankee Stadium, and Otani's coming off this elbow injury and who knows
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  if he's actually gonna run a lot that it It reminds me a little bit
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  of Judge coming into this year, where he ran a lot in twenty twenty
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  two to get that big contract and then slowed up on the base pass because
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  he already secured that bag and he was ready to just try to stay healthy,
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  which unfortunately didn't work too great for him. But I think we could
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  see something similar for Otani as well as just like the pressure and weight of
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  signing this contract is a little bit of a greater hold back, I think
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  than what you're looking at with Juan Soto, who is walking into a golden
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  opportunity to thrive. Yeah, I think there's arguments for both. Right,
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  if you think Otani's gonna be fully healthy going into the year and he's going
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  to run, then I think soda. Then you think it's Otani all the
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  way. It's just a question of what do you expect Otani to do?
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  And I think it's gould be hard to ignore, you know, the contract
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  he signed, the expectations. I don't think the landing spot really changed a
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  whole lot for Tani. It's not like the lineup protection aspect is gonna be
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  that terribly different. You know, this Mic Trout guy he was playing with
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  you if you recall that guy, and so, you know, yeah,
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  he has maybe a little more protection. He might have a little bit more
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  chance for run production. At the same time, you know, being in
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  that lineup is are you gonna do a whole lot of running. I don't
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  know, and so too. I think, yeah, yeah, I think
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  that he I think into that first round is about right because there are some
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  red flags. But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna argue if somebody wants to
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  take him middle the first round. I certainly see the argument for that.
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  You know, a guy that can hit three hundred, can hit you know,
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  forty five homers, one hundred runs under RBI, steal twenty bases,
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  like, I have no problem with you taking him in earlier, but I
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  think there are a few red flags in that you have to get comfortable with,
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  and so Otani is one of those guys. I think the later that
• 12:54
  you draft in the spring, you're he's more likely to move with the draft
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  board. As you get in a spring training you see him being healthy,
• 13:01
  seen what he's doing, and if he's fully healthy and spring training, you
• 13:03
  see him run a little bit. I think he jumps up above Sodo,
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  at least in my book. Okay, Yeah, And I think part of
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  it too is this is kind of like the end of the tier of hitters.
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  I think our first round hitters between Like I said, the back end
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  of it is Sodo Turner, Judge, Jose Ramirez, Otani, because then
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  sixteenth after Otani fifteenth Right now, the draft data is Matt Olson, and
• 13:30
  so after him is Bryce Harper, then Jordan, then Ellie De la Cruz
• 13:35
  and Corey Seeger. That does feel like that's exactly where the line is.
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  So I think I'm in agreement with you that I could see Otani going higher
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  than fifteenth, But he's in the mix of where I would take any of
• 13:48
  those guys, and I can't fault you for it. But once you start
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  talking that tier of like Matt Olson, Harper, Jordan, and Ellie,
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  then it changes. Yeah, they all have a question mark somewhere within the
• 14:01
  you know, the profile, and that's the guys ahead of that. You
• 14:03
  feel pretty confident with what you're getting. You're not there's not a lot of
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  injury risk. There's you know, there's a high floor. Otani, like
• 14:11
  I said, has does have a question mark or two not significant ones,
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  things we can't overcome. And if you're in a dynasty league, that's the
• 14:18
  whole logics up out the window. But from a from a you know,
• 14:22
  a redraft perspective, yeah, I think in the first round beginning a second,
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  it's where he's gonna go. You can you can have some fun if
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  you if you have a pick of the turn this year. Uh, that's
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  for sure. Absolutely all right, Let's get into some other moves that happened
• 14:35
  over the past week since we last talked, and we're gonna keep the same
• 14:39
  format as last week, where we're gonna talk about the fantasy values of these
• 14:43
  moves if you couldn't already tell from that Otani talk, and then we'll get
• 14:46
  to get into the baseball cards after a break on this stuff. So the
• 14:52
  next move we have is I'm gonna kind of go through the moves that happened
• 14:56
  pre O Tani signing, and I think the most interesting one from a fantasy
• 15:01
  perspective and obviously for us as Cardinals fans, is Tyler Tyler O'Neill being moved
• 15:07
  to the Red Sox for a couple of pitchers as the Cardinals restock the minor
• 15:13
  league system and their bullpen. I really like this move for Tyler O'Neill in
• 15:16
  Boston. He gets a fresh start, as he obviously had just run aground
• 15:22
  in the relationship he had with Oli Marmole and the injuries that he's had over
• 15:26
  the past few years. With the Cardinals having a crowded outfield, he was
• 15:30
  very expendable and this couldn't have been a better landing spot for him because not
• 15:35
  only does Boston have the Green Monster, it is really, honestly at this
• 15:39
  point the number two hitters park. I think in the league behind Colorado that
• 15:45
  even as O'Neill should become more pole happy in Boston hitting it into the big
• 15:52
  the Green Monster at Finway, he has had a little bit more of like
• 15:54
  a push style, let the ball travel swing with the Cardinals that could allow
• 16:00
  him to shoot things into the gap around Finway as well. So I think
• 16:04
  this is a great opportunity for Tyler O'Neill to really build some value, and
• 16:08
  especially where he's going in drafts. It's a really great dart throw. Yeah,
• 16:14
  I think you're absolutely right. Like he he was the perfect change of
• 16:18
  scenery candidate. Maybe him and Jared Kellnick, both of them both fit really
• 16:22
  that that change of scenery mode. He was not going to get the plaate
• 16:26
  appearances in Saint Louis. He was, you know, number five on the
• 16:29
  depth start there from an outfield perspective, and you know that I don't know
• 16:33
  if it has much to do with him. It's it's just there's some talent
• 16:36
  in that outfield and he's had some injury issues, but I think if he
• 16:38
  can stay healthy, and you're right, he I don't know that the power
• 16:44
  output changes a whole lot in you know, Boston versus the Saint Louis versusywhere
• 16:48
  else because O'Neill, when he hits a home run, it's usually leaving wherever,
• 16:55
  wherever you're at. But he has a little bit more that line drive
• 16:56
  hitter, and so I could really see him abusing that that monster for extra
• 17:00
  may sits really you know, takeing advantage there, and you don't forget he's
• 17:04
  this guy has won a Gold Glove and so he's you know, not he's
• 17:08
  gonna get some opportunities to play and if he can really master left fielder in
• 17:12
  finlay, I mean, he's going to have the playing time because of just
• 17:18
  that defensive prowess that he does have. We kind of forget of how the
• 17:22
  talent is an outfielder he he is because he doesn't always make it look the
• 17:27
  easiest, but he does do a pretty gush starn good job. So I
• 17:32
  like O'Neill's as a as a bi low candidate. I'm not overly paying up
• 17:36
  for him, but he's that kind of guy that you look back after a
• 17:40
  you know, he goes two fifty, his thirty home runs, steals you
• 17:44
  know, fifteen bases and you go, oh, guess, I'm not too
• 17:47
  surprised that that one kind of makes sense. Like, you know, you
• 17:49
  shouldn't be surprised because the talent's there. It's really been a health issue for
• 17:53
  O'Neil. And you know he's still young enough still, you know, just
• 18:00
  eight years of age that you know, there should be a few give a
• 18:03
  few more tries, give a benefit of the doubt to see if he can
• 18:07
  stay healthy, and it would be valuable there there in finway. So I
• 18:11
  like this deal for the Red Sox. I think it made sense actually for
• 18:14
  both teams on this one. Yeah, and I think you're not even really
• 18:18
  gonna have to pay that great of a price. I'm looking at the current
• 18:21
  ADP data over the last week, he is very firmly in like the two
• 18:25
  forties, with a minpick of two eighteen and a high pick of two ninety
• 18:29
  eight, so that even he got traded over the weekend. So that's a
• 18:34
  lot of drafts where he's still not moving up the board really because I think
• 18:40
  here's the outfielders that are going around him, and I think I know your
• 18:44
  answer on whether you would rather have O'Neill or any of these guys, and
• 18:48
  that is there's Jared Kellnick. In this range, we have Starling Marte,
• 18:55
  Jack Sawinsky, wit Merrifield, lord Is Gurioh, Gavin Lux, Will Benson.
• 19:02
  That's the type of tier that he's in right now. And I have
• 19:06
  a feeling that you would be taking him over all those guys, and he's
• 19:10
  probably gonna end up in like a tier above for you, right Yeah,
• 19:14
  for the most part, outside of a odd love for Wit Maryfield, and
• 19:18
  that has nothing to do with Tyler O'Neil has everything to do with wit Maryfield.
• 19:23
  And but I do agree. I think O'Neil the upside he has against
• 19:26
  those guys, and there's a few guys in that in that group that I
• 19:30
  think are wonderful dart throws. I really like Gavin Lux next year. I
• 19:33
  think Kelvick is a guy that in the lineup that he's gonna be in,
• 19:37
  I think he's a fun dart throw there as well. Clearly, like I
• 19:41
  said, Wit Maryfield, depending on where he lands, I think is always
• 19:44
  a sneaky value a guy that gets undervalued. So I think there's some really
• 19:48
  fun stuff in that range. But the guy like Sewinsky or you know,
• 19:52
  anybody like that, like, no, not not touching that. And so
• 19:56
  I'll probably be buying a number of guys in that race, But O'Neill I
• 20:02
  think has some of the highest upside of that group. Yeah, I would
• 20:07
  agree, And I think that's mostly the only other guy that might have a
• 20:11
  similar upside as Keller Nick. And even then you're really I think they're pretty
• 20:15
  similar in terms of hoping that some of the strikeouts get cut and a new
• 20:19
  team can find a different groove in the in the swing for Keller Nick and
• 20:23
  O'Neill, So I think that's that's a pretty fair kind of price for them
• 20:29
  right now. And we'll see how Tyler O'Neill moves around draft boards over the
• 20:33
  next couple of months, because this is also a guy that if his spring
• 20:37
  looks good and he's been at the plate striking out less and some of the
• 20:41
  exit velos have rebounded to prior before injury, exivelocities then I think you could
• 20:49
  see him move up quite a bit because that's a really juicy park and situation
• 20:55
  for Tyler O'Neil. And speaking of the Red Sox, we have an ex
• 21:00
  Red Sox signing this past week. Happened just kind of like on the tail
• 21:04
  of us posting last week, and I think it technically happened on Thursday,
• 21:10
  so we're a little late on this news. But EDWARDA. Rodriguez signing with
• 21:15
  d Backs and going to the desert again, I think this is another great
• 21:18
  spot if you had Edward Rodriguez shares that from early drafts, it doesn't get
• 21:26
  much better than Arizona. You have the defending NL champs to provide those wins
• 21:30
  for him, and again, kind of like Boston being a sneaky, really
• 21:37
  good hitters park, Arizona is a sneaky, really good pitcher's park. Ever
• 21:41
  since they put in the human Door a few years ago, it's really tamped
• 21:44
  down on the offensive environment in Arizona and allows that park, Chase Field to
• 21:49
  play really big. In Phoenix. The way it is that because of the
• 21:55
  elevation in Phoenix two before they put in that human door, it played like
• 21:59
  a hit park and now it plays very easily as a pictures park. So
• 22:03
  you couldn't have asked for a much better situation for Redwater Rodriguez as he lands
• 22:08
  there in Arizona. Brew what do you think about e Rod's landing spot here?
• 22:12
  And you just your thoughts on him overall? Yeah, I think you're
• 22:18
  You're right as far as the landing spot. I think Arizona for some for
• 22:22
  some reason, it feels like it should be more of a hitters park than
• 22:25
  it is. It. It is very much a pictures park. It is
• 22:29
  very deep there in center to your point that the human or you know,
• 22:33
  is maintaining some integrity to the game there. My my biggest struggle with this
• 22:38
  is I'm not a big fan of the Edward Edward or Rodriguez profile, for
• 22:45
  you know, from a real life perspective, I think four years, eighty
• 22:48
  million, it's quite a bit to invest in a guy that has been very
• 22:52
  up and down throughout throughout his career. And you know, as you're from
• 22:57
  a fantasy perspective, as you're looking to pick up guys, he's only clear
• 23:02
  one hundred and sixty innings once in his career and over the last two years
• 23:07
  he's averaged roughly about eight k per nine and he's struggled to you know,
• 23:19
  live up to the luck factor. So you know, he's had just last
• 23:23
  year he had the lowest baby of his career, lowest home run for nine,
• 23:30
  so he's had things breaking his way. Its thund My metrics say that
• 23:34
  he's probably more of a year a round four type of guy with not the
• 23:40
  strikeout levels you need. And so I think because he pitched for Boston,
• 23:45
  he was kind of a big prospect name. I think he still has more
• 23:49
  helium than he probably deserves in other leagues. I will have zero shares of
• 23:55
  EDWARDO. Rodriguez and nothing against the guy. I think he's he's a good
• 24:00
  overall pitcher, but he tends to get you tend to get sold on the
• 24:03
  expectations of what he could become because he's had a few really good seasons.
• 24:08
  But that's all that has been across his career a few and a lot of
• 24:12
  the other seasons have been kind of let downs as far as health is concerned
• 24:18
  and just the overall output. So not probably buying a whole lot of Edward
• 24:22
  or Rodriguez shares. I think it's one of those guys that the contract itself
• 24:30
  will likely give him more helium in the draft than the actual skill set will
• 24:34
  at the end of the day. Yeah, I mean I don't mind him
• 24:38
  maybe for a little bit of stability when you're kind of taking him as he's
• 24:42
  currently going one hundred and seventy fifth off the board, and so that's roughly
• 24:48
  somewhere like the third fourth picture on your team. And so if you've taken
• 24:52
  a couple of bigger dart throws on your first couple of pictures, like,
• 24:56
  I think I would want him over. Here's other guys that kind of going
• 25:00
  around him, Bailey Ober, I think i'd want Ober, Gavin Williams,
• 25:04
  I think i'd want I don't know actually, And Varios is in this level,
• 25:11
  Carlos Rodin's in this level, Chris Sale, Brian Wu, so other
• 25:17
  guys with inning concerns that are maybe greater or bigger upsides. But like,
• 25:22
  if you need a solid, safer option, you can almost set and forget
• 25:26
  Eduardo Rodriguez that it's eight and a half K nine and four E RA,
• 25:32
  that it's not terribly sexy, but it fills in the gaps when you just
• 25:37
  need productions. So Brewer are there any those names where you're just like solidly
• 25:42
  taking all of them over Eduardo Rodriguez or anyone else that I just kind of
• 25:48
  mentioned there between ober Gavin Williams, Chris Sale, Brian Wu those type of
• 25:52
  guys that are really far and above Eduardo Ardiguez. For you, Yeah,
• 25:57
  I think, I say, I think the last Majordan of them, I
• 26:00
  would take Sales probably the one of a little questioning. I'd want to see
• 26:03
  a little more on the health from Sale. But even if you go for
• 26:07
  a little further down the draft board, you guys has guys like U Darvish,
• 26:11
  who I still think has a lot of potential, and Abbott, Nick
• 26:14
  Cladolo, even you know, fifty year old Charlie Martin, Charlie Morton is
• 26:19
  exciting. I think it's like the she hands Todd Bradley's those types of guys.
• 26:23
  There's a lot more guys that I think have the upside and the downside
• 26:26
  is not that different than Rodriguez. So I'm most likely taking a number of
• 26:33
  those guys, even waiting a few rounds for guys like I said, I'll
• 26:37
  use like Charlie Martin, Charlie, Why is it I call him Charlie Martin
• 26:41
  talking about Billy Billy Martin earlier today and playing trivia, So don't ask different
• 26:48
  discussion. But it's right. I realized that I sound like I had marbles
• 26:52
  in my mouth as I was saying, yeah, but Charlie Morton's going off
• 26:56
  the board roughly pick two fifty, that's going He's going off the board with
• 27:02
  fifty picks after Edwardo Rodriguez. And I'd take Charlie Morton every single day over
• 27:08
  Rodriguez. Uh Nicolodolo is about fifty picks after him, you know you.
• 27:12
  Darvish is about thirty picks after him. So I think there's a lot of
• 27:17
  guys here that I would whether wait three or four rounds, and I'm just
• 27:25
  as happy with what I get than what you're getting with Edwardo Rodriguez. And
• 27:29
  so again it's I would say nothing against the guy himself. I just I'm
• 27:33
  not a big fan of the profile. I think there's a lot more shopping
• 27:37
  you should be doing elsewhere. Okay, I think that's fair. The other
• 27:41
  the other signing that happened last week, really right around the time we dropped
• 27:45
  the pod was Jahimer Candelario signing with the Cincinnati Reds, which is a really
• 27:52
  strange signing in my opinion that the Red's already had it crowded in field,
• 27:56
  and you have to think something like a Jonathan India trade is in here pretty
• 28:00
  soon. But Jeimer County and Dealario should be signing to play some third and
• 28:07
  first base in DH in Cincinnati for the Reds. Another great landing spot for
• 28:12
  somebody here, as Cincinnati is a great hitters park. You can't ask for
• 28:17
  much from Candelario, and he's currently going right in the range of what we
• 28:22
  were talking about earlier with Tyler O'Neil. He's going two hundred and thirty second.
• 28:26
  Other corners in this range include Junior Camanaro, Ryan Mountcastle, mikel Garcia,
• 28:34
  Ryan McMahon, and Brandon Jury and Andrew Vaughn. I think that's exactly
• 28:41
  the type of group that Candelario belongs in, and maybe we'll see him creep
• 28:45
  up a little bit with Cincinnati helping him out. But he's kind of a
• 28:49
  guy that provides volume, I think more than anything else, a little bit
• 28:53
  in the Ryan mcmanonold, but not as many stolen bases as McMahon and maybe
• 28:59
  a few more home runs and RBI with a little better batting average. So
• 29:03
  it comes down a little bit to how you've built your first couple of picks,
• 29:07
  and Candelario, I think is going to be a really solid pick and
• 29:11
  really fill in a lot of gaps for third base and corner desperate teams out
• 29:15
  there. Yeah, there's nothing like exciting about Candelario, but it's that disappointing
• 29:22
  either. He's just kind of in that mid tier of He's always seemed like
• 29:26
  he could be something and just always came just short. And I feel like
• 29:30
  the moves to Cincinnati could be that something he needs to push him over the
• 29:33
  the over the threshold of being, you know, a good quarner infielder on
• 29:38
  the team. You know, it wouldn't shock me to see him hit mid
• 29:41
  twenty home runs again, probably two fifty average but decent counting stats. Like
• 29:47
  there's a I do feel like there's a ton of guys that we can say
• 29:48
  that same thing about across across the league. But the only thing that perplex
• 29:53
  has been here, just from a real world perspective, is what in the
• 29:56
  world the Red's doing. Like you were like the one team that had so
• 30:02
  many infielders and here you go you know, grabbing a guide and blocking uh
• 30:06
  what you already have in cheap infield, Like why are you not allocating that
• 30:10
  money to pitch you or something else? So that's the thing that bothers me
• 30:14
  the most about this one. But I think you're right, Candelario. Where
• 30:17
  he's going is probably about right. He's he's that guy that you pick up
• 30:22
  late if you need a little power and there's not much else setting around.
• 30:26
  You could do worse. Just be just know what you're going into, right,
• 30:32
  Uh, don't be expecting that he's gonna light on fire. He's gonna
• 30:33
  hit thirty five home runs and hit two eighty in Cincinnati. Is that's not
• 30:37
  gonna happen. But if you're looking for, you know, twenty homer power
• 30:42
  and respectable average with decent stats, Yeah, I think that's your corner infield
• 30:48
  type guy or uh in an only league, I think you know you look
• 30:52
  at him. Yeah, I'm pretty happy with him as a starting you know,
• 30:56
  third basement. So I think there's some some good options there with kind
• 30:59
  of Again, I do want to see what happens the Reds. There's more
• 31:03
  fallout to come on this move. Yeah, absolutely, and it will be
• 31:10
  really interesting to see where they go, because they have so many pieces there
• 31:15
  that it almost feels a little bit like in Madden when you're like submitting the
• 31:18
  contracts and the bars like go up from all the team offers and then like
• 31:23
  Cincinnati just submitted like too big of one, and Candlelare is like, yep,
• 31:26
  I'm taking that one. So it's almost like it just kind of fell
• 31:30
  into their lap as a backup option, and so yeah, an interesting way
• 31:36
  to spend money for them. The next signing we've got just happened yesterday,
• 31:41
  I believe, and that is Seth Lugo going to the Royals. This is
• 31:44
  a personal favorite of mine that I love watching Seth Lugo in his high rpm
• 31:48
  curveball. It's been one of the best curveballs in the league since he entered
• 31:52
  in twenty sixteen. And he had a really sneaky good season for the Padres
• 31:59
  that he put up one hundred and forty six innings as a starter, first
• 32:02
  time he's been a full time starter since twenty seventeen. That came with a
• 32:07
  three fifty seven ERA and eight six eight point six K nine, so that
• 32:12
  gave you one hundred and forty total strikeouts for really the end of the draft,
• 32:16
  probably one dollars sort of pitcher, because it wasn't sure whether or not
• 32:22
  Lugo would be starting or in the bullpen. Going into this year, looks
• 32:25
  like he should be very definitively a starter in Kansas City, a great pitcher's
• 32:30
  park, a really easy division, and I think it's another cushy landing spot.
• 32:36
  I mean, I guess it makes sense that all these early free agents
• 32:37
  are signing were places that make sense for them, But I think Lugo could
• 32:43
  be a sneaky pick that he you're especially in a like a quality start league
• 32:49
  or just something where you don't need the wins as badly seth Lugo can really
• 32:52
  help your ratios late on. Because I didn't even mention his whip It was
• 32:58
  one twenty last year, which isn't the best, but hey, when you're
• 33:00
  talking super cheap pitching, this is what you're kind of dealing with that you've
• 33:06
  got to take a few lumps in one of the categories, and so not
• 33:08
  the greatest whip pitcher, but enough strikeouts and enough era to really get the
• 33:14
  job done. I think at the back end of a rotation. Yeah,
• 33:17
  I'm right there with you. And logo. I mean I used him in
• 33:21
  a few leagues last year, just as that guy at the kind of the
• 33:22
  back end of the rotation of like you need some innings, you need a
• 33:27
  guy that you can trust is not going to blow up, and every once
• 33:30
  while he's in deliver a pretty good good outing. You know, from a
• 33:34
  perspective, we were just talking about the ranges. You know, Edward O
• 33:37
  Rodriguez is going in. He's going about sixty seventy picks later than Rodriguez,
• 33:44
  And again it makes sense, but the profiles and the end results aren't that
• 33:49
  terribly different. You're absolutely right from a five y five perspective, the wins
• 33:52
  not likely coming out of Kansas City anytime soon, So I think that that
• 33:59
  will be something that holds them back. But I don't think a ton of
• 34:02
  folks are going to be on Lugo really big following, you know, big
• 34:13
  prospect hype. He's always being that kind of guy that goes between leaving and
• 34:16
  starting. I think he ends up being a really good option for you to
• 34:21
  round out your staff, the kind of dollar pick later you know you're sixth
• 34:27
  starter or whatever you want to call it. I think there's a lot a
• 34:30
  lot to like about Lugo. The other thing that it makes me think of
• 34:34
  is, I mean he got forty five million over three years, Like that's
• 34:39
  that's pretty substantial, and it it makes me think of some of these early
• 34:44
  signings that we've seen from other pitchers, and it's making them seem like a
• 34:50
  discount because Lugo is kind of that guy that you're like, Okay, I'm
• 34:52
  looking to get innings. It's just somebody solid and you're three years for forty
• 34:59
  five. You can get lance Len for ten. I mean, it's not
• 35:01
  a fair comparison, and it's a whole different discussion, but like all of
• 35:05
  a sudden, lance Len at ten million for one year doesn't feel like such
• 35:08
  a bad deal if that's the price of kind of mid to back in starting
• 35:15
  pitching. So I think from a from a again from an economics perspective,
• 35:19
  it is kind of an eyebrowery is I would expected more of a two year
• 35:22
  deal for somebody like Seth Lugo. But hey, you know, Kansas City,
• 35:28
  they got to make their moves, and I don't think they're probably the
• 35:31
  places attracting that many many pitchers, and they are from a kind of park
• 35:36
  factory perspective. They were one of the hardest places to the pitch last year,
• 35:42
  to to hit to I believe there were one of the best places to
• 35:46
  hit, so harder places to hit, so yeah they yeah, it flips
• 35:51
  so number one last year. I'm going off Savant's park factors in this kind
• 35:54
  of combination of the last three years, Colorado, Finway, Great America,
• 36:02
  London. So I don't think we can count that Coffin Stadium in Kansas City.
• 36:07
  Wow, they were number four park factor. Okay, you learn something
• 36:14
  new every day. It's probably low on home run factor that it is.
• 36:16
  It's the one factor for triples, extra base hits, all those other things
• 36:22
  that kind of vast field does really play playoffs. So really the only thing
• 36:30
  that is kind of down from a park factor perspective is the power, the
• 36:34
  home run power. Okay that is. I mean that helps me update my
• 36:37
  priors because I thought it would be a much nicer landing in park than that.
• 36:43
  And I think that also maybe makes sense because I've noticed that with Boston
• 36:46
  it's been increasing too. Is Boston has kind of steadily gotten warmer with global
• 36:51
  warming that Kansas City is one of those places where it's regularly in the ninety
• 36:57
  to hundred degree range all summer, so that might be a factor there too,
• 37:01
  So I'm going to have to keep that in mind as I think about
• 37:06
  Royals players going forward, because they are always a great plethora of Royals players
• 37:10
  to round out fantasy teams that nobody wants. And I think that another thing
• 37:16
  with the mid end, like mid tier starting pitching, I think it's also
• 37:22
  we're just everybody's having to update their priors because this is kind of what it
• 37:28
  costs on the market. We look at the Soto trade, I think there's
• 37:30
  a reason why they took back King and Brito and Vasquez and Thorpe. That
• 37:37
  mid end starting pitching is really hard to find nowadays, as staffs have been
• 37:42
  really taxed over the past few years and you're just not getting that many quality
• 37:45
  innings out of starters. I think we're seeing kind of a turn as people
• 37:50
  want to collect these dudes and have found guys that actually can throw one hundred
• 37:53
  and forty one hundred and sixty innings and can set it and forget it.
• 37:57
  So it'll be interesting to see where some of these other signings come through for
• 38:01
  these sort of mid tier dudes. Yeah, absolutely so this is This is
• 38:06
  an interesting one, but I still do like Luke Lugo. All right,
• 38:12
  then we are going to move on to the next signing here. Just signed
• 38:15
  this afternoon, and that is Jung Ho Lee signing with the San Francisco Giants.
• 38:22
  He's coming over from Korea, where he won an MVP in twenty twenty
• 38:28
  two. I believe, really solid hitter, mostly batting average, big,
• 38:35
  not a huge power source, and from everything that I've read on him coming
• 38:40
  over is you know, he's kind of comparable somewhere to like what Jung Hoo
• 38:45
  Kong put up, and maybe even Kong had a little bit more power.
• 38:51
  But I think in the profile as I'm looking at, like the projections and
• 38:55
  just the stats that he put up, as well as like his very nice
• 38:59
  left handed swing, he reminds me a bit of like a Michael Brantley,
• 39:02
  and you know, will give you, I think, a solid average,
• 39:07
  but you're going to be lacking in the home run and stolen based department.
• 39:09
  He didn't have very much speed in Korea, and the Steamer projections aren't really
• 39:15
  seeing very much speed coming either. So I think if you're looking for a
• 39:22
  guy in his range, which is currently two hundred and seventy first off the
• 39:27
  board. You know, you're looking for a really good batting average floor,
• 39:30
  some good counting stats, playing full time as a great fielder that I think
• 39:35
  that's another one of his big calling cards is great center field defense. So,
• 39:39
  Junko Lee landing in San Francisco, Brew, what do you think about
• 39:44
  his value overall and any places you're going to be looking to take him?
• 39:47
  Yeah, I think, you know, Michael Bradley comp was not one that
• 39:50
  I thought of, kind of one in my mind was kind of a Louis
• 39:53
  Ariah's with a little bit lower batting average. But I think from a similar
• 39:59
  perspective, right, Uh, he's he's gonna be a good average hitter,
• 40:04
  but he's not gonna bring you the power. He's not gonna bring you the
• 40:07
  steals. And especially land in San Francisco. Uh, definitely not bringing you
• 40:09
  the power. Uh in in that park by by any means, definitely San
• 40:15
  Francisco one of the hardest ballparks to hit, the hit the ball out.
• 40:19
  So and also that that lineup in San Francisco is not the strongest lineup.
• 40:23
  So I think that, you know, I get why the Giants grabbed him.
• 40:29
  It probably was also a little reactionaries and not getting a Tani. I
• 40:31
  don't know about you. At the timing seemed very much like, okay,
• 40:35
  pivot and let's get let's get something. And so I think it is kind
• 40:38
  of unfortunate landing spot for him to a degree because it it doesn't really you
• 40:44
  know, play and doesn't let his power play up at all or anything like
• 40:46
  that. It doesn't let him hit the top of the lineup that's really powerful.
• 40:50
  It's going to get him a lot of runs. So I think he's
• 40:52
  an interesting uh play uh to your point going, I think what you said
• 40:57
  two seventy one, overall, you're being a lot more effective with looking at
• 41:00
  the ADP because I'm not finding them to save my life. But you know,
• 41:05
  I that's probably about right if that's where it stays. I do think
• 41:10
  it's going to rise as we get into the spring and there's you know,
• 41:15
  hype and the what he could be. But right now, you know,
• 41:20
  if you're you're taking him in two seventy one, that's in the range of
• 41:22
  guys like you know, Justin Turner, Matt Chapman, Gavin Lux, you
• 41:28
  know, Anthony Rizzo, Max Kepler, Tommy fam like that feels about right
• 41:35
  for Lee. And you know, there's there's some guys I take him over
• 41:38
  other guys that I would rather have because there's something that you can you can
• 41:43
  see in them. But I'm not I'm not gonna be hitching a ton of
• 41:46
  wagons or targeting Lee very hard. Ye at least it kind of the guy
• 41:51
  that if he falls into your lap, you'll get a few rounds after his
• 41:53
  ADP Glad to have him. I think he has a good spot in the
• 41:58
  lineup and has a decent floor, but not a guy who can go out
• 42:04
  of the way if I miss out on him. I'm not too concerned that
• 42:07
  he's gonna take off and deliver you top few round values out out of anywhere.
• 42:12
  I don't think that's who he is. So interesting landing spot for Lee
• 42:15
  with San Francisco makes a lot of sense that sex he got a home for
• 42:17
  a number of years there, but from fantasy perspective, not a guy that
• 42:22
  I'm going to be out of my way going to target. Yeah, I
• 42:25
  think that's very fair, and especially the range that he's going in right now,
• 42:29
  it's more of like a fifth outfielder type in a standard roto format.
• 42:34
  Anyway, and so at that point you're mostly just plugging and playing that category
• 42:38
  that you might need and be lacking in. So if you're in the range
• 42:44
  of Jung Ho Lee, you're usually looking at guys that are all power,
• 42:49
  all speed, and so he is nice for providing like a batting average floor,
• 42:54
  but obviously he has the flaws because he's not bringing you too many other
• 42:58
  categories with it. So yeah, I think that's probably where he's going to
• 43:02
  settle too, given it's not like he went to a good hitter's spot and
• 43:07
  it's just going to be tough I think as he adjusts to hitting in that
• 43:10
  park overall. All right, the next move that we have is really confounding,
• 43:16
  I just because, like, I don't know if the guys involved are
• 43:22
  really terribly fantasy relevant, but I kind of want to get your take on
• 43:25
  where the direction of the Atlanta Braves is going. After they traded for both
• 43:31
  Max Dassy and David Fletcher from the Angels, then immediately flipped Max Dassy to
• 43:37
  the White Sox while paying most of Stassy's overall contract, and then a few
• 43:43
  hours before we started recording here outrighted David Fletcher to triple A so using him
• 43:46
  as depth of rawl, and it's just been a strange kind of shuffling of
• 43:53
  these pawn pieces around from the Braves. I'm not totally sure what it all
• 43:59
  means, saying I'm hoping Brew that you can tell me what the Braves are
• 44:02
  up to. Well, I think that the Braves. I think they're playing
• 44:07
  a video game right now, and it's that one where it's like, yeah,
• 44:12
  there's a trade block and you just put the guys on that and somebody
• 44:15
  takes it. They're like, oh, that's fun. What can I get
• 44:17
  for that guy? I think that that's what it's only what they're what they're
• 44:22
  doing. But uh, it's it's very interesting to see. You know,
• 44:28
  the Braves really cleared cash out early in the off season. They moved a
• 44:32
  lot of players and they were just trying to move things around the the move
• 44:39
  here with Saucy and and Fletcher. I'm just not sure I follow exactly what
• 44:45
  they're what they're trying to do. You know, at first I thought that
• 44:50
  they were trying to basically save cash, you know, they they were taking
• 44:53
  them guys in that they can flip and at the end of the day they
• 44:58
  paid for it all. So I'd like to say I have the answer for
• 45:02
  you here, but I will say I didn't. I didn't mention that they
• 45:06
  did deal Evan White to the Angels, which I think is part of why
• 45:09
  the the cash comes out a little bit more even than maybe just the straight
• 45:16
  Stassy Fletcher swap does. Yeah, so it again, it's it's an interesting
• 45:22
  one. It feels like the Braves are trying to figure out what they're gonna
• 45:25
  do. Maybe the player will be named later and the Stazzy deal is going
• 45:30
  to be really exciting, but you know, at the end of the day,
• 45:37
  Braves really kind of just moving things some guys around and getting Kalenik and
• 45:43
  Fletcher, and whether they're going to actually use Fletcher, I I don't know.
• 45:50
  So uh well, we'll have to see how this one plays out.
• 45:52
  I do actually think the one guy that intrigues me here actually is Max Stassy.
• 45:59
  Now he's not the highest of upside, but he has shown in the
• 46:02
  past, uh and I'm thinking like a two catcher League type guy here.
• 46:06
  He's shown in the past some pretty good power, pretty good average. He's
• 46:10
  he's been on a roll because for the last few years, h you know,
• 46:14
  he has some personal issues that kind of took him out of twenty twenty
• 46:16
  three and twenty twenty two is kind of a down year. But I think
• 46:21
  he does have some some upside there, and you know, it looks like
• 46:23
  he's gonna be the starting catcher for for the White Sox. You know,
• 46:28
  I don't know how how if he's gonna be a full, full time load
• 46:30
  or if it's gonna be a job share somewhere in there, but he's not.
• 46:35
  He's not the worst pick if you're trying to stream a second catcher in
• 46:38
  a two catcher league. Yeah, I agree, he's going to be a
• 46:42
  sneaky pick for AO only as well, just to provide some power out of
• 46:45
  the catcher spot. And I think what he will actually benefit kind of the
• 46:51
  fantasy realm overall for is the White Sox pitching staff, is that he's got
• 46:55
  a reputation as a good defensive catcher and he's got a good veteran presence.
• 47:00
  He's been around the league a lot. So the upside here is that maybe
• 47:06
  he actually teaches some of the sock staff on how to pitch and hopefully keep
• 47:10
  a few of the balls in the bark. Yeah, So I don't know
• 47:14
  we'll figure out what the bridge we're up to at some point here. I
• 47:17
  like that that they cleared money at the Bee in the season. Now I
• 47:20
  think they just have money, they don't to do with it, and they're
• 47:22
  just they're just having fun. I think so too. All Right, we
• 47:27
  got a little bit of sad news here to wrap up the news portion as
• 47:31
  two. I think, especially in dynasty leagues, we were waiting for these
• 47:36
  guys to come along to guys that went down with big injuries will be out
• 47:40
  for most of the year, if not all the year. And that is
• 47:45
  Ronnie Maurisio from the Mets tearing his ACL and Winter League ball and kind of
• 47:50
  a gross looking stop as he was going to towards second base in his knee
• 47:55
  buckled non you just knew right off the bat that it wasn't going to be
• 48:00
  good. And then we also have Indie Rodriguez from the Pirates going down with
• 48:04
  a torn UCL today and getting Tommy John surgery. So that really hurts if
• 48:09
  you're hanging on to these guys and dynasty leagues, as Ronnie Maurisio was looking
• 48:14
  to battle for an infield position for the Mets in spring training and Indie Rodriguez
• 48:20
  was going to do the same as well as probably keep catcher eligibility, so
• 48:24
  he would have been a really nice piece there. So Brew, do you
• 48:29
  think these guys are still worth holding on to? Are you cutting bait and
• 48:32
  dynasty moves in dynasty leagues where you might have them. Yeah, it is
• 48:37
  disappointing. It's hard to see, you know, especially with Mauricio be you
• 48:43
  know, playing that winter ball and to your point, it was clear that
• 48:46
  it was going to be a pretty pretty rough injury when you saw it.
• 48:52
  And between these two guys, Mauritio's guy that I'm hold on to. He's
• 48:57
  got incredibly high upside. He could be a twenty twenty guy with really great
• 49:04
  UH numbers around him and in a good line up there in New York.
• 49:07
  You know, assuming that the cost isn't too high. He's the guy you
• 49:10
  want to want to hold on to. The only reason I'd let him go
• 49:14
  is if maybe he's on a mid level contract and you're looking to kind of
• 49:17
  reset that and kind of I say, refinance him to a degree in in
• 49:22
  your dynasty league. Also, you know, say Indie Rodriguez, you know
• 49:25
  he's I'm a little bit more willing to to kind of let him him go.
• 49:30
  I think that he's not going to have the same hype as Mauricio or
• 49:36
  even you know, somebody else of the same team like Henry Davis and so,
• 49:38
  but I think Indy does have a heck of a lot of potential.
• 49:44
  It's just that he's going to be pretty easy to reacquire a year from now.
• 49:49
  And so even though I actually really think I like uh Indy's profile because
• 49:53
  he has the potential to be a you know, mid two fifty to sixty
• 49:59
  hitter, if not better, with a little bit of pop in that assuming
• 50:04
  he stays in that catcher position, I really do kind of like him now
• 50:07
  if he ends up being more of a DH or try to be moved elsewhere
• 50:12
  a little bit less, so I'd be cold on to Ronnie Indy, I
• 50:15
  would, you know, if you're in a roster squeeze something like that,
• 50:19
  I'd be fine letting him go, but a guy to keep an eye on
• 50:22
  the next spring. Yeah, I totally agree that Indy can be tossed back
• 50:29
  into the pool. And Mauricio, I think does have more upside and just
• 50:34
  he looked like a really stellar bat. Plus there's a good chance that Mariso
• 50:37
  comes back at the end of the year. That ACL injury turnarounds are a
• 50:42
  little quicker than the UCL, So that will wrap us up really for the
• 50:46
  news that we got here. We're going to go into some cards here after
• 50:52
  the break when we're going to dive into twenty twenty three Bowman Draft. But
• 50:59
  first I I can't get into that break without talking a little bit more about
• 51:01
  our merch I got the first shipment in today, got a nice Cards and
• 51:07
  Categories mug. Now that it looks beautiful, so I will put the link
• 51:10
  in our show notes if you're interested in Cards and Categories merchandise, and it
• 51:15
  really helps support the pod and get our name out there, so we appreciate
• 51:20
  it if you do buy any of that merch I know that there isn't too
• 51:24
  much in this store right now. We had a few listenings get shuffled around,
• 51:28
  but we'll get some more stuff up there so you can really swag up
• 51:32
  and show by how much you love our pod. So, like I said,
• 51:35
  we're going to hit a break and we'll be back with twenty twenty three
• 51:39
  Bowman Draft. That's right, Welcome back everybody to the cards. Portion of
• 52:02
  Cards and Categories and we've got a real fun checklist to dive into this week.
• 52:07
  That is the release of twenty twenty three Bowman Draft. It came out
• 52:13
  today, right, I think, or yesterday technically we're recording on December thirteenth,
• 52:19
  technically dropped yesterday in hobby stores and on tops dot com. And this
• 52:24
  has been one of the craziest release cycles I think I've seen, obviously since
• 52:31
  we've done this pod, but maybe within the last few years, since the
• 52:37
  hobby's really taken off post COVID and brought in a lot of new collectors and
• 52:43
  new investment forces from across the world. And so I'm not even sure where
• 52:49
  to start brew. There's so many different threads to talk about here with twenty
• 52:52
  twenty three Bowman Draft that I think we'll start with the big one first,
• 52:58
  and that is the price of this product that we're talking just a base paper
• 53:02
  Bowman product, nothing chrome. I mean, obviously they have the chrome inserts
• 53:07
  the way that they traditionally have in this set for people that aren't familiar with
• 53:13
  Bowmen. The way that it is set up, especially for the Draft,
• 53:15
  is you have a set of what is called the paper cards, which is
• 53:20
  just the base cards that you're really traditionally used to. And then each of
• 53:24
  those cards also have the Chrome variation, which is the shiny, thicker stock,
• 53:34
  and that usually means a bigger premium, But with the Draft, these
• 53:39
  Bowman just paper cards are really all over the place and really cheap, and
• 53:47
  especially Bowman itself isn't always printed on the best stock, so these cards are
• 53:52
  very easy to get dinged up. But really what we're looking at here with
• 53:55
  twenty twenty three Bowman Draft is the first chance to collect some of the players
• 54:01
  that came from this year's MLB Draft, and so that is what's really I
• 54:06
  think has driven the price, along with a couple of other factors we'll get
• 54:09
  into, but the first price point that we have to be able to buy
• 54:15
  any this product. There's no base hobby boxes. It's only regular Jumbo Jumbos
• 54:21
  and Super Jumbos. The regular Jumbos were listed for five hundred and twenty five
• 54:24
  dollars on tops dot com. The Super Jumbos were seven hundred and fifty dollars.
• 54:31
  You've got three autos with the regular Jumbo, five autos with the Super
• 54:35
  Jumbo, and those are some astronomical prices for a product that has typically been
• 54:42
  pretty affordable over the years. Brew, So what do you think that this
• 54:45
  says about the set overall and maybe where this hobby is headed. Yeah,
• 54:51
  I was I was trying to find the history of Bound Bowmen prices because I
• 54:55
  do feel like this set has been much more affordable over the years and just
• 55:00
  slowly increased. So I feel like we've been to more that three hundred dollars
• 55:02
  range, which is not too far out of bounds for something with you know,
• 55:07
  three or five autos, but yeah, five pointy five for the Jumbo,
• 55:12
  seven point fifty for the Super like that, that's pretty significant. That's
• 55:16
  getting up there to be one of like it's priced as one of the premium
• 55:20
  products where you're expecting these major chase cards. And I think what it really
• 55:27
  says about the hobby right now is the prospecting aspect is accelerating while the rest
• 55:34
  of the market seems to be slowing at the same time, or at least
• 55:37
  that's what the what tops Fanatics is trying to kind of push. And I
• 55:44
  because Bowman does tend to be one of the most popular sets throughout the year
• 55:46
  of draft or Bowman in the spring, because you do want they folks love
• 55:52
  the first I'm one of them as well. They have the ability to charge
• 55:58
  that price, and what it seems is it generally just seems to get pushed
• 56:00
  through the card prices, and you know, the big names you're after,
• 56:07
  those autos are gonna be two hundred dollars to get just that bass auto because
• 56:13
  it's so expensive to get a box of these cards, and so the prices
• 56:16
  will be very high to start with, and then they're gonna come down,
• 56:21
  I think pretty pretty quickly. Maybe not from an auto perspective, just from
• 56:24
  a base or a chrome perspective, those those will settle. I think from
• 56:29
  a print run perspective, that's really where the truth will be told. And
• 56:32
  I have not personally seen a print run, so I don't know if you
• 56:35
  have seen those. But the last few years of Bowmen have been overproduced and
• 56:42
  you're seeing some of the big names where traditionally it's hard to find their first
• 56:45
  they're getting to be pretty affordable. Go back, and you know, let's
• 56:51
  talk like Bobby Witt Junior, his first Bowman. You know chrome card you
• 56:57
  can get for like ten bucks, and he's a modified star first round Fantasy
• 57:02
  type pick, and it's like you can find them left and right. It
• 57:07
  is not hard to get some of those cards where you used to not be
• 57:12
  so overproduced. That was those cards held value and increased in value over time.
• 57:16
  So I think it's fanatics and tops pushing at all in on the prospecting
• 57:22
  of the hobby and people are gonna pay it. People are continuing to pay
• 57:29
  it, and I don't see it stop at anytime soon. Yeah, and
• 57:35
  I haven't seen any odds yet either, because I think I was especially emphasizing
• 57:39
  that there's only jumbos and super jumbos of this product, which is really rare
• 57:44
  that usually you have light hobby boxes, hobby boxes, blasters, blister packs,
• 57:51
  all sorts of different ways to get this product. With Bowman Draft this
• 57:55
  year, you're only getting the two jumbos right now. But I think in
• 58:00
  the future there will probably be regular hobbies and hobby lights. That is what
• 58:05
  happened last year. They released them a little late. So if that does
• 58:08
  hold true, then we'll be able to calculate some not me that definitely the
• 58:14
  Twitter account that I always link to that calculates them will have a better sense
• 58:17
  of it. And I think that this is actually a very worrying sign for
• 58:24
  the hobby overall that I think we've been slowly seeing it creep up where fanatics
• 58:30
  and TOPS have been trying to capture a lot of that kind of there's this
• 58:35
  glob of the middle secondary market where the TOPS obviously releases these products and sells
• 58:43
  them at retail prices, and then they go out and into a free market
• 58:47
  between eBay and all the collectors out there and then settle at different prices.
• 58:52
  And traditionally, and especially over the past five to six years, as people
• 58:57
  have gotten more into card collecting, host covid and found a new love for
• 59:01
  the hobby, a lot of these prices obviously have increased significantly in terms of
• 59:08
  the valuations and the money that people are making off of holding stock and product
• 59:14
  and flipping it or holding it as an investment and moving it along. And
• 59:17
  so it's always a tricky business, I think for TOPS, because this isn't
• 59:23
  kind of a traditional supply and demand market, because you're always fiddling with this
• 59:29
  secondary free market where people are buying and selling and trading these cards. And
• 59:35
  so the worry here is if TOPS eats into that more and more and more
• 59:40
  the way I think they have with Bowen Draft and I think it's really difficult
• 59:45
  to see any way as a normal person buying this product where you're not buying
• 59:52
  huge cases and boxes and boxes boxes and ripping you know, through some sort
• 59:58
  of breaker or being a breaker that like it's just not a feasible product for
• 1:00:07
  just one person, especially a kid on you know, either an allowance or
• 1:00:13
  gift money to be able to afford. And so this is I think a
• 1:00:16
  really worrying sign of like where tops could take this, because I know a
• 1:00:23
  lot of this stuff is gambling overall kind of in terms of like trying to
• 1:00:28
  pull these cards, but this is the first one where it's really felt like
• 1:00:31
  you're gambling and the house is going to win. That there's no way that
• 1:00:37
  I think you could buy a jumbo box and expect your return to be anything
• 1:00:44
  more than like one hundred dollars. Yeah, I think I think you're right.
• 1:00:47
  And I think in past years, yeah, ignoring the really top end
• 1:00:53
  releases you know such as well have tributes and Tier ones and uh, you
• 1:01:04
  know, anything like that National Treasure type type stuff, like stuff that's really
• 1:01:07
  that single pack type stuff. Those were always kind of that gable like you're
• 1:01:10
  probably gonna lose but you might hit huge anything else that has like a good
• 1:01:15
  set to collect your your your flagship products, your Bowman products, your heritage,
• 1:01:21
  your Bowman stuff like that, you were able to buy that for a
• 1:01:25
  reasonable cost, rip it right away and recoup most of your money on the
• 1:01:31
  secondary market. Regardless, you might lose a little if if you had a
• 1:01:37
  pretty poor box. You might make a little if you had a pretty good
• 1:01:39
  box, but like the economics felt pretty reasonable, like you have some fun
• 1:01:44
  ripping it, and uh, with a little work, you you you know,
• 1:01:47
  weren't gonna be out too much. That feels like they've really flipped that
• 1:01:52
  and you know it's gonna be hard unless you hit an absolute you know,
• 1:01:58
  run within these boxes that you're not going to make your money back. And
• 1:02:02
  so that that really does take the ripping out of it, which for for
• 1:02:06
  folks like you and I, is part of the fun of the hobby,
• 1:02:08
  right it's chase, it's it's ripping things. But over the last year we're
• 1:02:13
  really seeing that that if you don't rip right away at release, the value
• 1:02:20
  like you're never going to recoup the value to the print runs. And now
• 1:02:23
  they've taken the prices on some of these and put them so high that even
• 1:02:28
  then you're not going to get the value at release time. And so it
• 1:02:31
  is, to your point, a troubling sign. It's going to push more
• 1:02:37
  people into that secondary market to buy singles to utilize breakers, which I think
• 1:02:42
  is actually part of the tops and Finac's strategy is pushing more that breaker angle.
• 1:02:47
  So absolutely it is. It is going to be a challenge. I
• 1:02:51
  am disappointed to see the price point on the product because I don't know how
• 1:02:54
  about you. The revenue from the pod is not allow me to buy a
• 1:03:01
  Bowman Draft at least until twenty three, but you know, for forty twenty
• 1:03:07
  three, it's definitely definitely out of the question. Yeah, we're gonna have
• 1:03:10
  to sell a lot of mugs if you want to buy a super Jumbo,
• 1:03:15
  a lot of mugs, and I'm probably gonna buy all the mugs. So
• 1:03:17
  I think that's a self fulfilling prophecy in the way. Yeah, and after
• 1:03:22
  that, Diet Tribe as we kind of like poo poo all over this this
• 1:03:27
  release and kind of where it's all going. It's really maybe like the most
• 1:03:31
  fun release we've had all year as well. That that's the hard part is
• 1:03:35
  actually love the product. I love the product. I hate the price.
• 1:03:37
  Yeah, and so here's why some of these prices have been so high and
• 1:03:43
  why tops and fanatics are trying to capitalize on. This is one I hinted
• 1:03:47
  at this. This is a great draft class that you have the chance of
• 1:03:52
  pulling Bowman first of Paul Schemes, Wyatt Langford, Max Clark. So if
• 1:03:58
  you think about going back to you all the chatter that happened around this year's
• 1:04:02
  and will be draft, and just some of the talent that came through that
• 1:04:05
  even you're talking about, you know, your Hirstin Waldrips and players like I'm
• 1:04:13
  trying to look at Nobel Meyer, even from the Miami Marlins. There was
• 1:04:16
  just talent all through the draft and it's going to be a great class for
• 1:04:23
  Bowman from that perspective. No Dylan Cruz in this set right now, because
• 1:04:28
  I don't know what it is that Bowman has, like this tradition of putting
• 1:04:31
  the number two pick in the next year's Bowman released, so we should see
• 1:04:35
  Cruise in Bowman twenty twenty four, which now they think about it, That's
• 1:04:40
  probably why it's been on the schedule for so long. But great draft class,
• 1:04:45
  so you've got the chance of pulling some really great rookie cards first of
• 1:04:48
  those overall top picks. But the gimmicks are kind of fun this year with
• 1:04:55
  Bowman Draft, the biggest gimmick is they've got a bunch of Tom Brady car
• 1:05:00
  They've been running advertisements that include like a Tom Brady dream sequence. I'll link
• 1:05:06
  to it in the show notes, but there's kind of a big woodf scenario
• 1:05:11
  because Tom Brady was drafted by the Montreal Expos back in the day. So
• 1:05:15
  they put together this set of Montreal Expos Bowman cards using the nineteen ninety five
• 1:05:23
  design and they're included as short prints throughout this product. We also have more
• 1:05:28
  retro factors. If you recall that the Bowman Chrome product had Roberto Clemente and
• 1:05:33
  Babe Ruth retro fractors. This year or this set, we have Mike or
• 1:05:40
  Not, Mike, Carla Yustromski, and Josh Gibson as retro factors in this
• 1:05:45
  set. So that's a lot of fun. Like I wish I could buy,
• 1:05:50
  I would have bought in a jumbo at a lower price point. I've
• 1:05:54
  never bought a twenty three Bowman Draft Jumbo, so like it would have been
• 1:06:00
  the one product that got me out because of just that fun stuff. But
• 1:06:04
  again, the price point a little bit too rich. So let's get into
• 1:06:09
  those tom Brady cards a little bit. Because this has been I've been fascinated
• 1:06:15
  by it. It's been really fun as like a promotion, and it's kind
• 1:06:18
  of a fun gimmick because the tom Brady cards are absolutely ugly. I keep
• 1:06:25
  seeing posts on Twitter and write it about why they use this design and people
• 1:06:33
  really hating on the design, but it's just the straight nineteen ninety five Bowman
• 1:06:38
  design that no fault of their own from the top side. Nineteen ninety five
• 1:06:43
  Bowmen was a really crummy design, so I think that even kind of hams
• 1:06:47
  up the gimmick a little bit. But along with the base cards, you've
• 1:06:51
  also got parallels and autos, including superpractors of both, and tom Brady put
• 1:07:00
  a bunch of weird inscriptions on a lot of the autos. So the one
• 1:07:03
  auto that everyone's looking for right now, it's a little bit like a Willy
• 1:07:08
  Wonka Golden ticket situation. There's a five hundred thousand dollars bounty out from one
• 1:07:13
  of the biggest Tom Brady collectors in the world looking for a Tom Brady twelve
• 1:07:18
  of fifty gold auto in this set, where Tom has inscribed if baseball doesn't
• 1:07:27
  work out, maybe I should try football. So that's a really cool hit
• 1:07:33
  and just kind of like insert overall to this set. But I know some
• 1:07:39
  people have been a little bit angry because of the gimmick and baseball card collectors
• 1:07:45
  having a little bit of like a standoff with the football community as well and
• 1:07:48
  not enjoying kind of that crossover. But I've kind of enjoyed this one.
• 1:07:53
  What about you brew, Yeah, it's it's it's a very interesting dynam because
• 1:07:57
  you're right, the cards just hideous, absolutely hideous, and you put the
• 1:08:01
  expos logo on top of that doesn't help. That's one of the worst logos
• 1:08:05
  that there ever wasn't in Major League Baseball. But to your point, like
• 1:08:12
  I do kind of like the the high end gimmick cards that it feels like
• 1:08:18
  TOPS has been able to work in like they're just accessible enough because these are
• 1:08:24
  even though they are super short prints, like there's out number out of one,
• 1:08:28
  fifty fifty ninety nine, like there's enough of them out there they'd like
• 1:08:32
  you and I could in theory hit one if we could buy the box for
• 1:08:36
  five hundred and some dollars. But I do like the fact that, like
• 1:08:42
  there is this interesting chase out there that is it isn't the one of one,
• 1:08:49
  right, it's not that hard hard poll. It's still a hard poll.
• 1:08:54
  And I do like the crossover Brady. It is a little gimmick,
• 1:08:58
  hey to like imagine the he's signed with the expos and continue to play and
• 1:09:02
  things like. That's a little stretch for me, but it is kind of
• 1:09:06
  fun. And the hobby market's loving it, even if they calling it ugly
• 1:09:14
  and things like that. Like the cards are selling like hotcakes when they're being
• 1:09:16
  pulled. I don't know if you've looked at any of the prices, but
• 1:09:20
  just the you know, base super short prints that are being pulled, they're
• 1:09:25
  going over one thousand dollars already at this point. If you look at something
• 1:09:30
  that is in the like out of one ninety nine, you're talking like a
• 1:09:32
  two thousand dollars card, and you get down to like things that are like
• 1:09:35
  out of fifty and you're talking like four thousand dollars cards. They're you know,
• 1:09:40
  the prices are crazy. Now they're gonna they will settle over time.
• 1:09:44
  So if you do pull this card, sell asaph because I think the market
• 1:09:48
  will get to a degree flooded with these cards, because every single one that
• 1:09:54
  gets pulled is gonna get getta put up for sale, and then there's only
• 1:09:58
  so many high end Tom Brady collectors that want to cross over into baseball that
• 1:10:02
  are going to be picking these up. So it's a fun gimmick. It's
• 1:10:06
  interesting. I have zero desire to own one of these cards unless I pull
• 1:10:13
  up for myself, and that's also not going to happen. So fun gimmick,
• 1:10:16
  but I think it's gonna lose this luster pretty gush darn quick. Yeah,
• 1:10:24
  I agree, And I mean I think the other side of the coin
• 1:10:27
  that we were talking about with this product, even though it is fun having
• 1:10:30
  these Tom Brady cards, that they took the gimmick a little bit too far,
• 1:10:33
  as they also released a Bill Belichick exposed card that will have auto versions
• 1:10:39
  on tops dot Com from Tops now, so that I think pushes it a
• 1:10:44
  little bit too far as well as what we're talking about in terms of breakers
• 1:10:48
  really getting in on the gambling aspect of this overall release and kind of it
• 1:10:56
  just feels gross taking advantage of people in their hard ear and life that we've
• 1:11:01
  lamented that we were worried that tops and finatcs have been seeding some of these
• 1:11:06
  cards to the breakers that are paired with them, and it looks like that,
• 1:11:11
  Actually, you know, there's a little more smoke there, I will
• 1:11:15
  say than I think us just kind of putting that theory out there, because
• 1:11:20
  the first auto of Tom Brady of the Gold Ones was really was hit by
• 1:11:26
  a breaker very early on release day, and on top of it, the
• 1:11:30
  super Auto has also been hit by a breaker, so that's already been pulled
• 1:11:34
  from the product. The bounty card is still out there, which is kind
• 1:11:39
  of I guess we'll see where the actual Super Fractor sales price settles. Probably
• 1:11:45
  not going to get up to that five hundred thousand dollars bounty level, but
• 1:11:47
  who knows. So it is kind of bringing us full circle back to some
• 1:11:54
  of those things that we were talking about early on that we don't like about
• 1:11:58
  this product that have also come in with these overall antics. Yeah, and
• 1:12:05
  I think you're right, it's the the breaker aspect. I don't want to
• 1:12:12
  believe it. I don't want to believe that there's hot boxes and things like
• 1:12:15
  that. But it's one of those every time we see something like it just
• 1:12:18
  keeps coming back. What I don't know is that are breakers that popular.
• 1:12:21
  There's so many of them out there that they're just ripping through all the product,
• 1:12:26
  and that's really where the market's going versus the individual collector. So maybe
• 1:12:30
  it's just a lot of large numbers, but it does hurt the credibility with
• 1:12:36
  the you know, so many breakers getting backed by fanatics, tops and others
• 1:12:43
  as really the kind of the next generation of card collecting. So it's here
• 1:12:48
  to your point there there's a lot of smoke in in in that aspect.
• 1:12:53
  So besides besides that, what I do want to talk about, since we
• 1:12:57
  actually you I both actually love the set, we have actually talked about thus
• 1:13:00
  set itself and why we like it. We've just complained about all the weird
• 1:13:05
  things about it. You know, this is the set where you know you're
• 1:13:09
  getting your first Bowman cards, your first Bowman autographs, uh, and the
• 1:13:14
  big names in this one. You got Paul Skins, Max Clark, Wyatt
• 1:13:17
  Langford, Jacob Wilson, RT Lauder, Blake Mitchell, you know, Bryce
• 1:13:23
  Eldrews. There's there's a number of them that are out there that that pretty
• 1:13:27
  really solid draft class that the folks are going to be chasing. So I
• 1:13:30
  think it is really exciting product because of that. There's a number of these
• 1:13:33
  guys that I'm gonna be looking to pick up singles of just to grab,
• 1:13:38
  to hold on to, to see how they develop. It's just a fun
• 1:13:40
  part of the prospecting. Not gonna be able to grab all their autos,
• 1:13:43
  but you know, grabbing things like that, So that that is exciting,
• 1:13:45
  I think. To me, my, I think I'm leaning into the biggest
• 1:13:50
  chase of all those right now. I think has to be why at Langford.
• 1:13:56
  But I'm curious for for you, who's the Who's number one, Who's
• 1:13:59
  number two? Of the guys that you'd be looking to poll. I mean,
• 1:14:03
  I think Langford is the biggest one with honestly maybe a little bit of
• 1:14:08
  like the It seems weird to call this a little bit of the sneaky one
• 1:14:13
  considering he was such a high draft pick with it being Max Clark, just
• 1:14:15
  because I think Max Clark does have a really huge ceiling and any other draft
• 1:14:19
  class he probably would have been in consideration more strongly for the number one pick
• 1:14:26
  and just kind of got overshadowed by all those great college guys. So I
• 1:14:30
  think why at Langford is the one that people really be looking for, especially
• 1:14:35
  given that he's kind of slated to start for the Rangers out the Gate in
• 1:14:43
  twenty twenty four. So yeah, it will be a good set to chase
• 1:14:49
  and collect a lot of these guys. And I guess we should get into
• 1:14:53
  the parallels too. That again the cards. As I playing off the top,
• 1:15:00
  you've got a two hundred card set here of the paper, but those
• 1:15:03
  also come in the chrome parallels. So for your paper set, we've got
• 1:15:10
  nine parallels and they go in order of sky blue, aqua, pink gradient,
• 1:15:16
  which I'm not sure if we've seen in that feels like a good one.
• 1:15:20
  Yeah, not in a paper, so that is a new one.
• 1:15:24
  I replaced them just the normal aqua. At the one ninety nine, we've
• 1:15:29
  got green of ninety nine's Golds of fifties, Orange of twenty five red green
• 1:15:33
  gradient just in time for Christmas, and that's another new one along with the
• 1:15:39
  pink aqua. I guess there's gotta be some brown in that card too,
• 1:15:43
  because when you mix opposite colors like that, you get brown, red of
• 1:15:48
  five black one of the ones, and then you're printing plates, so that
• 1:15:54
  is nine parallels there. Brew. I'm gonna let you do the the honors
• 1:16:00
  of listing off the Bowman chrome parallels because this is where like the parallels explode.
• 1:16:06
  Did you get a chance to count them all up yet? Do you
• 1:16:10
  have a tally? Or do I need to do that while you're working on
• 1:16:13
  rattling off all the colors you've got for the chromes? I can't count well.
• 1:16:18
  I did very well in math in school, very poor in art.
• 1:16:21
  So if the whole brown discussion earlier, I think my art project as a
• 1:16:26
  kid was a baseball, so it was round. But there's roughly twenty five
• 1:16:32
  parallels in the chrome set. I think maybe twenty four if I was counting
• 1:16:38
  correctly. And the piece that makes this I think a little bit more complicated
• 1:16:45
  is there is you know, a Asia set that comes out of these as
• 1:16:50
  well, so you have a little difference there in what you can pull between
• 1:16:56
  the Jumbo super jumbos and the Asia boxes as well. But yeah, let's
• 1:17:01
  let's run through. Like I said, there was roughly twenty four to twenty
• 1:17:04
  five different parallels, which to me feels like the highest number that we've had
• 1:17:10
  in a set like this that I can recall. So you have your refractors,
• 1:17:15
  and those are pretty pretty common. Two per jumbo, eight per super
• 1:17:18
  jumbo you have, I mean, go ahead, per jumble, you're paying
• 1:17:24
  five and twenty five dollars seeing two base refractors. Yeah, two base refractor.
• 1:17:29
  You're getting your autos right. You have your japan refractors, which are
• 1:17:32
  only in the Asia boxes. Three per Asia box, lunar glow refractors,
• 1:17:40
  sky blue refractors, sparkle refractors, pearl refractors. All of those, not
• 1:17:45
  a single one numbered, all just different types of refractors across. So I
• 1:17:49
  guess if you do the odds on those, you're probably getting more than two
• 1:17:54
  refractors per per jumbo because there's you know, so many different versions of them.
• 1:17:59
  But then you start to get your numbers and they start at two fifty.
• 1:18:01
  So you got purple refractors out of two fifty, your future lunar refractors
• 1:18:05
  out of one ninety nine, blue refractors out of one fifty, aqua wave
• 1:18:10
  refractors out of one twenty five, as well as your aqua lunar crater refractors.
• 1:18:15
  That's a mouthful. And I don't know what a lunar crater refracture looks
• 1:18:19
  like. I have to look that one up, but that's out of one
• 1:18:23
  twenty five. You have green refractors out of ninety nine. Then you have
• 1:18:26
  green grass refractors out of ninety nine. To get more stretching here, yellow
• 1:18:31
  refractors out of seventy five, Yellow lunar crater refractors out of seventy five.
• 1:18:36
  Then it starts things to get hard to get simple gold refractors out of fifty,
• 1:18:40
  orange refractors out of twenty five. You get your rose gold refractors out
• 1:18:44
  of ten rose gold lava refractors also out of ten, red refractors out of
• 1:18:48
  five red lava out of five. And then your printing plates all the one
• 1:18:55
  ones which you have black, cyan, magenta, and yellow, and then
• 1:18:58
  you have your super super fractors. So it is quite the group here to
• 1:19:04
  go through, and I feel like there's a number of these that are new,
• 1:19:10
  especially the lunar crater refractors and the green grass refractors. I don't recall
• 1:19:16
  in the past in any green grass refractors. I believe it was as a
• 1:19:23
  part of either regular Bowman or Bowman Chrome. Maybe I'm just imagining having seen
• 1:19:29
  like green Grass Matt Nervis cards, but the crater ones are new. I
• 1:19:35
  do not remember those. I also like, what a random collection. There
• 1:19:40
  is no rhyme or reason. It's just kind of like they turned the refractor
• 1:19:44
  variations machine up to eleven or twelve and just let it run, because like
• 1:19:50
  you've only got like the one lava refractor of the rose gold and then random
• 1:19:57
  coloration variations of the the lunar lunar crater the grass that you're cutting out wave
• 1:20:04
  and shimmer as well, that are pretty traditional Bowman refractors. That. Yeah,
• 1:20:12
  it's it's really varied, and I think if you're putting together a rainbow
• 1:20:16
  with a lot of those, it will look really odd, just because it's
• 1:20:21
  kind of all over the place. Yeah, so I guess you're right.
• 1:20:26
  The grass they did have the green grass refractors, and in what appears to
• 1:20:30
  be Bowman, and you know, we got then the crater refractors. Does
• 1:20:34
  look like those are were just draft from what I can tell there, Uh,
• 1:20:40
  actually they're actually they might have those as in Bowman as well. Now
• 1:20:43
  I look closer, so I know that they had the lunars. So I
• 1:20:46
  think it is a may bit more of a repeat of what we saw in
• 1:20:49
  the spring there. But again, just the number of refractors, and I
• 1:20:55
  think, I think strikes me and I think it does frustrate me to degree,
• 1:21:00
  is the repeat of the numbered refractors. And so when you get into
• 1:21:05
  something, I'm going to pick out the green grass because I can green refractions
• 1:21:10
  out of ninety nine and the green grass refraction of ninety nine. You have
• 1:21:12
  two greens out of ninety nine. That's not out of ninety nine, that's
• 1:21:15
  out of one ninety eight. And so let's just call it what it is.
• 1:21:19
  Like I feel like back in the day, you know, in early
• 1:21:21
  two thousands, late late nineties, you were getting numbered cards out of two
• 1:21:27
  thousand out of three thousand, and those are harder to find than the cards
• 1:21:30
  are out of ninety nine these days. I don't know how you do that
• 1:21:34
  math, but it feels like that's the case that those cards meant so much
• 1:21:39
  more because you didn't have seventeen different versions that were under two hundred to chase.
• 1:21:45
  So it does feel like they are deluding the numbered cards to a certain
• 1:21:51
  degree at this point. Yeah, I mean, and I think you've also
• 1:21:56
  got to include a lot more of those if you're going to go through this
• 1:22:00
  kind of transition to selling more of your products through the breakers that you need
• 1:22:04
  stuff on camera that pops and is getting people excited. So I mean,
• 1:22:10
  it's a little I think easy to see through. But yeah, it'll be
• 1:22:15
  interesting to see where this set goes overall, because, like I said,
• 1:22:19
  we've already hit the Tom Brady Auto Superfractor out of the gate that I will
• 1:22:27
  link it in the show notes so you can see where it's at. Also,
• 1:22:30
  the Carl Yastrimsky super Refractor has been hit as well, so that just
• 1:22:34
  got posted on Reddit today that you're already talking. That's two of probably,
• 1:22:40
  like you know, the top ten hits in the entire set that are already
• 1:22:45
  gone. So that's pretty crazy for a big set like this. And honestly,
• 1:22:51
  it looks like the Yeaz super Fractor is just pulled like by a random
• 1:22:55
  dude on Reddit, which is encouraging. That does give me a little bit
• 1:22:59
  like maybe tamps down that smoke that we were talking about in terms of things
• 1:23:03
  going a little wry with cards being planted into breaker boxes. So that's cool.
• 1:23:10
  To see. But I'm actually really interesting some of these Josh Gibson cards
• 1:23:15
  is as well, that it's unfortunate that like he'll be technically like retired from
• 1:23:19
  the Bowman product with this first if they're keeping up that tradition the way they
• 1:23:25
  said with Babe Ruth and Roberto Clemente from Bowman Chrome, because there aren't enough
• 1:23:31
  Josh Gibson cards or negro Leeds players cards like in general in the market that
• 1:23:38
  it's certainly something that I would like to see more of. And so it's
• 1:23:43
  it's it's unfortunate if this is going to be the only time we're going to
• 1:23:46
  get Josh Gibson in a Bowman set, because he's got a really just great
• 1:23:54
  history, and it's obviously somebody that not everybody knows is a household name.
• 1:24:00
  So I would love to see tops and fanatics give just a little bit longer
• 1:24:03
  run to him. Overall, Yeah, I tend to agree, you know,
• 1:24:09
  Gibson is there is so much history there with him. I would like
• 1:24:12
  to see him and maybe this opportunity for him to get into more other products
• 1:24:15
  than the just Bowman. I don't know all the licensing and things like that,
• 1:24:20
  what that all means behind the scenes. But it is interesting to already
• 1:24:26
  see a few of these big cards being pulled, and is that with the
• 1:24:30
  price point? I hate to go back to that, but with the price
• 1:24:31
  point some of the big cards being pulled, is that going to pull the
• 1:24:34
  market back to a degree from this product early on and we're going to start
• 1:24:39
  to see, you know, tops looking to move Like are we in this
• 1:24:43
  position that with Bowman Draft by chance that we're talking about MVP buyback type programs
• 1:24:48
  where they're trying to like stoke the interest in this product because they overpriced it
• 1:24:53
  and overproduced it. I'm curious that if how they would play that what they're
• 1:24:59
  going to go after, because it feels like they're trying to pre empt that
• 1:25:00
  with the Tom Brady's and the Josh Gibson's and the you know, the oas
• 1:25:04
  is there's it feels like they're trying to toe the line there of how much
• 1:25:09
  can I produce and get out the door and sell and not get settled with
• 1:25:13
  all this product and have to essentially beg people to buy it because you can't
• 1:25:16
  just go discount it like that's I think that goes against everything that they stand
• 1:25:20
  for. They're not going to go just discount the product. If anything else,
• 1:25:24
  they're going to wholesale with somebody else who can discount it. But I
• 1:25:28
  just I don't know what that looks like. If you pull all these big
• 1:25:30
  cards early and the demand for the product starts to wane based on that price
• 1:25:34
  point, They've got to do something special there. Yeah, And it gets
• 1:25:39
  back a little bit to what I was talking about about the pricing eating up
• 1:25:43
  that kind of squishy secondary market. So, like, the reason that always
• 1:25:48
  has worked traditionally is because people can make a little bit of margin on the
• 1:25:54
  retail price as these cards in the boxes. The unopen box is just appreciate
• 1:26:01
  and value that traditionally, especially Bowman Draft I think has done that really well
• 1:26:05
  as people want to go back and hit some of the big first cards,
• 1:26:11
  as players come up and become bigger prospects and make it to the big leagues.
• 1:26:15
  So we'll see how it kind of goes in the long run. I
• 1:26:18
  can tell in the near short run that it's probably not an issue just based
• 1:26:24
  on all of the full breaks that I'm seeing out there that I mean,
• 1:26:27
  people are buying the stuff up, So maybe there's a lot more people that
• 1:26:31
  are into this and have the liquidity to handle it more so than we do.
• 1:26:36
  I guess part of is like we just play like Fantasy Baseball and not
• 1:26:41
  too much like dfs and stuff, so like maybe we're missing out that,
• 1:26:45
  like, yeah, there's revenue streams we don't have in our lives. But
• 1:26:49
  yeah, I think, is there anything else that you want to go through
• 1:26:54
  with this set? I mean, the inserts I think are pretty standard from
• 1:26:57
  what we've seen, and the twenty three design isn't necessarily my favorite overall.
• 1:27:03
  But I guess if I had to put you on the spot and maybe like
• 1:27:08
  get you to say, like one sentence about Bowman Draft and how you feel
• 1:27:12
  about it, brew, what are you thinking? Yeah, one sentence is
• 1:27:16
  disappointed about the market. That's that's what. That's what It's gonna be disappointed
• 1:27:23
  about the market. And that's and this is more one sentence. I'm owning
• 1:27:26
  this, but it's really because of how great of a draft class this was
• 1:27:30
  and how like how much hype they could have been in this product, and
• 1:27:33
  then for it to come out with that price point and just be inaccessible to
• 1:27:36
  so much of the product that's the market is just disappointing. It didn't have
• 1:27:42
  to be that way, and I think it's a dangerous present to set.
• 1:27:46
  But it's Bowman and we're still going to own them, We're still going to
• 1:27:50
  chase them. So that's it is a it is a dynamic that we're gonna
• 1:27:55
  have to see how that settles. I'm just looking forward to the seven hundred
• 1:27:59
  dollars in the spring. Yeah, let's hope not that. Hopefully it tamps
• 1:28:03
  down a little bit, but if you are looking for something more affordable,
• 1:28:08
  We've also got some other new releases that are coming out, and one that
• 1:28:12
  just came out today that Heritage High Number Tops Heritag High Number twenty twenty three
• 1:28:16
  came out today and that's a great product if you're looking for affordability. The
• 1:28:20
  hobby boxes have been going in the sixty to seventy dollars range from what I've
• 1:28:24
  seen, and it's the continuation of Tops Heritage from earlier in the year.
• 1:28:30
  In the spring that they came back and they added cards four hundred through seven
• 1:28:35
  hundred. I'm just working off a memory ply how Heritage works, just because
• 1:28:42
  what they're doing is going in and adding it's almost like Tops Update where they
• 1:28:45
  bring in a bunch of rookie cards and players who've changed teams, and adding
• 1:28:50
  more autographs of rookies. So that's a great product that we'll be out there
• 1:28:57
  today, and we'll be on retail shelves as well, I believe, with
• 1:29:00
  some retail blaster boxes. And I'm probably not going to pick up too much
• 1:29:06
  Heritage High Number myself, just because I wasn't too much into the Heritage design
• 1:29:12
  this year. The I think it's the seventy three design. Is that way
• 1:29:15
  it is, or it's seventy two or seventy three. I had this memorized
• 1:29:17
  at one point because I had I bought like a huge seventy four you were
• 1:29:27
  you were so close seventy four hut two hundred cards set five oh one to
• 1:29:31
  seven hundred, So I think you're right there on the sets. So okay,
• 1:29:34
  we'll give you. We'll give you a passing passing I said, four
• 1:29:38
  hundred seven, so I was close. Okay, Well, I give you
• 1:29:42
  the high end. At least you got the right number of cards in the
• 1:29:44
  overall set. The one thing I will say this year, with a number
• 1:29:47
  of strong rookies that called up, you know, Heritage always has a really
• 1:29:53
  good following in the initial release, and those cards, especially the the real
• 1:29:58
  one autos, like the on card autos, really seem to do well and
• 1:30:02
  hold their value. There are a number of really good rookies in in that
• 1:30:09
  that product, just because of the number of guys that came up. So
• 1:30:12
  you're talking about uh, you know, Bobby Miller's, you're talking about the
• 1:30:16
  Grayson Rodriguez is, uh, Masataka Yoshida. Uh. There's just a number
• 1:30:23
  of guys Matt McClain, you know that are in there and fun to chase.
• 1:30:30
  Volpay is in there. So I think that that will be a fun
• 1:30:34
  product because there is a lot from a rookie perspective to chase, and at
• 1:30:40
  the price point, I think, as you mentioned in somewhere in the mid
• 1:30:43
  seventies, that's really really accessible for the market. So I think if you're
• 1:30:48
  looking for something to to to rip, picking up a box to two of
• 1:30:54
  a heritage high number is really a good way to go this time of year.
• 1:31:00
  Yeah, I absolutely agree, And you get two autos for that,
• 1:31:01
  so you get two thirds of the number of autos as you get in that
• 1:31:05
  just Base Jumbo Bowman Draft and we've got another release coming out tomorrow. There's
• 1:31:12
  actually like four consecutive days, five consecutive days of releases here as we've also
• 1:31:18
  got on the fifteenth Tops Chrome Black, which we've had on the schedule for
• 1:31:23
  a bit, and on the sixteenth Top Japan Edition, which has also been
• 1:31:26
  on the schedule for a bit, but they just added this week Tops Expectations
• 1:31:30
  coming out tomorrow. It's going to be an online only exclusive release and it's
• 1:31:34
  based off of the Expectations set for Basketball from the late nineties, so that's
• 1:31:43
  kind of where I know the design from. And it's been a little disorienting
• 1:31:46
  seeing some of the pictures of this set with the Expectations design with like the
• 1:31:53
  xes on it, because it just harkens back to like Kobe Bryant cards for
• 1:31:57
  me, as opposed to Screaming Base. So it's going to be a pretty
• 1:32:02
  i think quiet product because of my everything else that we just listed that's coming
• 1:32:08
  out this week, but I think it could be a fun one if you
• 1:32:12
  are able to find some of it. And I think this is especially like
• 1:32:15
  the classic sort of product where if you find it in a hobby shop,
• 1:32:20
  buying like one pack of it can just really like make your day as you're
• 1:32:25
  looking at just the design with the lots of gold foil and xes and really
• 1:32:30
  harkening back to you know, fifteen years ago. So Brew, I know
• 1:32:35
  this is a surprise release. Do you have any thoughts on it because it's
• 1:32:41
  I'm not even sure how much you were able to research it before we got
• 1:32:44
  into the pod tonight. Yeah, I think if I recall it, I
• 1:32:48
  did get a chance to look at it very briefly. It's an online exclusive
• 1:32:54
  and so it's gonna be a little harder to find, and I think it
• 1:32:58
  goes back to back in the day you had like E tops and things like
• 1:33:01
  that that were I was online exclusive, little hard to find sets, and
• 1:33:03
  so they're actually kind of fun now to find These just kind of random sets
• 1:33:08
  that lasted for like a year and you're like, what is this? What
• 1:33:12
  where did this come from? Uh So I think that's kind of what reminds
• 1:33:15
  me of, you know, I was never really a big basketball collector,
• 1:33:17
  but it is kind of fun. It's a limited run set, you know,
• 1:33:23
  it's all cards are numbered uh ninety nine or less within within the tops
• 1:33:28
  expectations Baseball, and so it's you know, it's gonna it's gonna be fun,
• 1:33:32
  a fun little set to go through. I don't think it's anything that's
• 1:33:35
  gonna hold value or anything like that. It's more just entertaining, if you
• 1:33:41
  may. It's just not gonna be something that has a big following that folks
• 1:33:45
  are trying to collect because they've always collected every year's set of Heritage for example,
• 1:33:48
  and so tops expectations, Uh, to your point, goes comes out
• 1:33:55
  tomorrow. I don't know if if we had a specific price point on it
• 1:33:59
  yet. No, they have not put a price point on it yet,
• 1:34:02
  so it'll just kind of I'm not part of the Montgomery Club. I don't
• 1:34:04
  know if the Montgomery Club has got a chance with this yet. But we'll
• 1:34:09
  see when it drops tomorrow and see exactly you know what all is in these
• 1:34:14
  boxes, because it looks like you're getting two autographs per box, but you've
• 1:34:18
  got also Oh so it's gonna be a pretty small box, a lot like
• 1:34:24
  Inception in terms of you're getting only five base cards and two autographs, So
• 1:34:28
  I would imagine somewhere in the upper hundreds. Yeah, I think you're probably
• 1:34:33
  probably like a one fifty one to sixty type product is what my guess would
• 1:34:38
  be here. But yeah, well we'll kind of see what comes out of
• 1:34:42
  it. I think it's it could be a fun little set, but I
• 1:34:46
  don't think it's gonna be something we're talking about a long long now. I
• 1:34:49
  don't think so. I thought it was just kind of a little fun twist
• 1:34:53
  of everything else coming out this week. They've really got the printing presses turned
• 1:34:57
  ups at the top right now. I don't think God they do. They're
• 1:35:00
  working all those shifts all day long. Okay, well, I think with
• 1:35:05
  that we will wrap up the pod for this week. Brew Can you let
• 1:35:11
  people know where they can find you on socials and any other kind of information
• 1:35:16
  you got going on? Yep, find me over on Twitter slash x.
• 1:35:20
  I don't know when we're gonna be able to call it Twitter again, by
• 1:35:23
  the way it feels placed on a time, so yeah, it's really yeah,
• 1:35:29
  it's the same thing. Find me over there at Jay Brewer one seven.
• 1:35:32
  You know, we were about probably a month away from picking back things
• 1:35:35
  back up at ras ball, so you'll find me over there doing hitter profiles
• 1:35:40
  and digging too the off seasons, sleepers breakouts, all those kind of things
• 1:35:45
  of the hitter profiles early in the off season before starting to dig through the
• 1:35:47
  top one hundred hitters for the year, so always feel free to find me
• 1:35:54
  there as well. So Mike, what about you, Yeah, you can
• 1:35:57
  find me on Twitter slash x at in cool seven. You can find the
• 1:36:01
  pod on Twitter slash x at cards Categories, and you can email the pod
• 1:36:06
  at cards Categories at gmail dot com. Like I said, we've got official
• 1:36:12
  cards and categories merchandise, so I will leave that link in the show notes.
• 1:36:16
  We've got mugs and shirts available, and I'm hoping to get hats back
• 1:36:20
  up soon so you can be ready for the spring with a nice little dad
• 1:36:26
  hat or get a beanie here for these winter winds that are going to be
• 1:36:30
  hitting us pretty soon. And yeah, if you really like this show,
• 1:36:34
  we appreciate any feedback in terms of what you can do to support us with
• 1:36:41
  subscriptions and comments on Apple podcasts and ratings on Spotify are really great that they
• 1:36:46
  help us spread the show. And if you've got any questions for us,
• 1:36:51
  you can find us on rasball dot com with the show notes as well that
• 1:36:56
  there is a landing page for every week's pod there, and you can come
• 1:37:00
  in the comment section and talk to us about anything you want to. And
• 1:37:04
  uh, well, as long as Gray will let us like moderate so can't
• 1:37:09
  get too far. There's a great assault there, that's for sure. So
• 1:37:13
  yeah, we appreciate you listening and tuning in, and if you're out there
• 1:37:17
  ripping any twenty twenty three Bowman draft, good luck. We'll see you next week.