Latest / The Scout and The Speculator / AFL Investment/Best Buys Draft!
Transcript
- Jaba: Hello everybody, welcome back to the Scout and the Speculator Podcast. This is Will Jarvis, also known as Jabba Cards, joined by my co-host as always, Jeremy Brown of Perfect Game Baseball, more importantly known as JGB, underscore cards underscore. And today we got a little something different for you. We are wrapping up our Arizona Fall League content. We might do one more episode. ⁓ you know, just kinda running through some names in totality. But today we thought, you know, let's have some fun, let's do a snake draft. ⁓ we'll pick one guy from seven different price ranges. We'll get into kind of those details in a moment. but yeah, pick one guy from each price range. We'll figure out kind of the best way to score it, whether that's cumulative ROI, dollar amount, whatever, if anybody has ideas on what they think the best way to kinda decide a winner here is. ⁓ I think my team is strong enough that whatever metric we use, ⁓ I'll be okay. ⁓ full transparency. We just recorded this episode. We were kind of drafting live off the dome. It was a twenty minute episode and there was a lot of a lot of dead air, but ⁓ I think it's gonna be a little bit better here, compact and ⁓ kind of to the point. So you're not just listening to us underscore_underscore_: Mm-hmm. Ha ha. Jaba: ⁓ complaining about each other's picks. So yeah, Jeremy, give ⁓ give ⁓ the details of ⁓ of our draft, ⁓ and then you can kick it off because you did have the first pick that I so generously gave you. underscore_underscore_: Ramble. Yeah. Now do you wanna do you want me to just go through my whole team? They don't have to listen to us pick by pick and we can kinda talk about why we picked where we did? 'Cause I don't think the necessarily they don't care about the order of how we went about it. But if you guys do, let us know and we can tell ya. But I Jaba: Yeah. Yeah. I think it matters for the fifty plus and then other than that, just 'cause your first pick was gonna be mine. underscore_underscore_: Yeah, because there were so many options. So So my first pick, I did have the first pick. I went right after Braylon Payne on the fifty plus. I think there's real upside there. Twenty years old, already in double A, had twenty eight home runs this year. He doesn't walk a lot, but he still puts a bat to the ball. is prone to a strikeout here and there. Also swipe twenty five bags. So when you look at all of that, just kind of in totality, ⁓ and then full transparency, we're going off old numbers. with where we pulled these ⁓ base auto prices from. He was sitting at a what was he at? Fifty four dollars. So he's just over that fifty dollar threshold. ⁓ some of these guys that I picked I do know well I don't know for certain, but I have a feeling they're probably up from where they were, probably same for Java. ⁓ and we'll put all these live too on our IG so that you guys can see them all and kind of do your own team. ⁓ Jaba: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'd love to see people do their own and I think just a disclaimer, it's not us being lazy not using updated prices. We just kinda wanted to stick to the prices we talked about in prior episodes. 'Cause if we were saying, ⁓ this guy's great at five dollars and now we're talking about him as a you know, twelve dollar auto, it's kind of a hey, what you know what happened here? underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Mm. Like we could have drafted Brandon Butterworth or like their the new pr like he was a fourteen dollar base auto when we pulled these. He's probably like three dollars now, so ⁓ anywho. Jaba: Yeah. I'll just let you run through your entire team. And just give give people the price ranges as you go as well. underscore_underscore_: All right, and I'm not gonna I'm and I'm not gonna try to talk too long so this doesn't just drag. ⁓ for thirty five to forty nine I went Jarlin Susana. This feels like a gimme, this feels like a layup. He just threw a hundred and four in the playoffs. ⁓ you do that, you touch one ⁓ four, one ⁓ five in the AFL. I don't know if he's gonna get Carlos Lagrange treatment, but he's definitely gonna be more than a forty nine dollar, sub forty nine dollar auto as a redemption only. ⁓ 25 to 34, I went Nathan Flewelling from the Tampa Bay Rays. He was the MVP of the futures game. He is still 19 years old until November 11th. So the bulk, if not all, of the AFL, he will be 19 years old. When you put it in that perspective, he could have almost been in the 2026 MLB draft. 15 to 24, Wyatt Sanford. Feels like if he gets on a run here, he's already had his glow up, his bonument to speak. Think he could have another one. 10 to 14 might be cheating. Bracon Guaidez. ⁓ He had a true blue sale recently of 250, so the market is alive and well. We will take that ⁓ overall skill set, tool set, bring it to the thin air of Arizona and let it rip. Justin Lampkin, 5 to 9 bucks. When he was healthy, that was a $20 base auto all day. That feels like an easy buy. And 1 4 Isaiah Drake. ⁓ Really good athlete. Has some juice, left handed stick, can run. He does anything that's gonna jump from a sub four dollar auto and hopefully touch double digits and give me a good R O I. Jaba: Yeah. No, I ⁓ I think there were some great picks there. I ⁓ you know, like you said, Susana and Gwadez were kinda cheating. But even be underscore_underscore_: You're up, buddy. They weren't cheating, they were within the rules and you had a chance to pick all of them. Jaba: I like your Lamkin pick, the Sanford pick, and ⁓ Pay, those are really the ones that kind of stood out to me. So I went second in the fifty tier. I was gonna go with Braylon Payne, but ⁓ like I'd kind of said in the episode that we'll now never air. I think Dax Kilby is a better bet for short term gain here, given the relative price points. Just because he's a Yankee, his entire issue is playing. ⁓ when he plays he plays well. And so long as he plays, I think everyone's gonna be like, hey, this guy was over a hundred bucks last winter. underscore_underscore_: Mm-hmm. Jaba: You know, let's get him back over there. So I think Kilby he was at like seventy one, I think. I think that's a pretty smooth bet to hit triple digits so long as he, you know, stays healthy and performs the way he has. ⁓ but yeah, as a long term investment, I would like paying more. But yeah, so I went with Kilby there. Thirty six to forty nine tier, I think a guy that could get some ⁓ good press is Charles Davilon. His entire issue, I mean, he was the ⁓ VP of the high A League. ⁓ yeah, he was older, and he kinda should have done that, but at the same time, we've talked about it. You know, you you play where you're assigned and he was great. ⁓ his whole issue was that he was an outfielder in the Dodgers system. Anyone listening knows that that is ⁓ A pretty tough series of roadblocks. ⁓ he's playing second base, so I'm hoping that you know he's kind of all over social media. Everyone's talking about the position change and the easier path he will have to the majors. And he's just a really good advanced hitter. So I expect him to ⁓ have a blast out in Arizona. So that was my pick there. 25 to 34. I went with a guy that we talked about a lot ⁓ in the episode, ⁓ Ty P. Heat, just a great kind of power speed combo. The strikeouts are bad. He doesn't really walk. But he's kind of the perfect profile for a quick Bowman flip, you know, with that raw power speed combo. Exciting player, will benefit from the environment out in Arizona, will feast on, you know, lower end pitching, and you know, just again, kind of the potential to go viral there ⁓ feels quite high. ⁓ next one, I almost didn't pick him because he's Marlin, but Max Williams. Williams, kind of similar to Dax Kilby, ⁓ missed a large chunk of this season. Came back around, I don't know, June, maybe July, and just went completely bananas. He's a little bit older. He was a twenty twenty-five draft pick. underscore_underscore_: Yep. Jaba: ⁓ just was incredible at the plate, made his way to double A despite a you know pretty seriously shortened season. ⁓ just another advanced older hitter that I think can you know dominate, put up good numbers, and everyone's talking about him. next, kind of the opposite here, Arun Escobar, a guy who had a ton of helium last year, ⁓ kind of threw in a dud of a season here for the ⁓ Phillies down in double A. Still young, I believe he was 20 all year. ⁓ I know the over. P.S. was under seven hundred, which is ⁓ a little yucky. But he did close out the year strong, and I'm just kinda hoping if he stays hot, people will see his name and be like, ⁓ yeah, we used to pay thirty to forty for him. we like him. He's a good hobby name. So that was kind of the whole thing there. underscore_underscore_: Mm. I was gonna say he he did finish the year strong, which was good, a good little streak. Twenty one, gonna turn twenty two in in ⁓ January. So if you're holding him, we we're really hoping for a good ⁓ like I have a true blue and some others, we're really hoping for a good AFL here to kinda resurge him. Jaba: Yeah. ⁓ that's right. Yeah, hopefully you can kinda salvage the year a bit. Five through nine, more just kind of easy cheap power. Johnny Severino ⁓ of the Pirates. It's basically just a Wyatt Sanford Light here, ⁓ who is your pick in a higher price tier. ⁓ you know, you're really just playing for the power, like we've said a million times now. AFL is great for power between the hitting environment and the fact that there were what five good pitchers that we liked with Bowman cards ⁓ out there. So ⁓ you're not gonna be taking many at back. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. Right. Jaba: Against top arms. ⁓ and he's a guy where, you know, he could launch, you know, ten homers in a forty game span pretty pretty smooth. ⁓ my one to five was Neymar Ochoa Jr. ⁓ he was one we kind of looked at where we were like, well, like you know, the numbers aren't insane, but they're better than one to four range, and you know, part of that's probably being in the Astros market, people don't like them. You know, I'm not gonna give it too much analysis 'cause it's a one to five dollar auto. I just think he's a good player. Also has that power, big build where I could see him kinda catching fire at the right time. So yeah, that's ⁓ that's my team there. ⁓ I don't know if you have any kind of closing thoughts here or if we just kinda wanna get this out. underscore_underscore_: No, I mean I think your last two picks were two really good ones. I mean they're the lowest hanging fruits, but I think they're both have the chance. Like if either of those hit in a as Merlin Valdez type way, you're gonna be like so far up. And they have the strength to do that. So I think that was like a good play to go there. I probably shouldn't have gone Lampkin. I should have probably found a bat to go there because bats are gonna go up like a lot more. ⁓ but that's okay. ⁓ I agree Jaba: I thought about lamp and I love lamp. underscore_underscore_: I know, and I thought about Patrick Forbes too, but ⁓ like in s in on second thought I probably should have gone a bat there. ⁓ I mean you got a lot of like Ty Pete, Max Williams, like both have the potential to go nuts, truthfully. and yeah, I mean it's gonna be interesting how these figure out. We're gonna have to go we're gonna have to go play, ⁓ figure out how we wanna do the investments, ⁓ or how we wanna measure them. I'll go through some other names like I considered throughout, like in that one to four dollar range, did look at Carter Johnson, Briggs McKenzie in that fifteen to twenty four range as an arm. ⁓ Let's see. I know we talked about Yasel Soler as another one. Patrick Forbes, I had mentioned. ⁓ there's a lot of value guys here. Miguel Mendez is like a five dollar base auto who's got electric stuff, just had a really bad year since he was traded. Austin Charles, he's an oldie in twenty three draft, but like he is super tools up. Like if he put it all together, I wouldn't be surprised. Cole Mathis was a twenty, thirty dollar auto, I feel not that long ago. At three dollars. Jaba: Yeah, I thought about him. underscore_underscore_: Dante Nori at nine bucks. So you could you could easily you it doesn't take much to envision like Dante tripling up again. He's within the hobby of ⁓ just being a card collector of himself. ⁓ that seems to kinda help people too, like, ⁓ look, he's one of us, you know. Jaba: Yeah, and all all those Team Italy guys, I feel like that was like the greatest PR run because I feel like they were just all guys who were just loving playing baseball and they were all playing collectively out of their minds. And I think people when they think about this past WBC, ⁓ they'll kinda just think about Team Italy and how fun that was. So yeah, I I I agree on Nori. yeah, Mathis I liked as well. I kinda just didn't want to go with the Met pick. underscore_underscore_: He Really well. Yeah. Jaba: But yeah, I mean I I think I echo a lot of what you said. I think if Miguel Mendez had been in the one to five, he would have been my pick. ⁓ just too many good bats. ⁓ fluelling, like we kinda said. Only reason I didn't pick him, 'cause I have so much of ⁓ I wanted to emotionally hedge. underscore_underscore_: Yeah. I mean she Hm. I'm kind of shocked in the fifteen to twenty four you didn't go Jake Monroe. Honestly. That would have been a homewick. Yeah. Jaba: I thought about it, but I I feel like I've been banging that drum so much where I had to give another name. I d I didn't want to be too basic. Another fifty plus name I thought about, Arjun Namala, after that video we put out where you were kinda talking about Arjun Namala, he's continued to go nuts. ⁓ so ⁓ good luck on you for that one. you know, fun player. Again, you know, kinda that power potential. And I think kinda my big takeaway from this is that idea I was saying of underscore_underscore_: Jake Cook at three bucks. Jaba: Guys that we know and that were in a higher price range, and for whatever reason they sank, whether it be injury or just a down year. I I really think there's something to that. Like the names that we've kind of conditioned ourselves to know is ⁓ okay, well, this guy was trading at X, and then this happened. So I feel like naturally, I mean, I I'm not a psychiatrist, but I feel like you know it's human nature to kind of go toward gravitate towards the guy. underscore_underscore_: Yep. Jaba: guys that you've seen before. So I think those guys like, you know, Arun Escobar, Cole Mathis, ⁓ I even think Caleb Bonomer. I mean we're seeing him at seventy five there, but you know I could see Bonimer underscore_underscore_: Yeah, go with what you know. You're right. So I've I've had that conversation. I've had the the conversation with somebody and let me pull it up. Like he was at a hundred, hundred and twenty during the year, right? And then he kind of settled into that sixty seventy range again. He hit two fifty one, made it up to double A, and put thirty seven balls over the wall. And his bright his average price point went down. Like what does he have to actually do now? Like I don't know what he can do. Jaba: Yeah. underscore_underscore_: Aside from have a Joshua Baez type debut to shoot way back up into that triple digit range, you know? Jaba: Right. underscore_underscore_: ⁓ I don't know. It just like f food for thought, just throwing it out there. ⁓ I know you talked about Dax Kilby becoming a triple digit auto. ⁓ we had a another former triple digit auto guy here in Bryce Raynor, who's almost cut in half, who figured it out after a swing adjustment mid year. Wouldn't be surprised to see him climb. And he hasn't been a triple digit yet, but I think Eduardo Quintero could definitely definitely get there as a base auto. into the triple digits. I don't know how quickly he'll get there, but I don't know. I'll be interested. I'll with what the Dodgers did with DePala bringing him up, letting him perform and sending him back down. I'll just be curious kind of how that whole thing comes about. So Jaba: I ⁓ just I I I think that that was a good wrap on things. I David Stearns just had his end of the year press conference. And as a I mean, you you've been a baseball guy for your entire career now. You've been around the game. And I would love to get your live reaction to this quote that David Stearns gave. ⁓ the question was, what lessons did he learn ⁓ this year with the Mets? He said, I made a number of decisions that created the potential for an uncapped downside scenario. underscore_underscore_: Yep. Jaba: What do you think about that quote being used about baseball? underscore_underscore_: I mean he tried to he tried to throw him hit throw himself under the bus and take blame without directly saying he was at fault for it, I feel. Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but Jaba: I I I I just love the uncapped downside scenario. A AKA the team was dreadful. ⁓ underscore_underscore_: Right. Like he he he wanted to be like, Yeah, sorry, but without saying like I should have done X, Y, or Z, I did A, B, and C. But Jaba: I I just love him you know, phrasing things like he's an equities trader at, you know, Jane Street and not, you know, the jam of a baseball team. I think anyhow, I'm not g I'm not gonna he also said he wanted a redo on Pete Alonso, so ⁓ hopefully hopefully he stopped talking soon after that. Yeah. good for Pete. I love Pete. but underscore_underscore_: Yeah. No, why why would you? Well, too late for that. I think Pete's made that clear. I think Pete's made that clear, so Jaba: I did understand the reason for not keeping him. Alright, that wraps it up. Sorry to ⁓ kinda hijack it there, but wanted your thoughts on that gem of a quote. ⁓ again, please send us, you know, you do a draft. You tell us who you would have picked, you tell us why we're wrong. ⁓ you know, we're always around to talk baseball and ⁓ you know where to reach us. So until next time, let's go Mets and that uncapped downside scenario. See you guys next time.