Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 15 : New Topps Releases, AFL Breakouts

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Ep. 15 : New Topps Releases, AFL Breakouts · Cards & Categories

• 0:16
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode fifteen of Cards and Categories. I am
• 0:20
  Mike Coolard here from Rasball, joined as always by my good friend Jeremy Brewer,
• 0:25
  also from ras Ball. We are recording on October eighteenth, Wednesday night.
• 0:31
  Jeremy, how you enjoying tonight? We're recording during the middle of the
• 0:35
  Astros Rangers series, the game three. Well. I enjoying it because it
• 0:41
  looks like they're going the Astros are going to try to make it a series,
• 0:44
  So our intro, if we would have started a little bit earlier,
• 0:47
  may have been a little less interesting, but it's nice to see there.
• 0:51
  We might not have two sweeps going on in these series, as it does
• 0:55
  look like we have some pretty strong teams in Texas and Philadelphia trying to make
• 1:00
  it the series, but fun to see more I can call a more competitive
• 1:04
  game on the horizon here for folks. So how about you? How are
• 1:08
  you enjoying your evening? And into the playoffs getting ready for the series here
• 1:15
  in about a week. Yeah, the playoffs have been interesting over the past
• 1:19
  week since we've talked. I think they've been relatively boring, to be honest,
• 1:23
  that there were some highlights within the Atlanta and Philadelphia series that some of
• 1:30
  those games were a little tighter and a little bit more tension filled. But
• 1:34
  these Rangers in Philly's teams are just steam rolling through their opponents right now.
• 1:38
  And obviously we're speaking right now when the Astros are up on the Rangers,
• 1:42
  so things could flip, but that also came on the back of an injured
• 1:48
  Max. Sures are kind of going out there and certainly being below par.
• 1:52
  And I wouldn't want to ever say no to Max Scherzer for about anything.
• 1:56
  I'm sure Bruce Bochi and everybody in the Rangers clubhouse didn't want to, but
• 2:00
  it does seem that they might not go back to that well and if Schuzer
• 2:05
  doesn't pitch again. I mean, that's really been the only soft spot in
• 2:08
  the Rangers so far, except for their bullpen has shown a little bit of
• 2:14
  of just unsteadiness between Chapman and le Clerk the way I think that everybody predicted.
• 2:20
  But at this point I would have expected a blown safe or two,
• 2:23
  and things have kind of gone really smoothly once teams get into these leads,
• 2:28
  and then the bullpens have been able to finish off the games for them,
• 2:32
  Yeah, you have. And it's it's funny to think about a team with
• 2:37
  Scherzer and de gram uh not doing great in the playoffs with great pitching,
• 2:43
  and having neither of them actually being contributing factors to that. So Jordan Montgomery
• 2:49
  has looked just short of ook short of fantastic. Nathanyvaldi has been Nathan Valdi,
• 2:55
  like I've seen. It seems like people have been shocked that he's been
• 2:59
  pitched well, like, that's just who he is. He likes to blow
• 3:02
  up like once every like ten games, it seems, and then he's a
• 3:07
  solid like low threes innings ear every other time, and so like, I
• 3:12
  don't know why people are surprised at that, but it is interesting to see
• 3:15
  a team with that much star pitching not using it because of injuries and things,
• 3:21
  and still looking so strong, especially that bullpen, which was kind of
• 3:24
  a disaster at the latter half the season. Trying to figure out who was
• 3:28
  really gonna take charge? Was Will Smith? Was it? Or Elvis Chapman.
• 3:30
  Now here's Lecleric just seeming like, oh, yeah, this is my
• 3:35
  role. I was doing this a few years ago. Uh, And he
• 3:38
  looked he's looked nasty. Oh yeah, And he always has been that.
• 3:42
  I am a Jose clerk homer that you've played in leagues with me, that
• 3:46
  there was a couple of years stretch where I had like total ownership in all
• 3:50
  of my leagues. I post they look clerk because he was so cheap and
• 3:53
  this stuff that he throws is absolutely filthy. But he went down with that
• 3:57
  Tommy John and he's never really had the ability to control where things are going,
• 4:01
  which we saw the other night against the Astros when he came into the
• 4:05
  bottom of the eighth and promptly walked two players on eight pitches that it looked
• 4:12
  like I thought things were really going to come off the rails for the Rangers
• 4:14
  then, but he was able to put it back together. And I don't
• 4:17
  know if maybe Bruce Bochie's like studying presence is helping him a little bit or
• 4:23
  what has changed for the clerk. But it will be interesting to see where
• 4:29
  he goes kind of in early drafts, because I think he's probably going to
• 4:32
  be the leader in the clubhouse as we come into twenty twenty four for that
• 4:39
  Rangers closer's job, and that's going to be a pretty primo job given that
• 4:44
  that team looks to be well built, and part of it is this is
• 4:49
  a little bit of a segue here that we've been meaning to talk about Evan
• 4:53
  Carter for a while, that he's been on the rundown before, and we've
• 4:58
  talked about him in our kind of prediscussions but never brought him up officially.
• 5:03
  I think he's gonna end up being a really huge miss for us in terms
• 5:05
  of the investments for the playoff run, because wow, for a twenty one
• 5:11
  year old, this guy is really solidified with the Rangers' trajectory, is going
• 5:16
  to be over the next couple of years, and has given them almost like
• 5:19
  a Kyle Tucker like player to add into the mix that the Astors have had,
• 5:24
  and the Rangers with Evan Carter, seem to have found a real gem
• 5:29
  here. And I know you're a big fan of him, but anything that
• 5:31
  you want to add to what you've seen out of him so far in this
• 5:34
  ALCS, Yeah, I mean, Evan Carter's been nothing short of fantastic,
• 5:40
  and if anything, he's doing a great job to price himself out of drafts
• 5:45
  next year. Exact. You know, I hate to be a downer on
• 5:48
  him. He is just twenty one years old, and you know, fantasy
• 5:55
  doesn't reward defense by any stream of existence here, but he has looked fantastic
• 6:02
  and defense, and he's looked fantastic at the plate. Yeah. Sure,
• 6:05
  he's got a four hundred baby, and he's got a little luck going.
• 6:09
  But he's been hitting the ball incredibly hard and uh, you know, the
• 6:13
  power seems to be coming through more than it kind of had in the in
• 6:16
  the minor leagues. What really interests me about Evan Carter is he is one
• 6:23
  of those guys that definitely seems like he can hit for average, for power
• 6:27
  and for speed. He actually kind of reminds me of I'm gonna say,
• 6:30
  young Michael Brantley, uh to to a degree. He's he is. I'm
• 6:36
  not gonna say he's the most intimidating of players, and I think the Kyle
• 6:41
  Tucker is a good comp from that perspective. He doesn't strike you as this
• 6:46
  physical speciman. It's not like Randy rose Arena, who's out there feels like
• 6:49
  he's a linebacker at times in the in the outfield. So I really,
• 6:55
  I really do like Evan Carter, and I've always liked it because I thought
• 6:58
  he was one of those guys that can fly under the radar and really be
• 7:00
  a good value. And what he's doing on the big stage is I think
• 7:04
  is actually upset in an apple cart to a degree, because I think people
• 7:09
  are going to look at him and go, hey, this guy is uber
• 7:13
  talented. He could easily go twenty twenty five and hit you know, hit
• 7:15
  three hundred, and I mean he might to this peak, but I see
• 7:20
  him more as that, you know, fifteen twenty two ninety hitter is kind
• 7:26
  of where he you can hope for him to grow into the next few years
• 7:30
  because remember this guy, he's twenty one years old. He is young,
• 7:33
  so love Evan Carter really excited to see what he's doing. I just think
• 7:38
  that he is pricing himself out of drafts next year already. Yeah. I
• 7:43
  mean, I guess I'll see where the price is settled, but I mean
• 7:46
  I'll probably be in just because it is. I think when you see guys
• 7:50
  like this that have such a meteoritic rise in a season where he started off,
• 7:57
  I think he was just rehabbing a complex ball and then went to double
• 8:01
  A. And when he was in double A, there is just so much
• 8:03
  chatter between industry folks and prospect hounds that were all over Evan Carter coming up.
• 8:09
  And I was talking about him constantly during the summer in my waiver waiver
• 8:15
  wire. I'm never going to get that down, am I a waiver wire
• 8:18
  article trying to get people to pick him up in Ale only, then fifteen
• 8:24
  team, then twelve team as he shot up, and I think what I
• 8:28
  really like about him, and again this hearkens back perfectly to Brantley and Tucker.
• 8:33
  Like you're talking about is Evan Carter works the strike zone. He's a
• 8:37
  really good patient hitter. He's never had a walk rate. The lowest walk
• 8:41
  rate he had in the Miners was his thirty nine plate appearances this year in
• 8:45
  Triple A at ten point three walk percent. And so honestly, this guy
• 8:50
  is going to be probably in the mid teens for his walk rate. And
• 8:54
  once you put a base like that, it just forces player forced his pictures
• 9:00
  to come into your zone, and Carter just knows how to hit from there.
• 9:05
  So that's why I think he's got a really high batting average floor.
• 9:09
  And whenever you get like a guy who has the rice the Miners like Carter
• 9:13
  has, what you're also looking as just a really special talent. And I
• 9:20
  think this is also why I love the Tucker comp is that you can see
• 9:24
  during these this playoff run, you know, he's batting seven, eight nine,
• 9:28
  down in the bottom of the order. They'll get him comfortable, and
• 9:31
  then they'll probably happen into next year where he bats seven, eight nine,
• 9:35
  works his way up the order and then especially as a dynasty piece, like
• 9:39
  maybe not for twenty twenty four, but for twenty twenty five, Like we
• 9:43
  might be talking first second round type of talent just because of counting stats alone.
• 9:50
  Yeah, I think I don't know if I'm gonna go first second round
• 9:52
  talent. I'm not going to go that far. I think there's a Tucker
• 9:56
  think about it, you know, yeah it is, And I think it's
• 9:58
  a lot like and I think the you have to make a really good point
• 10:01
  there with the walk rate, with the defense, Like he's one of those
• 10:03
  guys is going to keep himself in the lineup a lot as long as he's
• 10:09
  staying healthy. He's going to play one hundred and fifty five games, one
• 10:11
  hundred and sixty games, and he's not going to be the kind of guy
• 10:15
  that goes hot cold. He's just going to be steady Eddie the whole whole
• 10:20
  time through is kind of the way I look at him. And that's again,
• 10:22
  go back to Brantley, go back to Tucker. Those are those kind
• 10:24
  of guys, uh in what in what they do. So there is a
• 10:28
  lot to like with with Carter. You know, you're even talking me into
• 10:33
  a little bit more than I was starting the segment. So I think there's
• 10:37
  a lot to like. It's fun to see him doing the stage. Uh.
• 10:41
  And I keep going back to he got kid's only twenty one years old.
• 10:43
  Yeah, and you know, if you look at the you're you're looking
• 10:46
  for all the Pedigrew's things. Right. He's second round draft pick. He's
• 10:50
  a high uh you know, a you know, great top one hundred prospect
• 10:54
  that came where he's laying right now. And as everybody got called up at
• 10:58
  the end of the year, he kind of shot up the ranks at the
• 11:00
  end of the season. And he's produced in the minors. Like, there's
• 11:03
  not a much of a red red flag on any of those And so it's
• 11:07
  just a matter of what's the learning curve that's really the question. Yeah,
• 11:11
  and on top of it too, is going into next year I think I'm
• 11:15
  also boosting Rangers pitching because if you're giving me a defensive outfield of Evan Carter
• 11:22
  and left Leoti Tavarius and center and Autoly Scarcia and right field, that covers
• 11:28
  a lot of ground real fast, and especially somebody like in Aovaldi who is
• 11:31
  a bit of a fly ball pitcher, or I have to imagine that Sureser
• 11:37
  probably will be next year too. That it is a pretty spacious stadium they
• 11:41
  have down in Texas, and if you have that outfield configuration, they're just
• 11:48
  going to vacuum up balls and I like that. So it's going to be
• 11:52
  just like a little notch up I think in terms of like when I'm at
• 11:56
  the draft table looking at Aovaldi and I wish man he was staying there,
• 12:00
  but and I wish he was all like could have been going back to the
• 12:03
  Cardinals. But I think he's placed himself out of there. I think I
• 12:05
  think he's made himself some pretty good money just this last few weeks here.
• 12:09
  Yeah, And so it'll be interesting to see where Evan Carter and the Rangers
• 12:13
  kind of go from here, because I think it is even if they don't
• 12:18
  quite make it past the Astros here or if they fall in the World Series.
• 12:22
  It's such a huge leap forward for them as a franchise that you can
• 12:26
  really see that the floodgates are going to start opening and they've got all the
• 12:30
  pieces to really start bringing up some of those prospects or trading them off to
• 12:35
  fill in any of the gaps that they need and be just like the juggernaut
• 12:37
  that the Astros have been. Yeah, they do have actually quite a few
• 12:41
  really interesting prospects down down the miners. Know they had to move few of
• 12:43
  them at the trade deadline, clearly, but I think still think they have
• 12:46
  some pretty good prospects to either to your point deal from or you know,
• 12:52
  round and for them and bring them up. So yeah, with that,
• 12:54
  like, let's let's jump to the NL. One thing I wanted to call
• 12:58
  out, how fun is it to watch the Phillies right now? I know
• 13:01
  they might they're like the most fun team to watch in recent memory, I
• 13:05
  mean since last year, I guess, But they I don't know how you
• 13:09
  stop them right with that offense, Like I guess I felt that the same
• 13:13
  way a little bit last year's World Series. But it looks different. It
• 13:18
  looks different I mean you you got I'm gonna say, five guys in that
• 13:22
  lineup that are, you know, just at the top of their game.
• 13:26
  Costiano's Turner, Harper Schwarber, Real Muto. They're all clicking. And then
• 13:33
  the the IMNA call them role players around that with you know, marsh Bomb,
• 13:37
  you know those kind of guys. They're they're they're a little bit more
• 13:41
  than role players. They are some pretty gush aren't good players. But when
• 13:46
  you get some of those big names hitting at their top of their game,
• 13:50
  everybody else can just kind of sit back and relax and be in between Costianos
• 13:54
  and harper Man, they're they are putting on a show and it seems like
• 13:58
  everybody is just getting on board. And it's infectious, right, It's infectious
• 14:01
  for that lineup when you don't feel like you have to carry everybody and it's
• 14:05
  just a matter of going out there and have fun. They're having a lot
• 14:09
  of fun right now in Philadelphia. Yeah, and that's part of the reason
• 14:13
  why they were my World Series pick when we went through it at the beginning
• 14:16
  of the playoffs, that between the vibes that they carry and you just rattled
• 14:22
  off they have five superstars on this lineup, but those role players Alec Bohm,
• 14:28
  Random Marsh Rojas, these dudes are Briselstott, these dudes are first round
• 14:35
  picks, Top fifty prospects like Kristin Paschet, Like you know, these guys
• 14:41
  are just really high end talent that it's I mean, I'm used to,
• 14:46
  like, yeah, the White Sox rounding out lineups with people like Leary Garcia
• 14:50
  and Zach Remollard. So when you're seeing something like Philadelphia in action, it
• 14:54
  just feels otherworldly almost. And we haven't even gotten to the pitch that Zach
• 15:00
  Wheeler looks like one of the best maybe five pictures on the planet right now,
• 15:03
  like he's been absolutely dealing. And speaking of another guy who's made himself
• 15:09
  just boatloads of cash down the stretch here, Aaron Nola has really turned his
• 15:13
  season around from the disappointment it was and just getting shelled with like a four
• 15:20
  something era, And I think this stretch run has gotten him back into a
• 15:24
  spot where people are going to be really clamoring for his services in the offseason,
• 15:30
  and I think he'll probably Honestly, I think the Cardinals should probably go
• 15:35
  for him over Montgomery anyway, because a little bit of it is Nola eats
• 15:39
  innings a little more and kind of has been the traditional corekhourse in that sense,
• 15:43
  so that brings a lot of value. And it's just been really like
• 15:50
  it's been fascinating to see him elevate his game here down the stretch. And
• 15:54
  then Ranger Swarez has also turned into what maybe like a top ten picture of
• 15:58
  late, Like I feel like we've been here before. It's like he likes
• 16:04
  to finish the season strong and attempts you for next year and then put a
• 16:10
  big goose egg up for your value at the beginning of the year. But
• 16:12
  I'm right there with you on Nola, Like he he is a workhorse.
• 16:17
  He's he's only thirty. I think we forget how young he was when when
• 16:21
  he came up, So he does have a lot of innings on that arm.
• 16:25
  He's got a fourteen hundred innings in his career because he was, you
• 16:29
  know, pitching at age twenty two. But yeah, you look at this
• 16:33
  year, it's like, man, he's really dropped off because yeah, his
• 16:36
  strikeouts were down a little bit, but like from a overall profile perspective,
• 16:41
  he had a little bad luck, but otherwise he was the same guy.
• 16:45
  Yeah, he'sact the same guy that he has been and so I think that
• 16:49
  what getting back to the playoffs and him being able to show that. And
• 16:53
  he is a big game pitcher, Like he's one of those guys you think
• 16:56
  about a big game pitchers, he is one, and I'm right with you.
• 17:00
  I think he's gonna be one of the top free agent arms out there,
• 17:04
  and I expect he's going to go off the board pretty quick. I
• 17:08
  think he's gonna be one of those that teams really go after. I think
• 17:12
  he's gonna lock in a good deal and he's gonna go. But he's also
• 17:17
  I think, if I recall, he was asking for two hundred million or
• 17:19
  so from the Phillies the last offseason. So that'll be interesting to see who
• 17:26
  actually gets paid because it's actually a pretty deep free agent class for starters this
• 17:30
  year. Yeah, And the nice thing for Nola and Montgomery and anybody else
• 17:37
  out there like Snow, is that there are a lot of really hungry pitching
• 17:41
  hungry teams between the Cardinals, the Yankees, the Padres, the Dodgers,
• 17:45
  the Giants, the Astros will probably need another pitcher. I'm just trying to
• 17:52
  like, I mean, I could see Seattle maybe going No, maybe not
• 17:57
  Seattle, I take that one back, But like, it's a lot of
• 18:00
  really deep pocketed teams that are going to be looking for the services of these
• 18:07
  starters, and it'll be quite the bidding war as they kind of fall one
• 18:11
  by one, because I have to a feeling that you know, they'll kind
• 18:15
  of know who's at the top of the pecking order in terms of the meetings.
• 18:18
  And then once Nola goes, I have to imagine that Snell and Montgomery
• 18:23
  will find a home pretty quickly after that. Atlanta, I could I could
• 18:29
  see Milwaukee. Yeah, with having woodroof out for next year. That's I
• 18:34
  mean, my my fantasy teams are really struggling with pitching staff. I've lost
• 18:38
  like half my pictures for next year, my dynasties. So yeah, And
• 18:45
  we haven't even talked about the Diamondbacks because I I don't know, unlike I
• 18:49
  guess we didn't talk about the Astros either, But I think the Astros will
• 18:52
  put up a bit of a fight. But the Rangers do just seem stronger
• 18:56
  right now, and the deep Backs, I don't even they kind of it's
• 19:00
  kind of a we're glad you guys made it this far, but I just
• 19:03
  don't see how they unbury themselves. And does it feel like the Red Sox
• 19:07
  coming back from a three to zero against the Yankees, Like I know there
• 19:12
  was only two games in, but like, it just doesn't feel like they're
• 19:17
  in the same league right now as the Phillies. And there's nothing against Diamondbacks,
• 19:19
  but you ran your your top two starters out and had no chance and
• 19:25
  now we're you're you're going to the back of the of that rotation and it's
• 19:29
  just not not as exciting. And the Phillies, uh, they're back of
• 19:33
  the rotation to your point as Rangers Warrez or something like that, and it's
• 19:37
  and then there's still scoring ten runs. So yeah, I hate to dismiss
• 19:42
  them like that. And I know they've actually taken kind of a little offense
• 19:47
  to that, and so they got a chip on their shoulder, But a
• 19:48
  chip on the shoulder only goes so far. Yeah, And you really saw
• 19:52
  that last night too, that the ten o drubbing was just kind of I
• 19:56
  just don't see how the Diamondbacks win a game in Philadelphia, ever, is
• 20:00
  part of it, and being able to contain the Phillies when you have brained
• 20:04
  and fat on the mound is probably also not very possible. So yeah,
• 20:10
  I mean, do you wish you like, if you you know, get
• 20:12
  the the the future glasses out here and you were looking at the playoffs early
• 20:22
  last year and you're like, oh, Britton Fat is starting Game three for
• 20:25
  the Diamondbacks and the NLCS, I've got to be draft them everywhere. No,
• 20:30
  No, I don't think that's the case. I I think it tells
• 20:33
  you a different story. But it's it is interesting to see that how well
• 20:40
  the Diamondbacks have done in spite of not having that deep of a rotation,
• 20:45
  and so it tells me a lot about how good of hitting, how good
• 20:48
  a defensive team they are. But yeah, I just unfortunately, I just
• 20:52
  don't see a lot of hope for them and the rest of the the NLCS.
• 20:57
  Yeah, I agree, And getting over into the big card news of
• 21:02
  the week, I also see no hope of ever putting in the bed to
• 21:04
  twenty twenty three Bowman Chrome. As I thought we were done with this,
• 21:11
  I did too. If you've been following our podcast, this dates back to
• 21:15
  what now, three four weeks ago? Yeah, about a month. It's
• 21:18
  been about a month, yep. Yeah, twenty twenty three Bowman Chrome came
• 21:21
  out, and quickly after that it was discovered that the gold superfractors, which
• 21:26
  are supposed to be one of one's, actually had multiple copies in the product.
• 21:30
  At the time we talked two weeks ago, Tops had put out a
• 21:34
  bounty system because they admitted that there was two super fractors of every card out
• 21:38
  there, and it only affected the prospects. I guess I should explain that
• 21:42
  it's not every card, it's just the prospects set. But this week a
• 21:48
  third superfractor of Juan Benjamin the Cleveland Guardians prospect his Bowman first surface. So
• 21:57
  there's three of these. One of the bounty has already been claimed, So
• 22:02
  now there's two one of ones, and who knows how many other one of
• 22:07
  ones of the other prospects are out there. I've now assumed three. But
• 22:11
  like, I mean, where does this stop? Is kind of the question,
• 22:17
  Like I don't twenty twenty three Woman Chrome, I don't even like we've
• 22:22
  had our theories in terms of like what happened in terms of quality control and
• 22:26
  production and how quality control in QC no quality control, But I don't I
• 22:37
  don't even know really how to react to this. Part of it is like
• 22:41
  I've never been a really big Bowman Chrome person, And it's also really strange
• 22:45
  that all these superpractors are being pulled by breakers who are getting specific lots of
• 22:52
  product nowadays especially and getting in pretty close to Tops in terms of being an
• 22:59
  entertainer, mint source and helping. I think eventually Fanatics wants to consolidate buying
• 23:04
  and selling of cards too, like have their own marketplace and kind of wipe
• 23:08
  eBay off the map. And so it's a little strange to see all these
• 23:12
  things kind of happen because obviously, like what I just say there was it's
• 23:18
  a little bit of a conspiracy, but like Fanatics is already a huge conglomerate
• 23:23
  monopoly, Like what's to stop them until somebody says no at this point?
• 23:27
  And so I like twenty twenty three Bowmen Chrome is going to be something that
• 23:33
  I think we almost like need to keep as an open discussion thread for a
• 23:37
  long time because I'm not sure how they're going to react to this. It's
• 23:41
  so fresh. This news came out last night that the third triple, the
• 23:48
  triple superfractor was pulled, and so I don't know how Tops is going to
• 23:52
  handle this because they already put the bounty system out saying there are two super
• 23:56
  fractors, which really resolved it. But this re opens every case. Yeah,
• 24:02
  it does. And I think, I mean, I think I even
• 24:03
  complimented them on there on the way that they recovered from this, and I
• 24:07
  take it all back. It's it's you know, they did the best thing
• 24:11
  they could and clearly they did not have an understanding of the defect in their
• 24:17
  manufacturing process that took place here. And I've seen some conspiracy theories already that
• 24:22
  these are the same super fractors and things like that. You can look,
• 24:25
  they're not like there. You can clearly tell that they are different cuts different
• 24:30
  just the slightly different backgrounds on them as far as the centering. So there
• 24:37
  is an interesting question. Do you kind of allude to there is like our
• 24:40
  breakers getting hot boxes and how do you quality control that? And I think
• 24:45
  you look about when chrome you go, I have no idea because who knows
• 24:49
  how many of these are out there, and so it might appear that they're
• 24:52
  getting hot boxes, but maybe somebody else has already pulled four or five superfractors.
• 24:56
  Nobody knows it, right, you pull one, and it's you know,
• 25:00
  the biggest name, Like, I'm gonna hold onto this and see what
• 25:03
  I do with it. Bounty comes out up, somebody else claims it.
• 25:06
  I didn't get it. But we're only a month in of Lewen Chrome ripping,
• 25:11
  and you've got to be thought thinking, there's what we're through. A
• 25:14
  quarter of the product that they produced. I always say less megaboxes are only
• 25:19
  hitting shelves now. Yeah, So like the fact that we're already seeing this
• 25:25
  much, it really makes you think that that they messed this one up big
• 25:30
  time. Now there's more out there. It's just the frequency of which they're
• 25:36
  finding these one one super fractors is alarming. And so there is the top
• 25:40
  at three. I don't know. I'm almost writing any Bowmen Chrome twenty twenty
• 25:45
  three off at this point. It's it's not I think we even talked about
• 25:49
  maybe it's a novelty product. Maybe you want to hold onto because there's some
• 25:52
  value. I have no interest in it at this point. Maybe it's not
• 25:56
  a principle. I don't know what that is, but it's just it just
• 26:00
  seems to be a flawed product that I don't want a part of. Yeah,
• 26:03
  and I think that was where we settled a little bit. Is that,
• 26:07
  Like I think it was going to increase ripping a little bit more because
• 26:11
  with the bounty system and you're getting that guaranteed cash for a super fractor,
• 26:15
  it makes sense to rip what you've got and try to cash in on it
• 26:19
  now. But now, like if you're it turns into a super golden ticket
• 26:26
  chase, just like Willy Wonka and Charlie and Chocolate Factory that you've got to
• 26:32
  be ripping tons of product to try to get your bounties back. And yeah,
• 26:37
  like you said, it's only been a month, and so typically the
• 26:41
  first six to eight weeks of a product are the hottest, and obviously lots
• 26:45
  of people like to just hang on to the sealed wax or we haven't gotten
• 26:52
  to the holiday season. I'm sure lots of Bowman Chrome will be reaching people
• 26:56
  during the holiday season as gifts. And so this is just the tip of
• 27:02
  the iceberg. And I think when the bounties came out, it probably created
• 27:06
  a little bit of a boost and a little bit of assurance to the entire
• 27:10
  product overall. But now it's totally bunk that. I mean, I wouldn't
• 27:15
  be surprised to start seeing wax product sealed product of Bowman Chrome twenty twenty three
• 27:22
  just start really sky diving at this point, which is crazy because they literally
• 27:27
  released megaboxes for it like last week. Yep, and I'm out there with
• 27:32
  you. I think this is going to have a big impact on the market.
• 27:34
  It's gonna do a one to eighty from what we probably saw a week
• 27:38
  week and a half ago, unfortunately. Yeah, all right, well that
• 27:41
  sets us up for where we're going to go with the rest of the show
• 27:45
  today that we have a lot more content still even though we've gone pretty pretty
• 27:49
  long already, that we're going to get into some new releases for cards.
• 27:53
  We got twenty twenty three Tops Pro Debut and twenty twenty three Tops Finest Flashbacks
• 28:02
  that both drop today, So those are two pretty cool sets. We'll just
• 28:06
  do a quick overview of the checklists and what we like about the sets,
• 28:10
  and especially you're the big Pro Debut fan, so you can give people heads
• 28:14
  up on what to look for. Then we're going to go in for the
• 28:17
  fancy discussion on looking at some Arizona Fall League performances and breakouts that have happened
• 28:23
  so far. And kind of where we're moving those sliders on some of these
• 28:27
  breakout names during our dynasty evaluations going forward. So stick around. We'll be
• 28:33
  right back. Okay, welcome back, everybody. We are going to get
• 28:55
  into the card section now, and we've got two debuts that drop today.
• 29:00
  One in TOPS Pro Debut should be in hobby shops and the other TOPS Finest
• 29:04
  Flashbacks, both twenty twenty three products. I guess this will get a little
• 29:08
  confusing more in January when we have like overlapped of twenty twenty three and twenty
• 29:12
  twenty four, but right now we're only releasing twenty twenty three products. The
• 29:18
  Finest Splashbacks I think was an online owner release, but some hobby shops probably
• 29:22
  still will have some and will in the future just because they will probably have
• 29:26
  picked up some of that online allotment that dropped today. So TOPS Pro Debut,
• 29:33
  Jeremy, I know this one's been on your radar for a bit,
• 29:34
  and as we're talking here on October eighteenth, that's the big day has finally
• 29:38
  come. I know it's one of your favorite releases of the year, so
• 29:42
  I'll let you give an overview of what's in twenty twenty three Tops Pro debut
• 29:47
  this year. Yeah, I am a big Tops Pro debut than for a
• 29:52
  few reasons. One just the entry point of the product is very accessible.
• 30:00
  Your hobby boxes, I want to say they are in the sixty dollars range.
• 30:04
  Jumbo's a decent amount more if I recall the one hundred dollars range,
• 30:11
  maybe even a little bit more than that. But what's what I really like
• 30:15
  about the product is that the in the hobby box, you are guaranteed four
• 30:22
  autos, which is almost unheard of at the sixty dollars price point. And
• 30:27
  it's it's not just like your four autos. It is a massive auto checklist.
• 30:33
  We're talking hundreds and hundreds of different guys in this auto checklist. But
• 30:37
  you have the opportunity to hit the big guys. You've got Jackson Holiday,
• 30:41
  La Dela Cruz, You've got Mason Wynn, Jackson Cherio. The list goes
• 30:45
  on as far as the autographs in this in this checklist, and so the
• 30:49
  chances that you know, you you get to open four of those, it's
• 30:53
  it's not like opening a box of Tops Update and you hopefully don't end up
• 30:59
  with a reliever auto. You can end up with three middle reliever autos.
• 31:03
  Now, you know, the thing with pro debut is you're usually going after
• 31:08
  top one hundred, top one hundred and fifty prospects and you're not. You
• 31:14
  don't have that. Well, hey, this is the reliever that debuted.
• 31:17
  Most of those guys in that list have some version of an upside that is
• 31:22
  interesting, fun to go after. So even though it's very accessible, and
• 31:26
  then even on the secondary market, because of that, the auto prices aren't
• 31:30
  that terrible. You're you're talking ten fifteen dollars for an auto, don't get
• 31:33
  me wrong. Get the big ones like Ellie and his numbers are out there.
• 31:38
  You also have the opportunity to get the jumbo boxes. And what's really
• 31:44
  the difference between the hobby and Jumbo Jumbo. You actually only get three autos,
• 31:48
  so it's actually less than the hobby which is not that common and what
• 31:52
  Tops does, but they have thirty six chrome cards in the Jumbo relative to
• 31:59
  twelve in a hobby box, and so there's a kind of difference. Basically,
• 32:04
  it's almost like two sets and one that the Prota Debut does. And
• 32:07
  so you can go after the chrome set, you can go after the base
• 32:10
  set, you can go after the auto, so really really exciting set.
• 32:15
  From a parallel perspective, I know this is gonna gonna hurt some of us
• 32:20
  on this podcast. There only appears to be about nine different parallels, and
• 32:27
  that's all the way from cards number one ninety nine to the one of one.
• 32:30
  So we get the Fuchire foil, sparklefoils, blue green, aqua gold,
• 32:34
  orange red foils, and the foil fractors as are one of ones,
• 32:38
  and so there are some really fun ones to go after. Like I said,
• 32:43
  there's about a one hundred and ninety nine different autos on the Base Auto
• 32:47
  checklist, ninety two on the Chrome Auto checklist, and then there are a
• 32:52
  few insert autos as well out there for people to chase after, and just
• 32:59
  to just to keep it interesting, they throw out a few of the Legends
• 33:01
  in there. So this time around from a Legends auto, you have Tory
• 33:06
  Hunter, Prince Fielder, Sean Green, paulknerco Jose reis kind of rounding out
• 33:12
  the set so you can't actually chase a few Hall of Famers within this one.
• 33:17
  So really really a big fan of Tops Pro debut just for the fact
• 33:23
  that it's an accessible product. You you're not. If you're buying pro Abut,
• 33:29
  you're not looking to double triple your money. But if you are looking
• 33:34
  to sell off some of the cards you pick up, it's not too hard
• 33:37
  to get your money back in this one because of the starting point. So
• 33:43
  I'm a big fan. Mike. What do you think about pro Debut?
• 33:46
  Is this something you've ripped in the past, Is something you planing to rip
• 33:49
  this year? I haven't, So I do like these cards. They've usually
• 33:53
  got a good just the overall card stock is usually a little bit higher quality
• 33:59
  than in the base tops the flagship tops, and so that's kind of fun
• 34:06
  as well as like it's just really fun seeing the prospects and all the minor
• 34:10
  league uniforms and goofy minor league logos that these guys are wearing and being able
• 34:15
  to invest in their futures. So yeah, I like it, and I
• 34:19
  think it's a really like it's a fantastic set for children to rip too.
• 34:22
  That like it's a great entry point because of the price point. When you're
• 34:27
  getting that many autos for that price, that like you don't run into that
• 34:34
  outside of maybe like sometimes some of the leaf boxes and panini boxes that don't
• 34:40
  have the licensing and are really disappointing, and so it's really cool to be
• 34:46
  able to have a shot at essentially like you're paying fifteen bucks per an auto
• 34:51
  in your regular hobby, which is a really good ratio of dollars per auto
• 34:57
  compared to any other products they're coming out nowadays. And so yeah, and
• 35:01
  typically it's not an overly produced product. I have not looked to see if
• 35:06
  I can find out how many they've produced this year, but generally there's a
• 35:08
  decent amount of color you can also get in the product. So you're right,
• 35:13
  fifteen dollars in auto, plus you get some exciting, interesting color out
• 35:16
  of the deal. It is very very fun product to go through. I'm
• 35:22
  actually very disappointed because as we were getting ready with the pod tonight, I
• 35:24
  went to, God, I've been busy. I hadn't bought my box in
• 35:28
  the box was sold out that I was going to buy. So I'm now
• 35:32
  waiting on the secondary markets to try to pick up my tops pro debut,
• 35:37
  which is very common for me on this spot. I generally seem to miss
• 35:40
  the initial release because I'm doing something else. And then I realized it later
• 35:45
  in the day and it's sold out on Tops, so I unfortunately missed estound
• 35:50
  this one on the pro debut on debut day, but I'm sure I will.
• 35:57
  I will find a box for myself later later this week. Yeah,
• 36:00
  I agree. And for the other set that we have coming out today,
• 36:05
  it's twenty twenty three Tops Finest Flashbacks. That's ugh, man, I've got
• 36:09
  I got a lot of mouthfuls today between Waiver Wire and Finest Flashbacks that this
• 36:16
  set. If you were a fan of collecting in the nineties, this is
• 36:20
  I like Finest Flashbacks for this that they've only started releasing it since I think
• 36:25
  it was twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, let me check it was twenty twenty
• 36:30
  was when it started. And what they're doing is they're reusing designs from old
• 36:37
  nineteen nineties Top Finest sets, which were really some of the first chrome cards
• 36:42
  that hit the market. That Finus was produced before Chrome back in ninety three,
• 36:47
  and so I have really fond memories of that ninety three Finest set because
• 36:53
  that that it would they were viewed as some of the most hallowed cards out
• 36:58
  there back in the nineties because they were some of the first chrome sets that
• 37:02
  TOPS was producing and then all of the refractors had the little peel on them
• 37:07
  and most Finest had the little peel on the front. And so what I
• 37:12
  like about Tops Finest flashbacks is they bring that back. So they've had that
• 37:19
  every other year, and they brought it back again this year where there is
• 37:22
  a number at short print where they apply that little sticky peel off cover to
• 37:30
  the parallels, and so those have returned once again. But the twist here
• 37:36
  compared to some of the other Finest flashbacks that come out, which is a
• 37:39
  pretty basic set structure in the past, where you have your base cards and
• 37:44
  then all of your parallels that we love rattling off and then going into your
• 37:49
  inserts from there. What they're doing this year for the twenty twenty three set
• 37:52
  is parkening back to the nineteen ninety six Tops Finest, which was honestly ultimately
• 37:59
  like one of the worst Top fus because of this that, like there's a
• 38:00
  lot of one of the like first controversies I think kind of of Tops like
• 38:07
  getting bigger and not producing what they said during especially the junk wax era came
• 38:13
  from the ninety six set where they had different tiers of cards kind of like
• 38:17
  almost like a Pokemon set or like a Magic the Gathering set, where you
• 38:22
  have different rarities. So you have like your base card, then you have
• 38:27
  an uncommon card, and then you have a rare card, and so it'll
• 38:31
  be labeled on the back in the ninety six set that it says like if
• 38:36
  it's common, uncommon, rare, And especially in that ninety six set,
• 38:40
  if you go back and look at the Annals of History, like they really
• 38:45
  did not correctly state their print run that there's famously I'm trying to remember who
• 38:52
  the collector was and what he was collecting, but he collected more cards of
• 38:57
  one of the parallels than tops said wherever out there of one of his favorite
• 39:01
  players, and so from there it just kind of all fell apart. The
• 39:05
  House of Cards kind of like twenty twenty three Bowman Chroma is on us right
• 39:07
  now, and I like all those explis aspect aspects of Finest Flashbacks, and
• 39:15
  I think it's really cool this year there instead of doing like the common,
• 39:20
  uncommon, rare, whatever label on the back of the card, they're doing
• 39:22
  different colored borders. And so you've got your regular base card, then an
• 39:29
  uncommon silver boarder, and then a rare gold border, so it gives a
• 39:32
  little bit of a different flavor to each individual card. But I think that's
• 39:37
  where my praising of Finest Flashbacks is going to stop. I love the design,
• 39:42
  I love the way it looks, but I'll link to this bit of
• 39:46
  information from a Twitter follower on it's watched the breaks and he nails right on
• 39:57
  the head. Like, what I think has been our biggest problem with Tops
• 40:01
  since we started recording this podcast, and what's kind of gone awry with the
• 40:07
  hobby overall is that the escalation in the price of this Finest Flashbacks has gone
• 40:12
  through the roof that in twenty twenty this was a great set to collect because
• 40:15
  it was super cheap. It was just like your pro debut is sixty bucks
• 40:19
  for a box didn't guarantee any autos, and Finest Flashbacks has never guaranteed any
• 40:23
  autos. But that price then in twenty twenty one escalated to two hundred dollars
• 40:28
  a box twenty twenty two is still two hundred. This year, it debuted
• 40:31
  on tops dot com at two twenty five per box. No auto. The
• 40:37
  auto checklist is super duper short here, and they are really premium guys like
• 40:45
  Gunner Henderson, Jordan Walker, Akunya like Trout, Bo Jackson, like really
• 40:53
  high end guys, like there aren't any bad names on the Auto list,
• 40:57
  but good luck finding one. And so that I think is going to be
• 41:01
  it's a lot like Tops Cosmic Chrome that like, I think people have enjoyed
• 41:07
  this stuff that's been coming out and I do too, like it's really fun,
• 41:12
  but it's not. It's a total cash grab for Tops and fanatics overall.
• 41:16
  And this thing, this set, this final splashback set, I'm sure
• 41:21
  has been produced much more heavily than the past few and so I would love
• 41:28
  to get some and rip some, but it's just not at a good price
• 41:30
  point. Yeah, And I think the odds and just the overall number of
• 41:37
  cards in a box, if I if I'm looking at right, we're about
• 41:39
  one hundred cards in a box for something you're paying two hundred and forty with
• 41:43
  no guaranteed auto. And what they tell you to expect in a box is
• 41:47
  two of the short prints are rare golds, five silvers and one refractor.
• 41:53
  One refractor, I know, one refract that's easy. And so like the
• 41:59
  the things that you're chasing here, like it's just gonna be hard to find
• 42:04
  them. It's the cards themselves. It's like they're trying to create them as
• 42:07
  a premium card that you go after, like if you were going like Gilded
• 42:13
  to which is also another cards set that just came out, like where the
• 42:17
  base cards is kind of like Sapphire or something like that, where the base
• 42:20
  cards themselves are generally very collectible just based on the design and but but that's
• 42:27
  not the finest flashbacks. They don't have that factor for whatever reason. Yeah,
• 42:32
  so that is interesting. The biggest question I would have for you when
• 42:37
  you got your nineteen ninety six back in the day, did you peel the
• 42:42
  protective covers off your cards? So I just kind of had like a real
• 42:47
  thumb that like if it was starting to peel, I would go all the
• 42:51
  way and peel it off. But I still do have some finest cards from
• 42:54
  back in the day that are unpeeled from Yeah, even little eight year old
• 42:59
  me, he didn't do it that. He resisted the urge because it is
• 43:02
  it is very satisfying. It's exactly like the satisfying process of peeling the plastic
• 43:09
  films off of refrigerators or TVs or any other electronics. That you're buying and
• 43:15
  it's just in card form. But that was usually my rual thumb is if
• 43:20
  it started like peeling back on its own, then I would take it off,
• 43:23
  but otherwise you got to keep it on. Yep, I'm right there
• 43:27
  with you. I think the vast majority of anything that I have and that
• 43:30
  realm still has a protective coating on those things. And it just hurts me
• 43:36
  to know. And when I see the cards without that on there, even
• 43:38
  to your point that it probably needed to come off, it just feels feels
• 43:42
  wrong. It's kind of like I really wish and I've never looked into this,
• 43:45
  but I really wish i'd looked into the grading of like ninety six finus,
• 43:51
  Like can you get a PSA ten if you peel off the protective or
• 43:54
  if you leave it on? What's the good question? Like how does that
• 43:58
  work? Because you know, in theory, the cards in its original form
• 44:01
  is damaged to a degree if you take the protective covering enough, but it
• 44:06
  probably actually you know, jumps a little bit more from an aesthetics perspective,
• 44:12
  So fodder for us to look into for a future pod here, or maybe
• 44:19
  just an experiment to run with some of our old ninety six finest flashbacks.
• 44:24
  Probably not the wisest investment by any means, but fun nonetheless, Yeah,
• 44:30
  and you did mention there was another set that came out today, Top Skilded,
• 44:35
  which we didn't get into because I don't think anybody listening to this pod
• 44:40
  or you or I are messing around at the price point of top Skilded.
• 44:45
  In essence, it is like a sapphire product where you get a very limited
• 44:49
  number of cards per box and you're just hoping to hit a really big auto
• 44:53
  because otherwise it's it's a zero dollar sort of a investment. Well, I
• 45:00
  guess I wouldn't say that, because they are really beautiful, like golden cards.
• 45:05
  In terms of the refractors, it's essentially like a tops chrome, but
• 45:08
  they've really upped the quality. Typically, they have up the quality and really
• 45:15
  limited the number of parallels so that they're all gold and they have all sorts
• 45:21
  of different sparkles in designs and just beautiful looking cards. But it's really I
• 45:29
  don't know if I would ever be ripping that kind of product because I just
• 45:32
  don't like lighting money on fire. Yeah. The closest I think I've gotten
• 45:37
  to something like that is ripping an inception and that's a fun product. But
• 45:40
  I don't know if you've looked at the price points for gilded and the number
• 45:45
  of cards for pack. But we were talking about a product that has one
• 45:49
  pack per box, five cards per pack for five hundred dollars. I'm no
• 45:53
  genius here, but I can do that math. We're talking about hundred dollars
• 45:55
  a card. And what you're expecting that hobby box is one framed autograph for
• 46:01
  cut signature, one additional autograph and three bass cards. That's so you better
• 46:07
  hit the Corbyn Carrol, uh Rookie Auto or uh something you know framed Derek
• 46:15
  Jeter, you know, one of five Ruby Auto or something like. Uh.
• 46:20
  There is some very high end expensive stuffs there. But if you if
• 46:23
  you miss, and you know, the checklist I hate to say for an
• 46:28
  auto perspective is deep enough that you're you're going out there, it's like,
• 46:32
  oh, yeah, you know I I I definitely hit it with my Osweald
• 46:36
  Prazza Auto or uh who else we have. I mean, overall the names
• 46:44
  are pretty good, but like it's it's not uh, I got my Wade
• 46:47
  Bogs, my Will Clark's. I mean, there's some fun names in there,
• 46:52
  but I'm not sure I want to loop Penela Autio. Just just not
• 46:58
  something that I would be thrilled to pull out of a box that spent five
• 47:00
  one hundred dollars dollars on. But the good news is you can get your
• 47:06
  Tony Oliva autos later in the in the in the packs. So anyway,
• 47:13
  I feel about that one last card thing that I want to call out.
• 47:16
  For those that don't know, TOPS twenty twenty three Holiday Edition has already come
• 47:22
  out for pre order. Actually it was generally a Walmart product and every box
• 47:31
  is guaranteed a relic. Just a fun kind of the point on proto view
• 47:38
  and opening day, like a very accessible product young collectors. Lots of fun
• 47:43
  silly parallels, the bats of candy canes, everybody's wearing Santa's belts, things
• 47:47
  like that, or your short prints. So that's another fun one out there.
• 47:51
  Not going to spend time today covering it. We can do that in
• 47:53
  a future pod. But for those of you looking for TOPS Holiday it did
• 47:59
  come out I feel like early this year that it has in the past.
• 48:01
  It's not actually officially out until later in the month or even actually next month.
• 48:09
  I believe, but definitely a fun product to check out, a pretty
• 48:15
  reasonable price point, which you can pre order right now. Yeah, definitely,
• 48:17
  And I will leave the link to the Walmart link in the show notes
• 48:22
  as well, so in case you want to check it out. Like you
• 48:24
  said, it's a very affordable and fun rip it. It's just like it
• 48:30
  is Goofy. I like it too. I haven't had a chance to ever
• 48:32
  get my hands on any but I did on this preorder and I'm pretty excited
• 48:36
  for it. Yeah. I think I've ripped a few bots of this every
• 48:40
  year, and it is I mean, it is kind of gimmicky, I'll
• 48:45
  give you that, but it is fun to look through it. Really.
• 48:49
  You're talking a megabox for thirty dollars and pretty much anything you opened up you
• 48:54
  can't beat that. And we're talking ten packs, ten cards for pack,
• 49:00
  one relic or autograph in every box, and so definitely fun. Definitely,
• 49:06
  Like I said, the fact that you have short prints of Santa's belt or
• 49:09
  you know, Santa's hat, things like that. If you have kids are
• 49:14
  interesting cards. Just get into this. This is a really fun one for
• 49:17
  for them. Granted it's not gonna ship for probably another week. Or two
• 49:22
  here and what other sets we got coming out. We covered all the ten
• 49:28
  eighteen releases, but give us a little bit of a horizon for the next
• 49:30
  few weeks. Yeah, next next few weeks. Next week we have Tops
• 49:35
  Tier one. Shortly after that we have Chronicles Panina Chronicles, which is a
• 49:39
  really interesting fun that as well. It's like, I don't know how to
• 49:43
  describe. It's like three or four sets within one from Panini. You have
• 49:47
  Bowman Sterling don't have to be confused with Bowman Chrome hoping much came out recently,
• 49:54
  or Bowman Platinum which also came out, And then you got Tops Archives
• 50:00
  out, which is kind of the sister products to Heritage that we get every
• 50:02
  spring. So definitely some fun ones coming out here. After we got past
• 50:07
  Update. It seems like they're kind of starting to turn out the end of
• 50:12
  the year products, which they're more volume play, But there are a lot
• 50:16
  of these are a lot more accessible than what you see is with you know,
• 50:20
  Chrome or Sapphire. Some of the things like Gilda that are coming out
• 50:24
  fin Us that are a little harder to get a hold of. So there'll
• 50:28
  be definitely some things out there on the market. Folk Place for folks definitely
• 50:31
  coming to the holidays, which is what TOPS is getting ready for. Yeah,
• 50:36
  exactly. So we will put a pin in the cards discussion for now
• 50:43
  and we will be back with Arizona Fall League producers for our fantasy section right
• 50:50
  after the break stick around. Okay, welcome back everybody to the category section
• 51:10
  of cards and categories. Here we're going to go over some of the top
• 51:15
  producers right now in the Arizona Fall League, which is where most of the
• 51:20
  top prospects go as almost like a finishing school before going onto Triple A,
• 51:25
  Double A and the majors next year. So this has been a really big
• 51:30
  spot for people to find new prospect pickups and dynasty players because I think what
• 51:38
  is more telling in the Arizona Fall League compared to the overall minor league secene
• 51:45
  is you're just getting the cream of the crop playing against each other. That
• 51:47
  each team is sending their best prospects, their guys that they really want to
• 51:52
  fast track to the majors and putting them all in Arizona to play this tournament
• 51:57
  for a few weeks. So I think there's still a couple left, but
• 52:00
  I figured this would be a good time as we kind of are in the
• 52:04
  bid of the playoffs and looking at maybe I mean, I imagine there's some
• 52:08
  dynasties that are kind of starting to get the ball rolling. And if you
• 52:12
  want to be able to jump on some of these changes that have been happening,
• 52:15
  you've got to be paying attention to what's been happening in the Arizona Fall
• 52:19
  League. And so we'll go through a few hitters and a few pitchers and
• 52:24
  go through kind of what we like from their performance, what they we like
• 52:29
  from their past, and kind of where we've seen them going. So pre
• 52:31
  standard fantasy discussion overall. We'll open up with Kyle Manzardo, who has been
• 52:37
  really the hottest name down in Arizona this past couple of weeks. Is he's
• 52:42
  launched five bombs already down the Arizona Fall League, put up an eleven twenty
• 52:45
  six ops slashing two eighty six, three eighty eight, seven thirty eight.
• 52:52
  So this is a guy who the Rays traded to the Guardians for Aaron Sevali.
• 52:57
  He's a pretty well known entity. But I'm wondering brew with this performance,
• 53:01
  and he performed well with the Guardians down the stretch that when we said
• 53:07
  he was traded at the deadline. We were both kind of out, but
• 53:09
  he put up a one to twenty three WRC plus for the Triple A Guardians
• 53:14
  and dropped his his strikeout rate by about five percent, which I like to
• 53:20
  see while also boosting the slug. He ended up having an ISO of three
• 53:23
  thirty three in the Guardian system. So do you think that there's changes going
• 53:29
  on here? Brew and are you interested in Kyle Menzardo? Yeah, I
• 53:34
  think I'm intrigued by Kyle Menzardo, you know. The I love what I'm
• 53:40
  seeing with the patients of the plate. It does look like the powers developing
• 53:45
  a little bit. I think that the Guardians may have actually seen something,
• 53:46
  made a few tweaks to him here, because he definitely seems to have unlocked
• 53:51
  something since since that trade. So I think that's that's great for him.
• 53:55
  You know, he doesn't you know, he's not necessarily gonna be uh,
• 54:00
  you know in the best hitters haven there in Cleveland. He also playing first
• 54:07
  base, and Dhing isn't going to have probably the you know, he has
• 54:13
  a higher bar that he has to clear, and so I think that is
• 54:16
  going to hold him back. Honestly, the biggest red flag for me,
• 54:20
  and this is completely intangible, is that Tampa Bay traded him for Aaron Savali.
• 54:24
  And generally when Tampa Bay trades a prospect like that doesn't seem to pint
• 54:30
  out. It's not always the case. Look at like Nate low down in
• 54:34
  Texas, Who's who's really been something? So, but Benzarto is pretty intriguing.
• 54:39
  Like I said, the things that hold me back is what in the
• 54:43
  world were the Rays doing thinking getting rid of this guy? And he plays
• 54:46
  first base where the bar is going to be a bit higher from a power
• 54:51
  perspective, where his profile is a lot more exciting. It's like a second
• 54:54
  basement, third basement something like that. So still like I like Monzarto,
• 55:00
  probably not somebody I'm gonna overly invest him just because we're the height of the
• 55:05
  bar from a power perspective of first space will be Yeah, And I have
• 55:10
  to agree that I think I'm kind of in the same boat with you on
• 55:14
  Manzarto. What I do like is if you look at the Guardian's depth chart
• 55:17
  right now in Roster resource, he has penciled into being the starting first baseman
• 55:22
  right now in Cleveland, And so I would keep a good eye on that
• 55:25
  and see how the spring unfolds. But unfortunately, I think that the dynasty
• 55:31
  prices are probably higher than they need to be or should be right now,
• 55:37
  and so that's probably not a good price to buy him. But like I
• 55:43
  think somewhere in maybe like an ale only or end of like a fifteen teamer
• 55:47
  or something like that, I would be looking at Menzarto for a ci UTL
• 55:53
  first base move and trying to go from there. So there we go.
• 55:59
  We are looking at Calvinzardo and kind of putting a pause. But I think
• 56:05
  what's actually interesting is we're actually kind of reinterested in him. And I think
• 56:13
  you you hinted at this as like I think the Guardians did find something by
• 56:16
  lowering that strikeout rate that the Guardians are a better contact oriented team. But
• 56:22
  the mind also cut into the slug a little bit down the line. So
• 56:28
  we'll see kind of how the rest of the the Arizona folly the AFL shakes
• 56:32
  out for him, and how the spring goes for him too. Yep,
• 56:37
  I'm out there with you. It'll it'll be fun to watch, but the
• 56:39
  price is probably for most people, the price is probably gonna be a little
• 56:45
  bit more than it's worth that at this point. So all right, so
• 56:51
  let's let's jump onto to the next guy here. I want to I want
• 56:54
  to call out Minie Montgomery. Uh, you know, outfielder for for Colorado.
• 56:59
  Uh. Ben, he's hitting four oh five five forty eight in in
• 57:04
  the Fall League there, he's got one homer. Uh and he he really
• 57:08
  seems to have taken off. And before we go into the fantastic fantasy aspect
• 57:12
  of this, we have to call out Benny Montgomery is one of the more
• 57:15
  fun card names. You know, me, I can't resist. So for
• 57:21
  those that don't know, you know, Benny Montgomery kind of made a name
• 57:25
  for himself with twenty twenty one Bowman Chrome Draft where it was his first Bowman
• 57:30
  cards and he decided to basically go rogue on signing all of his auto is
• 57:37
  on card autos and the you know, the more common thing that he does.
• 57:44
  He used two different signatures of his He had kind of a his busy
• 57:49
  his his fast signature, then he had what he called his fancy signature,
• 57:52
  both him harder. But he's like ninety nine percent of them were with his
• 57:55
  well call his fast signatures, and like one percent were his fancy signatures.
• 58:04
  But then he also went on to a few of them and wrote like did
• 58:08
  his name and wrote like twenty twenty one first round draft pick. But then
• 58:13
  the one that really got attention was he on one he didn't sign his name.
• 58:16
  He wrote borat. That's all he wrote. He wrote borat with an
• 58:21
  exclamation point and just sends it in. It was like a out of one
• 58:23
  fifty card and it was he posted on Twitter just basically as like a you
• 58:30
  know, hunt for the rail card of Benny Montgomery, and so I just
• 58:37
  hilarious. He got this kind of a big name in card collecting before he
• 58:42
  became more of the fantasy prospect. So will I will leave that at the
• 58:45
  door, But I thought we had to at least hit that. So back
• 58:50
  to the fantasy perspective. Montgomery is a Colorado hitter, so we have to
• 58:54
  start there. He's a hitter that's gonna be playing in Colorado. He was
• 59:00
  a high draft pick eighth overall the twenty twenty one draft, so you know,
• 59:08
  a high pedigree there, and he's generally been pretty good in the minors.
• 59:14
  At twenty three, you know, to over one hundred games in ten
• 59:15
  homers, eighteen steels, hit twoint fifty, walked about ten percent of the
• 59:21
  time. That said, Benny is a guy that I'm probably going to be
• 59:25
  out on most of the time. And that really comes to the fact that
• 59:30
  he hits too many ground balls. In twenty three and one hundred nine games
• 59:36
  at High A, he had a sixty three percent high ground ball rate.
• 59:40
  And I don't know if you know how baseball works, but in course field,
• 59:46
  to hit home runs take advantage of that thin air, you have to
• 59:50
  hit the ball in the air, and I don't think Benny's realized that.
• 59:54
  So he feels like Brendan Rodgers three levels up, because Brennan Rodgers kind of
• 1:00:00
  had some of that issue coming up as well, where he was struggling to
• 1:00:05
  get the ball in the air nothing. Then he did make some adjustments,
• 1:00:07
  so I look at that. He also has a pretty high strikeout rate for
• 1:00:10
  being in High A. It's not like he's his age is too far off.
• 1:00:16
  He's twenty one years old, so he's relatively age appropriate, especially for
• 1:00:21
  a top prospect at that level. And he's striking out about twenty seven percent
• 1:00:23
  of the time, and he coming out of high school, he had a
• 1:00:30
  very we call it hercuy jerky swing, very complicated swing. He did make
• 1:00:35
  some adjustments last year to that and it did seem to as the calm that
• 1:00:38
  down to a degree, but it still has a pretty big hitch in that
• 1:00:43
  swing that it feels like it can be exploited by Petter pitching. So,
• 1:00:49
  like I said, he's hitting really well. He does have a great pot
• 1:00:51
  prospect pedigree. I think Betty Montgomery might be one of those better real world
• 1:00:55
  players than his fantasy players at the end of the day, because not only
• 1:01:00
  does he have to make some adjustments of his plate approach, he has to
• 1:01:02
  hit the ball air more. He has a number of things that he has
• 1:01:06
  to work through before I'm really going to spend a lot of time investing in
• 1:01:10
  him. So I don't know. Am I too far down on Benny Montgomery
• 1:01:14
  here? Where do you sit? No? I don't think so. I
• 1:01:17
  think I was in a similar range on Benny Montgomery before this AFL performance.
• 1:01:24
  So that's the thing I think with this is that this is a really nice
• 1:01:30
  step up for Benny Montgomery. That he's playing against really good competition and is
• 1:01:37
  showing that he has the skill set to hang with them, and that slash
• 1:01:40
  line. I guess I should have explained that to pick these guys out,
• 1:01:45
  I just kind of like eyed the leader boards from the area is very scientific,
• 1:01:49
  Yeah, very scientific, right, And that slash line popped out immediately
• 1:01:52
  four or five four ninety five forty eight. That is a huge line,
• 1:01:58
  and it's not in line with anything that he's done in sing single A or
• 1:02:04
  high A so far with the Rockies. And so that's what's kind of making
• 1:02:07
  this performance intriguing for me that before Benny Montgomery wasn't even really on any of
• 1:02:14
  my watch lists, but he's on my watch list now as I'm gonna kind
• 1:02:16
  of keep an eye on him going forward and seeing if this is something that
• 1:02:22
  progresses and he can continue to produce, because he even just put up a
• 1:02:28
  ninety five WRC plus in i A last year. That's that's gross if you're
• 1:02:34
  a really top ten pick, former top ten pick. And so he's also
• 1:02:38
  behind guys like Jordan Beck and jan Kiel Fernandez in the system, and so
• 1:02:45
  that along with just the whole Rockies of it all, that like never put
• 1:02:50
  too much faith in like what the Rockies can produce and get out of players,
• 1:02:53
  But maybe this time away from the Rockies instruction is helping Benny Montgomery out
• 1:03:00
  getting ideas from other players, and that's possible, like what's spurring this turnaround
• 1:03:06
  for him? So I will say that I'm not investing in him anywhere,
• 1:03:09
  but I am putting my eye on him and watch listing him in dynasties and
• 1:03:16
  deeper keeper leagues for really the first time. Yeah, I think you're right.
• 1:03:21
  That's probably where he belongs right now, is in that watch category.
• 1:03:24
  Not a guy that I'm I'm buying, but the guy that there's a few
• 1:03:30
  key adjustments if he makes, then he's really interesting. He still plays for
• 1:03:32
  the Rockies, which still scares me to death and from any fantasy prospect investment
• 1:03:38
  that we make. So all right, who's next on the list? All
• 1:03:43
  right? The next guy I have is James Treanto's from the Chicago Cubs,
• 1:03:47
  who I think here we're starting to get into a little bit of a deeper
• 1:03:52
  cut. He was a second round pick in twenty twenty one, but really
• 1:03:55
  hasn't been too high on too many prospects boards and dynasty radars. He's been
• 1:04:01
  tearing up the AFL to even I mean, he has the best slash line
• 1:04:08
  I think I found out everybody there. It's four seventy four, five seventy
• 1:04:12
  four, seven thirty six with two homers, and that's coming off of a
• 1:04:16
  season in which he produced a one to fifteen WRC plus in hia in A
• 1:04:24
  one nineteen. That's only thirteen at bats, I'm gonna throw out double A.
• 1:04:27
  But he did make it up to double A as a twenty year old
• 1:04:29
  this year. And I wasn't really aware of James Chrontos until Baseball Perspectus in
• 1:04:36
  their Minor League Update columns that were coming out this year were really raving about
• 1:04:42
  his bat, and it really pops when you see just his stat line that
• 1:04:47
  he doesn't strike out and he walks at about the same level. He's got
• 1:04:51
  a really great eye, and he's got just a really well developed hit tool
• 1:04:57
  with lots of people are projecting power coming down the road, and he's produced
• 1:05:02
  some pretty good eggs of philosophies throughout his time. But on top of it
• 1:05:06
  all, he's stealing bases and so James Trianto's has a pretty clear path to
• 1:05:13
  playing time in the Cup with the Cubs at third base that all he has
• 1:05:16
  to do is beat out Patrick Wisdom and Nick Madrigal, and this is exactly
• 1:05:20
  kind of like the come out of nowhere guy that can really rise quickly in
• 1:05:27
  spring. And this is exactly the type of guy in like the type of
• 1:05:30
  performance where you want to see him go down to the AFL and just smash,
• 1:05:34
  because if he keeps that rolling and kind of believes in himself all winter,
• 1:05:40
  he could roll right into the cub spring training come twenty twenty four down
• 1:05:45
  in Arizona and rolls way right into the third base job, or possibly just
• 1:05:50
  sitting at Triple A and waiting with his utility like role is I'm sure he
• 1:05:56
  can cover first, second, third, and probably some outfield that he just
• 1:06:00
  seems like a really solid ballplayer, and I'm kind of I'm struggling to think
• 1:06:04
  of like a good comp because from all the prospect reports that I've read,
• 1:06:10
  and you can even see it on his Fangrass page, he's got a fifty
• 1:06:13
  game power for his future, but it's only thirty right now, so everybody's
• 1:06:16
  waiting for him to grow into his body. And they just know that he
• 1:06:19
  has great back to ball skills, which shows up in his low k rate
• 1:06:24
  high walk rate. Yeah, I think you have then have the few things
• 1:06:29
  that I would look at for Tronto said, you know, it's it's that
• 1:06:32
  he does have the great back control, and he's still very very young for
• 1:06:40
  the spot. I don't he seems to not be maybe the most reliable defender,
• 1:06:45
  and so it's kind of an unknown of where he's gonna end up.
• 1:06:48
  Is he going to find a home or is he going to be more of
• 1:06:51
  a bat first type of guy, which he has to grow into. So
• 1:06:55
  he is, to me is one of those watchless guys. I personally don't
• 1:06:59
  expect him to really be in the twenty twenty four discussion for the Cubs.
• 1:07:03
  I think the Cubs sniffed the playoffs from a distance this year and then fell
• 1:07:09
  apart. But I think that they're I don't think that they're ready to bring
• 1:07:13
  somebody like Tronto's up and really invested him as early as a team that might
• 1:07:19
  be a year or two away from their window. I think the Cubs think
• 1:07:25
  their window is now. I don't know if I believe that, but I
• 1:07:27
  think they think that it is, which is very admirable of them. So
• 1:07:31
  I think there's still some time to see what Toronto's does, and I don't
• 1:07:36
  think I think he's far enough away that he even though he's making noise in
• 1:07:42
  the Fall League. I think it's it's not he didn't come in with a
• 1:07:45
  with a big name, and so it's like you come in with a big
• 1:07:48
  name and you make a lot of noise that shoots you up the ranks.
• 1:07:51
  He just putting himself in the discussion right now, and for you know,
• 1:07:58
  a casual fan, they might not even know who who he is. So
• 1:08:01
  I think that there's still some time to see with Treanto's Yeah, gotcha,
• 1:08:06
  that's fair. All right, Let's move on to another hitter who again this
• 1:08:15
  stat line just really popped, and it's mostly because the slash line is is
• 1:08:21
  a little more middling. It's chased a lotter. His slash line right now
• 1:08:25
  in the AFLs two eighty two, three seventy seven, four sixty two with
• 1:08:29
  two homers, but comes with fourteen RBI and of really solid five strikeouts to
• 1:08:35
  seven walks, and so that's really driving the performance. I'd like to see
• 1:08:42
  that, I especially compared to some of these other guys, like you can
• 1:08:46
  see it in the AFL A little bit that people are swinging because I think
• 1:08:49
  they got something to prove. It's a little bit of like a intense,
• 1:08:54
  all star gamish atmosphere, so having the wherewithal to just kind of sit back,
• 1:09:00
  can take pitches that The latter was a first round pick in twenty twenty
• 1:09:05
  two, and I think was maybe a little bit less heralded than some of
• 1:09:11
  the other guys that were picked around him, just because he came from just
• 1:09:16
  a weird I'm just trying to read through his amateur career. It's he is
• 1:09:21
  started off in James Madison University and that's where he ended up playing. So
• 1:09:27
  it's a smaller school overall, and that's just not typical of kind of what
• 1:09:33
  you see, and so really lots of people are getting the first look at
• 1:09:38
  the latter here in the AFL. Again, this is another guy that prospect
• 1:09:42
  guys that I've been following, like Chris Welsh and Eric Longenhangen, have been
• 1:09:46
  all over. He's got a huge frame, he's six four, two thirty
• 1:09:48
  five on fangrafts, and he's coming off a really solid season in which he
• 1:09:56
  was way above average at every stop that he came through. And you can
• 1:10:00
  see even in the minor leagues this year really great walk rates, really gate
• 1:10:05
  strike out rates, but the powers of the lacking, and so I guess
• 1:10:11
  we'll have to see kind of where the future goes for the latter In terms
• 1:10:15
  of what his overall ability to hit is. I want to see him get
• 1:10:18
  more time at double and triple A. But this sort of performance in the
• 1:10:24
  ANFL with that walk to strike out ratio that just really stands out in those
• 1:10:29
  RBI that it tells me he's a really good clutch hitter, which is kind
• 1:10:33
  of like, I know that rbi are not exactly like the best New Age
• 1:10:41
  statistic, but what it does tell me is that he's got an eye for
• 1:10:45
  when people are in scoring position to change his approach and drive them in.
• 1:10:48
  And that becomes really crucial, I think, especially when you have the frame
• 1:10:53
  that he has and if he can grow into some of his power. Currently
• 1:10:58
  on Fangrass he's got a fifty five future power and so you can just kind
• 1:11:01
  of dream on what he could be. He's got a ways to go.
• 1:11:05
  But Brew, what do you think about the latter overall? Yeah, I
• 1:11:10
  think he is still in a relatively unknown quantity. He does not have a
• 1:11:15
  whole lot of games under his belt. It does seem that he does have
• 1:11:19
  a very promising plate approach. But what I really like about him is,
• 1:11:28
  and it's it's just the eye test. He has a very short, compact,
• 1:11:30
  simple swing, and I really like that he actually almost is actually odd
• 1:11:34
  to agree he almost doesn't have a follow through. Uh, it's it's kind
• 1:11:38
  of as a weird Mike Trout esque where Mike, you know, Trout doesn't
• 1:11:41
  always fully follow through on his swings. So I'm not comparing the Ladder to
• 1:11:46
  Trout here. Let's be very clear that. I just think there's some similar
• 1:11:49
  waries in the swing. So I think the skill set is moving up up
• 1:11:56
  to maybe a top twenty five, top thirty prospect from a hitter perspective,
• 1:12:01
  just because he's showing, you know, with very limited plate appearances, and
• 1:12:09
  to your point, he wasn't the most heralded. He just looks extremely comfortable
• 1:12:14
  in what he's doing. So I still think, you know, it's it's
• 1:12:18
  early. I still think you can probably get shares of the louder, but
• 1:12:23
  he might be he might be hitting him his way out of that where he's
• 1:12:27
  gonna really be shooting up prospect list next year. But I do like him.
• 1:12:31
  I think he's got a path the playing time in the next year.
• 1:12:34
  Year and a half in Cleveland, so you know, it's just a matter
• 1:12:40
  of time for guys six four two thirty five walks into his power as well.
• 1:12:45
  So yeah, yeah, the louder is intriguing. Yeah, and I
• 1:12:48
  think you made a really good point that I think he will rise a lot
• 1:12:51
  next year. That as I think he's still too far away to really make
• 1:12:56
  much of an impact for next year, but as he gets more at bats
• 1:13:00
  at double A, and once you're sitting there at double A and showing that
• 1:13:04
  you can handle it, I mean just look at like what Evan Carter did
• 1:13:08
  this year, it doesn't take much that like, once you have guys who
• 1:13:13
  like the frame, like the swing, the team will take a chance on
• 1:13:16
  you, even if like all the pieces aren't quite put together. And so
• 1:13:20
  I could see the laughter being the Evan Carter that is on my waiver wire
• 1:13:27
  report kind of like for a long time next year. Yeah, okay,
• 1:13:30
  and I think he also has a chance to do what Evan Carter did.
• 1:13:33
  Yeah, he's got that profile that seems like it's very it's it's you know,
• 1:13:38
  high floor type of profile that is really really exciting to see. I
• 1:13:44
  totally agree. Okay, let's move on to some pitching, So we'll open
• 1:13:49
  up with your favorite. So he's been tearing up the AFL. I think
• 1:13:54
  this is exactly what everybody wanted to see from him, because honestly, if
• 1:13:58
  the Blue Jays were still in the play, he might be doing it there.
• 1:14:00
  Then that's Ricky Teeman. I'll let you expound on his AFL performance and
• 1:14:06
  kind of where you see it taking him. Yeah, Tiedeman, you know,
• 1:14:12
  so far has got three starts in. He's got a two seventy seven
• 1:14:14
  year ra and eighteen to five k to walk ratio and just thirteen innings.
• 1:14:20
  So you know, he's he's doing what we want him to do. He's
• 1:14:24
  he's looked good. He's his arm looks live. He's got that you know,
• 1:14:29
  high nineties velocity. The things we love we've always loved about Tiedeman is
• 1:14:34
  great ground ball rates, great k rates, decent control. It's been a
• 1:14:42
  little all over the place this year, i'd say, as he came back
• 1:14:44
  from injury, but still a lot of a lot of things to like about
• 1:14:48
  Tiedeman. And I do think that he really forces the blue Jays hands next
• 1:14:55
  year, and I'd be surprised if he doesn't break Camp with them going into
• 1:15:01
  the seasons. I think he if it wouldn't have been for injuries, I
• 1:15:03
  think he could have done it this year and it would have been really a
• 1:15:06
  growth year frohim. So it's actually been kind of good to see him faceman
• 1:15:11
  versie with injury and after works who's coming back from that from with Like I
• 1:15:15
  said, the higher walk rate the one thing that I'm going to call out
• 1:15:18
  and I'm not going to take any credit for this, because smarter people than
• 1:15:23
  me, uh, you know, found this and you you mentioned actually Chris
• 1:15:27
  welsher With at Fantasy pros Uh, he kind of was one that called called
• 1:15:30
  this out. Where Teaman seems that he is tipping pitches in the Fall League
• 1:15:35
  and it's it's it's probably something that you know, facing him one time through
• 1:15:41
  the lineup, you're not gonna catch, you're not gonna notice, but he
• 1:15:45
  is changing his release point from his fastball to his changer or a slider,
• 1:15:50
  so it's off speed stuff. And then Lance Bernowski, who's another prospect evaluator
• 1:15:58
  used to be a drive line guy, actually did some some deep research on
• 1:16:02
  the Triple A data and it indicated that he has a seven inch released difference
• 1:16:09
  between his fastball and changeup right now and the there's no starter in the LB
• 1:16:15
  with the gap that large. Bryce Miller actually of the Mariners has a six
• 1:16:19
  inch difference, and so I actually was surprised by that. It's actually something
• 1:16:25
  else interesting that you know, you actually got to fix. And so what
• 1:16:29
  actually strikes me about that is if if it's found now and guys might still
• 1:16:34
  be exploiting that might be part of his walk issues. If he can get
• 1:16:39
  that thing that straightened out, there's like there's even more growth opportunity. He's
• 1:16:42
  doing what he's doing and he's got to tell So I'm being lass half full
• 1:16:47
  on the fact that that's something that you can fix. It's not a it's
• 1:16:51
  a mechanical thing. It's it's not about his shape of his pitches, it's
• 1:16:56
  not about his veloscy it it's really about the the arming that that he can
• 1:17:00
  work through. So I'm still really high on Teetaman. I love his potential,
• 1:17:05
  but there is a there's a there's one little warning sign that people are
• 1:17:10
  just starting to catch on to that. I think he'll close that gap over
• 1:17:14
  over the over the winter. Yeah, and it'll obviously be different like if
• 1:17:17
  he's trying to roll that out against major league hatterers as opposed to these youngsters
• 1:17:23
  in the AFL. And I mean, I do also think about sometimes that
• 1:17:28
  I've heard that Randy Johnson tipped his pitches all the time, but no,
• 1:17:32
  it didn't matter because he was Randy Johnson. And I mean, if there's
• 1:17:35
  anybody actually like that could almost fall into that, it is maybe Teetaman.
• 1:17:42
  He's so big and he's just got such nasty stuff that obviously he's not six
• 1:17:46
  ' ten, but yeah, he's six four two twenty though he is he's
• 1:17:50
  a big guy on the mound, uh, and he is he's bringing it.
• 1:17:56
  So you're you're right, that's a very interesting comparison that I that I
• 1:17:59
  didn't think of there that you know, it's it's kind of like there's even
• 1:18:02
  more uh that he has in the tank. If you can work a few
• 1:18:05
  more things out, even if people know what's coming, it doesn't matter if
• 1:18:09
  it's nasty. And so I think that's a kind of a Spencer Strider the
• 1:18:14
  design there, right, and maybe not the greatest comp right now with the
• 1:18:17
  way he kind of got lit up in the playoffs, but you know,
• 1:18:20
  if you know that the fastball's coming, but the fastball is still impossible to
• 1:18:25
  hit. It doesn't really matter if the fastball's coming. Yeah, and I
• 1:18:28
  totally agree. I think Teamant's opening the season in Toronto. I think.
• 1:18:31
  I mean, currently roster resource has Alec Manoa in the five spot and I
• 1:18:36
  don't see that happen and I don't see Alec Minoa. I'm worried that Alec
• 1:18:43
  might not make it back. Yeah, in the next few seasons. So
• 1:18:46
  and so Tiedaman is going to be hot, hot hot in the spring that
• 1:18:53
  like, this is going to be almost like where Andrew Painter was like just
• 1:18:58
  like being acted really high and bid up. But then obviously it's to come
• 1:19:02
  to Tommy John. But like this, the prices will be or actually maybe
• 1:19:08
  what Grayson Rodriguez like wherever Grayson Rodriguez was being drafted this past year, Teeteman
• 1:19:14
  will probably be in that range and maybe even above because the pedigree is even
• 1:19:18
  better. And if you're putting him on Blue Jay's team, especially if you're
• 1:19:21
  in just a five y five rod, chasing those wins is gonna be huge.
• 1:19:27
  Yeah, So I agree, I think he's he's gonna be a gamble.
• 1:19:31
  Uh, we're worth taking. Yeah, all right, so we'll move
• 1:19:35
  on to the next picture. Who has been probably the second best picture by
• 1:19:42
  kind of all the reports after Teeteman, And that's a guy who's been super
• 1:19:45
  hot down the stretch, and that's Jackson Job from the Detroit Tigers, who
• 1:19:53
  I like, I wasn't totally in on it because of when he was coming
• 1:19:58
  back this year. It was he was pretty old compared to level honestly for
• 1:20:02
  what I usually look for. That like, even though he is only twenty
• 1:20:06
  one, that when you're doing that in Hia. And he also threw in
• 1:20:14
  single a this year. As he's working his way back from an injury,
• 1:20:17
  especially with somebody with the number three pick pedigree behind him from the twenty one
• 1:20:23
  draft, I kind of expect them to move along a little bit more.
• 1:20:27
  But that's just me maybe trying to push guys too hard. But he was
• 1:20:30
  absolutely electric in twenty twenty three for the Tigers when he got on the mound
• 1:20:36
  and got going. That his biggest stop was at Hia in which he pitched
• 1:20:42
  forty innings to a three sixty ERA, but it came with a twelve point
• 1:20:45
  one K nine. And this is a guy who, I mean, the
• 1:20:50
  fastball looks fantastic, and all the reports from Baseball Perspectives and Eric Longenhangen and
• 1:20:58
  everyone else out there love, love loves his slider, that his slider is
• 1:21:02
  his dirtiest pitch, and then he also pairs it with a curveball and a
• 1:21:06
  great changeup that he's got a full starter's arsenal, and in the past it's
• 1:21:11
  just come with really poor command, but he tightened that up. He didn't
• 1:21:15
  really walk anybody down the stretch, and it almost reminds me a little bit
• 1:21:18
  of like right handed Teak Scoople, where you're just like, whoa man,
• 1:21:23
  this all stuff is? Everything's come together for job in twenty twenty three,
• 1:21:27
  and he's kept it going right into the Arizona Fall League. In his three
• 1:21:31
  starts, he's got twelve innings at two two five ERA one seventeen whip and
• 1:21:36
  twelve to four strikeouts to walks. So everything looks great. And I think
• 1:21:43
  this is another guy that it's a little more crowded honestly in Detroit with everyone
• 1:21:47
  coming back from injuries. And then I mean I saw a spincer Turnbull is
• 1:21:51
  going to get a shot at the starting rotation again, and we'll see kind
• 1:21:55
  of where the Tigers want to be on the competitive cycle. But when you
• 1:22:00
  have really high end pitchers like this, like it just makes sense to move
• 1:22:03
  them up the ladder and get them throwing in the majors as fast as possible
• 1:22:08
  before he inevitably kind of blows out. And I think Jackson Job is another
• 1:22:14
  guy who's gonna have a really good chance of breaking camp with the Tigers,
• 1:22:17
  just because I'm not sure what else is left to kind of show considering his
• 1:22:23
  one outing and double A was really good, and if he hadn't started the
• 1:22:27
  season late because he was a little banged up, he probably would have gotten
• 1:22:31
  close to the majors this year. He would have been really pushing it if
• 1:22:34
  he had been throwing really well in double A for Detroit, and Job is
• 1:22:39
  going to be I think someone who's not going to have the fanfare of Tietaman
• 1:22:44
  coming into the drafts and might slip under a lot of radars, but I'm
• 1:22:47
  going to be taking him at the end of as many drafts as I can.
• 1:22:51
  Yeah, I like Job. I do think Detroit holds him down a
• 1:22:57
  little bit for next season, if nothing else for innings, because he just
• 1:23:01
  does not have as many innings so starting him late. First of all,
• 1:23:05
  there's some financial reasons to do that, but I think they can easily justify
• 1:23:10
  that. That The interesting thing that stuck out to me. Sixty two innings
• 1:23:14
  in the minors this year, six walks, Yeah, that is that is
• 1:23:18
  crazy. Now he's got four walks in in the Fall League, so he's
• 1:23:23
  completely fallen off the rails now. But I I what I'm what I'm interested
• 1:23:29
  to see is I would like to see him a little bit against higher minors
• 1:23:32
  pitchings like or hitting like is he just is he just rolling through these guys
• 1:23:36
  because he's got crazy control in a good fastball. And then he gets to
• 1:23:41
  some more talented hitters. Are they going to challenge him? They're gonna be
• 1:23:45
  able to do something. There doesn't mean you shouldn't be investing in him,
• 1:23:47
  because I think he's got all the ingredients you look for, but he's he's
• 1:23:53
  one of those guys probably gonna take a year or two before he's really a
• 1:23:57
  big part of your Fantasy I rotation just because of the innings that he needs
• 1:24:00
  to work up to. He just doesn't hasn't had a chance to go deep
• 1:24:04
  into games. Uh, you know, he's been averaging roughly five innings to
• 1:24:08
  start, like I said, sixty two innings this uh this year. You
• 1:24:13
  know, he's getting a little bit more in the Fall League, so he's
• 1:24:15
  probably gonna end up around eighty innings up on the whole season. So even
• 1:24:19
  if he does make break break the club next year, it's gonna be in
• 1:24:25
  a limited run and they're gonna probably maybe that arm to a degree. Yeah,
• 1:24:29
  he'll probably get a little bit like a Yearie Perez sent down if he
• 1:24:31
  does exactly. So that doesn't mean don't invest in him. Just know what
• 1:24:36
  you're investing in. Yeah, But I mean, I don't know if there's
• 1:24:42
  anybody in the minors right now that has a more complete arsenal than job right
• 1:24:45
  like nost pitches he and I don't know if this is a fair comp I've
• 1:24:50
  not looked enough, but his numbers remind me a little bit of Shane Bieber
• 1:24:56
  coming up. They're they're the mixture of control and strikeouts, and you know
• 1:25:02
  a lot of questions with Bieber was, well, was he just getting those
• 1:25:05
  strikeouts in the minors because of the control? And then when he gets to
• 1:25:11
  the major league people are gonna lay off the right things and they're gonna be
• 1:25:14
  able to eat him alive. And you know clearly Shane Bieber's better than that.
• 1:25:18
  The one difference is that Job is a little bit more of a flyball
• 1:25:21
  pitcher than Bieber was. So but yeah, there's there's a lot to like
• 1:25:28
  in this in the profile. Yeah, well, and he's throwing like upper
• 1:25:30
  nineties on like Bieber and with the slider is better, I think, honestly,
• 1:25:35
  Yeah, exactly. So it's almost it's more so a matter of like
• 1:25:39
  whether or not he can stay healthy and the shoulder can withstand like what he's
• 1:25:44
  putting on it because his frame is smaller. Like that is the one thing
• 1:25:46
  that worries me about Job compared to teet him in or some of the other
• 1:25:51
  like big Name or gury Perez, is that he is only six' two,
• 1:25:56
  So it is a smaller frame to to just put that stress on.
• 1:26:01
  Yeah, and I mean he was out for a lumbar spine inflammation. Yeah,
• 1:26:06
  that's not great last year. That's not usually what you want to hear
• 1:26:11
  with the picture. That just says back issues all over again. And no
• 1:26:15
  picture has been successful with a back that's not held up. So luckily it's
• 1:26:19
  on his arm I guess that's the good news. Yeah, but yeah,
• 1:26:23
  a twenty year old with back problems tell me about it. So all right.
• 1:26:28
  The last guy we got is a total wild card who honestly I had
• 1:26:31
  not heard about until I was sorting through the stats day because I saw them
• 1:26:35
  and I was just like, holy cow, like that is some other worldly
• 1:26:40
  stuff. And once I did some video scouting on him, it is other
• 1:26:45
  worldly stuff. And that is a Miliano Toyoto from the Texas Rangers. He's
• 1:26:49
  a right handed twenty two year old who has a seventy grade one hundred milinar
• 1:26:56
  fastball and as you can probably expect, no command. So what the Rangers
• 1:27:00
  did late down the stretch is they converted him from a straight four swing thrower
• 1:27:06
  to more of like a sinker ball two seemer and you can see it.
• 1:27:11
  I'll link to the instagram of his video from Baseball Perspectives that I got.
• 1:27:17
  I guess it's Baseball America. It is like a yen year cano Felix Bautista
• 1:27:24
  sinker now, and it is gross, like it is super nasty. Nobody
• 1:27:30
  can handle him right now in the AFL, He's thrown six innings, he
• 1:27:32
  has two saves. He hasn't allowed any runs. He's got a point three
• 1:27:36
  to three whip with twelve ks to one walk. And the walk is the
• 1:27:41
  biggest key here because that's where he struggled. He's never His walk rate this
• 1:27:45
  year in hi A was four eight per nine and before that last year is
• 1:27:51
  four to seven. But the case has always been there plus twelve k nine
• 1:27:57
  in both those stops, and so they've been using him as a starter.
• 1:28:00
  But with his reliever burst and you see this sinker, and I'm sure you've
• 1:28:06
  seen the video of it now too. It is really, really nasty.
• 1:28:12
  And I almost hinted at this at the beginning when we were going into the
• 1:28:15
  Rangers soft underbelly of their bullpen, going through the Alcs kind of diatribe.
• 1:28:21
  But this is a guy that, like, honestly, there's a decent chance
• 1:28:26
  he's closing for the Rangers next year, right that Jose Leclerk has an option
• 1:28:30
  at six and a half million dollars a team option. Chapman's gone, Will
• 1:28:34
  Smith is gone, Like, there's a good possibility they pick up that La
• 1:28:40
  Clerk option. And they turned the Clerk and Toyoto into Bautista and Cano.
• 1:28:45
  And if that happens. I think we're looking at something pretty special here in
• 1:28:50
  Toyoto if he can especially keep the control going, because I don't see how
• 1:28:54
  anybody touches that sinker. Yeah, it could call it all. He's not
• 1:28:59
  going to be a starter. Let's just get that out of the way.
• 1:29:00
  He's not going to be a starter. He doesn't have the body for it.
• 1:29:04
  He his his pitch, the pitch is pretty the wind up his hercuye
• 1:29:09
  jerky is all over the place, in which probably has something to do with
• 1:29:12
  control issues. So it you know, if he's a reliever step one,
• 1:29:17
  if he gets control, step two. But with that nasty of stuff,
• 1:29:23
  you can survive as a reliever with two crazy pitches and no control. Like
• 1:29:30
  if it's it's one thing, if you know where it's going, it's another
• 1:29:32
  of the hitter knows where it's going. If neither of you know, sometimes
• 1:29:34
  it just works. And so that that's interesting to see, you know.
• 1:29:40
  I think that they try to move him along a little bit next year and
• 1:29:43
  then try to work him in maybe mid season, and he's one of those
• 1:29:46
  guys that can quickly then raise up the ranks. Makes me think of Kokering
• 1:29:53
  and we were just talking about last week. Just is the stuff nasty enough
• 1:29:57
  that once he gets there and he finds the right spot in the bullpen,
• 1:30:00
  he could be really really fun to watch. So yeah, he is one
• 1:30:03
  that I didn't really have on my radar coming into here, But looking at
• 1:30:09
  what he has, you can see the path. And that's really what you
• 1:30:12
  look for a lot of these minor leaguers is can you see the path to
• 1:30:15
  one or two adjustments that really make them break out? And if they don't,
• 1:30:18
  especially from nasty perspective, you kind of loose move on. And so
• 1:30:21
  I think there is a really interesting path to becoming a top flight reliever if
• 1:30:28
  he could just figure a few things out. And I don't think it's that
• 1:30:31
  much just to figure out. I think it's not lose too much control.
• 1:30:35
  But he doesn't need to be a two K or nine guy. He just
• 1:30:38
  can keep it under five. Yeah, And I think, I mean,
• 1:30:45
  I think he's different from Kirkering because cooking is a lot slighter, But I
• 1:30:47
  think I compare him a lot more to Abner Yurube from the Milwaukee Brewers that
• 1:30:54
  I think that's a little bit like what Taoto is looking at. And you
• 1:30:57
  can see it in your Rebay's line too also struggled with control and walks,
• 1:31:00
  but also is untouchable. He's got a seventy great fastball himself, and Uribay
• 1:31:06
  if it wasn't for Devin Williams probably would have gotten a shot at the closer's
• 1:31:10
  role in Milwaukee. And the nice thing for Toyoto is the Rangers are always
• 1:31:15
  kind of a dumpster fire when it comes to bullpen management until they get it
• 1:31:18
  right. That like the Phillies were always kind of in this boat too,
• 1:31:23
  and so this is like I think, especially like if you're looking for really
• 1:31:28
  late round picks in like a draft and hold n FBC, I think this
• 1:31:31
  is a great guy to take a shot at because of the saves that could
• 1:31:36
  come and just the strikeouts. Like this is a guy that like will be
• 1:31:42
  usable for strikeouts the way Felix Batista was before he became the closer and blew
• 1:31:48
  out with his TJ. But the way that yanier Ca yanier Cano was you
• 1:31:53
  know this season for us too that you know kind of in that Andrew Miller
• 1:31:57
  mold that I try to, especially in year long prots, play with these
• 1:32:03
  types of guys more because especially they're better than the back end of the starting
• 1:32:08
  pitching pool a lot, and you can get just really great ratios from them
• 1:32:13
  in strikeouts. So Emiliano Toyoto, it's uh, I didn't think I would
• 1:32:18
  find somebody that just kind of like popped up on over. But I'm feeling
• 1:32:23
  good about this guy. Yeah, it'll it'll be fun, it'll be fun
• 1:32:26
  to watch. I'm probably a little lower on him than you are, but
• 1:32:30
  uh, it's fun to dream on a guy like with an arm like that.
• 1:32:32
  So if you if you're if you're in a buy, now is the
• 1:32:35
  time to buy because price is free. Yeah, and you'll you'll have to
• 1:32:41
  maybe get back to me after you watch that Instagram like on repeat for a
• 1:32:44
  good twenty minutes and you're just like, I've already watched it. I'm still
• 1:32:48
  not quite there. It's just the angle of that video is just not quite
• 1:32:53
  good enough for me. So yeah, I want to I wish I knew
• 1:32:57
  how much that pitch broke. It is a nasty, nasty pitch. Yeah,
• 1:33:01
  it's it certainly is. It's it's hard to it's hard to tell what
• 1:33:08
  what the potential, the potential is, especially when you have a fastball like
• 1:33:13
  his. That's what that's what really makes it devastating. Yeah, and so
• 1:33:17
  we will link to all of the Arizona Fall League stats. Once you click
• 1:33:23
  on the link, you'll have to like sort by year. I don't know
• 1:33:25
  why, like I'm trying to send everybody to the right stats, but the
• 1:33:29
  way that the website works is a little weird that way. If you want
• 1:33:31
  to keep your eye on any other breakout performances that happen over the rest of
• 1:33:35
  the years in a fall league, you certainly can. And if you think
• 1:33:39
  there's anybody that we missed, you can reach out to us at cards Categories
• 1:33:43
  at gmail dot com or cards Categories on x slash Twitter. We really appreciate
• 1:33:47
  you listening and hope that you can rate, review, share, like,
• 1:33:54
  do whatever you can do to share this podcast across your friend's family, all
• 1:34:00
  your platforms. We really appreciate you listening and helping us spread the word on
• 1:34:03
  what we're doing here. And brew can you let people know where they can
• 1:34:08
  find you? Yep, find me over on x slash Twitter. J Brewer
• 1:34:12
  one seven, find me over ras Ball generally on the weekends. We're on
• 1:34:16
  our hiatus right now, but we'll be back here in a few months.
• 1:34:20
  As we start breaking things down for the twenty twenty four seasons, so you
• 1:34:25
  can always find us on Wednesdays or I guess we'll be Thursdays as well with
• 1:34:29
  the pods. So yeah, and that's the other thing too. You can
• 1:34:32
  always comment on this pod on ras ball that we are monitoring those comments and
• 1:34:38
  we'll join in any conversations if you spark one up there. You can find
• 1:34:42
  me on Twitter slash x while it's still kicking until they start charging us.
• 1:34:47
  And it's like I have the same Blue Ski or Blue Sky handle and that's
• 1:34:53
  in cool seven brew. I'll send you a link right after this that you
• 1:34:57
  can get on Blue Sky because I think within the next month or so,
• 1:35:00
  I wouldn't be surprised if that's where we end up. But you can also
• 1:35:04
  find me at rasball. I will be doing waiver wires. Waiver wires.
• 1:35:10
  Oh, I'm going to get that down one day. Waiver wires again upcoming
• 1:35:14
  year most likely. So we really appreciate you listening and we will see you
• 1:35:19
  next week. Take care until then,