Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 8 : New Topps Releases, Surprising Top 100 Hitters

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Ep. 8 : New Topps Releases, Surprising Top 100 Hitters · Cards & Categories

• 0:13
  All right, hello, and welcome everybody to episode eight of Cards and Categories.
• 0:18
  I'm my cook guard here from Razball, and I'm joined as always by
• 0:23
  Jeremy Burr, also from Rasbaull. Jeremy, how are you doing this evening.
• 0:27
  I'm doing well, great evening here in central Illinois, where everybody loves
• 0:31
  to record podcast apparently is a very hub of Corn and Categories. But doing
• 0:38
  well on this evening. Lots of exciting baseball news the last week or so,
• 0:43
  so there's a ton to talk about in the news section. There's also
• 0:47
  tons of talk about in the cad cards section today, so I'm looking forward
• 0:51
  to it. Yeah, I know, things kind of like blew up like
• 0:54
  character we recorded. Obviously, I put the caveat in because I think people
• 1:00
  could probably tell that the news of shohe Otani's torn ucl broke overnight after we
• 1:06
  had recorded, so I put in a little disclaimer in episode seven about obviously
• 1:11
  that affected some of the stuff that we were saying about drafting him and his
• 1:17
  cards, but honestly not too much, just because he is an otherworldly talent,
• 1:21
  I think. And I was listening to beat on in Gray's podcast this
• 1:26
  morning and they still think that Otani as a hitter alone will still probably be
• 1:30
  a top five draft pick, And assuming there's no Tommy John implications, that
• 1:37
  is obviously the biggest kind of thing up in the air right now. Otani
• 1:40
  hasn't said what he wants to do in terms of another Tommy John or do
• 1:46
  an internal brace surgery, or just kind of let it ride for a bit,
• 1:49
  and so I guess we'll see what happens before we come down in the
• 1:53
  final determination on where we're going to take Otani in the first round. But
• 1:57
  that will have a little bit of bearing on where he'll end up going,
• 2:00
  just because I think if he does have surgery, there could be scar tissue
• 2:05
  and just ramping back up issues that he runs into next year. But I
• 2:09
  mean, if he gets the brace and is ready to go all season,
• 2:13
  I think he's going to be another very very solid pick. Yeah, I
• 2:16
  think so when I take him one one at this point, not no,
• 2:21
  But I mean we will will find out a lot over the offseason, because
• 2:24
  you know, being a free agent, every team's gonna want to make sure
• 2:29
  they really understand what's taking place with Otani before anybody signs him. I say
• 2:34
  that slight grain of salt because there might be on one team out there that's
• 2:38
  willing to just pay whatever it takes and roll with the punches with him.
• 2:42
  So I don't know, but I have to think that he's gonna last deep
• 2:47
  into the winter for his signing, which unfortunately, I think is gonna hold
• 2:52
  up a major free agent market which we've had the last few years. It
• 2:54
  feels like if you're just waiting for one big dominant like an Aaron Judge fall
• 3:00
  for the market to really kick up in the off season. And unfortunately,
• 3:04
  I think the Andrew Otani is gonna drive a lot of the the winter free
• 3:07
  agency. So yeah, absolutely, he's the end all and be all.
• 3:13
  I mean, I guess we're also seeing this in the midst of all of
• 3:15
  the Angels being placed on white waiver wires, and so I think there's been
• 3:21
  a little bit of confusion because I've seen some people that have equated this to
• 3:24
  the Angels outright cutting these players, which it's not quite the way it works.
• 3:30
  That if you require, if you remember a couple of years before,
• 3:32
  a couple of years ago, before the latest CPA, you were able to
• 3:37
  make deals in August. That's how Justin Verlander was traded to the Astros that
• 3:45
  those players just had to move through waivers first, where a list of the
• 3:49
  teams in opposite order there of their standings would be able to claim first,
• 3:57
  just kind of the way you do and you stand fantasy drafts right now.
• 4:02
  And so the way that the Angels are making these moves are the players are
• 4:09
  placed on waivers and then they're free to claim. There are other players have
• 4:13
  been placed on waivers, like Harrison Bader and Jose's Narrow and Mike Clevenger as
• 4:17
  well. But I don't think we've ever and I actually I know for sure
• 4:23
  we've ever seen one team put this many dudes on waivers. And let me
• 4:27
  see if I can try to remember them all. It's Lucas Giolito, Matt
• 4:30
  Moore, Hunter, renfro, Randall, Gritchick, and dominic Leone. I
• 4:35
  think did I get all the Rinaldo Lopez? Oh, I knew i'd forget
• 4:40
  one. You should have known that once your white sacks heritage right there.
• 4:44
  Yeah, so that is six, which we've never seen before, and it
• 4:47
  kind of it just looks really goofy. But we'll see how many of these
• 4:50
  players get claimed. I would imagine most of the pictures and maybe renfro and
• 4:55
  Gritchick might not get claimed by anybody. Yeah, And I think it's what
• 5:00
  it's unique about. It is the quality of player. And you can argue
• 5:03
  on a lot of these guys like Giolito has not been good since he was
• 5:08
  traded, but guys like Matt Moore is fantastic reliever. He has been a
• 5:13
  revelation for the the Angels, you know, this year, So you have
• 5:16
  to think some of those guys are getting claimed because it's it's like making a
• 5:20
  trade late in the season too. And you know, if you pick these
• 5:23
  guys now you can use my playoff roster. So it is very unique.
• 5:27
  I did see a lot of folks questioning why they didn't do the same with
• 5:30
  Otani, and I think people forget some of the to your point that the
• 5:33
  CBA rules is that all of these guys were either acquired where you can't make
• 5:42
  them an offer at the end of the season to get draft compensation, or
• 5:48
  they were already or they're not gonna to the level that they'd get the offer,
• 5:53
  where a show, hey, Otani is definitely getting the qualifying, qualifying
• 5:57
  offer and the Angels be thrilled if he accept There's not a chance in the
• 6:00
  world that he accepts that. So I think that's just unique what's taking place.
• 6:06
  But you know, for all the chat or people's like, well,
• 6:09
  if they're doing with everybody else, why out of Tani. He's a free
• 6:11
  agent too. There's very illogical reasons because the salary savings I think it was
• 6:15
  like seven million dollars you could save on Otani just by putting on waivers right
• 6:19
  now because of his salary, But it's a seven million fails in comparison to
• 6:28
  the draft pick compensation that they could get. Teams value that very very highly.
• 6:32
  Yeah, well, and the Angels are with those acquisitions they made at
• 6:35
  the deal, I guess went over the first threshold of like the competitive balance
• 6:41
  tax. So that's what they're also trying to do. So I don't know
• 6:44
  how often that will happen kind of in the future where there is a really
• 6:47
  big incentive for a team to get back below a threshold, because at this
• 6:54
  point that threshold would have resulted in I was reading a twenty percent tax on
• 7:00
  just the overall amount. And then also I think this is the bigger thing,
• 7:06
  is that the pick compensation for Otani leaving after offering him that qualifying offer
• 7:14
  would have end up up being a fourth round pick, is to have a
• 7:15
  second round pick. So you can see why the Angels are doing it.
• 7:19
  It's not exactly like the conventional thing you would do, but it is probably
• 7:25
  the smart thing to do and all things considering, so it's like you have
• 7:30
  to have a perfect storm of all these things coming together where a team was
• 7:33
  in it at the end of July decides to go for it, goes over
• 7:38
  a certain certain amount of the thresholds to be able to like have this every
• 7:41
  year. So it's just kind of a weird perfect storm of all those things
• 7:45
  coming together this year for the Angels. That's exactly how I was going to
• 7:48
  describe as that perfect storm. It is unique scenario for that to happen,
• 7:53
  and it was it was odd to hear you say the smart thing and Angels
• 7:58
  in the same sentence. They saw a lot of things that they've done in
• 8:01
  the past. But I'm right there with you. So a lot has changed
• 8:05
  over the last week in in La with the Angels. Yeah, And I
• 8:11
  mean I think if you're the players too, you almost kind of appreciate it
• 8:13
  that you thought you were going to get traded to some sort of playoff race
• 8:18
  if you're Lucas Glito or Rinaldo Lopez, and now you actually get to experience
• 8:22
  that again. So it I mean, I'm sure it sucks moving from like
• 8:26
  hotel to hotel and living out of different various travel bags, but I would
• 8:31
  rather be playing on a fun contending team in September than whatever is going to
• 8:35
  happen here with the Angels. I do have two related questions though for this
• 8:41
  for you, one, do you think that they're going to make a change
• 8:45
  to the CBA for this, because it is like it is a lot of
• 8:48
  people spreading through the league that are on way for wires that kid swing some
• 8:52
  playoff races. No denying that, and you've got to be frustrated if you're
• 8:56
  someone like the Braves or the Dodgers and some of these teams are coming after
• 9:01
  you at the bottom of the playoffs are able to get free talent. So
• 9:07
  that's the first question whether or not this is going to change going forward.
• 9:09
  And then my second question for you is I'll have an answer after you've answered,
• 9:15
  what team do you think makes like some of the crazier claims here and
• 9:20
  like some of these players will end up on just like the random most random
• 9:24
  spots, just because of where they are in the waiver order. That's that's
• 9:30
  an interesting I've not thought about that, so you're putting on the spot.
• 9:33
  But to your first question, does this impact the CBA? I don't think
• 9:39
  it does. I don't think there's gonna be enough teams that feel the need.
• 9:43
  What could happen though, is it could be a bargaining ship. Right.
• 9:46
  I could easily see this as one of those topics that get brought up
• 9:52
  of the ten different things we're arguing about the next the next CBA. It's
• 9:56
  one of those things that you know the players give on or right, there's
• 10:01
  like, okay, we're gonna put up a big fight about this, and
• 10:05
  you know the travesty that it does, and how it's uncompetitive and hurst players
• 10:09
  out. I think it's gonna be some weird story to it, right,
• 10:11
  and you know, then they end up sacrificing this within the negotiations. But
• 10:18
  is it Does it really make an impact in the CBA? I I don't
• 10:22
  think so. But as as far as the teams that are picking players up,
• 10:28
  I think that it's you know, it's gonna be a narrow uh,
• 10:33
  sliver of teams that really go after these these players. You have to be
• 10:41
  you know, within shouting distance of the the playoffs. Uh and and really
• 10:48
  the wild cards standings. So as as we look at the wild cards standings.
• 10:54
  So in the National League, UH, where I think it gets interesting.
• 11:00
  Team is like the Miami Marlins. They're like they're two and a half
• 11:05
  games out. You know, they've got uh, you know, one team
• 11:09
  ahead of them. And in the that's not in the wild card and the
• 11:13
  you got the Arizona diamond Backs and the and the Giants there sit in the
• 11:16
  current driver's seat. And then in the American League you got Boston who's kind
• 11:22
  of lingering on the periphery, you know, seven games back, but otherwise
• 11:26
  it's it's not nearly as competitive. So I I think you're gonna see a
• 11:31
  team like the Cincinnati Reds the Miami Marlins make a claim on some of these
• 11:35
  guys. I'm thinking Giolito to the Marlins, Matt Moore uh to the Marlins
• 11:43
  because they seem like they need pitching. And then I think you kind of
• 11:46
  have a next wave of like the Reds or the or the Giants, the
• 11:52
  Diamondbacks picking somebody up. I don't think based on records, it is almost
• 12:00
  kind of go through all the National League teams as far as having the worst
• 12:03
  records that are in the playoff race, and then all the American League teams.
• 12:05
  There's a bigger divide there of the best versus the worst. So almost
• 12:09
  all the teams in the American League playoff race have better records than the teams
• 12:16
  in the National League playoff race. So I think it's going through the National
• 12:18
  League. I don't see anybody too exciting. Maybe grit Chick or Renfro gets
• 12:24
  claimed by a team that has some payroll flexibility with a better record. I
• 12:31
  feel like the Ganges are gonna claim grit Chick, even though there's a way
• 12:35
  with bait or something weird like that. So anyway, that's where where my
• 12:39
  head's at. What about you, What do you think who's gonna make the
• 12:41
  craziest claims here? I think you You said the team that I was thinking
• 12:46
  of at first. I think this morning I actually was thinking about the Nationals.
• 12:50
  The Nationals had like a half first cent chance to make the playoffs on
• 12:56
  fan graphs, I think by this morning, but I think that disappeared.
• 13:00
  I'm looking at the playoff odds right now, which would have been hilarious because
• 13:03
  they actually like have the roster spots to do it. Like part of it
• 13:07
  will obviously be trying to free up forty man spots for this that let me
• 13:13
  see with the forty man, for the Marlins are right at forty so they
• 13:16
  would have to like move dudes around, which there's a couple of easy ones.
• 13:22
  I think one would be moving obviously Old Garcia to the sixty day DL,
• 13:28
  just letting that ship kind of sale, probably getting rid of some of
• 13:33
  their relievers, you know. And honestly they could probably do the same down
• 13:39
  in the minors with some of the dudes on the forty man. Now that
• 13:41
  I'm looking at it, if you're going to up get these upgrades, but
• 13:43
  the Marlins, I like, I want the Marlins to like claim like five
• 13:48
  guys. It would just be really funny just to like see the transaction because
• 13:52
  I think I'm looking at the Marlins roster right now and upgrades would be warranted.
• 13:58
  With Lucas Gilido, Ronaldo Lopez, Matt Moore, I would argue Hunter
• 14:03
  Renfro, I would rather have Hunter Renfro as my right handed kind of power
• 14:09
  or option over Julie Gurriel off the bench, Julie Gurliell and Hesu Sanchester kind
• 14:16
  of in a platoon right now. I would rather have Hunter Renfro there.
• 14:20
  You could consider claiming Harrison Bader. And I know that Jazz Chisholm is still
• 14:24
  hanging around in center, but I mean, people rave that he looks better
• 14:30
  and better, but I don't believe it. And you obviously hurt himself real
• 14:33
  bad at that toe earlier in the year. You could just kind of put
• 14:37
  that to bad, put Harrison Bader in center and really improve your defense.
• 14:41
  And then yeah, I think probably Gritchick goes unclaimed. Dominic Leone might go
• 14:46
  and claimed. Yeah, I could. I think it'd be really great if
• 14:48
  the Marlins ended up just like putting in like six or seven brand new dudes
• 14:54
  off the stat I think the only only guy in the control of the party
• 14:56
  and messed us all up for the Marlins is a J Preller out in San
• 15:01
  Diego. And I don't think, I don't you have the odds in front
• 15:05
  of you, but they have the same records as the National so but it's
• 15:09
  just a but a J Preler just loves to mess around. It feels like
• 15:18
  it's like he's the you know, the thirteen year old kid playing MLB the
• 15:20
  show and just training with the computer just to make his his team Brelers is
• 15:26
  unpredictable. He's taking that crown from Jared Depedo out there and uh for Seattle.
• 15:33
  So yeah, I think it's the Marlins mess this up. I think
• 15:37
  we'll know what within the next twenty four forty eight hours here what that's gonna
• 15:43
  look like. Yeah, it should be by the end of tomorrow because they've
• 15:46
  all got to be on the rosters September first, to be able to be
• 15:50
  on the playoff rosters. Then otherwise the other two major news pieces of news
• 15:54
  couldn't be more different than have happened in baseball U s we least talk.
• 16:00
  I think we'll start with the oddest one, because I thought this was resolved
• 16:04
  yesterday. I contacted everybody on the ras baald discord with the update that there
• 16:11
  had been a rumor floating around on a really just terrible, not dependable website
• 16:18
  from the Chicago White Sox reddit that the person who had the gun that went
• 16:26
  off this weekend at the White Sox game will link to the story in case
• 16:30
  you're not aware of it, but there was a bullet that was fired during
• 16:33
  the White Sox game and found in the left field bleachers. The game went
• 16:37
  on, but they canceled the after show, the after concert of Vanilla Ice.
• 16:44
  What this is the Chicago White Sox. Somebody gets shot at your game
• 16:48
  and you're like, it's another day, but I think's but once we get
• 16:53
  like this is where like I could totally see why, because like this is
• 16:59
  why, Like yesterday when the news broke that was confirming what I was talking
• 17:03
  about with the weird blog of there was a rumor going around that what actually
• 17:08
  caused this bullet was I think it struck ended up striking three people at the
• 17:14
  game. But one of the people, one of the women at the game
• 17:18
  that was struck, actually had this gun tucked into and I'll use the phrase
• 17:23
  from the actual news reporter that broke it from ESPN one thousand is was folded
• 17:30
  into her belly fat and so obviously from there it you know, discharged,
• 17:40
  the gun discharged and then struck that person and then the people next to her.
• 17:45
  There's also a video of this, like there's a almost like a video
• 17:48
  from somewhere down the first base line that it's almost like a a security camera,
• 17:55
  and you can tell that like there's nobody like firing a gun or like
• 18:00
  there's just people that stand up and are trying to wave down an usher and
• 18:03
  it just kind of happens out of the blue. So if that was the
• 18:06
  explanation one, you it kind of makes sense why there was no noise because
• 18:11
  oddly, like the person's own body acting like the silencer, I guess.
• 18:18
  And then two, that's why, like the game kept going on, because
• 18:22
  like there wasn't like an active shooting or like an active danger. You know.
• 18:26
  I can't explain why they didn't want Vanilla ice and tone look around,
• 18:30
  but Jerry probably figured out you couldn't sell more beers and canceled that concert.
• 18:34
  But now the newest, the newest news just broke like this afternoon that the
• 18:41
  person who was accused of bringing in the gun has a lawyer that says that
• 18:47
  wasn't the story. I guess we'll see where this goes. Probably tomorrow I'll
• 18:51
  have another piece of information. Maybe we'll have to record an emergency pod to
• 18:53
  discuss it. But it appears more so like it's a little bit of like
• 18:57
  a legal cover your ass. See that like you're trying to make sure that,
• 19:03
  like you're not admitting to bring a gun into a White Sox game and
• 19:07
  the implications for that as well as it appears that this lady's a teacher too.
• 19:11
  So yeah, it's just been a really crazy cherry on top to everything
• 19:17
  that's happened with the White Sox this year. And despite everything going on,
• 19:21
  we continue to talk about them weekend, week out, even though I'm not
• 19:25
  even trying to. I'm really not trying to. They're just full of content
• 19:30
  at this point, which is amazing for a team playing the way they are.
• 19:33
  They have so much content you might as well have the Savannah Bananas or
• 19:37
  whatever play playing out of the Chicago White Sucks or might be just so much
• 19:41
  entertainment. The one thing that still strikes me about this story, and I
• 19:45
  think you and I were kind of talking about this before we kicked off today,
• 19:48
  was the reports themselves, if inaccurate in any way, shape or form,
• 19:55
  Like this is a lawsuit waiting to happen from a slander perspe and so
• 20:00
  like you know, as we are simply restating what reports have been, but
• 20:07
  any reporter, if you're making this report of how they snuck this weapon in
• 20:11
  to the ball game. If you are wrong, there is absolutely a lawsuit
• 20:15
  coming against ESPN who who broke that story if they broke it from Reddit,
• 20:21
  bro at the greatest move there, bloaked at times, the journalism has been
• 20:26
  questionable, so I wouldn't be shocked. But yeah, it's it's just a
• 20:30
  very it's a very bizarre story, and to your point, the legal move
• 20:36
  is not shocking at all. If anything, just trying to move away from
• 20:41
  the discussion and resist or per a counter suit or something like that. So
• 20:47
  interesting. I think we see how many weeks from here we can go without
• 20:51
  talking about the White Sox and some oddity firing their gm of having a shooting
• 20:55
  the stadium, whatever it may be. I'm not sure what next week will
• 20:59
  bring, but I'm sure they will continue to provide content for us. Yeah,
• 21:03
  exactly, So I'm excited for an update on that next weekend. I'm
• 21:07
  going to the game on Friday, so we'll see what happens. Where you
• 21:12
  are you sitting in the bleachers, do you feel safe? I'm actually sitting
• 21:15
  really close to where this incident happened, so yeah, I'm maybe there's like
• 21:22
  a historical marker or something so that we can remember this White Sox season.
• 21:26
  Is it like out at Camden Yards. I don't have you ever been to
• 21:29
  Camden Yards? I haven't. I haven't been now they and I love Camden
• 21:33
  Yards. I've been there just a few times. But they have historical markers
• 21:40
  for all the home runs that hit out on the brick brickway in front of
• 21:45
  the warehouse there, and so you can go up and for the last you
• 21:48
  know, I'm fifteen twenty years. They've actually marked every baseball with a little
• 21:52
  plaque on the size of a baseball out there. I'm just imagine the White
• 21:56
  Sox. There's a there's a little plaque the size of a of a of
• 22:00
  a pistol sitting there in the bleachers and that was where this happened. So
• 22:07
  yeah, that would be yeah, like a target, like a little like
• 22:11
  target plaque or a little bullet like. Yeah, it's so many great options.
• 22:18
  The other big story that has happened in the meantime since we've last talked
• 22:26
  is that the Seattle Mariners reside in first place at the Al West so since
• 22:32
  the hot streak really started in on August fifteenth, that they rattled off a
• 22:37
  win against the Royals, and at that point they were seven and a half
• 22:41
  back of the Rangers for the first place lead in the West, and entering
• 22:47
  today they were tied and then they won their afternoon against the Athletics. So
• 22:52
  that makes them thirteen and two in their last fifteen games. And here is
• 22:59
  Pulio Rodriguez's line since August fifteenth, and so you can also if you just
• 23:04
  like look at his box score two, you can tell how Banana is good.
• 23:07
  They've been because in the eleven games that he's played over that fifteen game
• 23:11
  stretch, so he sat four games during this stretch. I guess I don't
• 23:15
  have today's stats in here, so this was before today's game. So at
• 23:19
  eleven out of fourteen games, he had fifty seven a plate appearances in eleven
• 23:26
  games, which is averaging over five a game, which is pretty dang good.
• 23:32
  Shows how hot the offense is. But here is Julio's slash line over
• 23:37
  this hot streak again CAFAT not including today, we're recording on the Wednesday.
• 23:41
  Slash nine is five fifty eight five ninety six nine twenty three with a WRC
• 23:48
  plus of three twenty three. He has five homers, twelve runs, sixteen
• 23:56
  ribs and seven stone bases. That's over eleven games. I know, it's
• 24:00
  like a month and a half of production. That's way more like that's a
• 24:04
  good two month production from a really great I mean, obviously you're not gonna
• 24:07
  get five fifty eight for two months, but yeah, but the counting stats,
• 24:11
  that's just that's that's crazy. This is like a little bit like the
• 24:15
  batting equivalent of CC Sabatia dragging the Brewers to that playoff race when he was
• 24:22
  traded from the Brewer from the from Cleveland to the Breweries. I danced around
• 24:27
  that real, real stealthily good podcasting right there. And so yeah, it's
• 24:33
  just been I know, last week we talked about how awesome it is to
• 24:37
  watch Julio, and we've talked about it just about every week, just the
• 24:40
  way we do the White Sox. But and you have anything else to say
• 24:44
  about Julio, Yeah, Julio's it's it's been incredible what he's been able to
• 24:48
  do. And I think it you know, I had some questions early in
• 24:52
  the season with with how well he's gonna be able to adjust the league adjusting
• 24:55
  to him. You know, is with anybody that has a hot start,
• 24:57
  and I think there it wasn't adjustment period, but it just goes to show
• 25:03
  how good and talented he is. And you just have to keep imagine for
• 25:07
  the next two years he's just going to get more comfortable and be better.
• 25:11
  Only only concerned with him is that he plays with everything, and so it's
• 25:15
  is you know, he's he's got risk just because he can get hurt because
• 25:21
  he plays all out. But you can't deny the talent. It's unbelievable.
• 25:25
  He is the heart and soul of that team. He is the King Griffith
• 25:30
  Junior of you know, twenty twenties for the still learners by no means,
• 25:37
  and if looking at the streath that they've been on, and they set a
• 25:41
  record for their most wins in franchise history in August already with twenty one wins,
• 25:47
  which eclips what they did in two thousand and one when they had that
• 25:49
  historical season. Back in each year, Oh and the guys, and I
• 25:55
  think every time they've managed to win it's kind of twenty games in a month.
• 25:59
  They've made the play offs, So is this another one that's gonna go
• 26:03
  in that way? And it looks like they've they've got the momentum to get
• 26:07
  there, so it's gonna be really fun to watch the rest of the season.
• 26:11
  They're in the in the Al West. There's no question there that those
• 26:15
  standings in that that division have flip flopped like crazy, with Texas falling on
• 26:22
  hard times when they looked almost unbeatable for a good half the season. So
• 26:26
  you got three teams within half a game each other of each other, and
• 26:30
  they're gonna duke it out the rest of the year. Absolutely, who do
• 26:33
  you think it's gonna win between those three of the division? Now? Between
• 26:37
  the Rangers, Astros, and Mariners. Who's your money on if I had
• 26:41
  hit? If I had to pick one, it's probably gonna be an unpopular
• 26:45
  take, but I'm gonna I'm gonna pick the Astros. I think they're just
• 26:48
  that the steady Eddie. They have all around, a very well rounded team.
• 26:52
  They if there's a trick up the sleeve, they always have it.
• 26:55
  But they I think they're just the better team overall, and they're built for
• 27:00
  the for the consistency. Whereas you know, Seattle, I think they can
• 27:03
  get hot. I think they could probably get cold too. I don't think
• 27:07
  they're pitching as is as strong as deep, and so I wouldn't be surprised
• 27:11
  if you got a little rut at times as well. Clearly the hottest team,
• 27:15
  but you know they're eight and two of the last ten, Houston seven
• 27:18
  three. There's they're playing just as well. The run differentials are within you
• 27:22
  know, five points of each other, so they you know, both teams
• 27:26
  have been been solid across the board. So how about you, I've got
• 27:30
  I would I would pick Houston, but I wouldn't be surprised if Seattle was
• 27:34
  able to sneak him. I'm keeping my money away from Texas at this point.
• 27:37
  It's all the struggles that they've had recently. Yeah, I'm going to
• 27:41
  be boring. I have to agree with you, but I think it's the
• 27:42
  Astros that the strength of schedules down the stretch right now. Are Astros are
• 27:48
  at four ninety three, the Mariners are at five seventeen, and the Rangers
• 27:52
  are at five nineteen. So the Astros have the easiest schedule down this stretch.
• 27:56
  They actually have the highest odds on van As right now for winning the
• 28:00
  World Series in the AL. They are just kind of a juggernaut. They
• 28:03
  seem inevitable. So I agree with you on that. I think that there's
• 28:08
  a really good chance that these Rangers missed the playoffs so that they run out
• 28:12
  of steam here down the stretch because of that slightly harder schedule, and the
• 28:18
  Blue Jays are sitting right there in the wild card battling with them. So
• 28:22
  the Blue Jays are a good team. Boba Schett's obviously out right now,
• 28:26
  but the I mean, the Blue Jays also have a speakers strength of schedule
• 28:30
  at four ninety three, just like the Astros. So we'll see how that
• 28:33
  works out. But it's a perilous time to be a Texas Rangers fan.
• 28:37
  Yep, absolutely, so it'll be It will be a fun end of the
• 28:41
  season between those three, and I think we're guaranteed to have a finish at
• 28:45
  the end of September here that's worth watching, unlike we have had in some
• 28:49
  seasons of the past. I think there's a lot a lot to enjoy as
• 28:52
  this one winds down. Yeah, exactly. So speaking of winding downs,
• 28:56
  we're gonna wrap up this first segment here, so we'll be back with the
• 29:00
  cards section. We're going to go through some new releases. We've got three
• 29:03
  new releases to go over that will be our news this week, and then
• 29:07
  after that we'll go into our fancy discussion where we talk about some top one
• 29:11
  hitter breakouts and surprises and whether or not we think they'll keep it going for
• 29:15
  the rest of their careers. I mean, maybe not that long, but
• 29:18
  at leasten to next year. So stick great. We have the Crystal Ball
• 29:21
  for twenty thirty. Yeah, excited that it would be great all the way
• 29:23
  out to like twenty five. Right to stick around, everybody. We'll be
• 29:27
  right back. Welcome back everybody to cards and categories. Like I said before
• 29:48
  the break, we have three new sets that came up from Tops in the
• 29:52
  past I guess technically like seven or eight days, and so we talked about
• 29:59
  one of these last week that we wanted to just cover in a little bit
• 30:03
  more detail now, just because honestly, the news is not great on it.
• 30:07
  That is twenty twenty three Tops Pristine. If you recall from last week,
• 30:11
  we commented on how it's not really one of our favorite sets. We
• 30:15
  don't know how much value it's going to keep in the long term. It's
• 30:18
  seems a little bit more of I think, like a weird throwback to some
• 30:26
  sort of nostalgia from the early two thousands that honestly, I don't know how
• 30:30
  many people are really wanting this set back from then, but it has made
• 30:33
  a return over the past year, and so they printed it again this year.
• 30:37
  Tops did, but it appears that there has been some quality issues.
• 30:41
  So I found this video from Cheap from Breaks on YouTube. Will link to
• 30:45
  it in the comments, But in summary, the video shows during this break
• 30:52
  that he whoever was making these rips from Cheap from Breaks, was going through
• 30:59
  and looking at just the front of the cards and showing those on the stream.
• 31:03
  But when he went to go back and sort through the cards, the
• 31:07
  back of the cards didn't align with the players on the front. So you
• 31:11
  know, for instance, you might have had with Corbyn Carroll rookie card,
• 31:15
  but the back of it was the information for Corbyn Burns and so everything was
• 31:21
  totally misaligned. And I mean, I don't know if it's even like a
• 31:25
  fun like error or short print, because if it was me, I'd be
• 31:29
  kind of frustrated because I think probably the people buying Tops Christine or into Top
• 31:33
  Christine, they liked the product. They wanted everything to actually line up.
• 31:37
  Anything that you would think that like you could try to market these things as
• 31:42
  grow from one of one. Well, I think so this actually happened maybe
• 31:49
  two years ago. It is a weird set that had happened with It happened
• 31:56
  with TOPS Heritage, and the funny thing WASPS Heritage is they intentionally have errors
• 32:01
  and TOPS Heritage and so you have your logo swaps and your team color swaps
• 32:08
  and your versus. There's all kinds of you know, natural errors that occur
• 32:14
  and Tops Harrisman's it's like the inserts. But I think it was two years
• 32:19
  ago where they also had this air unintentionally and I was sactly, remember the
• 32:27
  Paul Goldschmidt and Mike Trout have their cards slipped like this, and so you
• 32:31
  had the Paul goldschmant front, you had the Mike Trout back and vice versa,
• 32:36
  and those actually because it was like this weird thing where it's like Heritage
• 32:39
  is supposed to have errors but not actual errors, actually drove some popularity of
• 32:45
  that card. I think there was a few others of them, but you
• 32:49
  know that the names weren't big, but you had two really big name players
• 32:52
  including you know, Mike Trout just sells really well. That was driving those
• 32:55
  So I think I think those errors were going for twenty dollars a piece after
• 33:00
  time that had happened just because it was really, you know different and it
• 33:04
  was an air and a set that had airs, so personally that happening heritage
• 33:08
  is almost like comical because of the fact that they insert airrors on purpose,
• 33:14
  and so there's like a little bit more I think willingness to accept that something
• 33:17
  like pristine, like think about the name itself clean. It's supposed to be
• 33:22
  perfect. Get the irony, yes, so like it. Yeah, it
• 33:28
  definitely does take away because it doesn't have those other aspects that kind of almost
• 33:31
  make you just chuckle at the dynamics. So it's is there going to be
• 33:37
  value there? The only way there's value is if they caught it early and
• 33:40
  you know the first you know, Day's Run or whatever that has those and
• 33:45
  there's a few big names that were swapped or like you're talking like Corbyn Carroll
• 33:49
  front, Jordan Walker back or something like that, or it's it's Okunia and
• 33:53
  Otani like that shared the card something like that, then yeah, there's there's
• 33:58
  potentially some value there. And if you ended up with something that I want
• 34:00
  a break or something like that great, And I haven't had a chance to
• 34:04
  look to see if those exists or or who's driving us. So maybe as
• 34:07
  as we talk, I'll see if I can find any good examples that are
• 34:09
  floating around in sales. But I think this set is, it is what
• 34:15
  it is. To your point, the one thing that really bothers me about
• 34:19
  Christine is the encased refractors. I just don't understand like every other set,
• 34:27
  and like I get sometimes the encased autos, but like, what's the point
• 34:30
  of encasing refractors within it? Like no other product does that. And so
• 34:35
  I did really quickly just pull up some of the airs over on eBay to
• 34:40
  see if there is anything that's that's popping. And a matter of fact,
• 34:45
  Gunner Henderson had had the air with Ries Hoskins on the back sold for one
• 34:51
  hundred and three dollars. Was it fun Anthony Sheep fun breaks? That's a
• 34:57
  mouthful cheap fun breaks? It didn't look like it gets but Anthony Vulpe with
• 35:01
  Freddie Freeman on the back sold for seventy dollars, and so definitely a few.
• 35:07
  And then you know a lot of other guys like as Wallow, Cabrera
• 35:10
  David Ortiz, which is even just a funnier one because it's a retired player
• 35:15
  on the back Soult you know, for fifteen bucks. Definitely seems like,
• 35:17
  you know, maybe it wasn't the most common, maybe it's just a handful
• 35:22
  that actually had errors, or maybe it's just the first to market. It's
• 35:23
  like, oh, this is unique air, and then every other one's gonna
• 35:27
  gonna drop down. But definitely there might be some value if you have a
• 35:30
  you know, a really big name there. But see Corbyn Carroll's is listed
• 35:35
  out on eBay for a pretty penny at twenty five hundred dollars and he's got
• 35:40
  who's he got Jonah Bride on the back, So I don't think that's gonna
• 35:45
  gonna pull in. But there is right now an auction to Tom sever with
• 35:50
  a Shohiotani back over about two hundred dollars, so theyre there. Actually looks
• 35:55
  like this error may have stoked a little intrigue by folks, So it'll be
• 36:02
  interesting to see Babe Ruth and Vinnie Pascuatino, so see if there's anything that
• 36:08
  really jumps out and drives folks to chase that for you up in your Chicago
• 36:17
  area. I haven't really seen any white sox or or cubs, so it
• 36:22
  looks like it's possible this was actually somewhat isolated. Yeah, and I guess
• 36:24
  like there could be value, like if it wasn't consistent errors, you know
• 36:29
  that, like if that is the only Tom sever Otani, it is technically
• 36:32
  like a one of one, which is maybe what's driving it. But I
• 36:36
  guess there's more and more of these cards are impact like seeing the error rates
• 36:39
  will be unknown, So I almost wonder, like going back to our discussion
• 36:45
  on the irony of this being in pristine, then maybe they did this to
• 36:50
  drive like maybe this is also like two big brained of me and two getting
• 36:55
  out into the weeds of actual like conspiracy theories that they tried to do this
• 37:00
  on purpose to drive some intrigue. But if they did, I'm going to
• 37:02
  give them credit for it, because that's brilliant marketing on their part for a
• 37:07
  product that's not that exciting. Yeah, they just gave it another little pop
• 37:09
  of value that somebody's gonna go buy a pack and hope, hope for the
• 37:13
  best. Yeah, move the rest of them off the shelves, because we
• 37:15
  do have the checklist for this now, so we will link to the checklist
• 37:20
  of twenty twenty three tops Pristine in the show notes. I'm disappointed there's only
• 37:23
  fourteen refractors, which is kind of lame. It's kind of your standard refractors,
• 37:29
  not even any like cool tacos or hot dogs or bananas or anything else
• 37:36
  that might I don't know that was a I was about to make a very
• 37:42
  inappropriate joke that might have gotten this and they explicit tag there for the first
• 37:45
  time, but I'll I'll stay away. Hold. So, yeah, refractors,
• 37:52
  nothing really exciting. But if if you have been out on Beckett dot
• 37:55
  com, they have a great breakdown of all the ducts and kind of what
• 38:00
  to expect, and so they do a section it says what to expect in
• 38:04
  a hobby box and it gives you the run drowns like, you get one
• 38:07
  autograph relic, you get two additional autographs, you get four inserts, four
• 38:10
  in case refractors, six refractors, and one O snap. I have no
• 38:15
  idea what an O snap is, so I'm gonna I'm gonna say that that
• 38:21
  might be your taco fractor of Christine. I'm gonna have to look up what
• 38:23
  the O snap card is for Christine. Is it not just the one touch
• 38:30
  No, it's literally a card that says snap on it. It's it's it's
• 38:34
  a die cut. It says snap on it. So it's amazing. Well
• 38:39
  have to we'll have to find one and link to it. But you know
• 38:43
  the one which one touch ones you can be called a snap card, a
• 38:46
  snap case. No, there's actually an o snap hip in every hobby box,
• 38:52
  so there you go. You don't have taco fractors, but oh snap
• 38:55
  Okay, well again, like I did this with the Taco factorspect and maybe
• 39:00
  I'm backing on Tops Pristine. Now these are good inserts, but I'm not
• 39:04
  usually I like die cuts, but they're not like always trust me, just
• 39:08
  okay, they're not say you know my taste? Yes, this is this
• 39:15
  is definitely it's like nineties starter jacket type of insert. Here is what makes
• 39:20
  me think of with bold colors. So maybe maybe it's a throwback insert.
• 39:24
  So yep, I'm I'm feeling like Kombucha girl right now for sure, Like
• 39:30
  maybe I do like this now all right, onto our next set to discuss,
• 39:34
  which is twenty twenty three Tops Cosmic Chrome, which I've fixed feelings about.
• 39:38
  I think twenty twenty two was a great hit for tops that it sold
• 39:43
  off the shelves real quick. It got ripped real quick. It was some
• 39:46
  of everyone's favorite cards to look at and collect last year, especially for people
• 39:52
  that were really into the fleear Mental sets back in the day, back in
• 39:54
  the day, especially in the nineteen ninety seven flear Mental set, which is
• 40:00
  one of my favorites. I own the entire set. It has all sorts
• 40:04
  of it's really hard to describe, but futuristic scenes of the players from the
• 40:07
  set, with the one that really stands up to me is David Cohne has
• 40:10
  like a literal rocket arm like superimposed over his arm. But not all of
• 40:15
  them have that, like Sometimes they're just taking place amongst like planets and other
• 40:21
  like industrial scenes. Even as I'm describing this to myself, like it sounds
• 40:25
  so ridiculous that it's another obviously we're in an audio medium. Here, I'll
• 40:30
  post a link to the nineteen ninety seventh Fleer set and the show notes you'll
• 40:32
  be able to see you when I'm talking about. But Cosmic Chrome from twenty
• 40:36
  twenty two was a beautiful set. It looks like it's beautiful again going into
• 40:39
  twenty twenty three. But my biggest concern is really it. I mean,
• 40:44
  it's a pretty common grape. We had it with Bowman Chrome that they're making
• 40:49
  these sets more expensive to buy, so hobby boxes, which didn't even guarantee
• 40:54
  an auto this time around. For Tops, Cosmic Chrome is was two seventy
• 40:59
  five on the website. Today they dropped and went live. I checked maybe
• 41:04
  like ten or fifteen minutes after they went live on the website. They were
• 41:06
  already gutted. They were already gone. So they sold everything there at two
• 41:09
  seventy five my LCS, which is usually I would say somewhere between like twenty
• 41:15
  to fifty bucks higher than what Tops has is selling Cosmic Chrome tomorrow for three
• 41:22
  seventy five for the hobby box, So that's one hundred more as people are
• 41:25
  like, it went really fast off of shelves last year, and lots of
• 41:29
  people I think made money off of that initial markup because it was a popular
• 41:35
  set and it wasn't actually like a really well planned outset, like it kind
• 41:38
  of dropped late in the schedule and was kind of a surprise. And they
• 41:42
  do look beautiful. The cards look gorgeous, but my concern is that the
• 41:45
  print run has gone through the roof on these things, even though they're charging
• 41:50
  way more so last year. And I'll print or I'll posted this tweet from
• 41:53
  It's one of my actually favorite like baseball card accounts on Twitter. It's tops
• 41:58
  b B. Which this guy does is he goes through and calculates all the
• 42:01
  print runs of all the top sets out there and then let's everybody know.
• 42:06
  He usually has a pretty clear agenda of like reminding people how much printing has
• 42:10
  happened on the twenty twenty three sets. And this is a great, great
• 42:15
  indicator of it. So the base of twenty twenty two Tops Cosmic Chrome only
• 42:20
  had roughly fifty seven hundred cards out there. So if you had one,
• 42:25
  I want to say, and I guess I will say Wander Franco one Wander
• 42:30
  Franco Ricky card from twenty twenty two Toxic Cosmic Chrome, you had one of
• 42:34
  fifty seven hundred of those cards. This year, if you have one Corpin
• 42:37
  Carroll tops Cosmic Chrome base the print run and that was almost fifteen thousand.
• 42:43
  So the rarity of these cards is not there the way it was so automatically,
• 42:47
  like the price in these things is just going to bottom out, but
• 42:51
  it also shows that each box is less loaded than it was last year.
• 42:53
  I think people had a lot on ripping it because there were all sorts of
• 42:58
  refractors, all sorts of parallel, all sorts of color that it was just
• 43:01
  a really enjoyable time for everybody. So if you're taking away that factor and
• 43:07
  making it more expensive, like it just like it makes me sad because I
• 43:09
  wish like people wouldn't just kind of look at this set itself and like what
• 43:15
  it did last year, but would kind of look into these details because I'm
• 43:17
  definitely looking forward to finding a lot more of these cards and dollar bins going
• 43:22
  forward because they will just kind of be around because there's so many more of
• 43:25
  them. Yeah, we've talked about it on the pod before about if you're
• 43:30
  going to buy a set like this, the time to do it is right
• 43:32
  when it comes out. If you can't, if you can't get in a
• 43:35
  box, because I would say those facts, that information, that knowledge is
• 43:38
  not quite there yet, and so it you can kind of capitalize on the
• 43:45
  market at that time to cash in your inserts and you know, some of
• 43:50
  your big name rookies because people really just don't know and haven't seen enough out
• 43:53
  there, so it's kind of gotta gotta jump on it. You know.
• 43:57
  The interesting thing this year about cosmic even though out to your point it is
• 44:00
  more mass produced, they didn't reduce a new parallel concept into it. So
• 44:05
  I don't know if you if you paid attention to the planetary inserts for those
• 44:09
  that haven't heard about this. Essentially, these are inserts that increase and rarity
• 44:15
  the further away the planet gets from the Sun. And so you have an
• 44:19
  insert for Mars, an insert for Jupiter, all the way out to till
• 44:22
  to Neptune. And yes, I did have to look up the planets in
• 44:25
  order to make sure I got that right. I don't know, maybe there's
• 44:29
  like a hidden Pluto insert that that I don't know about. But is there
• 44:36
  four thousand or forty three thousand, nine nine nine packs? Yeah, so
• 44:39
  there's not. I mean, these are hard to find, and so I
• 44:44
  was I was just checking to see, you know, what kind of the
• 44:45
  sales are, and you know, just for example of you know, some
• 44:50
  of these like the Addle Rushman Rookie of the Sun. So the most common
• 44:54
  of these planets one for one hundred and seventy five dollars, and you know
• 44:58
  you're you're seeing the same for Masatako Yoshida when for like a hundred on the
• 45:02
  Sun, Uh, Mike trout for like one fifty. So I'm gonna I'm
• 45:06
  gonna put you on the spot. Unless you've already looked it up, you've
• 45:10
  you're finding it. Julio Rodriguez Okay. Planetary Pursuit Uranus odds one out of
• 45:16
  twenty thousand packs, one of these has been listed on eBay and sold?
• 45:21
  How much did that one? The second last planet from the Sun, one
• 45:25
  of the most us I guess third if we're actually using Pluto in the scenario.
• 45:31
  But what did the Julio, which is not a rookie card, is
• 45:37
  just a standard Julio insert go for Okay, so it already sold, already
• 45:44
  sold, Okay, it sold actually earlier today. Okay, So lots of
• 45:49
  factors consider one. Today is literally release stay. We're recording this on August
• 45:53
  thirtieth, Wednesday, so it was the first time you could have gone and
• 45:58
  bought it in a hoppy technically, although I'm sure some are starting to be
• 46:02
  ripped earlier this week, so there's that factor. Obviously, Julio is hotter
• 46:07
  than the Sun right now, like he is. I'm so proud of that.
• 46:10
  By the way, you did waste to transition later in the show.
• 46:14
  Yeah, sorry, Yeah, So there's that factor. The very this is
• 46:20
  the most difficult factor for me to consider is the funniness factor of it being
• 46:25
  a uranus parable is really hard to judge. And I don't even know in
• 46:32
  a way that like, honestly, the uranus might be more more expensive than
• 46:37
  the neptailka. So so I'm gonna give you it. I'm gonna give you
• 46:42
  one clue. The one Soto Planetary Pursue Uranus refractor sold for four hundred dollars
• 46:47
  earlier today. Okay, Lon soda went for four hundred dollars, so I
• 46:52
  don't have a you know, actually in the sun for one Soto sold for
• 46:58
  sixty So that what's that roughly seven times factory from the Sun to Uranus.
• 47:07
  We are gonna so get this pod censored co chrome. It's a long time
• 47:14
  coming. So I'll put you on the spot. Who's the Rodriguez planetary pursuit.
• 47:20
  I'm just gonna leave with that insert. I mean to go with the
• 47:25
  Uranus. I'm six hundred and sixty nine dollars. You couldn't be further off,
• 47:30
  really, two thousand, five hundred dollars, buddy, it was listed
• 47:36
  to thirty five hundred and the best offer excepted at two thousand and five hundred.
• 47:40
  I feel like just I didn't want to the one I was honestly thinking
• 47:45
  in thousands, and then the one Soto price pushed me around. But wow,
• 47:49
  okay, okay, but but I mean, yeah, the comedic value
• 47:57
  of that card is going to care a lot of a lot of weight as
• 48:04
  as the season progresses. That doesn't know, it's not always holding that value,
• 48:07
  but like you can definitely say you're the first person to hold that card,
• 48:13
  and you can say, however you want to. Yeah, that is
• 48:15
  incredible. So I'm looking so technically from Tops production, bb Key estimates that
• 48:23
  there are five of those uraneous cards, so that makes it about it as
• 48:30
  rare as the Red Parallel, but that's absurd. But of five non rookie
• 48:37
  of a big name, like yeah, you see that, that's gonna be
• 48:42
  three four Like in a chrome tops Chrome or something like that, you could
• 48:45
  get a pretty big right after release. But that just tells you the let's
• 48:51
  say the hilarious factor of the name of the of the card, uh and
• 48:54
  what it brings it. I just I hate to say it, but I'm
• 48:58
  gonna go there. I the breaker that's breaking this product that has to go
• 49:02
  there, or the little kid that breaks it and goes, Dad, look
• 49:07
  at what I got. It's a I just I'm still immature. But somebody
• 49:15
  had to have thought of that when they when they created this. Absolutely,
• 49:17
  yeah, absolutely, and they're like, how can I work this in?
• 49:21
  Let's do all the planets? So anyway, so Cosmic Chrome, it's a
• 49:25
  fun product. It is sad that it's a little overproduced this year relative to
• 49:30
  last year. I think your last year's product is going to kind of hold
• 49:31
  a special place in tops release history. But it's still gonna be a fun
• 49:36
  one. And if you get a chance to rip it, good luck.
• 49:38
  I hope you stay away from the song. Yeah me too that like,
• 49:43
  yeah it is. I guess I lament that it's not a more readily available
• 49:46
  set to rip at the price point for that print run. It's just not
• 49:50
  a good cross section. So I look forward to gawking out lots of the
• 49:53
  cards to come out and looking at them at shows. But yeah, that's
• 49:57
  not exactly supplying demand point where I'm usually playing at with cards. So we
• 50:01
  do have a third release that came out, which I think is a little
• 50:06
  bit in the same vein as Top Cosmic Chrome, and this year it seems
• 50:09
  like it's even been a little bit more limited release than what was put out
• 50:13
  there last year. But I know you're the man that really researched this because
• 50:16
  of your pain point with this product last year that you can tell everybody about
• 50:21
  and kind of the learning lesson there. But talk twenty twenty three Tops Logo
• 50:25
  Fractor. Is it Chrome Logo Fractor or Chrome Logo Fractor. So twenty twenty
• 50:31
  three Tops Chrome Logo Fractor Edition, which it's pretty much base set Tops Chrome,
• 50:37
  but each of the packs contain parallel refractors of the MLB logo, like
• 50:44
  being in the refractor pattern. So as we've talked about different types of refractors
• 50:47
  like wave ones or a big one with the patterns, and there's been sparkles
• 50:53
  that we've gone over and other sorts of different designs, what they actually do
• 50:57
  with this design is make it the MLB logo kind of into the rainbow were
• 51:01
  fractor. So it was a really popular set last year. Again, just
• 51:06
  like Cosmic Chrome last year, it was brand new and kind of a special
• 51:09
  release, like it wasn't always on the calendar. So when it dropped,
• 51:13
  people were really excited about it, and then it just kind of really took
• 51:16
  off. It was a really beautiful set and people really enjoyed the logo fractors.
• 51:21
  But Brew, I'll let you go into further details on this year's release.
• 51:23
  Yeah, so it's a really interesting set. And so last year when
• 51:27
  this came out, it came out the first time it was fifty dollars I
• 51:31
  believe a box, which was for a new set, and there was no
• 51:36
  guaranteed autos. I think you got I'm recalling ten logo fractors a box,
• 51:40
  and everything else was was basing. You could have some of the different parallels.
• 51:45
  And the exciting thing is it also qualified for the MVP buyback, so
• 51:49
  you could be hunting for those cards as well. And this year it's it's
• 51:53
  sixty five dollars a box since they did bump it up a little bit.
• 51:57
  But what was interesting this year is they actually leased it in the MLB store
• 52:02
  in New York City two days ago and there was no pre announcement. It
• 52:07
  was just kind of all of a sudden, Hey announced it on Twitter,
• 52:08
  We've got this, and you could call in and place an order to be
• 52:13
  shipped to you. You could, you could go in, but from from
• 52:15
  what I could tell, it's sold out in an hour or two. It
• 52:19
  was gone very very quickly at that sixty five dollars price point. And now
• 52:22
  if you jump out and are checking to see, you know what that's running,
• 52:27
  it's I think in almost one seventy five seventy five range. I think
• 52:31
  right after that initial surge if you missed it, it was two hundred dollars
• 52:35
  a box, and so almost a three times increase on the market prices.
• 52:40
  They have said that they expect to have more in stock. What that means
• 52:45
  is that means it's going to go on tops dot com like it did last
• 52:47
  year. I do not know, but it definitely was a very impressive set.
• 52:53
  And to your point, my beef with this one is last year I
• 52:57
  did manage to grab it right away when it released. I grabbed three boxes
• 53:01
  fifty dollars a box, and you know, I thought it was going to
• 53:04
  be one of those gimmicky sets, not much gonna come of it. And
• 53:07
  so I got it. I ripped the thing right away. I got through
• 53:10
  the first two boxes and I got zilch, nothing not. I mean,
• 53:15
  you were chasing the Julios, you know, the Bobby Wits rookies, and
• 53:20
  those were extremely rare. They were going for big dollars and the cards were
• 53:24
  just cool. I don't think I hit a single rookie, a single color
• 53:29
  anything in two boxes, and so I end up ripping the third. I
• 53:31
  think I hit something a little bit that was able to give me some value
• 53:35
  back, and I probably got back maybe my original money after literally piping through
• 53:39
  everything. But what killed me was I didn't realize the resale market on this
• 53:44
  thing was going to be so robust, because even last year, fifty dollars
• 53:47
  a box, and I'm guessing the print room was less last year. You
• 53:50
  just have to imagine it would be. They were going for one hundred and
• 53:52
  fifty to two hundred for the next like three months. And I just ripped
• 53:57
  through those things like it was nothing, and all I had to do was
• 53:59
  just one box and sell that one to pay for the other two. And
• 54:02
  I could have had a free rip instead, Like I said, I got
• 54:06
  basically nothing. You know, I was getting your wonderful rookies rookies middle relievers
• 54:13
  across across the board. So but that said, it is to me it
• 54:16
  is a wonderful set, it you know it. I like the low price
• 54:21
  point because you can chase a big card. There are some cool autos within
• 54:25
  there. They do have some like the future Stars parallels things like that.
• 54:30
  They are again harder to come by, just kind of like some of the
• 54:32
  black and white diamonds and some of the light boxes that are out there for
• 54:37
  some of the sets. But because of the price point, it's just a
• 54:39
  fun rip and you're guaranteed to get a certain number of the Logo Fractor inserts,
• 54:44
  which are personally just a very cool, cool insert and I have I
• 54:49
  haven't seen them to your point, like dollar bends and things like that.
• 54:51
  I just have not come across them, so I have to think it was
• 54:54
  a pretty limited run that they did last year. Yeah, exactly. It's
• 54:59
  not cards that you see very often. It shows because people really snatch them
• 55:02
  up, and even just the Logo Fractor cards themselves, like I've actually I'm
• 55:07
  looking at one right now on my desk. It's the Albert Poohol's logo fractor,
• 55:10
  one that anyone with a personal collection of PC snatched up their favorite player
• 55:15
  in at least the base Logo fractor because it's just their beautiful cards. And
• 55:20
  like you said, the price point is great if you can get it from
• 55:22
  Tops and not from the secondary market, because at that point it's the same
• 55:27
  price as like a megabox that you would find at Target of Walmart, and
• 55:30
  that's when I would rip it. But like it is tempting to resell it
• 55:34
  when the market is sober bust, And like you said, you've already given
• 55:37
  a nice kind of warning of what to expect maybe in these boxes, because
• 55:44
  obviously at fifty, well they were fifty at last year, sixty five this
• 55:47
  year from Tops Tops themselves is kind of already admitting how loaded or unloaded they
• 55:54
  are. That I think, especially because it is mixed in with just regular
• 55:59
  based Hops Chrome. It's nice because like you could hit some guys for the
• 56:02
  MVP buy back that we've been talking about, but at the same time you're
• 56:07
  just hitting Base Tops crumbs. So this stuff is so kind of overprinted and
• 56:12
  unnecessary nowadays that like you're really just opening the sixty five dollars box for roughly
• 56:19
  the ten Logo Fractor cards that you're getting in there, and then once you
• 56:22
  kind of play that out, then you're kind of you're banging for the bucket
• 56:25
  is starting to fade a little bit. Yeah, And the what's tempting about
• 56:30
  the product is because of how collectible those cards are, Especially right away,
• 56:34
  I was looking like the only Adelaide that's sold. I mean, this thing
• 56:37
  just came out two days ago. People are getting in ships, so it
• 56:39
  has to be somebody on the bought at end person went for seventy five dollars
• 56:43
  just for the Logo Fractor card. That you know that those are going to
• 56:47
  go up and value just a short term. But the allure of just hey,
• 56:52
  if I just hit one of these good rookies, they can pay for
• 56:54
  the box is hard to pass up because you're like, oh, it's a
• 56:59
  it's a base, right, It's it's not a big deal. But there's
• 57:01
  there's just not that many cards in the In the overall box, I think
• 57:06
  you have generally five four card packs plus two exclusive five card packs, so
• 57:12
  you've got a total of seven packs for basically thirty cards in this box.
• 57:16
  Yeah, So it's it's it's all comes down to those logo fractors and if
• 57:21
  you're hitting something and if you want the second ear of market and you're shelling
• 57:23
  out one hundred and seventy five dollars for it, yeah that uh, you
• 57:27
  better just be enjoying the cards. That's yeah, that's you're not getting your
• 57:30
  money back unless you hit something crazy. I agree. Yeah, that is
• 57:32
  a tough way to slide through opening cards for sure. But yeah, so
• 57:37
  I think you just go by nineteen ninety Fleer. I think is probably a
• 57:40
  just as just as worthwhile. That'll take you out three hours to open because
• 57:44
  with thirty packs, like ten cards a pack, yeah, it does take
• 57:47
  a long time. Resort, it's fun, okay, But I think that
• 57:50
  right wraps us up for the news that we want to cover for this segment.
• 57:53
  We do have a quick update on just other sets coming out over the
• 57:57
  next few weeks to put on your radar, So if you want to rile
• 58:00
  this off for us, yeah, really next few weeks here, and this
• 58:04
  is all rolling up to probably one of the bigger releases the year of tops
• 58:07
  update here in about month month and a half. But over the next few
• 58:10
  weeks here we have Panini Immaculate personally I'm actually a big fan of Immaculate,
• 58:16
  never gonna rip it. I think the cards are usually very wonderful, big
• 58:22
  patches, very unique styles, and so I love Immaculate in general. That's
• 58:27
  coming out in September sixth. Then on September thirteenth, we have Bowman Chrome
• 58:31
  sorry Bowman Chrome, a Bowman game from Bowman Chrome coming out. Another good
• 58:37
  set usually has a number of the first in there, more from the international
• 58:43
  market that come into that product as well. Let probably the least popular of
• 58:49
  the Bowman sets that come out through the year, Real Sich a draft and
• 58:52
  based Bowman. It comes at the beginning of the year. The Bowman Chrome
• 58:55
  is a fun rip but one of the least desirable Bowman products out there.
• 59:00
  So yeah, for the next few weeks, that's what's coming out. I
• 59:02
  don't know cool any comments on that. No, I think that is great
• 59:06
  coverage. And then obviously we're still leading up to Alan and Ginter that got
• 59:09
  pushed back to September twenty second, but we will definitely cover that one in
• 59:14
  more detail because it is one of the more major releases of the year.
• 59:17
  It's just kind of everywhere and it's I think that's a really great time also
• 59:22
  too, I have gotten some questions from listeners on where to start like the
• 59:25
  process of card collecting, because I think as we're finding our niche here in
• 59:30
  the intersection of cards and fantasy, you know there are people from the card
• 59:35
  side who might be getting into the fantasy and people from the fantasy side getting
• 59:38
  into the cards. So I think Allen and Ginter will be a great time
• 59:42
  for us to kind of have that conversation on how do you start collecting cards
• 59:45
  and what sorts of cards do you collect. I think Allan and Ginter will
• 59:50
  be a good place for lots of people to really start that journey and rip
• 59:53
  some really cool stuff. So I think that wraps us up right now for
• 59:58
  the card section. We will be bad with the fantasy section talking about some
• 1:00:01
  surprise top one hundred hitters. Stick around. Okay, welcome back everybody to
• 1:00:25
  the category section of cards and categories. So we're going to discuss today surprising
• 1:00:30
  top one hundred hitters. We've got six players that are in within the top
• 1:00:37
  one hundred hitters on our player raider on razball dot com, so I will
• 1:00:42
  link to that so you can see the full list and see you like kind
• 1:00:45
  of where we're picking these guys out from what we're especially looking at our guys
• 1:00:50
  who were pretty much free at the draft table back in February and March and
• 1:00:55
  now are valuable mainstays of everybody's fantasy lineups and stand step all across the board
• 1:01:00
  just to see is their production this year flukey? Do we think we can
• 1:01:06
  count on it going forward? What sorts of players do we think they can
• 1:01:08
  be going forward, and kind of anything that we can maybe learn from this
• 1:01:13
  going into the draft next year. Obviously, baseball is an unpredictable sport,
• 1:01:17
  and there's people kind of popping up out of nowhere and retooling themselves. And
• 1:01:23
  we've got six players here who kind of fit in all sorts of buckets there.
• 1:01:30
  Some are getting to break out, some are finding new blood. So
• 1:01:34
  we've got six percent of the top one hundred to cover. I'm going to
• 1:01:37
  kick it off with our first one, who is eighteenth and our overall player
• 1:01:40
  writer, outfielder Lane Thomas from the Washington Nationals. So to get to that
• 1:01:47
  eighteenth ranking, which is crazy to think about Lane Thomas, former Cardinal who
• 1:01:54
  lost out on an outfield spot, which is bananas, like they could the
• 1:02:00
  Cardinals could have been running an outfield of Randy Rosarina, Lane Thomas and Aduli
• 1:02:05
  Scarcia this year but didn't. And so what's really driving Lane Thomas's value is
• 1:02:13
  really contributing across the board. So he's got twenty homers, seventeen steals,
• 1:02:20
  eighty eight runs, sixty nine ribbies with a two eighty average, three thirty
• 1:02:24
  one OVP four sixty eight slug. That's good for it's only a one fifteen
• 1:02:29
  w RC plus, So I think that already that already shows kind of where
• 1:02:32
  I'm going to take this discussion is that the WRC plus I think indicates more
• 1:02:37
  of what Lane Thomas is overall. You go through his profile for this year,
• 1:02:43
  not much has changed, Like the k percentage has ticked up two percent,
• 1:02:46
  the walk percentage down about one and a half. Nothing crazy as well
• 1:02:52
  as like the hard hit rate is ticked up a little bit, but nothing
• 1:02:54
  that would indicate him being the eighteenth overall hitter going forward. I think what's
• 1:03:00
  really driving it is pops out right away three fifty three babbit. So Lane
• 1:03:06
  Thomas is fast. He is not one of these dudes where the sprint speed
• 1:03:10
  lies on stat cast. He's got a ninety five percent style on the sprint
• 1:03:15
  speed and you can see when you go to his page he's got blue across
• 1:03:19
  the board on other stuff. So I think this is really a career year
• 1:03:22
  for Lane Thomas. I think that overall he's going to settle into something where
• 1:03:28
  he just contributes because he's going to play if the Nationals run him out in
• 1:03:31
  center field all the time. And this is kind of what people thought Lane
• 1:03:35
  Thomas could be last year, something like a mid teens homers and stolen basis.
• 1:03:40
  It's just kind of all coming into truition and being driven with a really
• 1:03:44
  nice bab up this year. What do you think, Jeremy, Yeah,
• 1:03:46
  I think Jemy I agree with you. I mean, he did make a
• 1:03:50
  few look like adjustments this year. Overall, he's like he's a line drive
• 1:03:54
  hitter if you look. I'm a big fan of baseball Savant. I'm just
• 1:03:58
  kind of looking at the hitting, the profile, as far as quality contact,
• 1:04:01
  things like that. He is fast. He is fast. And we've
• 1:04:04
  done this a million times on this UH pod. But you've got it.
• 1:04:09
  What what percentile UH is his sprint sprint seeds, sprint speed UH in the
• 1:04:15
  league. What's your guess, oh, I think it just rattled it off.
• 1:04:19
  It was ninety five. But oh or you railed it off? Okay,
• 1:04:24
  yeah, clearly was clearly wasn't listening to you know. But so but
• 1:04:30
  the rest of his profile is just not that exciting. But what he does
• 1:04:34
  is he hits life drives and you know, wellboved league average, he pulls
• 1:04:41
  the ball almost half the time, and so he is getting like the most
• 1:04:45
  out of his power pulling the ball. And this year he has really improved
• 1:04:53
  his ability to hit the fastball. You know, last year he was right
• 1:04:58
  out there with h you know, a his line of two forty seven.
• 1:05:04
  Uh, I don't I have a slugg and I don't have his is on
• 1:05:08
  base with two forty seven batting average with four ten slugging against fastballs. That's
• 1:05:12
  not a three oh four and five o eight slugging this year. And the
• 1:05:17
  breaking off speed stuff really hasn't changed. So he's made some noticeable changes.
• 1:05:23
  But overall he's just a solid player. He's a good player, he's not
• 1:05:30
  a great player. And to your point, like it's because of his counting
• 1:05:34
  stats being elevated, he's easily gonna score well over one hundred runs uh,
• 1:05:39
  this year. That's kind of what's driving his numbers is just the ability to
• 1:05:46
  kind of put numbers in all the categories. And so if you look at
• 1:05:49
  actually who who they compare him to on Baseball Savant, you know you're kind
• 1:05:54
  of like, Okay, who where do you throughout the cops and like it's
• 1:05:58
  like Brandon Crawford, Michael Taylor, Zekiel Duran, Ryan Anderson, like oh,
• 1:06:03
  those are exciting names. They're like all guys was like that have had
• 1:06:06
  really valuable seasons, but they were usually career seasons and then they kind of
• 1:06:12
  stepped it back to like eighty percent of out So Lane Thomas next year,
• 1:06:15
  I'm I think I'm comfortable saying two seventy fifteen fifteen type of guy ninety runs
• 1:06:21
  like very valuable outfielder, Yeah, but not a top twenty hit or by
• 1:06:30
  any by any means. No, I agree, And honestly, that sounds
• 1:06:33
  a lot like kind of mid career cutch, like kind of when he was
• 1:06:39
  starting to come down from his MVP status. So something like, I mean,
• 1:06:45
  if you're playing a standard five by five Rodo with five outfielders, like
• 1:06:49
  I would definitely take Lane Thomas as a salad three, like a number three
• 1:06:56
  outfielder, but certainly not somebody to build your out field a round overall.
• 1:07:01
  And so what was his ADP on before the year. Yeah, so he
• 1:07:08
  was ADP of just over three hundred three or four ADP, which means you
• 1:07:12
  were finding him on a twelve team or in the twenty fifth round. So
• 1:07:15
  I believe that's called free. And yeah, he if you if you picked
• 1:07:20
  him up at the end of the draft as like you're, you know,
• 1:07:23
  fifth out fielder, you're just hoping you got something for free. You are
• 1:07:27
  very very happy with that production because you plugged him in all the year and
• 1:07:30
  he's also not the freakiest guy. So you've just been consistent, give you
• 1:07:33
  what you need and you've been very very happy with that that investment, which
• 1:07:36
  thinks would be the same for most of the guys that we talk about of
• 1:07:40
  as far as surprises. So yeah, but we can just reiterate how free
• 1:07:43
  they were. So I'll bounce it over to you to start the details on
• 1:07:46
  our next top one hundred hitter that we wanted to go over. Yeah,
• 1:07:49
  so next guy I want to hit it here is a Justin Turner, the
• 1:07:55
  ripe thirty eight year old for the Red Sox come in number twenty four UH
• 1:08:01
  at this point in the season, and you know, I think, you
• 1:08:04
  know, he's just been one of those guys over the years, has just
• 1:08:08
  been kind of steady Eddie Uh. You know, he gets live. I
• 1:08:12
  mean, he's sitting two eighty eight on the season, twenty two home runs,
• 1:08:15
  he's got seventy eight runs, eighty six runs bad an never the speedster,
• 1:08:19
  but he's managed fource deals in the season, So just a very solid
• 1:08:24
  overall season. That's just really who he has been for the last decade,
• 1:08:29
  mostly out you know, out with with the Dodgers, but you know,
• 1:08:32
  his his batting low, batting average going all the way back to UH since
• 1:08:39
  twenty thirteen was two seventy five was his worst season from a batting average perspective,
• 1:08:44
  and in the seasons when he plays like a full slate of games,
• 1:08:47
  he's a twenty five homer guy. So very, very solid. And I
• 1:08:53
  think with him going to Boston, you know, la kind of I was
• 1:08:56
  like giving up on him, but giving up on him to a degree.
• 1:08:59
  I think people were expecting him to kind of tail off, and if anything,
• 1:09:03
  he's actually been better this year than he has in prior years and hitting
• 1:09:10
  the ADP two fifty five, so you're, you know, a little more
• 1:09:15
  expensive than Lane Thomas, but but not much. The big thing that the
• 1:09:18
  intrigues me to Justin Turner is he has substantially changed his batted ball profile of
• 1:09:25
  where he's hitting the ball. He moved to Finway and he just started pulling,
• 1:09:30
  pulling, uh, everything towards the Green Monster. And it's it's it's
• 1:09:35
  remarkable. And so if you actually hit look at his like spray chart over
• 1:09:39
  the last few years, it's, you know, it's kind of tended that
• 1:09:44
  way, but like you go back in twenty one, twenty twenty, and
• 1:09:46
  it's like he's got a very even distribution. Still a little bit of a
• 1:09:51
  pole hitter. U is with that pole hitter tendency. You know, he's
• 1:09:56
  been able to take advantage of that short porch in Finway and he is you
• 1:10:00
  know, hits that up there. And so he's I mean, if you
• 1:10:03
  look at it, he's on probably pay for the most power for his career
• 1:10:11
  in the in this year adjustment and out which he doesn't return value next year
• 1:10:16
  as well. Yeah, and you actually you took my number one point that
• 1:10:19
  I was going to make about him is you can just see it right on
• 1:10:23
  the spray chart that all he's trying to do is pop it right over the
• 1:10:26
  Green Monster or whack it off the Green Monster. And so he's got a
• 1:10:30
  great swing that's optimized for Boston and Finway. The other thing that I wanted
• 1:10:36
  to point out was since twenty thirteen, his lowest w RC plus is a
• 1:10:41
  one twenty seven, so or one twenty three? Did I won twenty three?
• 1:10:45
  My bad one twenty three and twenty sixteen. He's had one twenty seven
• 1:10:48
  this year. He also had a one twenty three last year. But he
• 1:10:51
  is a very steady eddie and so he's gonna be I think going forward a
• 1:10:57
  little bit of like the Nelson Cruz was kind of at the end of his
• 1:10:59
  career where you see his age next to his name in the draft room and
• 1:11:03
  it gives you the heap gebs and you want to stay away, but until
• 1:11:08
  it falls off, you kind of got to write him. And it's gonna
• 1:11:11
  be a dependable CEI or a third baseman and depending on kind of where he
• 1:11:16
  qualifies going forward, as he shifts into DH roles often and so I do,
• 1:11:25
  like Justin Turner, going forward, but it is like when the bottom
• 1:11:28
  falls out, the bomb is going to fall out, because like he's gonna
• 1:11:30
  have a bad back or a bad knee and the age will catch up to
• 1:11:33
  him. Yeah. Absolutely right, I'm right there with you, Like it's
• 1:11:36
  you have to keep investing and taking that risk. And I think it's gonna
• 1:11:40
  be a small risk because I don't think the price is gonna be It's gonna
• 1:11:43
  be higher next year, and it was this year, but it's not gonna
• 1:11:45
  be that substantial. So it's the price of the mission is worth worth of
• 1:11:50
  pain this year and next. Yeah. Absolutely, And so let our next
• 1:11:56
  guy here, who do you who you got? Yeah? Our third guy
• 1:11:59
  is Josh low who ranks thirty two thirty second right now in our top one
• 1:12:03
  hundred hitters, the outfielder from the Tampa Rays. His ADP was five hundred
• 1:12:11
  and fifty five at the beginning of the season in NFBC drafts, which is
• 1:12:15
  absurd. That's like barely getting drafted in most drafts, I think. So
• 1:12:19
  the twenty five year old Josh Lowe this year has put up a pretty crazy
• 1:12:25
  line, especially considering he's mostly in a strong side platoon. It's eighteen Homers
• 1:12:30
  with twenty five steals, which is I think where a lot of the values
• 1:12:33
  coming from for Josh low is the twenty five steals, but that came with
• 1:12:38
  has come with fifty six runs seventy rbi, so he should top out somewhere
• 1:12:43
  around like seventies sh runs and ninety s rbi, and that has all come
• 1:12:48
  with a two eighty four batting average and all one twenty nine WRC plus.
• 1:12:54
  So I think Josh Lowe, like this is the type of guy that we
• 1:12:59
  were talking about out when we were saying some of these guys are starting to
• 1:13:02
  hit their prime, starting to hit their stride. He's only twenty five.
• 1:13:06
  I think that this is simply because he isn't bouncing up and down in the
• 1:13:12
  miners. And I think that twenty twenty lost season of the miners really hurt
• 1:13:16
  his development. He was in double A in twenty nineteen as a twenty one
• 1:13:21
  year old, crushing it for a one twenty eight RC plus, Like he
• 1:13:27
  should have been right on track to really kind of open twenty twenty in double
• 1:13:32
  A and maybe he cruised his way through to the majors by the end of
• 1:13:35
  the year. But with that pandemic season and obviously didn't help him get out
• 1:13:42
  of the gate well. And last year was a struggle as he kind of
• 1:13:44
  bounced between Triple A and the majors and only put up a w RC plus
• 1:13:48
  of eighty two last year. But this is exactly the type of guy that
• 1:13:51
  like, as he learns to hit lefties and gets out of his stronger side
• 1:13:57
  platoon role, I really like. I mean his barrel ray, he's doubled
• 1:14:00
  it this year. It was five point two percent last year, it's eleven
• 1:14:03
  point seven percent right now, thirty nine percent hard hit rates a little lower
• 1:14:09
  than you want, but like if it's coming with that many barrels, that
• 1:14:12
  means that, like he's squaring it up just enough for me that the speed
• 1:14:16
  I think will come through and really save you. With him, that he's
• 1:14:20
  a left handed batter, also benefiting from the shift restrictions, so that's giving
• 1:14:26
  him a little bit of a boost. I like Josh Low a lot going
• 1:14:29
  forward. I don't think he's going to be a top forty hitter again,
• 1:14:31
  but I would draft him as like back end of the top one hundred back
• 1:14:36
  next year. Easily. Yeah, I absolutely agree, And I think he's
• 1:14:42
  one of those that if you look at his profile, it's like perfectly designed
• 1:14:45
  for family. His maxim at the vote is top thirteen percent leagues, like
• 1:14:53
  when he does make that contact, it goes on a noise. He does
• 1:14:58
  have top sprint speed, so he can run like. He does all of
• 1:15:00
  those things well, except for he strikes out all the time. He doesn't
• 1:15:02
  walk a whole lot, but doesn't matter generally for fantasy, and so he
• 1:15:05
  pads all those stats and it just makes loud outs and things like that.
• 1:15:10
  So it really does have that kind of perfect fit for fantasy. Wish he
• 1:15:15
  was not a platoon back because the guy cannot hit lefties to save his life.
• 1:15:18
  But as long as you're not in a weekly league, that's that's something
• 1:15:21
  you can easily easily work her around. So I'm right there with you.
• 1:15:26
  I like Josh Low. I've like him because when we with that playing time
• 1:15:29
  and he's he's definitely paid off for folks. I think that the risk with
• 1:15:33
  him is that if you get overly convinced with what he is, you could
• 1:15:38
  risk overpaying next year and thinking he has more growth. I think he's probably
• 1:15:43
  cappying out. Yeah, And I mean I even with the poor production against
• 1:15:46
  lefties, this year. What I do like with the Rays, I think
• 1:15:49
  compared to some other teams that I see, is that even if there is
• 1:15:54
  a lefty on the bound to start and when the other team brings in a
• 1:15:58
  righty, Josh Low does get into the game. It's not that he will
• 1:16:01
  end up writing the pine and kind of be saved for really specific situations.
• 1:16:06
  It's that the Rays make that switch to get him into the game because he
• 1:16:11
  is such a substantial back from the right side or from the left side for
• 1:16:15
  them. So that is something that is a nice benefit compared to some other
• 1:16:19
  people that gets stuck in strong side platoons. So that's something to look for
• 1:16:24
  with Josh Slow. I'll pass it back to you for the fourth guy on
• 1:16:28
  our list of the top one hundred guys we wanted to go through that we're
• 1:16:30
  surprising to us, yeah, and personally to me, but this might be
• 1:16:33
  one of the most surprising names on the list. So number forty four overall.
• 1:16:39
  Isaac Paridies if I'm pronouncing that one, I think I've heard of before,
• 1:16:45
  but I know that I tend to butcher names. ADP three twenty three
• 1:16:50
  coming into the season, so right in the middle of the pack that the
• 1:16:54
  guys we're talking about, and really his value has been derived solely based on
• 1:16:59
  power. This year, he's got twenty seven homers resulting eighty four runs batted
• 1:17:04
  in. It's only hitting two fifty nine. And as you look at his
• 1:17:09
  k rate is you know, seventeen percent, so it's like, oh,
• 1:17:13
  there are some things there, but you know, when you actually look at
• 1:17:15
  his hard hit rate, it's, you know, one of the towards the
• 1:17:18
  bottom league. It's hard hit rate is the sixth percentile. Somebody has a
• 1:17:24
  nice X home run calculation where they estimate what he does. He's at twenty
• 1:17:29
  seven this year. The X home run projected he should have hit twenty And
• 1:17:32
  I love the fact that they actually compare him to all the ballparks because he's
• 1:17:35
  just squeaking things over the fence. And if you played all his games in
• 1:17:40
  camp yards this year, he'd have eight home runs just because he's just barely
• 1:17:43
  sneaking over the left field fence there. And so you start to look at
• 1:17:46
  the different you know, all the Italian signs here, it's just like,
• 1:17:49
  this is a guy that is X batting average. His xbat got luck in
• 1:17:55
  it. He's barely getting over the fence. His batting, he's not doesn't
• 1:17:59
  have any speed, so he's not legging anything else was beat average is probably
• 1:18:02
  actually a little elevated as well. There's I don't see him continuing to carry
• 1:18:06
  this forward. I see a lot of luck that's driven this profile. I
• 1:18:11
  know he's just twenty four, and you know he can be still coming into
• 1:18:15
  his own but I'm not too excited and I won't be owning any shares anytime
• 1:18:19
  soon, So I don't know what are your thoughts on Isaac here. I
• 1:18:23
  agree. I mean, I think when you look behind the curtain of what
• 1:18:27
  he's putting up, it is very worrisome. Like the line is great on
• 1:18:32
  the year with the one four w RC plus, but he does walk at
• 1:18:36
  a good clip, which is what's really pushing that. I think this is
• 1:18:39
  a case of somebody being a better real life player than fantasy player because of
• 1:18:44
  those walks, and so he's getting on base and being valuable in that aspect
• 1:18:48
  for the Rays. But Parade's overall is just not somebody who I'm going to
• 1:18:53
  be interested in going forward, because the like you said, the home runs
• 1:18:58
  are concerning where Parades is barely getting it over the wall and his ex home
• 1:19:03
  runs are pretty poor. But the other factor is that his average is just
• 1:19:10
  really dependent on whether or not he can get that ball over the wall.
• 1:19:14
  So last year he had a pretty similar approach at the plate and it resulted
• 1:19:18
  in twenty home runs overall, but his average Parades barely cracked the Mendoza line
• 1:19:24
  at two oh five. So this is exactly the type of guy who can
• 1:19:29
  almost be like Joey Gallo, like, because Parades is just popping homers,
• 1:19:34
  that batting average can really be either like a huge detriment to you or a
• 1:19:41
  minor detriment just because he's not gonna hit for high batting average. He's hitting
• 1:19:45
  a lot of flies. And so Parades isn't somebody I'm really interested in going
• 1:19:49
  forward that like, enjoy the production that you got from him this year while
• 1:19:53
  you did, but I can't expect to repeat. Yeah, I think Kyle
• 1:19:56
  schober Light my people were talking about out here, and I don't. That's
• 1:20:00
  not meant to a compliment, So oh not at all all right, So
• 1:20:05
  we got two more to go. Yeah, and so this is actually like
• 1:20:10
  the guy who kind of inspired it for me, I'll take the fifth guy.
• 1:20:13
  It's Chas McCormick, outfielder from Houston Astros, just because he is sitting
• 1:20:17
  sixty seventh right now on our top one hundred hitters. His ADP back on
• 1:20:21
  draft Day was five forty six, so he's getting drafted down by Josh Low.
• 1:20:26
  He was totally free and I think I'm actually kind of on board with
• 1:20:30
  this for right now. Like the BABBIP is extremely high. It's at three
• 1:20:35
  forty eight right now, which is really buoying his two eighty two batting average
• 1:20:40
  overall and driving him to a one forty three w RC plus, which I
• 1:20:44
  would never have imagined that would be next to Chas McCormick's name at any point
• 1:20:47
  in his career. That he's also he's a goofy. He bats right handed
• 1:20:53
  and throws left handed. That there aren't many guys in the history of the
• 1:20:58
  Majors that played a position that are like that that I've uneffectively wild. The
• 1:21:02
  other week, they were talking about this and Ryan Ludwick has reached out to
• 1:21:06
  Chas McCormick about being like in the club because Ryan Ludwick is also in that
• 1:21:11
  same club of righty bat lefty thrower. It's not a very common pairing.
• 1:21:15
  So it's just kind of amazing that Chas McCormick's in the majors overall from that,
• 1:21:21
  but it's just it's the power speed combo, I think for the price,
• 1:21:25
  Like, I don't think Chas McCormick is ever going to be a top
• 1:21:28
  one hundred hitter again, and I don't think anybody's ever expecting him to be.
• 1:21:31
  But when you're putting a right handed bat in Houston with those Crawford boxes,
• 1:21:36
  I think that's what I like about him. That like some of the
• 1:21:39
  flaws that we talked about with Lane Thomas in terms of just like he's never
• 1:21:43
  going to really have a great ceiling, but he will play every day because
• 1:21:45
  he played center field, like they definitely apply to Chas McCormick here that he's
• 1:21:49
  a good center fielder. He's a solid centerfielder, and he can get those
• 1:21:54
  every day at bats by playing in the field for the Astros. But what
• 1:21:57
  I like about McCormick compared to Thomas overall is that he gets eighty one games
• 1:22:01
  to shoot something into the Crawford boxes, which is why he's you know,
• 1:22:06
  in twenty twenty one hit fourteen homers, twenty twenty two hit fourteen homers.
• 1:22:11
  This year, he's up to nineteen homers, and so with the stolen base
• 1:22:15
  changes, I think that's where he's taking most advantage of kind of redeveloping his
• 1:22:19
  game as he's added he only had four in twenty twenty one in twenty twenty
• 1:22:24
  two, he's up to fourteen this year. But Chas McCormick, I think
• 1:22:28
  that's why I like it that, like he has a little bit higher ceiling
• 1:22:31
  on his overall homers because I think you can pretty much lock him in now
• 1:22:35
  for mid teen steals going forward. Yeah, I think Chas McCormick for me
• 1:22:40
  is a struggle and I don't this is gonna be the gut play here.
• 1:22:44
  It's not gonna be the numbers. As I look at the numbers, like
• 1:22:45
  if there, you know, there's nothing there that's like a really big red
• 1:22:50
  flag. There's nothing there that's really really exciting. It's just kind of middle
• 1:22:54
  of the road. And he's the kind of guy that he has like some
• 1:22:57
  luck in the season can really really kind of go off kind of lane Thomas
• 1:23:00
  likes it to that point, but there's just something about Chas McCormick where I
• 1:23:05
  just watching him, I'm just I'm not buying us. I don't. I
• 1:23:10
  don't know why. There's it's a gut feel, and I'm gonna say gut
• 1:23:14
  field based on years and years of experience or just the gut feel because I
• 1:23:17
  woke up wrong. So the bed this morning, Chasm is a guy I'm
• 1:23:20
  probably gonna be investing in. I see him at beds in middle field as
• 1:23:25
  well. It's gonna be gone and draft for me before before I take him.
• 1:23:29
  And I think he's probably gonna settle him as a one twenty type hitter
• 1:23:33
  from from overall top one hundred. He's I don't see him breaking it unless
• 1:23:36
  he gets a lucky break as as things continue, so I will likely be
• 1:23:41
  wrong. You can rub it in my face next year. But that's okay.
• 1:23:45
  Yeah, And I mean he's got an interesting savant page which we didn't
• 1:23:47
  even really get into that, Like there's blue, but there's a lot more
• 1:23:51
  red than Lane Thomas too, just because he does barrel the ball at a
• 1:23:56
  ten percent clip, which is kind of like the that is like once you
• 1:24:00
  start hitting it over the ten percent clip on the barrels, that's where you
• 1:24:02
  start really seeing like the best hitters sit and so That's what I think I
• 1:24:06
  like about it is like, compared to Lane Thomas, he is actually hitting
• 1:24:11
  the balls at the right launch angles and stuff to be able to like add
• 1:24:14
  that power as opposed to Lane Thomas has almost kind of fluked his way into
• 1:24:19
  the home runs this year, the way Zach Parda says and so as along
• 1:24:23
  with Hi. McCormick just like this is kind of the first full season that
• 1:24:27
  he's gotten in center field and gotten settled. So I wonder if that's been
• 1:24:30
  a little bit of his breakout too. But I do agree that, like
• 1:24:33
  I don't. I guess part of it too is I guess we'll see what
• 1:24:35
  his draft cost is. I just don't see it shooting terribly high because it's
• 1:24:41
  just not like a he's not a household name. And so I see McCormick
• 1:24:45
  being able to be drafted maybe around like the two hundred ADP next year.
• 1:24:49
  And if that's the case, then I think I would be interested in I'll
• 1:24:53
  end up with him as my third or fourth outfielder in some leagues. Yeah,
• 1:24:58
  you can be alone in that camp. I own a single chair of
• 1:25:00
  chess McCormick next year. If you've read some of my articles, in the
• 1:25:03
  past. I know I put one out of a year or two back talking
• 1:25:06
  about guys I just won't draft. There's a strategy I'll take. I don't
• 1:25:11
  care where it is. I'm not gonna draft from because I'm not gonna use
• 1:25:13
  them the right way and they will kill me. And so you know your
• 1:25:16
  strategy, you know who you are, and if there's a guy that you
• 1:25:18
  just want to stay away from, stay away from them. And if anything,
• 1:25:23
  you're firm and your convictions even if you're wrong. Nice. I like
• 1:25:29
  that. So round us out here, brew, who do you have for
• 1:25:32
  our sixth person from the surprising top one hundred hitters? Get last guy sneaking
• 1:25:36
  in here at number eighty nine on the top one hundred is Jake Burger,
• 1:25:41
  which I know is a favorite of yours. He had a nice, juicy
• 1:25:45
  six ninety one ADP in the early going. Trouble even looking that up,
• 1:25:50
  and so I'm not sure what round is that. That's like round fifty.
• 1:25:55
  I'm not sure how that even accountcumulates to an ADP out who's having a fifty
• 1:25:59
  round draft outside of like a dynasty league. But he's probably like only being
• 1:26:04
  drafted one out of like three drafts. Yeah, one out of three,
• 1:26:09
  one out of four, some some of the areas in the in the last
• 1:26:11
  round, but he actually is I look at Jake Burger and this bear with
• 1:26:16
  me on the comparison here reminds me of Josh Lowe just because of the absurd
• 1:26:24
  like maximum power that he exhibits. Josh, he has a better overall hard
• 1:26:29
  hit rates average, the loss. He's actually, as we've talked about before,
• 1:26:32
  surprising speed. He doesn't really use that, but surprising so actually helps
• 1:26:39
  from a babit perspective. But he doesn't walk a lot, and he strikes
• 1:26:42
  strikes out a ton, and so he kind of has that spread just like
• 1:26:45
  low outside of the steels. So he does kind of fall into that category
• 1:26:48
  where I don't like, which is the guy that hits two fifty with thirty
• 1:26:51
  home runs, like feels like Diamond doesn't right now. He really does put
• 1:26:59
  the ball in the air unlike some of those other guys, or doesn't actually
• 1:27:02
  put the ball in the air as much as you'd expect. His five ball
• 1:27:04
  rate in twenty three is actually just about twenty five percent, which is barely
• 1:27:10
  above the gaverage, so there's still room for growth there. He does pull
• 1:27:15
  the ball almost half the time, So he's trying to make the most like
• 1:27:18
  a few of these guys that we've talked about, is just leaning straight into
• 1:27:23
  what he's doing. That said, he isn't getting cheated on his power.
• 1:27:28
  And if going back to Baseball Savant, they measure home runs and the categories
• 1:27:31
  of doubters mostly gone and no doubters. Of his twenty seven home runs,
• 1:27:36
  he has three doubters. Everything else is mostly gone or no doubters, And
• 1:27:41
  so that ball is gone in any stadium that you're playing in. So that
• 1:27:45
  power is real. And he's got a little lucky on the home run per
• 1:27:48
  five ball rate because he just doesn't get the ball up in the air muff.
• 1:27:53
  But because of that, I think he actually has forty home run power.
• 1:27:58
  He just has to make an adjustment, go back to the launch angle
• 1:28:00
  revelations a few years ago and start upping that launch angle and get the ball
• 1:28:08
  in the air. He's launch angles just below twelve and really see those power
• 1:28:12
  hitters in the fourteen fifteen, sixteen range and the launch angle. So last
• 1:28:16
  thing I'll call out about him. If you know guys that he's compared to,
• 1:28:20
  and it makes sense, they're productive guys, but they are that two
• 1:28:23
  fifty thirty home run kind of guys, Marcelo Zuna, Williadomas and John Carlos
• 1:28:28
  Stanton. This one doesn't help anybody Gary Sanchez. But you know, if
• 1:28:32
  you if you know what you're getting in that just that pure power hitter,
• 1:28:36
  and that's what you're after, then you're fine. The one this problem we
• 1:28:41
  have is that the steel's jumping across the league and him not running. You
• 1:28:45
  know, like I said, Diamond doesn't, that profile is becoming a little
• 1:28:48
  bit easier to find, So I think that does ultimately hold down his value.
• 1:28:53
  But if you're looking late power, that has a chance to surge.
• 1:28:56
  I like him. So I'm gonna turn it over to the Jake Forer fan
• 1:29:00
  club here and let's correct everything that I got wrong. No, I think
• 1:29:03
  you actually nailed it right on the head that, like, very boringly,
• 1:29:08
  I'm going to kind of agree with you. The nice thing is that he
• 1:29:10
  will probably qualify at second base next year, which is a huge boon if
• 1:29:15
  you're kind of really struggling for power at the end of your drafts as you're
• 1:29:19
  filling out your lineups next year, that like you can shift him between second
• 1:29:24
  and third and M I and CI, So it gives you a nice little
• 1:29:27
  piece of flexibility there. But I think he kind of is what he is,
• 1:29:31
  Like, I think he's always going to hover around the back half of
• 1:29:34
  or like the back portion of the top one hundred hitters, kind of like
• 1:29:38
  like an Adam Dunn or Mark Reynolds or Joey Gallo, because like that's what
• 1:29:44
  he is. Like he's one hundred percent tile for exit speed exit velosophy,
• 1:29:48
  Like he's hit one of the hardest balls of the season with one hundred eighteen
• 1:29:53
  point two and he's also he's in the ninety eight percent tile for barrel rate
• 1:29:57
  as well. He's got a seventeen point four percent barrel rate. But it's
• 1:30:00
  just how often is he making contact? Because he's swinging a lot, he's
• 1:30:03
  not walking, and so when he does run into the ball, it's great,
• 1:30:08
  and when he doesn't, it sinks his batting average. So you can
• 1:30:12
  expect his batting average to really fluctuate anywhere from two hundred to two fifty.
• 1:30:15
  And I think, like you said, he could be a thirty to forty
• 1:30:18
  home run hitter overall, and so, like I think what makes him different
• 1:30:24
  from each Paradis, who we were talking about a little bit ago, is
• 1:30:27
  that the power here is legit, that like Paradis's power is barely sticking out,
• 1:30:31
  and you said it. You nailed it right on the head with the
• 1:30:33
  ex homers, like the no doubters. When you see that come off the
• 1:30:36
  bat, Jake is just rocketing balls. So I think you can always count
• 1:30:42
  on him for power. But that's what you're getting, and that's it.
• 1:30:45
  So if you can, if you maybe have taken Estuary ruise and you need
• 1:30:49
  to find some extra power or you're able to build your team around it,
• 1:30:55
  I think Jake is a useful piece, but I don't think that, and
• 1:30:59
  I also like, I don't think that this is like his career year.
• 1:31:00
  I think, like with regular playing time, this is Jake, So enjoy
• 1:31:06
  it while you can, and kind of after he fades a little bit,
• 1:31:10
  you know, and gets a little bit older and that strength gets sapped,
• 1:31:13
  then you'll see it all fall apart the way it has for Chili Gallot this
• 1:31:15
  year. But until then, enjoy the ride and kind of use the cheap,
• 1:31:19
  easy power until then. I do think people are going to overestimate the
• 1:31:24
  park impact on Burger because he is playing in Miami, and I know we
• 1:31:29
  talked about Camden Yards earlier for parades and how he would have for his twenty
• 1:31:33
  seven home run, And ironically, Burger has twenty seven home runs. Parides
• 1:31:39
  would have had eight in Candy Yards. If you looked already, how many
• 1:31:42
  do you know how many Burger would have a Camden No? Tell us T
• 1:31:46
  five? Okay, yes, so he is crushing it is. These are
• 1:31:50
  going out anywhere in any ballpark, like with within the league. So don't
• 1:31:59
  don't be shied away if you're reading it's like, oh, well he's playing
• 1:32:00
  the big ballpark. Things don't fly out there as well, like it doesn't
• 1:32:03
  apply to Jake Burger. The ball will fly out anywhere that he's playing because
• 1:32:09
  when when he hits that thing, it goes so So I know we've talked
• 1:32:13
  about Burger a number of times on this podcast, your White Sox fandom to
• 1:32:16
  him, and also the trades he was in earlier season over to Miami.
• 1:32:20
  But I can say I'm slowly becoming a Jake Burger convert for what he is,
• 1:32:28
  and I can confidently say he will return value next year and it's just
• 1:32:31
  a matter of putting him in the right spot in the right team. And
• 1:32:34
  so if you develop a fantasy team with speed with average, Burger's your guy
• 1:32:41
  late in the draft because he's one of these years he's gonna get lucky,
• 1:32:44
  he's gonna get babe it, and he's gonna figure out how to hit the
• 1:32:45
  launch angle and he's gonna hitty forty five home runs and you want to be
• 1:32:48
  the guy that owned him at the time. So, all right, that
• 1:32:51
  wraps up our six guys and surprises and the top one hundred so far so
• 1:32:59
  far on the razzball Player Raiders. So I think they'll wrap it for us
• 1:33:02
  today. I'll hand it back to you, Mike, and let's you can
• 1:33:05
  close us out. Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. And so I think we
• 1:33:09
  had a great discussion on top one hundred hitters and we'll probably be back next
• 1:33:13
  week with top something pictures. We'll figure out the cutoff, but again do
• 1:33:16
  the same story thing going through pictures next week. So it's been a great
• 1:33:20
  time to kind of look back and see who's really surprised this on the season
• 1:33:25
  and be able to evaluate them now that we're getting into the point where honestly,
• 1:33:30
  there's not too much that I think some players can do to really change
• 1:33:33
  their seasons one way or another unless you have a fifteen game stretch that we
• 1:33:38
  talked about Julio having earlier. So yeah, you can find me on Twitter,
• 1:33:44
  slash x at m coool seven. You can find me on raz ball
• 1:33:46
  on the weekends doing the waiver wires. You can also find subscriptions and other
• 1:33:50
  information at rasball dot com like the player Raider we've been referencing here. Lots
• 1:33:56
  of great tools to help you do on the stretch. And obviously we're shifting
• 1:34:00
  into fantasy football season for lots of people, so lots of great information there,
• 1:34:03
  cheap subscriptions, highly recommended. Jeremy remind everybody where they can find you.
• 1:34:09
  Yep, find me on Twitter or x at Jay Brewer one seven.
• 1:34:12
  Find me a razz Ball on the weekend Saturday Sunday, depend on what the
• 1:34:15
  schedule feel feels like for the weekend. Hit her profiles top one hundred hitters
• 1:34:19
  I think are hitting top one hundred hitters again this weekend after profiles last weekend.
• 1:34:24
  So no, we're just basically a day left in the most leagues for
• 1:34:30
  trade deadline, so reach out if you have questions and best of luck.
• 1:34:33
  We as we open September. Definitely, and so if you can take the
• 1:34:39
  time to rate and review us on any podcast platform where you're listening to us.
• 1:34:43
  Apple podcast is great, Spotify is great, So anything in anywhere where
• 1:34:47
  you can find us on podcast platform, definitely rate and review us. We
• 1:34:50
  definitely appreciate it. Set it to auto download and that's how we know what
• 1:34:56
  you guys are liking. So we'll see you next week. Take care until then.