Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 50 : Prospect Category Helpers

Transcript

Ep. 50 : Prospect Category Helpers · Cards & Categories

• 0:15
  Hello, and welcome everybody to episode fifty of Cards and Categories. I am
• 0:20
  Mike Coolard from ras Ball, joined as always by my very good friend Jeremy
• 0:24
  Burr, also from ras Ball. How you doing tonight, buddy, Fantastic
• 0:29
  episode fifty. It's the big five. Oh, I mean we have to
• 0:33
  reminisce here. We've now charted in three different countries on podcast charts. It
• 0:38
  doesn't matter how big your house small, but charted in a three. So
• 0:42
  you know, fifty episodes in big things still coming. So I'm I'm ready
• 0:46
  to go tonight. Yeah, the round numbers are really fun, and I
• 0:50
  wish I had something more fun planned for episode fifty, but I think I'm
• 0:55
  gonna save that for our kind of like one year anniversary, which is coming
• 0:59
  up in a couple of weeks during the All Star break. That's when we
• 1:02
  kicked the show off last year, just to because there wasn't any baseball on,
• 1:06
  so we might as well, like right fill that time. Like it's
• 1:10
  just a total withdrawal for three days. It's no fun, but we've got
• 1:14
  a great show. Tonight. We're going to talk about some prospects or players
• 1:19
  kind of near to promotion either this year or even going into next year that
• 1:23
  I think in Dynasty and Keeper leagues you can certainly pick up and expect some
• 1:29
  production pretty soon. And what we're really honing in on tonight are guys who
• 1:34
  can help you in specific categories. So it is starting to get to the
• 1:37
  point in our fantasy rotisserie seasons where we are specifically looking at categories to hunt
• 1:45
  to try to move up and down those standings. So we've got a handful
• 1:48
  of names that I think can help all of our listeners out there. And
• 1:52
  I mean, I guess I'll let people into a little bit of like how
• 1:55
  the sausage is made here in terms of the podcast that we obviously have a
• 1:57
  rundown where we update things, and I can say that we were joking that
• 2:04
  we should have recorded this thing last night because two of the guys that we
• 2:07
  have we'll just discuss some kind of maybe a little bit off the bat here
• 2:09
  are being called up. One just debuted tonight and hit a homer in Baltimore
• 2:15
  that is Jon Esky Noel from the Cleveland Guardians. And then David Festa is
• 2:20
  going to be entering the league here to make a start for the Minnesota Twins.
• 2:23
  Over the next few days, and we had them both in our rundown
• 2:27
  before we started getting into this tonight as we're speaking on June twenty sixth,
• 2:31
  So yeah, good thing. Maybe we didn't record it last night because we
• 2:36
  might be put to the stake as witches pretty much. I mean, we
• 2:42
  could be taking everybody down. But we're gonna take our victory lap now,
• 2:45
  whether deserved or not. You'll just have to believe us. So I mean,
• 2:49
  yeah, I mean, Noel looks like a winner already. Right,
• 2:51
  he's on pace for infinite number of homers, you know, one per game,
• 2:54
  so right, career ahead of him. But let's start in with some
• 2:59
  of our tip news and notes. We've got a bevy of injuries again this
• 3:04
  week and just other suspensions and returns and all sorts of stuff going on.
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  It's been a pretty chaotic week, I think in terms of baseball across the
• 3:14
  league, as especially in the National League, things are really tightening up around
• 3:17
  that second and third wild card spot, actually just all the wild card spots,
• 3:22
  because pretty much only the Rockies and honestly not even the Nationals are out
• 3:29
  of it at this point, so you're looking at just about every team in
• 3:32
  the National League being in it, so I think that's why we're getting a
• 3:35
  lot of this movement. But the first one's really going to hurt and have
• 3:38
  an impact on the National League wildcard chances for the Padres. That is,
• 3:43
  Fernando Tatist Junior is hitting the aisle with a stress reaction in his right femur.
• 3:49
  Originally they thought it was some sort of quader steps pull, and it
• 3:52
  does sound like it's going to be a fairly significant injury that Originally the Padres
• 3:58
  were calling for Tatis to be out through the All Star break, which is
• 4:01
  around three weeks away from here, and it sounds like it might even be
• 4:05
  pushing towards the end of July. So this is another injury that really mars
• 4:11
  Tatusa's overall profile. And I'm wondering, brew are you considering him as like
• 4:16
  a first round talent again going into next year knowing that, honestly, he's
• 4:20
  starting to get into a little bit of like the Aaron Judge injury prone territory
• 4:25
  at this point. Yeah. I mean, for all the jokes that we
• 4:29
  make about me drafting injured guys in the first and second round, I am
• 4:34
  avoiding the ghos guys like the plague. So I think Tatisa is starting to
• 4:40
  move into that. For me, like it's already hard enough to like not
• 4:43
  draft the Corbin Carrols who fall and fall apart, well, Hulio Rodriguez,
• 4:46
  right, but knowingly drafting the guy. I'll throw Tatis in there with Aaron
• 4:50
  Judge, and I get it, Aaron Judge is phenomenal. But when you
• 4:55
  throw those guys in there and you're kind of playing with fire on can you
• 5:00
  make it through the season with your top pick being healthy? And at this
• 5:03
  point, Tatis just hasn't shown the ability to do that. And you know,
• 5:09
  they they moved him to the outfield hoping that, you know, and
• 5:12
  can keep him healthy. Yeah. I mean he's getting one hundred and thirty
• 5:15
  games, one hundred and forty the last two seasons, you know, well
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  say last two last two full seasons, he's played twenty one and twenty three.
• 5:27
  But otherwise he's he's missed significant time and he just he just constantly seems
• 5:32
  banged up. Uh. So I'm I'm pushing him in, you know,
• 5:38
  without the deep analysis here, probably in the mid second round before I'm willing
• 5:43
  to take that if I got a really solid first rounder. I'm willing to
• 5:46
  take that gamble just because of the upside, but I'm definitely starting to shy
• 5:51
  away from Tatis a little bit, how about you. Yeah, I mean,
• 5:56
  I think that's probably about where I'll be pushing his value as well as
• 6:00
  I mean, he was on pace to do just about what he did last
• 6:01
  year when he put up twenty five homers and twenty nine steals. He was
• 6:05
  pacing for like twenty eight and sixteen. So even the steels were a little
• 6:10
  bit late this year, the batting average did come back up from two fifty
• 6:14
  seven last year to two seventy nine this year, So I think when you
• 6:16
  do add it all together the projections. I'm looking at Zips right now for
• 6:20
  twenty twenty five, Zips has em pegged for thirty eight homers, twenty five
• 6:27
  steals, two sixty six average. I don't know if the power is ever
• 6:30
  gonna really fully come back after the shoulder injury and the wrist injury that he's
• 6:34
  dealt with over the past couple of years, and then obviously you throw in
• 6:39
  that ped suspension on everything, where I don't think the PD suspension was like
• 6:44
  or the peds were like leading directly to his forty homer season. But what
• 6:48
  it does is it helps with the recovery time, and especially for a player
• 6:53
  like Tatis who is constantly banged up and needs those extra days to recover.
• 6:57
  He also just plays balls to the wall like all out that. I think
• 7:01
  that's a portion of what's going on here too. So yeah, I think
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  I'm probably in the same range as you, and I don't think we'll be
• 7:10
  getting to me Tatis shares because if you plug in a mid thirties homer projection
• 7:15
  and a mid twenty steels projection, that's a pretty easy first rounder. And
• 7:19
  I'll certainly be looking to tick down especially the power going into next year,
• 7:25
  and who knows, after this femur injury, the speed might disappear a little
• 7:30
  bit as well. Yeah, and that's the piece that I was most concerned
• 7:33
  about, is the speed is you know, the more you get banged up,
• 7:36
  the less you're likely to run. And to tease like, if he's
• 7:41
  not running, the talent's just out there. We've talked about it a lot
• 7:45
  in the past. You need to be able to run to be in those
• 7:47
  top rounds. If you're not hitting forty homers or hitting three thirty, right,
• 7:50
  you've got to be able to run, and if his speed starts to
• 7:54
  drop off, which it does seem like he's dropped off this year, even
• 7:57
  with the ability for everybody to run like crazy out out there. Yeah,
• 8:01
  I'm I'm gonna be very curious when he gets back, is he running kind
• 8:05
  of how much? Yeah? Definitely. And speaking of oft injured outfielders,
• 8:11
  I mean, I guess he's a DH nowadays. That is gian Carlos Stanton
• 8:13
  from the New York Yankees went down this week as he is on the ten
• 8:18
  dail with a hamstring injury, and so with that, it looks like it's
• 8:24
  gonna be three to four weeks most likely. I wouldn't be surprised that the
• 8:28
  Yankees also just manage this to ensure that they have Stanton down the stretch and
• 8:33
  into the playoffs. But it was certainly disappointing if you've been holding on to
• 8:37
  Stanton because he was hitting three h four in June before he hit the il.
• 8:41
  The Yankees' lineup has been humming, mostly because Aaron Judge has been playing
• 8:46
  out of his mind. So it's been a hot offense to have players in
• 8:52
  and so I just want to see from you, like, are there any
• 8:56
  Yankees players that you are ticking up in that lineup? Because what Stanton's injury
• 9:01
  is going to do is open up more time for our boy Ben Rice,
• 9:05
  a little bit time for Trent Grisham. The Yankees also acquire JD. Davis
• 9:09
  from the Athletics, and he should get time at corner, and dh should
• 9:15
  also allow Aaron Judge to actually designate hit every once in a while, not
• 9:18
  be on a s feet in center fields. So I think all those players
• 9:22
  have up arrows because of this Stanton injury. Any of them really peak your
• 9:26
  interest? Yeah, And I don't think there's a single guy that really jumps
• 9:31
  out because I think what you kind of stated is I think the extra playing
• 9:35
  time just gets spread all around a number of guys. If of anybody,
• 9:41
  I think Ben Rice is the biggest beneficiary because the trade to bring JD.
• 9:46
  Davis over it seemed like all of a sudden was going to cut into his
• 9:48
  playing time. So now if this does give him a little bit more playing
• 9:52
  time out there against hopefully the lefties, because I want to see what he
• 9:56
  can do, I think he has the best, biggest potential impact there.
• 10:01
  Trent Grisham's also won that I'm gonna be watching pretty closely because he's the kind
• 10:07
  of guy that he can just go off for like a month and be really
• 10:09
  fantastic and then you just toss him the waiver wire the rest of the year
• 10:13
  because he just doesn't what to do. So he's one of those guys that
• 10:16
  has a decent upside but also a decent down side. He's just a big
• 10:20
  variable guy. So if he gets some consistent playing time and you know,
• 10:24
  that short porch out there is definitely not gonna hurt anything for Grisham. So
• 10:30
  those are the two. Rice is the one that I'm a little bit more
• 10:31
  excited about, but fingers crossed, we'll see what transpires here over the next
• 10:35
  few days with JD. Davis and how much time that he's stealing from mister
• 10:41
  Rice. Yeah, exactly, and yeah, especially if you are in need,
• 10:46
  I think of speed and power and can sacrifice some batting average. I
• 10:50
  do think Trent Grisham is a great choice there. That reminds me a little
• 10:54
  bit of like what Cedric Mullens has been doing as he's been below the Mendoza
• 10:58
  line, but he's been worth five dollars worth of value in our player rating
• 11:03
  because of the stolen bases and just the when you're playing in a great offense
• 11:07
  like that, the runs and RBI just kind of come naturally. All right.
• 11:11
  Next injury we've got is Miami Marlins Picture hayes Us Sosarto is hitting the
• 11:16
  fifteen day DL for a back injury. He's going to be out four to
• 11:20
  six weeks. That really hurts for I think the Marlins overall is he was
• 11:24
  easily their biggest trade chip, I think going into the trade deadline here at
• 11:30
  the end of July and the I don't know, have you checked out the
• 11:35
  Marlins roster resource page recently and looked at their injured liss This is it's absurd.
• 11:41
  I was looking at the other night because I was actually just last night
• 11:45
  because I was writing about Yanni Cheery Nose as I was covering the Marlins game,
• 11:50
  and they have Sandy al Contra, Edward Cabrera, Braxton, Garrett hayes
• 11:54
  Uslzzaro, Yuri Perez, six Dos Sanchez, and Ryan Weathers all on the
• 11:58
  IL right now. I use just about all those players on teams everywhere that
• 12:05
  it's a bummer because the Marlins have a great home park and have been great
• 12:09
  at developing pitching, just can't keep it healthy. Surprisingly, Maximier did not
• 12:15
  come up with this corresponding move, as like I said, Yanni cheiros is
• 12:20
  up and they also called up somebody called Valante Peoso. So I don't know
• 12:24
  much about Bioso and I'll have to dive into his profile a little bit.
• 12:31
  As I mean, whenever inboy new comes up, that's prime candidate for in
• 12:35
  all only consideration. I guess my question here on this injury is what are
• 12:39
  we doing with Hames Slizardo? Is he dropable in leagues that you've had him?
• 12:45
  Or is the upside down the stretch just too tantalizing to let it go
• 12:50
  into the free agency pool for our fantasy teams. Yeah, I think for
• 12:54
  me with health, how how many injuries we've had in the pitching this year.
• 12:58
  From a longer term perspective, I think, you know, just just
• 13:03
  four to six weeks for Lozardo with I get it beat a back injury that
• 13:09
  the timeline is definitely a little bit more squishy. I'm I'm holding on to
• 13:11
  Lozardo at this point, and I think that it's it's a good enough gamble
• 13:18
  that he'll come back and give you some good starts, because he Lozard is
• 13:20
  one of those guys that you know, he we just talked about Tatis and
• 13:24
  Stanton, guys that just team to get hurt. Louzarro just fits into that
• 13:28
  as apparently the rest of the the Miami Marlin's rotation all between like twenty one
• 13:33
  and twenty eight years old, and they're all hurt. But I think Lozardo
• 13:37
  has enough upside there that he when he does pitch, he generally is,
• 13:43
  you know, really really valuable. He I'd say, probably a good number
• 13:46
  three upside of a number two. And so I'm holding on to Lozardo.
• 13:52
  I think, you know, to your point earlier as far as you know,
• 13:56
  what who were they? What are they trying to do with like a
• 14:01
  guy like Max Meyer? Like where where is Max Meyer? I think he'll
• 14:07
  be interesting to see, you know, is does he get an opportunity because
• 14:11
  throughout the last you know, let's call it a month in the minor leagues,
• 14:16
  he has yet to give up more than three runs in the start.
• 14:20
  That said, he also has not gone more than four innings in a start,
• 14:24
  and so it does look like they're really I say, metering Max Myers
• 14:28
  innings coming off of the injury, you know, like he did last year,
• 14:33
  so I think they're really trying to slow roll him back. And with
• 14:35
  the way they've been playing, you know that, I think the Marlins are
• 14:39
  counting their losses and not wanting to start any clocks or risk any more injuries
• 14:48
  because it seems like if you put them in Miami, they pitch, they
• 14:50
  get hurt. So I think they're just kind of keep them at bay at
• 14:54
  this point. Yeah, either too that it doesn't seem that they want to
• 15:00
  let Max Meyer go through a full season and really show what he can do.
• 15:03
  And it's a little bit unfortunate, but I think in the long run
• 15:07
  it probably does make sense because you can see that Miami's already teeing up twenty
• 15:13
  twenty five as a control will be back, and maybe they can add a
• 15:16
  few pieces to the offense to be able to round out that team and make
• 15:20
  a wild card run. It is Ironic's one of those is like, if
• 15:24
  they get healthy next year, they could be a really scary team if they
• 15:28
  just get a little hitting. Now, that assumes the majority of those guys
• 15:33
  come back. Not everybod's gonna because there's a few Timy John's in there that
• 15:35
  are gonna take a little bit more time. But if you get three of
• 15:39
  those guys back, for those guys, there's like six or seven guys right
• 15:43
  now that are all legitimate major league starters that are hurt. If you just
• 15:46
  get a few of them back, that's a really, really dangerous team.
• 15:52
  So it'll be interesting to see how well how they play this deadline, because
• 15:56
  you think that they've got to sell a few pieces, try to get some
• 16:00
  hitting. And so a guy like Tanner Scott, Like, what do you
• 16:03
  say, he's probably gone, He's packed his bags already at this point.
• 16:07
  H yeah, I would, I would think so. And honestly, i'm
• 16:11
  sir Lizardo. I mean there's still a chance Lazardo moves too. I guess
• 16:15
  that, like he could move even though he's injured, but they might just
• 16:21
  keep him around at this point to try to put together like that rotation of
• 16:23
  death that we're talking about, because if you're looking at a rotation of something
• 16:27
  like al Contra, Cabrera, Zarto, Weather's, Trevor Rodgers that's and Mex
• 16:34
  Smyer next year, that's not a bad like foundation to build from and Peter
• 16:38
  Bendex will be getting his first off full off season there, and I'm sure
• 16:44
  we'll sign plenty of platoon bats to mix and match and implement the Tampa Bay
• 16:48
  Rays there down in Miami. All right, the next oh yeah, yeah,
• 16:55
  no, it was absolutely I fully agree with you there. Okay.
• 16:57
  The next injury we've got is David Bednar, closer for the Pittsburgh Pirates,
• 17:03
  is hitting the ale with an oblique injury. In his stead, a Roless
• 17:07
  Chapman and his nine walks per nine will be entering the closer role in Pittsburgh.
• 17:14
  Although I am, I mean, I'm hitting on a roll this a
• 17:17
  little bit for a good reason. He has started to cut it a little
• 17:19
  bit more, as it was bad in March and April in May, but
• 17:25
  I mean it's only seven point two innings in June, seven two thirds,
• 17:29
  but he only has four walks, so he's starting to hone it in a
• 17:32
  little bit. But the velocity has been up for Chapman as well too,
• 17:34
  so I think he's gonna do well in this spot for Bednar. And I
• 17:41
  guess I wanted to bring this up because I wanted to see I'm actually interested
• 17:45
  in leagues where an owner might have had Bednar going down to pursue him at
• 17:52
  this point that I do think that like Chapman is gonna be traded at the
• 17:57
  deadline, he's the pirate's best piece to ship out, and I don't know
• 18:00
  if they got a chance at this wild card. Plus Bednar is like this.
• 18:06
  I don't know why the pirate to do this, but they love keeping
• 18:08
  around these closers and just building their franchises around him. It doesn't hurt that
• 18:12
  Bednar is from Pittsburgh, so I think that he's kind of locked in there
• 18:18
  and he'll get the job right back, even if a role this performs,
• 18:21
  well, am I crazy going out there and trying to acquire a closer that
• 18:26
  has shelled right now with an oblique injury? Possibly? Come on, you're
• 18:30
  asking the guy that loves the injured pictures here, I think is a brilliant
• 18:36
  strategy here, thank you. Okay, you know, but you know,
• 18:41
  first of all, the oblique, the way they describe it, it was
• 18:45
  more of a tweak felt something we need to make sure he's healthy because he's
• 18:49
  our guy kind of move versus you know, we're not sure what's going to
• 18:55
  happen. Let's put him. It's not like a Jordan Romano situation where you're
• 18:56
  like, is this guy broken? Like Bednar has just been great. Nothing's
• 19:02
  wrong with the arm, Like, it's just let's let's make sure he's healthy.
• 19:06
  So when he gets back, he's one hundred percent got the job.
• 19:08
  He's been fantastic. There's no reason to look elsewhere. So if somebody is
• 19:12
  suren I'm Bednar for some reason, or they're a little bit worried, because
• 19:15
  yeah, obliques can't be scary, I'd take a chance at him. I'd
• 19:18
  pick him up because I think you're, you know, get past the All
• 19:22
  Star break and he is closed to the rest of the season. He's,
• 19:23
  you know, locking fifteen twenty saves and you were just counting your money to
• 19:27
  the bank. So I'm loving him. I am a little disappointed to see
• 19:32
  a role this get the shot here, just because that's disappointing interesting to watch,
• 19:38
  but I would have liked to see, you know, maybe Colin Holderman
• 19:41
  get get an opportunity. He's definitely had some luck this year, but see
• 19:45
  see somebody else get a chance in that role. But at the end of
• 19:51
  the day, the Pirates just don't have that deep of a bullpen and it
• 19:53
  kind of is bednar than everybody else. So I'm I'm staying away from a
• 19:57
  roleist at this point as well. Well, that's just not a roller coaster
• 20:02
  that I have any desire to get on or in front of. Yeah,
• 20:06
  I think that's a very very smooth move and like, yeah, I think
• 20:11
  that it's a temporary patch, but you got to know that, like you're
• 20:14
  playing with fire guy that has a one walk per inning like under his belt,
• 20:22
  Like oof, that's tough to be a closer with. All right,
• 20:25
  next injury we've got is Minnesota Twins starter Chris Paddock hitting the aisle with shoulder
• 20:30
  fatigue, which kind of makes sense just given Chris Paddock's injury history as he's
• 20:36
  been up and down, and this is actually he's been a really good case
• 20:41
  for me to just I think learn a little bit from you through this podcast
• 20:45
  that I've started to shy more and more away from fly ball pitchers. And
• 20:51
  at first, like I was interested in Padic i think coming into the season
• 20:53
  because you saw just what he was able to do in San Diego and a
• 20:59
  little bit in his time at the end of last year with the Twins that
• 21:03
  He's got the strikeouts, and it seemed like the talent would be there.
• 21:07
  But it was really worrisome the way that the ground ball rate never came back
• 21:14
  to him with the Twins. That as soon as I saw that happening in
• 21:18
  April, it was a little bit of a tough start for him. But
• 21:22
  the fly ball rates did not line up with what he was doing in San
• 21:25
  Diego, and that's when I kind of started shying away from him in places
• 21:29
  where I was maybe relying on him. I mean, certainly a great streamer,
• 21:32
  but as people who have maybe absorbed some of those athletics starts that Paddick
• 21:38
  had over the past couple of weeks, not always the best streamer at the
• 21:41
  same time too. So with this, this is what's opening up the position
• 21:47
  for David Festa to walk into the Twins' rotation. And I mean, we
• 21:51
  can discuss Festa as an entity overall a little bit later when we get into
• 21:56
  our categories discussion, But do you think that like Festa could just secure this
• 22:02
  Chris Paddock spot and right at the rest of the season, I honestly do.
• 22:07
  I you know, when you look at a you know, a guy
• 22:08
  like Paddick going down and initially they called up Ronnie Henriquez, and the fact
• 22:15
  that they then decided to bring out Festa, who they like. When you're
• 22:18
  bringing up a prospect like that, it's it kind of signals that Paddock is
• 22:22
  likely out for longer and that arm is not something that you want to mess
• 22:27
  with like it. It is a very worrisome thing because there's not anything technically
• 22:33
  structurally wrong with the shoulder, and that is a scary thing when you just
• 22:40
  don't have I will say, quote unquote it like when you're just the arm
• 22:44
  isn't recovering, isn't bringing what it needs. That's a very unpredictable sign.
• 22:48
  And so I think the Twins are putting Paddock on the aisle and not expecting
• 22:53
  him back for month, two months, or or even until towards the end
• 22:56
  of the season. So I think Festa is gonna get a pretty good leash
• 23:00
  here to to look in. Again. We'll talk about him later, but
• 23:04
  I think he's got he's got the goods to roll. And you know,
• 23:11
  even as you talk about what you're looking for in paddic and what you hope
• 23:14
  for, I think Festa has. So I think there's a really good chance
• 23:18
  that he maintains that spot, and you know, at the end of the
• 23:22
  day, even if there's a little pressure elsewhere, like Simeon Woods, Richardson,
• 23:30
  isn't you know, knocking out of the ballpark necessarily. Bailey Ober has
• 23:34
  been a little all over the place as a Bailey over lover. I think
• 23:40
  I've started every bad start and none of the good ones. But I think
• 23:45
  that there will be a chance for fest to stick long term. I don't
• 23:48
  see him going back anytime soon unless he's just getting absolutely lit up, which
• 23:52
  I don't see happening. Yeah, I think that's a very fair take,
• 23:56
  all right. The next injury we have iss legend Clayton Kershaw has been shut
• 24:02
  down from his rehab as he experienced fatigue and soreness in that surgically repaired shoulder
• 24:07
  once again. Last week we kind of gave a career send off a little
• 24:12
  bit to Justin Verlander, who also is still not looking like he's got a
• 24:17
  time horizon for returning, because I do think that neck injury, like we
• 24:22
  were talking last week, is a part of the overall shoulder problem that Verlander's
• 24:27
  been battling, and this is just showing how difficult shoulder injuries are that,
• 24:33
  like, I think they are the most difficult injury to overcome, even more
• 24:37
  so than an elbow. Given how many guys we see bounce back from Tommy
• 24:41
  John embrace internal brace procedures year over year, that this really makes me sad.
• 24:48
  I think for a Kershaw that like, it's really just a disappointing way
• 24:55
  to end his career. I think, considering that he's going to go in
• 24:56
  as a first ballot Hall of Fame and just an all time Dodger. But
• 25:03
  I'm wondering, I mean, do you am I being too grim here?
• 25:06
  Is there any light at the tunnel? Maybe with Clayton Kershaw that honestly,
• 25:10
  I'm even surprised he got to the point of rehabbing this year. That it
• 25:14
  sounded like he was gonna not start rehabbing until like August or September, and
• 25:19
  the fact that he even got to this point has impressed me. But what
• 25:23
  do you think this means for Clayton Kershaw this year and going forward? Yeah?
• 25:29
  I think for for Kershaw, I'm not I'm not writing him off yet,
• 25:33
  and it's not because of anything that I've seen Kershaw do. Necessarily,
• 25:37
  it comes down more to who Clayton Kershaw is you know, we went through
• 25:42
  a few years she's probably what three or four years ago where Kershaw was like,
• 25:47
  I might retire, I might retire, you know. And but I
• 25:51
  think that there's been this flame lit in him for the last few years that
• 25:53
  like he feels like he has unfinished business. He's got this Dodgers team that
• 25:57
  is what he kind of was, you know, building the foundation for and
• 26:02
  just hasn't been able to participate in. And I think that's eating him alive.
• 26:07
  So I think, you know, he is he going to come back
• 26:10
  and have thirty starts at any point in time. Absolutely not. But I
• 26:12
  think he's still one of the best pitchers in the major leagues when he is
• 26:18
  healthy. It's just when is he going to be healthy? So I think
• 26:21
  that it is premature to write Kershaw off. You know, he's still only
• 26:26
  thirty six years old, which you know, compared to the Verlanders and the
• 26:30
  Urges of the world, I guess, well, sure, it's just about
• 26:32
  the same. But you know, he's still got a few years and it
• 26:37
  seems like he's just got an open invitation from the Dodgers to write it out,
• 26:41
  do whatever he wants. And so I think he's trying to get a
• 26:44
  few more starts. I think he wants to write off from the sunset.
• 26:47
  I think he wants to pick up, you know, toe the rubber one
• 26:48
  more time in the playoffs. And I don't think he's given up until he
• 26:53
  either his body completely says no or he gets that opportunity for a send off.
• 26:57
  So I'm not fully writing him off. I'm not investing in him anywhere.
• 27:03
  Yeah, but I think we have not seen the end of Clinton Kershaw
• 27:07
  quite yet. Yeah. I kind of hope that he gets a chance to
• 27:12
  come back this year and maybe like in a relief role. I think that
• 27:15
  would be a great spot for him, especially in the playoffs, to be
• 27:18
  able to be a lefty specialist and come in and just throw nasty curveballs or
• 27:25
  something. But we do wish him the best and hopefully he can make it
• 27:29
  back from this tough shoulder rehab. Okay, let's get into some of those
• 27:33
  suspensions that I alluded to. So the first one we have is Edwin Diaz
• 27:40
  is busted for sticky stuff as he entered the other night against the I think
• 27:45
  it was against the Cubs. Let me line it up on the schedule yeah,
• 27:48
  it was Sunday night against the Cubs on Sunday night, Baseball came out
• 27:52
  with it. Honestly, it looked like he stuck his entire right hand like
• 27:56
  just into a vat of rubber cement. I don't know how he ever thought
• 28:02
  he was going to get away with it, but it has been just a
• 28:06
  really rough season obviously for Dias overall in terms of keeping a hold of that
• 28:11
  closer's job and working his way back from that knee injury for last year.
• 28:15
  So if anything, it might also give him a little bit more rest on
• 28:18
  that initial kind of like shoulder fatigue that caused him to hit the injured list
• 28:23
  the other week. And yeah, I would just want to check in and
• 28:30
  see where you have Edwin Diaz and your overall closers, because he's been really
• 28:36
  tough to own in terms of I drafted him in the last spots in fact,
• 28:41
  in like the third and fourth round on some of my leagues because he
• 28:45
  just looked like a set it and forget it, one hundred plus k's reliever
• 28:51
  with thirty ish saves, and it's been anything but that. As we've kind
• 28:56
  of gotten a Edwin Diaz of old with the weird five plus eras and it's
• 29:02
  been quite the roller coaster ride. But you can't cut him. So do
• 29:07
  I think do you think I should keep holding on to him and writing that
• 29:10
  roller coaster or is it time to try to sell low on him at this
• 29:14
  point? Yeah? I think you have to hold him at this point.
• 29:18
  I think selling low, especially in roto leagues, in you know, a
• 29:23
  saves hold league or point something like that, Sure, cut the guy loose,
• 29:27
  move on. But if we're talking rotor leagues reading the Saves, you
• 29:30
  know, I think he's going to get the leash for the job. Like
• 29:33
  he's getting paid to close. You know, It's not like they have somebody
• 29:37
  else there that's just absolutely lights out, like Ree Garrett's been good, but
• 29:44
  it's there's not anybody else there that's just like absolutely pushing him out of the
• 29:48
  role. So I think Diez has a leash. You know, he's he's
• 29:52
  definitely had some Homer issues this this year lost. He's been down a tick,
• 29:57
  So I'm not like buy ds per se. But I also don't think
• 30:03
  you're getting what you want if you have to sell him. So he's the
• 30:06
  kind of guy that you know, you just gotta wait Hope he gets back.
• 30:08
  Hope he looks better. You know when when he doesn't have the sticky
• 30:12
  stuff, and uh, that's when you when you look to sell once he
• 30:17
  kind of reproves himself. But I think he gets that chance, and I
• 30:19
  think you you know nothing else, You'll look he backs into a few saves
• 30:22
  and you can flip him at that point. But I know, I know
• 30:26
  you have love for Edwin Diaz, probably to an unreasonable healthy level. So
• 30:32
  are you doing okay? Is? I think really my my biggest concern.
• 30:36
  Yeah, I mean it's been not easy trying to tuck him away on rosters,
• 30:40
  and certainly I was starting to like march up the standings a little bit
• 30:44
  in TGFBI with him, and it was not fun being having to shell them.
• 30:49
  I do wonder how much Grimace might have factored into your decision though,
• 30:53
  to suggest keeping him, because I mean, I think it's since the Grimace
• 30:59
  game is they're up to what like ten or twelve and no ten and two.
• 31:03
  I think since the Grimmace game stormed right back into the wild card,
• 31:07
  they're only one game below five hundred. That is that a factor here that
• 31:12
  you think that the Grimace magic is going to rub back up, back off
• 31:15
  on Edwin Diaz here. No, I think I'm not come up in the
• 31:25
  grimmace. I think Diaz is on the downward trend and I think we're just
• 31:30
  I think he the My best comparable for Diaz right now is Craig Kemberl.
• 31:34
  Yeah. I think that's the roller coaster that you're getting on with Edwin Diaz
• 31:37
  at this point. I don't think he's recovering to go back to who he
• 31:41
  was, and he's gonna He's gonna have an interesting next few years as he
• 31:45
  tries to bounce around through all these teams that are not quite sure they want
• 31:48
  to use him but know that he's good enough. It's just going to be
• 31:52
  a roller coaster to get there. So, uh No, I'm not I'm
• 31:56
  not buying the grimmas. Okay, obviously that's what's been feeling read Garrett,
• 32:01
  But I mean that's a different conversation. So the other suspension that we have
• 32:07
  is a Relvis Martinez, who we just talked about last week in terms of
• 32:10
  investing in because of the call up in Toronto busted for peds and I honestly
• 32:17
  this must have been why he had that irregular start to his career too,
• 32:21
  where they called him up and he didn't play for a couple of days,
• 32:23
  because the way that these ped suspension cycle is that the union and the player
• 32:30
  and the team knew probably months in advance, weeks in advance at minimum,
• 32:36
  and so there's like an appeal process and everything like that. So it's also
• 32:40
  strange that Toronto even kind of ever brought him up. But I think that's
• 32:44
  also what kept him down Triple A for so long, possibly too that it
• 32:49
  seemed he had been ready for maybe like a month or so, and especially
• 32:52
  given some of the poor performances out of those bats in Toronto, it seemed
• 32:57
  like Martinez had a spot. In terms of just the overall trajectory going forward
• 33:01
  to Martinez, we were pretty i think glow, maybe just short of glowing
• 33:07
  last week, maybe positive about his overall future and what he could be as
• 33:13
  an up the middle bat. Do you still believe in that or do you
• 33:15
  think that the peds might have actually had some sort of role to play in
• 33:21
  his overall profile? Yeah, I mean I will say that I was a
• 33:24
  minimum intrigued. I don't know if I was fully invested, and I'm not
• 33:30
  as terribly concerned with the peds, because I have to feel these days that
• 33:36
  a lot of the guys either kept cought for peds, like the pds aren't
• 33:38
  actually helping them. Like this seems like the vast majority of the time,
• 33:42
  it's like a tetisse neck cream type thing, like they weren't really thinking through,
• 33:46
  like they took something they shouldn't have, but it's not It probably had
• 33:52
  a little help. I think he referenced earlier, like recovery time or something
• 33:53
  like that. The bigger thing for me with Martinez is, you know,
• 33:59
  he just was making its the majors. Now you're losing the rest of this
• 34:02
  year. They're probably not going to be starting him at the beginning of next
• 34:07
  year. They want to make sure that he's back and you know, in
• 34:10
  game shape and hitting again. They should have a healthy team. Like I'm
• 34:15
  just sitting like this is his clock back a whole year in my mind,
• 34:20
  like is this time next year that we're talking about or Martinez, you know,
• 34:22
  getting another look, And frankly, I'm just not too excited about waiting.
• 34:29
  I think that there's you know, that profile and I think we've talked
• 34:32
  about a number of times on this podcast, is like the low average high
• 34:36
  power guy, like they're a diamond dozen these days, and so I'm just
• 34:39
  not too excited to wait around for that and and play with play with fire,
• 34:44
  because if I'm wrong and the PDS didn't matter, it's even worse.
• 34:47
  So I'm just I'm I'm kind of I've soured. Maybe it's just the fact
• 34:52
  that I can't stand a guy that got called up and they got busted repea
• 34:54
  days three days later. I think you're right. I think this is one
• 34:58
  where they got notified this second he got called up and be like, hey,
• 35:00
  guys, hold up, just the heads up, we found this,
• 35:04
  and then they like puts all the evidence and go, hey, you got
• 35:07
  you idiot. There's not a chance in the world are you can appeel that
• 35:08
  one? So sorry, it's so he got to go to two three day
• 35:15
  pay check and I was about it, Yeah, exactly. Now he's hanging
• 35:17
  out, and I think that's probably about where I'm at. I think maybe
• 35:22
  I'm a tick more intrigued than you, but like not overall, not like
• 35:30
  I'm not certainly where was last week on Aralviis Martinez. But I think maybe
• 35:34
  my extra tick is just because I do think this Toronto teams about to get
• 35:38
  blown up in a month that when this deadline hits next month, you're gonna
• 35:43
  see I think some of the major pieces maybe get peeled away. And on
• 35:46
  top of it too, you had free agents that were gonna be hitting this
• 35:51
  roster, especially like Justin Turner, and so there's gonna be I think a
• 35:54
  spot or spots that you could slot Martinez into in the spring if he can
• 36:00
  come back and produce. But like we've seen how difficult it's been for Noel
• 36:05
  di Marte to get back into the swing of things with Cincinnati. You know,
• 36:08
  he's been struggling in Triple A on his kind of ramp up from his
• 36:13
  ped suspension. So it is also just a wait to carry that. You
• 36:16
  know, it's never great to be rostering players that have just like the psychological
• 36:23
  weight of having this suspension and kind of carrying that through their careers, especially
• 36:29
  this early on that I think when you kind of line things up certainly,
• 36:32
  Yeah, in Dynasty leagues, Aralvius Martinez has been kicked down a few tiers
• 36:37
  because of this, but I think he's still intriguing overall because he still was
• 36:43
  only twenty two, and I think that there could be at least one or
• 36:47
  two, like really good peak seasons in that bat down the line in Toronto.
• 36:54
  All right, we will wait to list time next year to see who
• 36:58
  is right. Yeah, I will file it in. We can remember it
• 37:01
  for episode one hundred. Okay, well, we've got a little bit of
• 37:07
  card news, so let's get through that now. In terms of the calendar
• 37:12
  is really starting to fill in for the rest of the summer as the production
• 37:15
  presses have kicked into high gear. Over at Tops and Panini and Fanatics,
• 37:20
  we have well, I mean the first one isn't either of them. Leaf
• 37:23
  Lumber has been is coming out this weekend on the twenty eighth, So I
• 37:30
  think I don't usually call out Leaf sets, but I want to mention Leaf
• 37:32
  Lumber because I think it out of all their sets that Leaf puts out there,
• 37:37
  it's one of the more solid ones and terms of like if you're not
• 37:43
  familiar with Leaf in the modern day sense, obviously back in the day they
• 37:47
  used to have I think some of the coolest cards. They used to be
• 37:51
  some of the more expensive cards in the shop too. For the base cards
• 37:53
  I always enjoyed. I think it's the ninety three set where it's got like
• 37:59
  the Goal Old stamp on it, and it's been a cool set from the
• 38:04
  nineties. But nowadays it is unlicensed, and usually you're dealing with a lot
• 38:09
  of like collegiate players and they have an entire series of all sorts of random
• 38:15
  celebrities and stuff that people love ripping. But leaf Lumber I think still speaks
• 38:20
  to kind of the true baseball collector's heart in terms of the bat relics that
• 38:25
  are included in the set. Leaf Lumber always includes lots of great Hall of
• 38:30
  famers, lots of great modern players, and just like absolute legends where they
• 38:34
  pair them up in terms of the relics and even in some of the individual
• 38:38
  relics. So I wanted to put that out there on the calendar, let
• 38:42
  people know it was coming. You into leaf products at all, brew or
• 38:46
  leaf Lumber in particular. I have a soft spot for some leaf products,
• 38:52
  you know, the fact that they're cheap, you can get some fun autos
• 38:59
  of your favorite players, and there's usually a few here and there that have
• 39:01
  some pretty neat designs, like the trinitys and things like that. Lumber is
• 39:08
  to me is a hit or miss. Like the unlicensed part of it,
• 39:14
  they almost lean too hard into to a degree, and so a lot of
• 39:17
  these cards, like it's just so obvious it's unlicensed, whereas often you know,
• 39:24
  Leaf will on their other cards try not to make it as obvious as
• 39:28
  unlicensed, and so like you know, there's a picture from the side and
• 39:31
  the helmet's kind of hidden, you know, things like that. And so
• 39:37
  the one thing that intrigues me and about Leaf Lumber this year is I've seen
• 39:44
  a tagline with it that there's trade deadline redemption cards which allow you to trade
• 39:51
  a twenty twenty four Leaf Lumber baseball card from Massive Upgrade. I don't know
• 39:54
  what that means, but like that's just a very unique type of concept that
• 40:00
  you can, like a redemption you can trade for something like at the deadline.
• 40:05
  Like I don't know what that means, but that's really intriguing that,
• 40:08
  like you might have a chance to get a card that you could wait on
• 40:13
  and then make a decision to trade it in for some not just a specific
• 40:17
  player per se. So I need to do some more research on what that
• 40:21
  means, because if they've thought through some unique gimmick unlike putting you know,
• 40:25
  statues of liberties on cards and things I'd like to see how somebody else is
• 40:31
  being creative in the space to get a little bit of notoriety for the product.
• 40:36
  Yeah, yeah, I think that's very fair. So we can keep
• 40:39
  an eye on that too, see if it ever comes to light what the
• 40:43
  actual prize is. Because I'm intrigued too, I didn't actually realize that.
• 40:49
  So we've also got Donors and Tops Tier one so coming out on July third
• 40:54
  next week. But they also added Panini Stars and Stripes USA Baseball to that
• 41:00
  July third release. So if you're not familiar with Panini Stars and Stripes USA
• 41:05
  Baseball, what it is is it's like players who have come through the USA
• 41:09
  development teams as either like teenagers or collegiate players, and so who will usually
• 41:19
  be the targets within this set are the big time collegiate players. If you
• 41:23
  click on the link on Beckett dot com. I mean, the big name
• 41:29
  that's right there at the top is Jack Kaglion. So this checklist isn't out
• 41:31
  there, but I do know that people like this product because of that,
• 41:35
  because you can get into some of these collegiate names, start collecting them before
• 41:39
  the draft happens. And on top of it too, you can also like
• 41:45
  collect these cards without them being they're like unlicensed, but they're not unlicensed,
• 41:51
  you know what I mean. Then it's not all air brushed out with weird
• 41:53
  angles and everything because they're all wearing USA gear. So I think that's an
• 41:58
  intriguing part of the Stars and Stripes set overall. And then the big daddy
• 42:05
  that we've got that got added to the schedule is Top Schrome is coming out
• 42:08
  on the seventeenth of July. Really not much of a ramp up from Tops
• 42:13
  Overall. We discussed last week on episode forty nine that the pre order for
• 42:17
  TOPS Chrome was out there and was egregiously priced. I mean, I don't
• 42:22
  know how much Tops Chrome I'm going to be ripping this year just from the
• 42:28
  get go, I don't know how into it I was going to be because
• 42:31
  of my lack of interest in the overall design. But once those prices came
• 42:37
  out, it certainly killed any sort of desire to start like finding any small
• 42:43
  products to rip because it's just absurd if you want to get in on that
• 42:47
  just absolute Honestly, it's going to be a blood bath in terms of like
• 42:51
  gambling with that set. Tops Chrome on July seventeenth will probably have a bigger
• 42:55
  overview on the seventeenth or around there because it is going to be a major
• 43:00
  release and we're gonna have a lot of refractors to name off. I'm pretty
• 43:04
  sure. Yeah, I think we'll have a lot of fun. And I
• 43:07
  unfortunately, like I know, I kind of spout it off about you know,
• 43:10
  Series two being a breaker's product, which I've partaken a few of those
• 43:15
  myself, and I maintained that I've seeing what's been pulled, and I think
• 43:21
  that the same thing goes for top Chrome. So we'll get into that when,
• 43:24
  you know, when the time comes and we get a chance to dig
• 43:27
  a little bit deeper. But yeah, I think that one's getting a little
• 43:30
  bit out of reach or a little bit too a lottery ticket, just like
• 43:35
  some of the other high end products, Chrome has been creeping into that I
• 43:38
  called the Bowman range on pricing out of the marketplace at this point, yeah,
• 43:44
  which is sad because I mean it's a pretty big flagship product that the
• 43:49
  way that you build this hobby in the future is allow kids to be able
• 43:52
  to afford things like chrome. But I think those days are over for right
• 43:57
  now. That's unfortunate. And then we've got two that were on the calendar
• 44:02
  last week. We'll run through them again real fast. That is July nineteenth,
• 44:06
  Panini Boy this summer, and the twenty eighth, we've got Panini Prism.
• 44:09
  So, like we said last week, with tops Chrome and Panina Prism
• 44:14
  kind of being in the same realm, those chrome printing presses have been in
• 44:17
  overdrive for FNAX over the past month or so as they're getting those products out.
• 44:23
  All right, Well, that wraps us up with news and notes for
• 44:28
  both regular baseball and baseball cards. So we're going to take a short break
• 44:31
  and then be back with those prospect category helpers. Stick around, all right,
• 44:54
  Welcome back everybody. So we are going to get into some prospect discussion
• 45:00
  on especially just trying to kind of hone in our overall approach and how we're
• 45:05
  analyzing these players. We are looking at both bats and pitchers who can help
• 45:10
  you in specific categories for your rotisary leagues out there, keeper dynasties, especially
• 45:15
  where we're looking at and on top of it all, not only I think
• 45:20
  are these guys most of them are going to be targeted for coming up the
• 45:25
  rest of the summer. Like we already mentioned with Festa and Noel at the
• 45:30
  top of the show, where these guys are already even coming up this week.
• 45:34
  But I've also been kind of taking an overall view of just kind of
• 45:37
  like looking twelve months into the future, especially like not only I think are
• 45:42
  these guys that we're all going to discuss have a pretty strong case of being
• 45:47
  coming up to the majors over the next few weeks and into kind of September
• 45:52
  as late season call ups, but I think a lot of these players also
• 45:57
  have the chance to break camp with their team's next year and find positions right
• 46:01
  off the bat because they're either in Double A or Triple A playing really well,
• 46:07
  and you know, in the offseason their teams will be able to unload
• 46:10
  the players in front of them that might be blocking them from the forty man
• 46:15
  roster or the twenty six man roster. On top of it too, I
• 46:19
  think this is also like a good time to also look out like a year
• 46:24
  to who's going to be getting called up maybe in June of next year.
• 46:29
  You know, this is why lots of people in dynasty and keeper leagues were
• 46:32
  really starting to acquire you know, Junior Cameniero James wood Why at Langford right
• 46:40
  after he was drafted, like those types of players in that vein. If
• 46:44
  you're taking a view of looking twelve months into the future, you can maybe
• 46:49
  start filling some of those gaps on your dynasty and keeper teams in these categories,
• 46:52
  so you can focus on that now anything else that maybe you were thinking
• 46:58
  about when you were trying to determine which players to pick for our discussion here
• 47:02
  on these categories group, Yeah, for me, it was really kind of
• 47:06
  a you know, hold in on what you're comfortable with and kind of dig
• 47:09
  deep in the minors because it's not you know, when when you're trying to
• 47:13
  looking for those especially if you're in the deeper leagues, you're you're looking for
• 47:15
  guys that before their names. Right you talked about some of the bigger names,
• 47:21
  like you're looking before they become the bigger name, and that's that's where
• 47:24
  you start to make profit in dynasty and keeper leagues. If you can find
• 47:29
  the guy before he becomes a name and you know he starts to pop,
• 47:34
  you can flip him or you can you can ride the wave. And so
• 47:37
  for me, it's it's really just about digging around and seeing what's out there,
• 47:39
  and you know, we'll talk about some fun names here. I think
• 47:43
  there's one of them that neither you or I were too aware of that will
• 47:45
  kind of jump into that just hit the market. As soon as I looked,
• 47:50
  was like, man, the more I look at this guy, the
• 47:51
  more I'm interested in it. And I'm hey, I'm going to be putting
• 47:55
  some some dollars out of this guy and get him on some of my teams.
• 47:59
  Uh, because there's there's great potential. So you know, if if
• 48:04
  you haven't, don't haven't dug deep into like fangraphs and digging their minor league
• 48:07
  numbers and they have some great features there to search by age and every single
• 48:14
  potential statistic. You can really dig deep in the minors and hone into like
• 48:17
  the three guys that you know walk more than they strike out, hit to
• 48:22
  have they pull the ball and they've hit one, have one steal in seventeen
• 48:29
  home runs. Like, you can get deep and really find the guys that
• 48:31
  match what what you are comfortable with and what matches your team. So that's
• 48:36
  really what I've done, and it's it's it's it's just so fun to get
• 48:39
  lost in. That's the worst part is that I end up pick up too
• 48:43
  many minor leaguers and forgetting about all the major leaguers that actually play the game.
• 48:46
  Yeah, and then I mean, I think what I love about the
• 48:50
  fangraphs, like sorting features on the prospects too, are just like the filter
• 48:54
  by age stuff like That's I think how I found a lot of prospects is
• 48:59
  just looking at age relative to level and with their overall performances that you know,
• 49:05
  some guy might have only like a one to twenty WRC plus and double
• 49:09
  A and it looks middling, but then you see that he's nineteen, and
• 49:13
  then immediately pops out that he could turn into something a little more special.
• 49:17
  So, like I said, we're going to hone in on specific categories on
• 49:22
  kind of viewing it through a typical five x five Rhoto lens. Even though
• 49:29
  though we are doing the categories, I'm already going to filter out runs,
• 49:32
  RBI, era, whip and saves just because I think all those are really
• 49:39
  kind of harder to focus on from a prospect level because they're team dependent,
• 49:45
  and like pitching, velosophy dependent, just lots of other variables that are harder
• 49:50
  to control. So we've honed in on I think the five major counting categories
• 49:54
  that are much easier to try to do this analysis on, and that's gonna
• 50:00
  be homer's batting average, stolen bases, wins, and strikeouts. So with
• 50:06
  that, let's kick off with homers. And I'm going to pass this over
• 50:09
  to you and you can let me know who you're honing in for homers.
• 50:15
  Yeah. So, I mean we talked about earlier, you know, our
• 50:17
  clairvoyant moment here Joinski. Noel Is is where we have to start here for
• 50:23
  the Cleveland Guardians. Uh, to your point you just made that. You
• 50:28
  know, twenty two year old, he is a massive human being. He's
• 50:32
  six three, two fifty. You know, I'm gonna say he plays first
• 50:37
  in the outfield. I'm quite sure he does. Then you know he's he's
• 50:43
  definitely a plotter type type of guy. Here. If you if you're if
• 50:46
  you're making a comp for Noel, and I don't know who first comes to
• 50:52
  your mind, but first guy that comes to my mind is fran mill Rayis.
• 50:55
  I think that that is like the comp for this guy. He hits
• 50:59
  the ball hard. This year, He's been pacing for roughly forty five homers.
• 51:04
  And the miners, and over a full season last year, in one
• 51:07
  hundred and thirty eight games, he hit twenty seven. And you know,
• 51:12
  the big biggest questions for him are like does he have a position, and
• 51:19
  you know, what's that approach at the plate gonna be. Is it gonna
• 51:22
  be consistent enough that he can hit for good enough average to be to maintain
• 51:27
  a role to then take advantage of that power. Again, I'm gonna go
• 51:30
  back to the Framuel reys comparison, like that's that's who you're hoping he becomes.
• 51:35
  And that's exactly what you wanted with Reyes, Like can he maintain that
• 51:37
  average enough to get the forty homers or whatnot? And so I think Noel
• 51:42
  is one of those. I don't know that he's gonna be like, you
• 51:46
  know, off and running the second he gets called up, but I think
• 51:50
  the powers there, the powers already there. He's like, we'll just literally
• 51:53
  run into it a home run by accident type of guy. I think you're
• 51:58
  gonna probably get a lower average out of the gate. Like I said,
• 52:01
  there's you know, he's he's stolen a total of two bases four bases over
• 52:08
  the last three years, and I'm sure that was part of like a double
• 52:13
  steel or something like, he's just not gonna He's not doing anything else to
• 52:15
  the stat sheet there. But I think Noel is the kind of guy that
• 52:20
  I would look for to bring some power, you know, that raw power.
• 52:25
  His his prospect reports give him an eighty grade potential in the raw power,
• 52:30
  saying he's already up to the seventies. So he's not been the highest
• 52:32
  prospect on the list. He's he's been kind of jumping up a little bit
• 52:36
  more this year because he kind of sustained some of his games last year and
• 52:39
  they've gotten better, which which is fantastic, But I want to caution a
• 52:45
  little bit of expecting a full package here. That's why he's in the homer
• 52:49
  categories because he's he's ready for the homers. I'm not quite sure he's ready
• 52:52
  for everything else. Yeah, I mean, I think what I've liked about
• 52:57
  Noel this year is that he's shown the development to maybe round out that batting
• 53:02
  average a little bit and to be able to turn into maybe because there's a
• 53:07
  fine line between frownmeil Reyes and like Jordan Alvarez, and it's really tough to
• 53:15
  walk that line as a designated hit or to be able to you know,
• 53:19
  hit the ball enough, make enough contact, and just also be able to
• 53:24
  justify not having to play the field. And so like, I think Noel
• 53:30
  can thread that needle, given the games that he's put together already this year
• 53:36
  in Triple A, you know, he dropped the k rate significantly from twenty
• 53:40
  four point eight percent last year to twenty one point one percent this year,
• 53:45
  and it came with gains in actual like contact rates too, so the contact
• 53:51
  rate went up from seventy percent to seventy four percent down in Triple A.
• 53:54
  I was always kind of watching Noel last year just because the power number were
• 54:00
  eye popping lee absurd. You know, he put up twenty seven homers in
• 54:04
  Triple A, but it came with a two to twenty average and only a
• 54:07
  seventy seven WRC plus. But what I loved is that he was twenty one
• 54:12
  in Triple A all of last year, and so Noel is really young for
• 54:16
  the level. What really I think kicked him into a higher gear for me
• 54:21
  this year is that the Itch had been ranking him like second and third on
• 54:25
  his prospect rankings the past few weeks, mostly because Noel had a forty man
• 54:30
  spot already he had been placed on the forty man by Cleveland in the offseason.
• 54:34
  Then you also combine that with Cleveland the home park is a bandbox right
• 54:40
  now. The balls are flying farther because of like the way that they've changed
• 54:45
  that upper deck with the wind tunnels than that ever has and it's a great
• 54:50
  offense. Uh. Currently he slotted Noel slotted into a short side platoon.
• 54:54
  I think he's better than Kyle Manzardo. He's gonna keep Manzardo down in the
• 54:59
  miners. It's just a matter of how much playing time can he carve out
• 55:05
  within that Guardians lineup, because they have the ability to shift David Frye around
• 55:10
  to a lot of different positions. You don't need to play Will Brennan every
• 55:15
  day, I don't think if you're Cleveland, and so especially if there's one
• 55:20
  injury that maybe hits that Cleveland team and hits somebody on a corner infield or
• 55:27
  corner outfield spot, you're looking at a full playing time in front of Noel
• 55:32
  right now. So I'm certainly he's gonna be I think a big portion of
• 55:37
  my Waiver Wire article this weekend because I think the power is legit, and
• 55:42
  if he can hit two twenty in today's league environment, that doesn't kill you
• 55:46
  as much as it used to. Yeah, it's gonna be He's gonna be
• 55:51
  fun one to watch, that's for sure. And I think there's just there's
• 55:52
  a lot of potential there. And you know, I'm glad Cleveland's give him
• 55:57
  a chance and not waiting to live in the season to see what happens.
• 56:00
  Like he's playing strong, he looks, he looks to be ready. Give
• 56:05
  him a shot. See what happens. Do we got jord On, Do
• 56:07
  we got fran Mill, Do we got uh, you know, AyL Schomer?
• 56:10
  I don't know. Okay, Well my Homer pick could have actually been
• 56:15
  Noel's teammate. It is Davison Delos Santos, who is just about like a
• 56:22
  eighty five percent carbon copy of Noel in terms of he's same sort of right
• 56:29
  handed corner only dh profile, pure power hitter with just like lumbering speed and
• 56:36
  a little bit of contact issues. He was taken in the Rule five draft
• 56:39
  by the Guardians in December, then returned back to the Diamondbacks this spring.
• 56:45
  He's showing a lot of the same things that I just listed off for Noel
• 56:49
  in terms of what he did in Triple A. So Delos Santos in Triple
• 56:53
  A this year has blasted seven homers after hitting fourteen in Double A. He's
• 57:00
  put up a two four WRC plus and double A one thirty one so far
• 57:05
  in Triple A over one hundred and twenty nine at bats, and he's dropped
• 57:09
  the strikeout rate again this year that last year he was living in more in
• 57:15
  Traditionally he's been living more in the mid to upper twenties for his strikeout rate,
• 57:19
  but in both Double A and Triple A it's been at twenty two percent
• 57:23
  ish, which is going to play in the majors. Like even for the
• 57:29
  projections on Steamer right now, I mean they are only projecting him for twenty
• 57:32
  six percent strikeout rate with a two fifty four average ninety eight WRC plus.
• 57:37
  This is already a guy who at twenty one would slot in and be a
• 57:43
  league average player according to Steamer. What I think I really love about Davison
• 57:46
  Delo Santos is he's Uhennuosuarez is gone next year in Arizona. That you see
• 57:54
  the playing path time clearing up pretty easily for Delo Santos that he could walk
• 58:00
  in to that third base job in Arizona or some sort of corner position.
• 58:04
  Right. Shan Walker is also a free agent next year as well. Excellent.
• 58:07
  Well, I mean that's even better news that, like they're gonna need
• 58:10
  somebody like Dalo Santos in this lineup in Arizona next year. Why not start
• 58:15
  it now, especially given where Arizona sits in the standings and needs a little
• 58:20
  bit of kick of the pants. Dalo Santos, I think if we had
• 58:24
  to compare them, Noel's probably in my book, like Noel's maybe more of
• 58:29
  like a peak forty homer guy. Delo Santos is maybe like a thirty two
• 58:34
  ish, But I think the peak average for Noel is maybe like two thirty
• 58:39
  where Dla Santos, I mean, just because he does have better control the
• 58:46
  zone and a better strikeout rate, like you could see him hitting maybe like
• 58:50
  two fifty two sixty in a peak. Yeah, I think you're right there,
• 58:54
  And I think the comparison between the two guys is spot on, like
• 58:58
  they're they're cut from the same claw, you know. I do think that
• 59:02
  Noel will tower over from size perspective. Dla Santos. Dla Santos fits more
• 59:07
  into the linebacker mold versus the just giant human mold. I do have to
• 59:15
  read Eric Longerhans has a little head to ride up on him in the preseason,
• 59:20
  and I thought this was interesting because I think it speaks exactly to who
• 59:23
  Daila Santos is and it basically called out the is plus plus big league raw
• 59:28
  power since he was nineteen, but the rest of his game has been sushi
• 59:31
  raws Like that's that's basically him in a nutshell like his his you know speed,
• 59:39
  like he's actually they have him a forty grade right now with his potential
• 59:43
  as a thirty like like there's like, no, he's he's he's going the
• 59:46
  wrong way already, guys like and I think that you're right, he's he's
• 59:50
  the guy that's gonna you know, they're playing a more at first base this
• 59:52
  year, So I do think I'm a little more interested in him, like
• 59:55
  for next year because I think that the playing time is the there and he's
• 1:00:01
  not a guy that I'm gonna be running out right now to get because unless
• 1:00:07
  I really need homers down the stretch, I don't I'm not as confident that
• 1:00:10
  he's gonna get called up with kind of the guys they're on the roster,
• 1:00:15
  and the it feels like the diamonbacks have will have a pretty has some pretty
• 1:00:19
  strong strong depths, so it'll be interesting to see. But I do think
• 1:00:22
  next year he's a guy to watch, especially in the spring. I kind
• 1:00:25
  of see if he's getting the playing time and he's a great late late round
• 1:00:30
  flyer to try to go after that. What did you say? Thirty two
• 1:00:34
  ish homer upside? That was very very specific, so I appreciate the specificity
• 1:00:39
  there in your estimates. Yeah, more than thirty, less than thirty five.
• 1:00:43
  That's thirty two. Oh so many ways I can take that, So
• 1:00:49
  we'll leave it there. So okay, well that gives you two options for
• 1:00:53
  homers and power. Let's move on to the batting average, which I think
• 1:00:58
  we probably both had the most difficulty finding somebody, but we actually found two
• 1:01:04
  guys at the same position. So I'll let you open with your pick.
• 1:01:08
  Yeah, and we're we're gonna stay right there in Arizona. We're gonna like
• 1:01:13
  make these all connections like who one degree with each other? So and we're
• 1:01:16
  gonna go with Adrian Dela del Castillo. He's a twenty four year old catcher
• 1:01:21
  for the Divingbacks right now in his second round of Triple A, and he's
• 1:01:29
  hitting three twenty two, got fourteen homers across sixty nine games there in Triple
• 1:01:36
  A. That's good for a WRT plus of one forty. And what jumped
• 1:01:39
  out to me with him was that, you know, he's he's always been
• 1:01:45
  on like the fringe of like an interesting prospect, but he has you know,
• 1:01:49
  whether it's he's figured out Triple A. I don't know what is this
• 1:01:52
  this year, but his strikeout rate has dropped considerably. Early in his minor
• 1:01:57
  league career, he was like a thirty kight guy. Last few years he's
• 1:02:00
  been that twenty five you know, twenty eight k you know percent guy this
• 1:02:06
  series strike out at a seventeen percent rate, like significantly better than what he's
• 1:02:10
  done the rest is his minor league career, and his power has jumped up.
• 1:02:15
  So he really looks to be a guy that's made some adjustments. You
• 1:02:20
  know, is he gonna find his his way you know, into the Major's
• 1:02:24
  there with the Diamondbacks. Tim will tell, but he seems that he has
• 1:02:30
  nothing, really less to prove and you know why he jumps out, And
• 1:02:36
  I think the guy that you'll talk about jumps out is because we're talking about
• 1:02:38
  a guy that seems like he's got a good path to a good average and
• 1:02:43
  he's a catcher, yep, So like that just doubles down because the catching
• 1:02:46
  market tends to be a little bit rough. And you know, he's sitting
• 1:02:50
  there. We've got Tucker Barnhardt as his you know, heir apparent, who's
• 1:02:54
  not been blazing on any many means. Jose Herrera there on the bench is
• 1:03:02
  also not really in his way per se. So I think that, you
• 1:03:07
  know, he's the kind of guy that being in twenty four, being triple
• 1:03:10
  A, being there in a second tour. The only thing that's really keeping
• 1:03:15
  him down is the fact that they do have Barnhart here and the second year
• 1:03:22
  of a you know, three you know, three million, three to four
• 1:03:25
  million dollars a year contract. But hey, Barnhart's hitting one seventy eight uh
• 1:03:30
  this this year, and uh, you know, at some point they got
• 1:03:36
  to got to make a change. So I think entering del Castillo is an
• 1:03:39
  interesting one. Definitely a big guy I'm going to keep my eye on.
• 1:03:43
  And if he does get the call, I don't know him investing before he
• 1:03:45
  gets the call, but if he gets the call, I'm definitely going there.
• 1:03:47
  Or if I'm maybe in a two catcher league that I got an open
• 1:03:51
  spot, I might be willing to kind of throw a few bucks at him
• 1:03:53
  before that happens. So Del Castillo, he's my guy in the average average
• 1:03:59
  lane. Any thoughts there on out in Arizona before before we leave, even
• 1:04:04
  just a prediction here, we're gonna stay nearby in the in all West for
• 1:04:10
  our connections. Yeah, same same position we said. But yeah, I
• 1:04:14
  mean, if anything, I'm going to just like emphasize some of the things
• 1:04:17
  on Castillo's profile. Del Castillo's profile that I like that you didn't even get
• 1:04:24
  to, and that is one He's he's pulling the ball more in twenty twenty
• 1:04:29
  four at triple A than he did last year. Last year he was more
• 1:04:31
  of like an all field spray hitter, and so not only is he striking
• 1:04:36
  out less, but he's getting to that full side power in triple A.
• 1:04:41
  That is right where you want to be if you want somebody who just is
• 1:04:45
  a solid hitter in terms of not only providing that batting average but also the
• 1:04:49
  power, because you can see that has jumped up for Castio del Castio this
• 1:04:53
  year. He has cut his or he's increased his contact rate significantly from seventy
• 1:05:00
  four percent to eighty percent. So all that stuff that we talked about in
• 1:05:04
  terms of what we're looking for when the strikeout rate drops, it's not luck
• 1:05:10
  based for Delcastdio this year. He's really deserving it. And another thing here
• 1:05:16
  is that not only are you Heneo Suarez and Christian Walker leaving town in Arizona
• 1:05:24
  after this offseason, Jack Peterson's on a one year deal, and Delcastio is
• 1:05:29
  left handed. He would line up perfectly to platoon with Gabriel Reno to be
• 1:05:33
  able to play catcher and DH and that would be the sweet spot if you're
• 1:05:39
  looking, especially in those deep to catcher leagues, somebody who's playing that much
• 1:05:45
  and is left handed. And Arizona's not the best hitter spark, but if
• 1:05:48
  you're a good hitter, you can put up a pretty good average I think
• 1:05:53
  down there, and obviously you get to hit in places like Colorado as well.
• 1:05:58
  So I love del Castillo even though, like I'm not huge in investing
• 1:06:03
  in catchers in dynastein keeper leagues. It seems like del Castillo is very cheap.
• 1:06:10
  And so if that is the case, like that's the perfect type of
• 1:06:14
  catcher. I think, somebody who has good skills, good opportunity, and
• 1:06:17
  doesn't have the hype machine behind them, because once catchers get hyped, that's
• 1:06:21
  when I'm certainly out because the price just starts shooting through the roof. Yeah,
• 1:06:29
  you're right, so it'll it'll be it'll be fun to see because he's
• 1:06:31
  got nothing let to prove. So there's a lot to like all around on
• 1:06:35
  Dela Castio here. So all right, make the connection. Another catcher,
• 1:06:41
  same division, who is it? And yeah, and we've been hinting at
• 1:06:44
  it. So it's Drew Romo catcher for the Colorado Rockies. It's mostly that,
• 1:06:48
  Yeah, this guy can hit for a high average. He's hit over
• 1:06:53
  the past two years three point fifty three. Well that was only eighteen plate
• 1:06:58
  appearances last year in Triple A for Colle Colorado. But this year he's hitting
• 1:07:01
  three zero five. All the projections have him in the two fifty ish range,
• 1:07:04
  which is well above average for a catcher. So even though like maybe
• 1:07:09
  these guys have lower batting averages overall than what you would you would think that
• 1:07:15
  given their position at catcher, they're going to be batting average assets and mostly
• 1:07:20
  like it's just time for Drew Romo to finally hit the field in Colorado.
• 1:07:26
  That it does seem that, like the Rockies probably will move on from Diez
• 1:07:31
  and Kevin Stallings at the trade deadline, which should open up the space for
• 1:07:35
  Drew Romo. Romo also is Rule five eligible in December, so Colorado kind
• 1:07:42
  of has to bring him up at some point this summer to see what he
• 1:07:45
  can do on a major league field. And I mean right there, like
• 1:07:49
  you're that's all you need, I think is you're looking at a switch hitter
• 1:07:55
  who can play catcher for the Rockies. And if that's maybe like the dream
• 1:08:00
  scenario, you can look at what value Elias Diaz has provided as like a
• 1:08:05
  mid thirties catcher in Colorado. Put somebody behind the plate with some fresh legs
• 1:08:11
  and can maybe run after it gets into the gaps a little bit. I
• 1:08:14
  think there's a lot of things to like in Drew Romo's profile because he doesn't
• 1:08:19
  strike out, he also doesn't walk, so he's like an Ezekiel Tovar at
• 1:08:24
  catcher, and you know, I love my Tobar. I know you absolutely
• 1:08:30
  love your Tobar, and I have to agree with a lot of points that
• 1:08:33
  you made. The interesting thing with Romo here is, you know, he
• 1:08:40
  seems like he has come into his own last year or so, maybe even
• 1:08:45
  less than that. But the one big question mark that remains like that doesn't
• 1:08:48
  affect his hitting ability at all. It's his catching ability. And let me
• 1:08:54
  be clear here. He can catch, he can field, he can't throw
• 1:08:57
  anybody out, you know. So if you look this year, he has
• 1:09:02
  allowed forty stolen bases in thirty nine games. As a catcher, he's thrown
• 1:09:08
  out thirteen guys. That's not good, funny. So that's forty out of
• 1:09:13
  fifty three. You can keep talking about to douse some mac here. Yeah,
• 1:09:17
  And so now I say that an improvement potentially over last year, where
• 1:09:23
  he gave up ninety seven stolen bases in seventy six games started seventy eight total.
• 1:09:28
  So I think, you know, he can actually be a booned for
• 1:09:31
  the other team and himself as he comes up here. But I think you're
• 1:09:34
  right, like he is that kind of guy that can boost the average.
• 1:09:39
  I think the Rockies have to give him a look. I'm just really concerned
• 1:09:42
  if he sticks at catcher, like and if he doesn't, I don't know
• 1:09:45
  that he has another spot, Like the profile is not strong enough around the
• 1:09:49
  rest of his you know, his power, his speed, like he has
• 1:09:55
  a really good profiles a hit or for a catcher, but it doesn't play
• 1:10:00
  the rest of the way. So he was a first round competitive balance pick,
• 1:10:02
  like there's you know, he has the pedigree. You know, it'll
• 1:10:06
  be interesting. I think there is a little Colorado shining here. But if
• 1:10:10
  he doesn't stick to Colorado, I'm I'm a little less interested in Romo here.
• 1:10:15
  But for the point of batting average, he gets called up and you're
• 1:10:18
  getting killed at catcher with average, I think he's your guy for sure in
• 1:10:23
  Colorado, and you have to hope he's daching. Yeah, unless you're on
• 1:10:28
  the opposing team running. I mean, yeah, then you certainly will be
• 1:10:32
  tracking that. So it was I mean, that's like a twenty five percent
• 1:10:35
  caught stealing rate, which isn't absurd, Like that's the round like where like
• 1:10:43
  Logan o'hoppy caper leiz our boy pedro pahes like so I think I mean,
• 1:10:50
  if he can convert that straight into major League Baseball, it would play.
• 1:10:55
  But even I mean eliast Das is that seventeen percent caught stealing, Like,
• 1:11:01
  there's some pretty poor arms out there, so I think Romo can fit in.
• 1:11:06
  I am also overlooking Hunter Goodman's involvement here at the catcher position, but
• 1:11:11
  like Romo's gonna come up with catch your eligibility, and like I just it
• 1:11:15
  kind of boils down to, like, I don't the Rockies have to play
• 1:11:19
  him at some point? Like why would you waste a first round pick on
• 1:11:21
  this guy and just let him rot in your minor league system and lose into
• 1:11:27
  a Rule five draft? I don't know. There's a few guys you could
• 1:11:30
  probably ask that question too for the Rockies. Yeah, yeah, you need
• 1:11:34
  to bring c A on to let out a little bit of a Rockies rant
• 1:11:39
  because I feel his pain often. Okay, well, let's move on to
• 1:11:44
  stolen bases, where honestly, we had a I think a lot of choices
• 1:11:47
  between There's lots of players in the minor league flashing all sorts of speed,
• 1:11:54
  and I think what's hard to parse apart is obviously some of them are stealing
• 1:11:58
  these bags against the likes of Drew Romo, and also like can they hit
• 1:12:03
  enough and can they get on base enough to be able to use that speed.
• 1:12:06
  So it is a little bit of like a combination if you've got to
• 1:12:09
  find somebody with enough batting average, enough on base skills to be able to
• 1:12:13
  get to the speed. And so I think we've got a couple of names
• 1:12:15
  here. I will let you make your pick for stolen bases. Yeah,
• 1:12:20
  and so this is one that I called it out earlier. I went a
• 1:12:25
  little bit off the reservation on this one, and I'm going with Cooper Bowman
• 1:12:31
  from the Oakland Athletics. He's in Double A, he's twenty four years old,
• 1:12:36
  and you know, he's a he's a second baseman for the Athletics.
• 1:12:41
  He actually came over in the Frankie Montas deal, you know, about a
• 1:12:46
  year a year and a half ago for Oakland. And what intrigues me about
• 1:12:53
  Cooper Bowman is, over the last two seasons, in a combined we'll call
• 1:12:59
  it one hundred and thirty games, he's stolen sixty bases and got caught six
• 1:13:04
  times. And I'm not an expert, but that's pretty good. And you
• 1:13:11
  know, if you look at how he's doing it, he's getting on base.
• 1:13:14
  He's walking a little over twelve percent of the time this year. He
• 1:13:19
  does have a little pop, so he can get on base. He definitely
• 1:13:26
  is a guy that has kind of risen up. He was a fourth round
• 1:13:30
  draft pick and he's been you know, w RC plus has been hovering in
• 1:13:34
  the one ten, one twenty range. So the thing I like about him
• 1:13:39
  is he's, you know, he looks like he's ready for major league baseball.
• 1:13:44
  He's kind of gonna hit in the i'll call it two fifty range to
• 1:13:47
  forty range, but he's gonna walk enough that his OBP is gonna be in
• 1:13:51
  the two or sorry, the three thirty range, three twenty range, somewhere
• 1:13:57
  like that. So if he gets on, he can move, he can
• 1:13:59
  run, and he can make an impact. And with an Oakland like they
• 1:14:02
  they're the team that needs to see what they got and so they're very likely
• 1:14:06
  to move off of some guys and give him an opportunity. And you know,
• 1:14:11
  he's he's played a little bit all over the diamond in the minors this
• 1:14:15
  year. He's played the majority of the time at second base, but he's
• 1:14:17
  played a handful of games at third. He's played a handful of games at
• 1:14:21
  short. He's DHD a little bit like he's done a little bit of everything.
• 1:14:28
  And so I think he's the only guy gets called up. They play
• 1:14:30
  him all over the place, give guys a chance to rest, and they
• 1:14:34
  try to see what they have there. And Cooper Bowman and the other thing.
• 1:14:39
  I like, he's free. Nobody else picked him up, Nobody else
• 1:14:42
  is really looking at him. He's in Oakland. Everybody's read him off.
• 1:14:45
  He's not a big name, but the profile just screams opportunity to run.
• 1:14:50
  And it's not that he just runs whenever he's on, no matter what,
• 1:14:56
  he's running and doing it in the right situations and being effective at it.
• 1:15:00
  I really like Cooper Bowman. He's a guy I'm gonna keep an eye on
• 1:15:02
  if he gets called up. I'm definitely definitely making a play on him.
• 1:15:06
  Yeah, And I think I just like you, was not familiar with his
• 1:15:11
  game until you put him on the rundown list. And the more and more
• 1:15:15
  I look at it, the more and more I like it. Because he's
• 1:15:17
  getting on base at like a three sixty clip down in double A the past
• 1:15:20
  couple of years. The speed comes with non zero pop that you know,
• 1:15:27
  he's got eight homers both this year and last year with an iso that is,
• 1:15:30
  you know, in the one seventy ish range, and I think it
• 1:15:36
  is showing that, you know, it's not a lot of like these kind
• 1:15:39
  of like hustle doubles and stuff too, that you know, there is a
• 1:15:43
  little bit of zip in that bat. Again, like Drew Romo, he's
• 1:15:46
  Rule five eligible in December, so if Oakland wants to see what Bowman can
• 1:15:50
  do at a major league level, they've got to put him on the forty
• 1:15:54
  man roster or lose him to the Rule five draft in December. So I
• 1:16:00
  think this is a great pick because Oakland's roster will be in flux next month,
• 1:16:04
  as you know, they're going to try to trade as much value off
• 1:16:09
  of that major league roster that they can and then maybe like DFA's some of
• 1:16:13
  the guys who aren't cutting it and haven't had any trade values. So it's
• 1:16:17
  pretty easy to see how Bowman makes his way into the majors by the end
• 1:16:21
  of the year and becomes a stone based asset in September. Yeah, I'm
• 1:16:27
  excited for really the only guy I feel like Oakland's not going to trade is
• 1:16:30
  that gaylaf and so like he is the second baseman, but Tyler Nevin is
• 1:16:34
  not holding him back. Max Schuman's not holding anybody back, Miguel Andrew Harr
• 1:16:39
  isn't holding anybody back. I guess Britt Rooker is probably not going anywhere quite
• 1:16:45
  yet. But yeah, there's definitely gonna be an opportunity for playing time.
• 1:16:49
  And you're right with being Rule five eligible. With how he's looked on paper,
• 1:16:55
  that's a good team's picking him up just to throw him as a as
• 1:16:58
  a you know you bench you guy they can get on, run, draw
• 1:17:01
  a walk, like they've got to see what they have in him and see
• 1:17:04
  if it's something that they can trade in three years from now. Okay,
• 1:17:10
  Well, the guy that I'm gonna go with is probably, I mean,
• 1:17:13
  like the de facto speed guy in the miners right now, and that is
• 1:17:16
  but he just kind of hasn't gotten too much I think talk in terms of
• 1:17:20
  our fantasy game, that is Chandler Simpson, an outfielder for the Tampa Bay
• 1:17:25
  Rays, partly because I think people are a little gunshy about this type of
• 1:17:29
  profile after what Victor Scott did to us in the spring. The difference is
• 1:17:33
  that Victor Scott was I think still had some seasoning to go through. If
• 1:17:38
  it hadn't been for just the deluge of injuries that the Cardinals had in the
• 1:17:43
  outfield in the spring, we would have seen any Victor Scott until like August.
• 1:17:48
  And the reason is, like, it's just really hard to put the
• 1:17:53
  bat on the ball, but Simpson can do that. You know, he's
• 1:17:57
  only striking out five percent of the time down in Double A and then just
• 1:18:00
  kind of slapping it into the ground, letting the speed run where it's gonna
• 1:18:03
  play. Because the stude's an eighty grade runner, He's just peer speed.
• 1:18:09
  I think it's also a good test case for like what Enrique Bradford can be
• 1:18:13
  like, or Bradfields can be coming up through the Baltimore Oriol system. So
• 1:18:17
  like, not only am it I'm kind of like tracking Bradfield like along here,
• 1:18:23
  but like it'll be interesting, I think as a test case for the
• 1:18:28
  future, just like all development in dynasty and keeper leagues, because I think
• 1:18:31
  the teams are gonna start bringing through lots of more guys like these with the
• 1:18:35
  lax stole and base rules. Because once he's able to get on base,
• 1:18:42
  Simpson's pretty much almost automatically on third because of the speed and the steals.
• 1:18:46
  And I think, just like what we've talked about a bit with Colorado and
• 1:18:50
  with Oakland, Tampa's been struggling a lot too, and if they decide to
• 1:18:55
  sell at the deadline, Simpson I think could find his way up to the
• 1:19:00
  majors as the Rays want to figure out, you know what his kind of
• 1:19:03
  peak is. You know, is this guy going to turn into something maybe
• 1:19:08
  akin to like a Carl Crawford or is he going to be what April Victor
• 1:19:11
  Scott was And the best way to figure that out is to give him a
• 1:19:15
  cup of tea down the stretch and just I guess cup of coffee, not
• 1:19:19
  cup of tea. I was thinking at the current meme. But Chandler Simpson
• 1:19:27
  is also left handed too, which I love to see. So he's just
• 1:19:30
  doing what he can to get on base and then running any chance he can.
• 1:19:35
  So he's got fifty three stolen bases right now between Hyga and Double A.
• 1:19:43
  He's gonna push one hundred bags between the two levels, just the way
• 1:19:47
  that Victor Scott did last year. And so I think because of like what
• 1:19:54
  we were doing with Scott in our game, and honestly, like Scott still
• 1:19:56
  got that long term viability just because of the speed and if he can figure
• 1:20:00
  out how to get on base as often as Chandler Simpson can put up before
• 1:20:05
  thirty one opp in ia before getting moved up, that's absurd. He's also
• 1:20:12
  projected for one hundred WRC plus and Steamer right now with a two seventy average,
• 1:20:15
  So it's just a really intriguing profile. And I can't not like just
• 1:20:21
  want to take that shot on Chandler Simpson because sure the power is going to
• 1:20:27
  be lacking, but like this is like the closest thing we've had to Billy
• 1:20:30
  Hamilton, I think in a little bit in our game, and uh,
• 1:20:34
  it can be a total game changer. Yeah, you know, the only
• 1:20:40
  thing that I have against uh Chandler Simpson at this point is vital version because
• 1:20:45
  I feel like we've been here before. But that's like completely like means nothing.
• 1:20:50
  The Rays do always scare me with prospects, but you're right, like
• 1:20:54
  he is that Victor Scott, Like he's lightning the bottle, He's the Billy
• 1:20:57
  Hamilton. He's like what you're looking for. And because of how game changing
• 1:21:01
  he can be you have to try, You have to try, and it
• 1:21:05
  looks to be pretty good. Like the question is, is like when he
• 1:21:09
  gets like he has that kind of I would called the slap hitter approach,
• 1:21:14
  patient of the plate, very consistent, gonna leg out a lot of infielled
• 1:21:17
  singles, things like that. Is that going to translate enough to the majors?
• 1:21:21
  If it can, then absolutely fantastic And and there's nothing you can see
• 1:21:26
  right now that shows that it won't. But it does seem that these kind
• 1:21:29
  of guys that have that heavy speed not very much power do tend to struggle
• 1:21:33
  a little bit when they get called out, and so it'll be interesting to
• 1:21:36
  see. But you're absolutely right, like they've got to give him a chance.
• 1:21:40
  He's like, nothing's scaring him right now in the minors, so he's
• 1:21:44
  I would be surprised if he's not up August timeframe, would be would be
• 1:21:47
  my guest on on something something at this point in time. And honestly,
• 1:21:54
  the person I should have been comparing him to is one Pier like one Pierre
• 1:21:57
  also ran a five percent walk rate five percent k rate in his entire career.
• 1:22:01
  That I think what made Wan Pierre stick out is that Pierre was able
• 1:22:06
  to make enough contact where like he just would spoil off pitches and foul off
• 1:22:12
  pitches until he got one that he could pound it to the ground just correctly.
• 1:22:15
  And if Simpson can get a similar skill where if you can just have
• 1:22:19
  that patience foul off pitches until you get one that you can actually like push
• 1:22:25
  through a hole or you know, actually put down for a bunt, that's
• 1:22:30
  really game changing in baseball. Yeah, okay, well let's move over to
• 1:22:35
  the pitching side, which is always dicey, but we're going to give it
• 1:22:39
  a shot anyways. And we're even gonna give a shot at the hardest category
• 1:22:45
  I think to try to predict, and that is wins, mostly because we've
• 1:22:48
  got a couple of players who are going deeper into games, which is what
• 1:22:55
  you're gonna need for wins, and also play for teams that are either sore
• 1:23:00
  above. So we've got a couple of choices this year. I will let
• 1:23:03
  you take the first crack here. Yeah, so I'm gonna go with a
• 1:23:09
  homer pick, which is okay, because this is our podcast, thame do
• 1:23:12
  what I want. I'm gonna go with Quinn Matthews of the Saint Louis Cardinals.
• 1:23:16
  Matthews just got promoted two days ago from High A Peoria to Double A
• 1:23:21
  Springfield. I don't think he's made his first start yet, but you know,
• 1:23:29
  he he was a fourth round draft pick out of Stanford, and he
• 1:23:32
  didn't pitch at all last year because he amassed like one hundred and twenty hundred
• 1:23:36
  and thirty innings at Stanford last year, so they just kind of let him
• 1:23:40
  rest and not do anything with him. And he has come out of the
• 1:23:44
  gates on fire this year and he's showing all the things that that you look
• 1:23:49
  for. You know, he he's pitched an A, Hi A. You
• 1:23:54
  know he's going to Double A, and you know, across the those two
• 1:24:01
  levels, he's got A he's got seventy four innings, so he's already pitching
• 1:24:05
  a lot. He's going deep into games. He is getting six and seven
• 1:24:09
  innings every single time out. He's got a two point one eight earra.
• 1:24:14
  His he's got about a seven percent walk rate in an only nearly forty percent
• 1:24:19
  k rate, you know, has dropped. His k rate dropped a little
• 1:24:24
  bit when he got to High A, but then his walk rate got even
• 1:24:27
  better. He was walking less than two guys per per nine. But what's
• 1:24:30
  really intriguing of him is when he was at Stanford, he was like a
• 1:24:35
  ninety to ninety two mile per hour guy. He's been averaging like ninety four
• 1:24:41
  to ninety five, touching ninety seven this year, and so he's looked really,
• 1:24:45
  really good. Like I've seen comparisons to say that he's like challenging Tinkns
• 1:24:48
  for the best prospect in the Cardinals minor league system. And when we talk
• 1:24:54
  about guys that you're looking for wins, he's goes deep into games. You
• 1:24:59
  know, he doesn't throw a ton of pitches because he he keeps the ball
• 1:25:02
  on the ground. You know, I love it. He doesn't walk a
• 1:25:04
  lot of guys, and he's he's older, like he's a college rooven pitcher,
• 1:25:12
  so he doesn't need a ton of time in the minors. And then
• 1:25:15
  you're talking about a team that's now what four games over five hundred in Saint
• 1:25:17
  Louis. I still don't feel like they're that good they've been. I don't
• 1:25:21
  know where they got that, but they're still trying to figure out what to
• 1:25:26
  do with the back of that rotation with guys like Matthew Lebator and you know,
• 1:25:30
  trying to keep everybody else healthy, like it's it's gonna be interesting.
• 1:25:33
  So does he make it up this year? I don't know, but there's
• 1:25:40
  enough good things going the Quinn Matthews is really really interesting and he does fit
• 1:25:45
  that prototypical kind of workhorse that the Cardinals absolutely love. So yeah, definitely
• 1:25:50
  a guy the worth throwing a buck at here or just washing to see what
• 1:25:56
  he does when he hits hits double A. Yeah, I'm I mean I
• 1:26:00
  think he. I do think he's coming up this year just because the Cardinals
• 1:26:04
  do need another picture and especially like a lightning in a bottle pitcher that can
• 1:26:12
  be just the standout star and kind of like you can start getting excited for
• 1:26:16
  every fifth day. That that's I think a lot of what the rotation and
• 1:26:20
  the team overall is just kind of sorely lacking. Is that kind of exciting
• 1:26:27
  young star that you know, Jordan Walker was supposed to be and Gorman does
• 1:26:30
  every once in a while, but then we'll go like one for twenty four
• 1:26:34
  and then a we can Matthews I think can step into that role in Saint
• 1:26:40
  Louis. He's got such a great like frame for a picture that you love
• 1:26:44
  to see, you know, six to five listened at one eighty eight,
• 1:26:46
  but it's put on a little bit more bulk since he's come over from the
• 1:26:49
  draft last year just absolutely shredding guys down in high A. I think he's
• 1:26:56
  going to do the same at double A. And it's going to be hard
• 1:26:58
  for the Cardinals to say that there's much more to work on because we've talked
• 1:27:02
  about this before. The classic ten step there's no such thing as a pitching
• 1:27:09
  prospect acronym is because what you should be doing is when a pitcher is ready
• 1:27:14
  to go, you got to bring them up and use those bullets that he's
• 1:27:17
  gotten that arm in the major leagues while they're going. So I think Quinn
• 1:27:23
  Matthews fits exactly into that bucket. I think you can just look at like
• 1:27:28
  how the Braves have been successful over the past couple of years in terms of
• 1:27:32
  you know, promoting Strider quickly, promoting Schwellenbach, quickly, promoting the shover
• 1:27:38
  quickly, that the Cardinals need to do something similar. I think with Matthews
• 1:27:43
  that they're going to be serious about contending for the playoff spot and into the
• 1:27:47
  playoffs at all. I think, so it'll be fun to see. I
• 1:27:53
  hope he gets a shot this year for sure. But what about you?
• 1:27:55
  Where are you going with for the on the wins? Okay, I'm going
• 1:27:59
  to go out to Boston, who also has been pretty solid of late and
• 1:28:02
  are now six games of five hundred, so they also have been struggling with
• 1:28:09
  kind of The Cardinals have been struggling with one rotation spot with Polante right now.
• 1:28:13
  The White Sox are red. Wow, that was quite the Floridian slip.
• 1:28:17
  The Red Sox have also been struggling with a spot where you know they've
• 1:28:24
  got when Kowski sitting in there now, but I mean he's better out of
• 1:28:28
  the bullpen. Brian Bayo has been really dismal of late, and I don't
• 1:28:33
  know like what his ultimate ceiling is going to be. And Richard Fitz,
• 1:28:40
  you can make all the jokes that you want to. We have constantly on
• 1:28:44
  ras Ball within the comments as this has been another one of Itch's favorite guys
• 1:28:47
  that he lists quite often and fits came over from the Yankees and he just
• 1:28:56
  looks ready. This is another guy where he he's actually roll five eligible in
• 1:29:01
  December, so it's confusing kind of what they're trying to do to figure out,
• 1:29:05
  you know, what last pieces they need to put together for him,
• 1:29:10
  But he looks like a pretty polished pitcher in terms of I would say,
• 1:29:15
  like more like if you took Drew Thorpe and gave him a little bit worse
• 1:29:20
  change up, and you know, that's what you're looking at here. Maybe
• 1:29:25
  somebody who's going to be more in like the eight k nine range, a
• 1:29:29
  little bit more like an average four ish era. But if you're chasing wins,
• 1:29:32
  the Red Sox have been playing pretty well. The bullpen behind him would
• 1:29:36
  be relatively steady, even though, like I know, people don't always feel
• 1:29:41
  great about Kenley Jansen, like getting too Kenley Jansen forces you go through Chris
• 1:29:45
  Martin and Justin Slayton, who have been pretty solid. The lineup is really
• 1:29:50
  starting to come together for Boston as well as Cassas is going to be back
• 1:29:55
  here pretty soon, So I think that the Red Sox could really squeak out
• 1:30:00
  like a ninety win season here. And if fits is going every fifth day,
• 1:30:04
  you're looking at a pretty solid piece to pick up some wins maybe out
• 1:30:10
  of nowhere. So I don't think we like him as much as like some
• 1:30:13
  of the other pictures we've talked about because the ground ball rate isn't quite where
• 1:30:16
  we want it to be. But when you're chasing wins, you're chasing wins,
• 1:30:20
  and sometimes you've got to like roll with maybe a slightly less skilled pitcher
• 1:30:26
  on a talented team to be able to get those wins. Yeah, and
• 1:30:30
  I think Fits is gonna be interesting because he was a he was a college
• 1:30:33
  reliever that they've tried out as a starter and so like he's gone seven innings,
• 1:30:38
  he's gone four, he's gone two, Like he's thrown up there,
• 1:30:43
  you know, ninety five, Like he's the variable outcomes are more. But
• 1:30:47
  to your point, like he does seem like he could be lightning in a
• 1:30:50
  bottle for the Red Sox, And they do like to try out these young
• 1:30:56
  kind of fireballers that could be bullping guys or not. I'llah, Garrett Whitlock,
• 1:31:01
  Tanner, how like that. There's guys that they've done this with before,
• 1:31:05
  and so I think Fits is the next guy that they're gonna try to
• 1:31:09
  see what happens because he's got three good pitches. The change up still a
• 1:31:14
  little bit questionable, but I think, you know, it'll be interesting to
• 1:31:17
  see. But if to your point, there's not a lot standing in this
• 1:31:20
  way, and if they're you know, going forward with I think I saw
• 1:31:26
  a note from Alex korusaying like we've actually got to try this year or something
• 1:31:29
  like that I'm paraphrasing, but like we've actually got to make some moves of
• 1:31:32
  the deadline. You have to think that they're gonna push guys like Richard Fitz
• 1:31:36
  up to the majors because he he doesn't like, doesn't have anything else left
• 1:31:42
  left to prove, like he's Rule five eligible this year, he's twenty four,
• 1:31:46
  Like what else do you want from the guy? Just give him a
• 1:31:50
  shot? So it'll be fun to see when when that happens, But it
• 1:31:56
  can't be too far off. Yeah, I can't imagine so either. So
• 1:32:00
  let's move on to the strikeouts category, and I will let you open with
• 1:32:04
  the guy that we have leaded to coming up at the beginning of the pod.
• 1:32:08
  So they if you've stuck around long enough, here is your analysis of
• 1:32:13
  David Festa. Yeah we didn't bury that lead at all. But yeah,
• 1:32:17
  so David Festa I mentioned earlier, you know taking you know, weapon's sake
• 1:32:24
  is Chris Paddock's spot in the rotation. I think he's gonna be able to
• 1:32:27
  last there. He's a four pitch guy, you know, he was actually
• 1:32:31
  a thirteenth rounder and it's kind of just made his way and continue to improve
• 1:32:36
  his stock throughout his minor league career. But he's been incredibly consistent wherever he's
• 1:32:42
  gone. You know, he's a guy that this year he's ticked up the
• 1:32:45
  strikeouts to thirteen kper nine across sixty innings, but in the past he's been
• 1:32:51
  anywhere from a ten to twelve kper nine guy. Generally, his controls had
• 1:32:57
  held pretty well the mid to low three walk for nine and ground ball guy.
• 1:33:02
  He's not like significant groundball guy, but he generally keeps on the ground
• 1:33:08
  forty five to fifty percent of the time, which is what you like to
• 1:33:12
  see. So I think what's gonna be interesting with him is to see,
• 1:33:15
  really, you know, how well that that fastball is gonna play, uh
• 1:33:19
  for for FESTA and at the major league level. Uh you know, if
• 1:33:24
  you look at the projection systems, they're all kind of on him as kind
• 1:33:28
  of a just blow a caper inning type type of guy. But he does
• 1:33:32
  have, you know, a pretty strong arsenal that I think is gonna get
• 1:33:40
  to challenge major league kidders. So, you know, if you're looking for
• 1:33:44
  a guy, now that we know he's called up, I think you should
• 1:33:46
  be picking up Festa wherever there's a chance and seeing what you have because I
• 1:33:50
  think he's gonna have a leash and I think that, you know, compared
• 1:33:55
  to some other guys that we've seen recently, like a Drew Thorpeer thing things
• 1:33:58
  like that, I think his art is going to play a little bit better.
• 1:34:01
  So how about you, Where are you on Festa? Yeah? Absolutely,
• 1:34:04
  And part of it is just like the size. Festa is a behem
• 1:34:08
  at these six y six and just towers over people when he's on the mound.
• 1:34:13
  I think that adds to an intimidation factor. I've had him stashed away
• 1:34:16
  in a couple places, and so I've been waiting for this for about a
• 1:34:20
  month. I think that is Festa should have been up for a while,
• 1:34:26
  especially as the twins are right in the middle of that dogfight for the wild
• 1:34:31
  card, and I think you can almost like set it and forget it the
• 1:34:35
  rest of the year because I think Minnesota is going to be keeping him up.
• 1:34:40
  I think he's going to be a pretty steady pitcher down the stretch.
• 1:34:43
  I love when guys like this and Noel get called up because it makes my
• 1:34:46
  life very easy writing that Waiver Wire report on the weekend, not hard to
• 1:34:51
  figure out who to suggest to pick up. Because I think Festa no matter
• 1:34:58
  like the league depth, I think you've got to take a shot on him,
• 1:35:00
  because the ceiling is pretty incredible here that we're looking at somebody who could
• 1:35:04
  be like a number two or three starter for the Twins at peak, and
• 1:35:12
  they play against the Tigers and the White Sox a lot here in the second
• 1:35:15
  half, so you're obviously going to take advantage of those matchups. And you
• 1:35:21
  know, not a bad park either. So I think that everything that you
• 1:35:26
  expounded upon with Festa is exactly what we're looking for in terms of like somebody
• 1:35:30
  who can walk into a rotation and just be a little bit of like a
• 1:35:35
  yeah, like I said, a seid and forget it, like top sixty
• 1:35:40
  ish starter, probably like somewhere sixty to eighty. Like, I think he's
• 1:35:45
  going to be a pretty solid rotation piece. Yeah, I think I think
• 1:35:49
  you're right, probably that sixty to seventy revenge with upside it is kind of
• 1:35:54
  what I look, So, all right, finish us out. Who do
• 1:35:57
  you have here for your your pitcher in the strikeout category? Okay, I'm
• 1:36:01
  going to go with Carson wizzen Hunt from the San Francisco Giants, and he
• 1:36:08
  has been If you look at the overall like profile with the five twenty nine
• 1:36:15
  ARRA right now, you might not think that this is a great choice,
• 1:36:18
  but he has certainly been better as of late, especially since the beginning of
• 1:36:24
  May, he has had a four to seventy four RA. Honestly, his
• 1:36:29
  last outing wasn't terribly great, but I think that he's also like starting to
• 1:36:32
  get into this point where he's just been hanging out and triple A and double
• 1:36:38
  A and kind of like on the cusp of promotion for the Giants for a
• 1:36:41
  long time that you can see these types of players just kind of get bored
• 1:36:46
  with it all overall. And I think if you're looking for a case of
• 1:36:50
  like where wizzen Hunt can be, just kind of look at what Kyle Harrison
• 1:36:55
  has been. Wizzen Hunts also left handed, has a really dirty change up
• 1:37:00
  that he can use to punch out picture punch out hitters. And you're looking
• 1:37:04
  at somebody who who has a twelve K nine right now in triple A.
• 1:37:09
  I think it'll translate pretty well, just given that the arsenal and the delivery
• 1:37:14
  method that he's got. All the reports from wizen Hunt have always kind of
• 1:37:19
  you know, these type of pictures where they're on the line of like is
• 1:37:24
  a reliever is he a starter? Is usually because like the stuff is so
• 1:37:28
  nasty. It's whether or not that he can like put enough control on it
• 1:37:31
  to be able to go deep enough as a starter. But like, this
• 1:37:35
  is a great situation in San Francisco, given the way that they approach pitching
• 1:37:40
  and like, don't always use traditional starters, don't always use traditional relievers,
• 1:37:45
  mix and match a lot that as long as you can get like wizen Hunt
• 1:37:48
  in there and you know, pitching five ish innings a week, you could
• 1:37:53
  be walking away with some pretty good strikeout upside. Yeah, I think,
• 1:37:58
  you know. And he's the kind of guy that I look at the just
• 1:38:00
  like all these random little red flags with like the walk grade and the fly
• 1:38:02
  ball right and things like that, and then they go, he's in San
• 1:38:04
  Francisco. Yes, where if any of that's gonna work, it's gonna be
• 1:38:09
  San Francisco and they're willing to call these kind of guys up with like Harrison
• 1:38:13
  last year that and just see what they got. And so to that point,
• 1:38:16
  like is he gonna be the guy with the lowest whip or you know,
• 1:38:19
  the lowest era or things like that. I don't think so. I
• 1:38:21
  think he's gonna have some blow ups here and there, But like if you
• 1:38:25
  need K's I think, I mean, he's he's got a nasty change up
• 1:38:29
  and he's going to get whiffs on it, and he's gonna get hitters set
• 1:38:31
  up and so he's gonna strike out guys and uh, he's gonna accumulate those
• 1:38:34
  those stats and so that you know, if you're needing that help. He's
• 1:38:40
  absolutely a guy that I think is gonna get a chance this year. And
• 1:38:43
  you know, the he doesn't have a whole lot left to do in the
• 1:38:45
  miners at this point besides get called up. So let's see where wizz Hunt
• 1:38:51
  ends up here. But I think it's a that's a good call. He's
• 1:38:56
  definitely a guy that can make an impact on on the rest of this fantasy
• 1:39:00
  season, let alone next. So yeah, and with wizzen Hunt two,
• 1:39:04
  I like it's hard for me to keep track of this sometimes when I'm looking
• 1:39:09
  at Triple A pitching stats is like the PCL is a crazy hitters environment,
• 1:39:13
  and so like it doesn't always translate well with those walks that I mean,
• 1:39:18
  it's very possible that Wizzen Hunt in Triple A has that elevated walk rate because
• 1:39:23
  he's just hunting and pecking a little bit extra to be able to avoid the
• 1:39:28
  huge blow ups. And so that is like a grain of salt that you
• 1:39:30
  have to take, like all the PCL numbers with. And so we are
• 1:39:34
  going through those leader boards that we were talking about on panographs, doing your
• 1:39:39
  filters, looking at Triple A pitchers, trying to find your own gems.
• 1:39:43
  That's a good place to try to also find a little bit of like an
• 1:39:46
  advantage over your league mates is looking at those Triple A stats and trying to
• 1:39:50
  translate them out of that crazy hitter environment that is happening right now. Okay,
• 1:39:59
  well that's going to wrap us up for this week. I think that's
• 1:40:01
  a lot of great category coverage that we've provided on the prospect end. If
• 1:40:05
  you've got anybody else out there that you're considering for your teams, certainly reach
• 1:40:10
  out to us. Email the pod at cards Categories at gmail dot com,
• 1:40:15
  or reach us on Twitter slash x at cards categories. Brew Let everybody else
• 1:40:20
  know where they can find you and your work. Yep, you can find
• 1:40:25
  me over on Twitter slash x. I don't know how long much as longer
• 1:40:28
  I can call it Twitter, but I'm going to keep rolling with it,
• 1:40:30
  and we're in episode fifty Twitter slash x at Jaybrewer one seven. You can
• 1:40:34
  find me in rasball on the weekends doing hitter profiles in the top one hundred
• 1:40:40
  hitters for the rest of the season over on Sundays. So coolly, how
• 1:40:43
  about you where folks find you? Yeah, you can find me on Saturdays
• 1:40:47
  during the wave or wire report on ras ball where you can check out the
• 1:40:54
  suggested pickups that aren't just know well and festa that I will have other players
• 1:40:59
  out there for you too. I think especially going to be honing in on
• 1:41:01
  trying to set ourselves up for the second half, as we did eclipse the
• 1:41:05
  halfway point for the regular season this week. You can find me on Twitter
• 1:41:12
  slash x. I will still keep calling it Twitter as long as they call
• 1:41:15
  it tweets, which I mean you would think that they would bring those together.
• 1:41:18
  But whatever, you can find me there and Blue Sky at M cool
• 1:41:24
  seven. If you want any cards and categories merchandise, check out the link
• 1:41:29
  in the show notes where you can get hats, t shirts, onesies,
• 1:41:33
  coffee mugs. If you want anything else, you can certainly reach out to
• 1:41:36
  us. I can slap the logo on just about anything. And if you
• 1:41:41
  have enjoyed this podcast, I would hope so you've been listening to well over
• 1:41:45
  ninety minutes of us talk, great review comment on the podcast. Wherever you're
• 1:41:50
  listening to us, we would really greatly appreciate it, and we will be
• 1:41:57
  not back again next week. We are taking off next week actually for the
• 1:42:00
  fourth of July holiday, so we will be back in two weeks where we
• 1:42:04
  will be able to cover the June Player of the Month PC. So we
• 1:42:09
  will see you then and there in a couple of weeks. Take care everybody,