Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1719: The Derby and the Draft

Episode Date: July 14, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Rob Manfred teasing a possible permanent reprieve from zombie runners and seven-inning doubleheaders, react to Monday’s Home Run Derby and outpouring of appreciation for Shohei Ohtani, and lament Ronald Acuña Jr.’s season-ending injury (and assess the state of the Braves). Then (45:46) they bring on FanGraphs Lead Prospect […]

The bright lights of Denver are shining like diamonds, like 10,000 jewels in the sky. And it's nobody's business where you're going or where you come from, and you're judged by the look in your eyes. Hello and welcome to episode 1719 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm okay. Mile high Meg, coming to us from Denver today. How's the air up there? Uh, thin.

Especially when you are tired from a couple of days of draft coverage. But significantly cooler than the Greater Phoenix area so it's got that going for it. Yeah, so we've got a busy day today. We will be welcoming on a couple of Fangraphs draft dudes later on in this episode. Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen will be here telling us about the draft and a little bit about the Futures game

and we've got to talk Derby but before that, you bring me some glad tidings today because you attended the BBWA meetings with Tony Clark and then separately Rob Manfred on Tuesday. And it sounds like there was some news that is music to my ears. Yes. With all of the regular caveats that you might expect from a man who is about to embark on a contentious CBA negotiation, Rob Manfred was asked about the future of both seven inning double headers and also the runner on second rule. And while, of course, he would not promise anything because who would do that in this situation? He indicated that he did not anticipate either of those rules being a part of the game's future and emphasized that they were part of you know the covid protocols and noted um and here i'm not quoting directly but to paraphrase what he said

that you know both the the league and the players association did not know what the country was going to look like from a pandemic perspective when they set the health and safety protocols at the beginning of the season and not only only did they not know, but they maybe anticipated that things would be significantly worse than they are at the moment. And so had they had a crystal ball, again, my words, not his, they, you know, they might have approached those particular rules a little bit differently, but it did not sound as if it was a thing that he was sort of enthusiastically endorsing for the future. So, you know, we will see what the CBA negotiations yield, but there is, I think, a glimmer of hope for you, Ben, that we may return to baseball as

we have come to understand it for the 2022 season. I'm ecstatic and surprised that the zombie runner might take a bullet in the brain sometime soon. I did not think that we would see that. I haven't really resigned myself to either the zombie runner or the seven inning doubleheader, but I had kind of come to terms with the fact that I would have to resign myself to them someday because I figured, well, they've happened and life has gone on and the league and even to some extent the players have reasons to want those things to continue. Yeah. But I figured that those would just be cemented. If we had them for a full season, they would just get locked in and the league would try to carry them over next year. So the fact that he is not even holding to that as like a negotiating ploy in advance of the CBA discussions, I don't know if it's already come up in the talks that the league and the players union have had, and maybe they've reached some sort of tentative understanding there, but that's great. I'm happy. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but people who are sick of

the zombie runner and people who are sick of hearing me complain about the zombie runner should be pretty pleased about that. Yeah. And the commissioner was asked, why, given where we are, have you not maybe gone away from those rules midstream? And I think reasonably he pointed out that from a competitive balance perspective, it would be a little odd to go back to traditional doubleheaders and sort of the normal extra innings rules having and maybe end up with one side of a doubleheader just because of rescheduling, which was a situation he acknowledged as sort of suboptimal, but given the state of play right now,

not something that can be readily addressed. So I think that there is some hope there. Although, as you said, I would hate to draw too much hope from potential CBA negotiations because it seems like that way lies madness. But we're not dead yet. Yeah, there's hope on the horizon.

It's been a pretty nice few days for baseball and for MLB, really, mostly because of the showcase of a lot of the great young talents in the game. But also, the league itself has not screwed up in any notable way i think in the past few days and has even surprised me in some respects both with this with changing the rules for the all-star game to allow otani to play both ways which seems like an obvious thing to do but many times mlb does not do the obvious fun thing and so they're essentially treating Otani as two different players, letting him start as a pitcher for the AL and DH, and he could keep DHing if he is removed as a pitcher. And then Kevin Cash, the AL manager, won't have to worry about pinch

hitting and managing the roster with that complication for the rest of the game. So that's great. We are recording on Tuesday afternoon prior to the All-Star game, and we don't know how that will go, but the league has at least put itself in the position for that to be a great showcase for Otani. And even on Monday when I got an email that MLB was planning to make an announcement, Rob Manfred was going to announce some partnership right before the Home Run Derby. And I thought, oh no, what fresh horror is this? Will this be about gambling? Will it be about cryptocurrency? And it turned out to be a sizable donation to the Players Alliance, which was kind of the best case scenario when it comes to Rob Manfred making announcements, I think. So it's been a feel good couple of days for MLB and

for baseball. Yeah, it's nice. We should take those where we can find them. I, like you, expected a new NFT. Yes. I mean, I will say, not to dampen the mood, but if you are sitting behind home plate at Coors, you have within your line of sight, I think no fewer than five gambling related ads. So, you know, one can't stray too far from one's core self. But I do think that it is a, you know, a nice reminder that there are times when flexibility is the order of the day. And even for something where it seemingly doesn't matter, I don't think anyone's particularly concerned about the competitive integrity of the All-star game you know the league has demonstrated a willingness to be stodgy where stodginess is not necessarily warranted and so it was good to see them give a bit of flex there and you know people in town are excited about baseball in a way that's pretty palpable and um i don't know if it's just that this is you know the first time that i've been back around other industry people in a meaningful way in over a year but it does despite the fatigue have me feeling you know good good feelings about the game. And so, you know, we, we will

return, I'm sure to our regularly scheduled programming of noting the places where things fall down. But it is nice to have a moment like this where you're like, wow, there are a lot of really talented players who decide to spend their time playing this thing that we like. And every opportunity we get to showcase them is an opportunity to, you know, not only acknowledge their play, but hopefully to make new fans. And I think that this format is one to do that. I mean, the Derby was pretty electrifying. The number of people who I follow on Twitter for non-baseball related reasons who were tweeting about the Derby last night was really gratifying to see, right? I think that Otani has officially transcended just baseball.

He is one of those athletes who non-baseball fans know and were kind of keen to check in and see, like, what's this Otani guy all about? And that's really exciting. So it's a cool thing. We need to take the good moments when they come. And I think that's that since the format changes in 2015 to go from 10 swings to timed rounds and to have a bracket, everyone likes the derby now. And I'm not the biggest derby fan. I don't love the derby as much as say Sam Miller has loved the derby recently. Some years I don't even watch the derby or at least watch the whole thing. This one I was watching from the start and watched all the way through largely because of Otani and also because

I was assigned to blog about it. So I sort of had to, but it was a pleasure to watch it. And we can talk a little bit about the tweaks to the format this year, some of which I thought went well and some had some drawbacks, but really the whole day leading up to it was an absolute love fest for Otani, which was very much up my alley. Players were so jazzed to be in Otani's presence. I feel like I am fanboying about him sometimes, but players are fanboying about him. They are as in awe of him as i think any media member is and it was so much fun to see these other great players like introducing themselves to otani wanting to talk to otani wanting to ask otani how he does what he does fernando tatis jr saying he

just wants to ask him how how does he do it all that was so much fun to see yeah i think that you know a couple of high profile exceptions aside it is clear that people are not only enthusiastic about it they really have a a sense of what this means historically right how unprecedented a set of accomplishments this is and i think that one of my favorite things about the derby just generally regardless of who's participating in it is like all the all the baseball bros being pals together like I just like watching them sit there with their kids and like having their kids in their laps yeah be in awe of one another and have camaraderie and talk each other up between rounds and and you know get max scherzer pep talks which seem like they would be more terrifying than they are useful but

still exist, right? And so I think that like that part is always exciting, but you're right to see other players so conscious of just what he is doing right now and how impressive it is. And these are, you know, these are not scrubs. Like he said, it's like Fernando Tatis Jr. being like, how do you do this? And it's like, well, if anyone should have a sense of that already, it's probably you. So it does make us mere mortals feel a bit better about our awe. But yeah, it's quite exciting. Yeah. Despite Stephen A. Smith's best efforts and maybe partly because of them,

it was a really pro-Ohtani day. And I don't want to dwell on Stephen A.'s comments because being outrageous and sparking cycles of condemnation and disagreement is kind of his whole thing. But one point I wanted to make, I mean, just putting aside the insensitivity of saying that athletes who aren't native English speakers should just become fluent in English and become public speakers in their non-native language. Which, by the way, as I understand it, is even harder to do if you're a Japanese speaker than a speaker of some Latin-related languages. do if you're a Japanese speaker than a speaker of some Latin-related languages. I'm not going to pretend that where you're from or what your primary language is are non-factors for people in American audiences or that there haven't been times when I wish that I could more directly access Otani's thoughts and feelings, but there is so much more to marketability than what languages you speak. How many players in today's game do we like just because they're quotable or give good

interviews? Not many. It's a bonus, but it really starts with what they do on the field. And we're in an era where we can watch every game. We can look at clips and GIFs. I mean, players can let their talent do the talking, I think, to a greater extent than ever before. And Otani's talent does much louder and more intriguing talking than any other player. He's an interpreter in public. Otani has more charisma and appeal purely as a personality, just putting his play aside,

but purely as a personality than the vast majority of fluent English speakers in the sport. I mean, his face is so expressive. He is so much fun to be around, the things that his teammates say about him. So it's not as if, yeah, he's great at baseball, but we don't have a sense of who he is or he isn't compelling as a person. He's completely compelling as a person. Who is more endearing? Baseball would be lucky to have him as its face. And what a fetching face it is. Yes, I do like how the official MLB accounts have officially leaned into Otani first in their tweets. Yeah, people are being horny on me about Shohei, which I'm fine with. when we were talking about Kevin Mather to view an international player who is this talented

and has connected in such a profound way with the baseball viewing audience to view, you know, any part of his participation in the sport as burdensome rather than an opportunity to celebrate the sort of international appeal of your sport and all of the different ways, as you mentioned, that athletes can connect to fans and build rapport seems like a missed opportunity. I think the comments received the derision that they deserved. But I also think that it did not in any way over sort of overshadow the display that he put on at the Derby or the role that he's going to play in tonight's game and that's a testament to sort of his his wattage as a star also right that he is just you just uh you look at the guy and you're like this is the future of the game and that is really exciting so uh yeah yay otani we're you know i think i think ben people will be surprised to learn that we're we're a pro otani. That's the first time we've ever asserted that publicly. And I applaud our bravery in this moment, candidly.

It felt like time to take a stance on that matter. We waited long enough, but we just had to come out and say something. At this point, we couldn't stay quiet any longer. But yeah, I always think of, have you seen the Fernando Tatis Jr. MLB The Show ad that plays incessantly on commercial breaks on MLB TV? It's basically, you know, he is the cover boy of MLB The Show 21. And he's talking about how, you know, he's fake apologizing for being too exciting. And it's kind of a let the kids play, you know, erase the unwritten rules type thing. His delivery in that ad is not inspiring or exciting to me. It's a little bit

wooden. And I don't mean to mock him either because English is not his first language, although he speaks it quite well. I'm not talking about how he is speaking it. I'm talking about his delivery of these lines. It's not said with a lot of enthusiasm, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't need to be because everything he does on the field is done with enthusiasm. And he is just so riveting to watch. Anything he says is just a gravy. I've heard him other times and he is very gregarious and personable and easygoing, but he doesn't even have to be. He just grabs you with the way he plays. And so really, I think it's much ado about nothing to fret about Ohtani's marketing potential. I mean, let's just enjoy him. And I can't imagine a better ambassador for baseball. He certainly made me more excited than any other player has. And he certainly seems to have converted the type of people who would not normally be paying any attention to baseball. So he has the cross market appeal. He appeals to the hardcore baseball fans. He appeals to the casual baseball fans. He appeals to the non-baseball rest and opts out of the All-Star game. You know, they're not obligated to show up.

They need to take some time to heal the wounds that develop over the course of a season. But Otani, who needs rest as much as anyone, I wouldn't blame him if he said, no, you know, I'm going to pass on the Home Run Derby and the All-Star game. Like, I'm trying to do this unprecedented thing. It's a bigger drain on me than you know, so I going to pass on the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game. Like I'm trying to do this unprecedented thing. It's a bigger drain on me than you know. So I'm just going to rest this week. But he didn't. And it seems like a large part of why he didn't is that he knows what the people want.

And he wants to give the people what they want. And he said like he knew he was going to be tired from the Home Run Derby, but he wanted to do it because it meant something to him, A, to be the first Japanese-born participant in the MLB Home Run Derby, but also because he knows he is the main attraction. Everyone wants to see Otani, and heStar team as a pitcher and DH on Tuesday. That's exhausting. I'm stressed out. I'm worried for him. And yet I'm also really enjoying it. And also, if anyone thinks an interpreter is an impediment to being an appealing or ingratiating personality, check out the interview he did on MLB Network on the field just before the Home Run Derby. I'll link to the video, but he was totally engaging and funny and warm and wonderful. Yeah. And like all of what we're saying is not to take away from, you know, the other players who are in Denver right now, or as you said, the ones who are at home. I mean, I think that we have this instinct when we're faced with a player like Otani, whose sort of star power is somehow doubted to rally around him as well. We should because

those comments were ridiculous. But I do think that it's important for us to not lose sight of the idea that, you know, part of what makes baseball so wonderful is that there doesn't have to be one face, right? There are so many different kinds of people who play the game and play it well. And we're, you know, looking at this moment where we have so many different kinds of people who play the game and play it well. And we're looking at this moment where we have so many different kinds of guys who can be the face of baseball and for their local fan base are But I do think that one of the things that really elevates the game and makes it as special as it is, is when you can look around and say, well, there are a lot of kinds of guys and some of them, they show personality in different ways and they have different styles of play and they look different and they have different kinds of bodies and they are all really important to the game as it's played now and to sort of cultivating future fans

and sustaining the ones we have. And that's just really cool. So it's cool. You know what? I think the baseball, I think it's good. I think so too. It would be hard to make a Mount Rushmore of faces of baseball now, let alone a single face. There's just so many good faces to choose from. So we saw several of them in the Home Run Derby and there are so many home them in the Home Run Derby, and there are so many home runs in the Home Run Derby these days. We've reached peak dinger just both in the games themselves and also in the exhibitions. I mean, there have been more than 300 homers hit in the Home Run Derby this year and in the preceding derby in 2019. And there used to be, I have a graph in my article that shows just the incredible increase in homers, whether it is because of the format, it's mostly because of the format change or because it's the ball or because it's players just getting better than ever when they don't have to face professional pitchers. But there are so many home runs hit now.

There were five home runs hit in the whole 1990 home run derby. Ryan Sandberg won it with three. I'm not suggesting that that's good. If you're going to have a home run derby, you might as well have some home runs. But there were very few home runs hit in those years. And even in the PED era, there weren't this many homers. So if you like homers, the home run derby is delivering for you. And of course, the Home Run Derby being situated in Coors Field where it probably should be every year if there were a way to work that out logistically. As we

discussed last week, no human ore so that's another smart decision MLB made here going for maximum distance and we did see some moonshots. We saw Juan Soto hit a ball 520 feet. We saw some other players hit balls farther than Aaron Judge's 513 in 2017, which Coors Field like in the StatCast era before this. And there were 69, a very nice number hit in this derby alone.

So there were balls that were absolutely flying as one would expect. And no one sent more baseballs flying than Pete Alonso, who just seems to be the master of the derby. Alonso, who just seems to be the master of the derby. Otani sucked up all the thin air coming into this thing, and he was the favorite, leading the majors in home runs and hitting the ball harder than anyone. But Alonso is just a metronome. He seems to be built for this event. Unlike anyone else, he never looked nervous or hurried or gassed. It looked like he could have gone on

all night, just bomb after bomb after bomb, like same stroke. Other guys were spraying balls all over the field. He was just locked in, just pulling everything to left and left center and just never even look winded. And speaking of player predictions, he did call his shot here. He predicted that he would win this derby. And having seen him dominate now in back-to-back derbies, I kind of feel like this could be the beginning of a derby dynasty. Like he might just own this thing. Ken Griffey Jr., who won the 98 derby in course, he won three in total. So I guess Alonzo is coming for him now.

And I would not put it past him to just put his stamp on this event. He just looks like he is made for this. And in both of these derbies, he's kind of crashed the party. Like 2019 was kind of the Vlad show and 2021 was supposed to be the Shohei show. But Alonzo made himself a fun story too. It didn't feel like a letdown to me. But Alonzo made himself a fun story, too. It didn't feel like a letdown to me. My anxiety was justified because, you know, if you I remember Paul Sporer tweeted sort of the the home run versus not home run. They called it the nitro chart on the StatCast broadcast for Pete Alonzo.

And so the Mets bench coach, Dave Jouse, was the one pitching to Alonzo. And Alonzo was keyed in. And if you look at his chart, like he just was obviously, you know, sending these balls way out. But Joust pitched him perfectly. He was like right in his happy zone the whole time. He was getting that ball out quickly. It was just it was perfect. And then there were other instances where I was yelling at my TV saying, throw faster. Yes.

Yes. Jesse was sitting next to me, especially when Otani was hitting, just like screaming and shaking her fist at poor Jason Brown, the Angels bullpen catcher who was throwing to Otani and sometimes taking his sweet time. As other batting practice pitchers were here, like some of them were, you know, oh, I'm just lollygagging out there. Just going to grab a ball. I'm going to turn around and see where that ball landed. It's like, no, guys, you're on the clock. Keep going. Yeah. Move it along here. But yes, he just seems sort of designed in a lab to perfectly dominate this format. And I like the idea of this being an emerging skill because the derby is exciting and having the idea of a recurring derby champion is exciting in itself. And then you get the challenge of someone trying to unseat him. Yes, seems like it's just a match made in heaven. And, you know, this will be less exciting for our listeners than it was for me. at Coors during the Futures game, I am very happy that none of our baseball writing compatriots were killed by a home run in this, although one fan did seem to have a near brush. Yes, and one child was injured by a P. Alonso liner. I was worried for the children.

Oh, no, I didn't see that part. Well, now this is what I get for going to dinner, Ben. Not like seriously injured, I don't think, but he was helped off the field. Oh, kiddo. Yeah, with the exit velocity they have these days and the big boppers and the thin air and all of that, I was worried for the kids a little bit. Yeah, maybe we need to rethink the presence of kids in the outfield to shag those balls that don't quite leave the yard because, yeah, you don't want to be on the receiving end of any of these guys' home runs. Yeah, yeah. And Alonso, he was unfazed by the kid being injured. He was unfazed by everything. He was just bopping his head the whole time i don't know whether he was

bopping to the tunes on the pa system or whether he just had something stuck in his head that was playing on a loop the entire time but he was so laid back just vibing just dancing and he had the colored bats and the colored batting gloves and i wonder like he clearly takes this seriously and clearly it. And I wonder how much of that has to do with the fact that he is the lowest paid participant and he like more than doubled his salary for the season with the Mets by winning this derbies than he has made playing for the Mets over the last few seasons. So he's hungry, I guess. This is not just bragging rights for him. This is serious financial implications because he is drastically underpaid as a pre-art player. So that was one angle on it. And yes, you mentioned this is a home run derby, but it's also like a batting practice pitching derby. And that is kind of one of my quibbles with this event, especially with. So one of the tweaks to the format is when we talked about this last week, but they don't have to wait now for the previous batted ball to land before there's a new pitch and a new swing.

So it's just rapid fire one after the other. And I think that put an even greater emphasis on having fast-paced BP pitchers, which not all of them seem to recognize. And also because you can't pick your spot, you can't wait for your perfect pitch now. It's a timed round and the clock is always ticking. It also puts a premium on command and having that pinpoint control that Joust had, Joust at age 64, just firing them in there. And not everyone did. And Otani's guy was not quite as precise and others weren't as well.

And to me, look, it's not a problem. This is all meaningless. It's just for fun. But I want to see the dingers and I want this to be a test of pure batting ability and slug more so than whether the batting practice pitcher you pitch can actually throw a pitch in your wheelhouse. And so it's sort of strange that you have like these eight stars who are swinging away and then you have these eight anonymous people who are throwing to them.

And in a way, like the eight anonymous guys are almost as decisive as the hitters themselves. And I wonder if there's any way around this, whether you either find some rubber-armed person who can throw 400 batting practice pitches and just have him pitch to everyone so you have some consistency, or maybe you just use a pitching machine. I don't know if you lose something there because sometimes the bond between the batter and the pitcher they pick can be kind of cool and there's some nice stories there. But I think I would prefer the pitching machine. And if you want some variability, you could program the pitching machine so that it's

not firing to exactly the same spot. So you're not seeing the same swing over and over and over again, but it could be like a pre-programmed pattern where there's some variation in the location and hitters would have to adjust, but they would all have the same or similar patterns. But really I would prefer this because I would want it to be about the batters more so than the practice pitchers. I think that the real answer is just to have Bryce Harper's dad be the one that pitches to everyone because I recall them putting on quite the show, although the similarity in the aesthetic between Harper and his father will be lacking for other participants. pitched to by the pitching coach at Notre Dame who pitched to him when he won the Big East Home Run Derby in 2012. That's a cherry on top of an already inspiring story when it comes to Mancini,

but it doesn't seem like it always prioritizes sort of the optimal thing. But then again, but then again, Ben, maybe it's okay that the Home Run Derby isn't perfectly optimized. okay that the home run derby isn't perfectly optimized maybe in a broader sense it's fine that this be an area where you know like these guys get to pick right and so if it's more meaningful to Trey Mancini to have Chuck Ristano you know pitch to him than it is to and he clearly went quite far in this contest so So he's perhaps an imperfect example. But if it's meaningful to a guy to have a particular dude pitch to him, well, then maybe that means more in this particular moment than having someone who's always going to get that pitch in in the happy zone. But I do still experience anxiety about it. about it so personally I wish that they would just you know really

go for the kill when they're making their selections because I think that Otani could have won it all if it had gone a little differently or you know if Gallo's pace had been quicker it still was just great fun

and even though I know Otani did not quite live up to the billing that we maybe expected but I think it's pretty hard to be requiring two tiebreakers to advance. Plus, I'm feeling very good about my attention to Juan Soto's plate discipline for good reason that maybe we overlook his power. He also hits the ball really, really hard as he showed there. And that was sort of the signature moment of this competition. Otani started really slow, which was agonizing for me. He was like ripping doubles down the line, which is great in a game, but not so great in the home run derby. But he found his groove eventually, and he hit some bombs. I think he hit six balls over 500 feet.

He hit one 513 feet. So he did put on a bit of a show, but it just so happened that he tied Soto twice. And then they went to the second swing off, which is you get three swings. And Soto was clutch. And I guess his plate discipline came in handy there because he was actually able to pick his pitch there and he went three for three and Otani flubbed the first swing and that sort of ended the suspense right there. But it was fun.

Like they were both clearly having a good time. Otani was like laughing and smiling as he was swinging, which maybe was part of the problem. I don't know, but he was clearly enjoying it. And he was hugging Soto. And Soto was like between breaks, like he was surrounded by other all-stars, which was great. It was like corner men coming out between boxing rounds.

It was like for net-a-tat-tees and everyone like giving him shoulder rubs and tallying him off and everything. So that was a lot of fun. And yeah, I don't know. Maybe it is for the best to have someone you care about be part of that moment for you. Although they could catch as Otani had Ipe, his interpreter, he was catching for Otani. Ipe, by the way, does a very good job, I think, of presenting Otani's personality to the public. So kudos to him as well. Yeah. To catch or I don't know, maybe the special person you bring could like feed the balls

into the pitching machine or something. Although I guess pace would still be a problem there. But yeah, I don't know. It's easy to imagine things going differently. But I just don't know if anyone was going to be beating Pete in that event. Like he just looked unbeatable. He was hitting second in many of those rounds because he was the higher seed, I suppose. And so we didn't get to see the full display of power. In the first round, he hit, what, 35 and just blew away Salvi,

who did a nice job coming up with 28, which was pretty impressive. But in some of the later rounds, Alonzo went second, so we didn't even see how far he could have run the score up if he wanted to. It just seemed like no matter what his opponent hit, he was good for one more and maybe many more if they had let him keep going. It just really looked effortless. He was in the zone. But my other quibble about that format, about the rapid fire swinging, is that it is hard to follow, which is kind of my concern when we talked about it last week. And my sense from Twitter was that it was a lot of fun in person in the park because you could survey everything and you could keep your eye on the batter, but also track maybe multiple balls in the air at once. But on the broadcast, it was tough and it was kind of chaotic and semi-inscrutable at times. And I was watching mostly the StatCast broadcast, but it was flipping back and forth and they both had split screens, which you had to, but that reduced the screen real estate that was available to the balls being hit.

So there were times where you couldn't really see where the ball was going. And then you had to follow one ball while another ball was still landing. And a couple of listeners of ours wrote in to say they should use the PGA Tour golf shot tracking technology, the real-time tracker that superimposes the glowing line on the ball so you can see where it's going. And that might not be a bad idea because as it is, you couldn't really follow everything. Some of that was just a limitation of the format, which made it difficult to broadcast. But also it was, I thought, a frustrating choice that ESPN on both channels just didn't really seem to be displaying the distance, which was like all I wanted to know. They hyped up how far the balls were going to travel in the thin hair

justifiably but then they didn't give me that information consistently which i really was bothered by like they had so many graphics on the screen and many numbers which i could barely pay attention to because it was enough just to watch the swings and the balls but i just wanted like in addition to the tally at the top, I wanted, okay, tell me how far each batted ball was. And they didn't do that. They gave me averages and maybe a max distance. And occasionally, one of the commentators would mention how far a ball had gone. But that's the point. The only numbers I need are the total number hit, how far each one went, and the clock. That's really all I really wanted.

And that was like one crucial piece of information that ESPN seemed to withhold. And I don't know if it was because the balls were coming so fast and furious and it was hard to keep track of even how many had been hit because like they would keep adding to the tally after the round was over as they were counting ones that had been hit just before the buzzer. But it was tough as they were counting ones that had been hit just before the buzzer. But it was tough to follow at home, I thought. So if I had my preference, I would go back to what it was in the last few years, which is timed rounds, but you have to wait a little longer between swings just so we could admire the moonshots. Yeah, I think that your take on this proved to be prescient. At times, I found it hard to follow also. And I don't know that we always needed to see the actual swing. I think that there were times when we could have just gone away from the split screen and seen the full path of the ball and where it was going to land. I think that given the format that the derby took,

they did the best they could. But it did make for a slightly chaotic broadcast at times. I did not flip back to the main ESPN broadcast. I watched the StatCast one exclusively. And apparently I'm glad I did because it sounds like they really did salve dirty during this round that he did not, most of his round did not seem to take precedence.

They were doing an interview. And I'm glad you reminded me of this because it's like he really did. He came on strong late. And I don't think that there was anything that was going to get in the way of Alonso. But it was quite a showing from him. And you should be proud of it. We should take a moment to appreciate Prez's derby performance because it exceeded my expectations pretty dramatically.

Yeah, me too. Although there's so many homers hit now that everyone did well. I mean, it was like Joey Gallo hit like 19 or something like that. It was like only 19. Like I was expecting so much more from Joey Gallo. I remember back in my day when I was growing up watching the home run derby, like guys would get skunked, you know, like they would hit no home runs. I remember Troy Gloss just getting blanked one time and feeling bad for him

or guys would hit one and it was like, oh, I hope he gets one. And that was when they could pick their pitches. And now like everyone was hitting a ton and maybe fewer in later rounds as they were a bit tired out, which I guess is another potential problem with the nonstop swinging is that maybe you're a little bit tired later in the competition. And I guess that could be an advantage if you have a slower paced pitcher. Maybe you conserve some of your strength if you make it past that first round. But yeah, I mean, there were a lot of good performances and good stories. And as we said last week, like I was pulling for Otani, obviously, but I didn't want to

root against Trey Mancini. Like no one had a more inspired performance or inspiring performance. And he was great runner up in this competition a year after treatment for stage three colon cancer. Just to see him out there and doing as well as he did was wonderful. And, you know, probably the least name recognition of anyone in the field. And there were some notable absences, you know, not having any of the juniors in the field or the giants, Aaron Judge and John Carlos Stanton or Trout or Harper, like some of the big names were absent. And Otani kind of sucked up all of the spotlight partly because of that, I suppose. But really, one of the lesser known names, Trey Mantini, had a very credible performance and good for him.

Well, and this is, you know, just to circle back to where we started. I think this is where events like this can be really powerful, where a guy who has an amazing story and one that I think, you know, baseball fans who are pretty plugged in are aware of, but that isn't necessarily well known to a broader sports viewing audience because, you know, he's a lesser known name and he's on a pretty bad baseball team. You know, this gives an opportunity for stories like that to get told. And I think that it's a really profound opportunity not only for these specific players, but for the sport, right? You get to know some guys and then maybe you're interested in what's going on with them. Like, I mean, Tremontini may well get traded. And I bet there are a couple of fans out there who are going to be more interested in where he goes and what he does because they saw him do this. And so I think it's

cool to showcase the guys who are well known, but I like that there's a mix of big names and then guys who play for teams that aren't doing as well or whose stories might not be as broadly known because then you get an opportunity to get to know a guy. It's good to get to know a guy. That's a fun thing to get to do. Yeah. One guy we didn't get to see, not to end this segment, which has been so uplifting on a down note,

but Ronald Acuna Jr. Not at the All-Star festivities and not in the games for the rest of the season because on Saturday, while attempting to make a catch, he tore his ACL and he's out for the rest of the year. And Saturday, while attempting to make a catch, he tore his ACL and he's out for the rest of the year. And that's just a devastating injury, obviously to Atlanta, but also to the sport because he was having such another great Acuna season.

I was looking forward to seeing whether he and Tatis could make a run at leading the league in homers and steals, which hasn't been done since the 30s. I guess that just got a little bit easier for Tatis potentially. But yeah, to lose Acuna, he's somewhere on that Mount Rushmore, that expanded Mount Rushmore, and so much fun to watch, so good. Devastating loss for Atlanta, who had already lost. I mean, they've lost like their whole outfield of opening day for various reasons. And one of the bright spots, Ian Anderson, now has some shoulder soreness. Seems like he's going to go on the IL.

And I picked the Mets to win this division, but I thought the Braves would be better than they've been. They're a game under 500 to this point, and their playoff odds are in single digits, and that partly reflects the loss of Acuna. It's going to be tough but it's been a bit of both. And the Mets don't have a large lead, but getting the guys back that they are, it seems like a semi-safe lead to me. And of course, this is not the reason why they would want to win that division because Acuna is not there. But yeah, that's a bummer that he might not be back. He may even miss the beginning of next season. So it's going to be a while. Yeah. It's just a real shame, like you said, not only for Braves fans, but for the sport more

generally. And I think in a disappointing year, when one of your stars is playing to his capability, it can really help to change the way that you kind of interact with a down season as a fan. And so I'm bummed for fans in Atlanta who aren't going to get to watch him. You know, there are other interesting players on that team. And I think that, you know, when Dan wrote about the injury for us at Fangraphs, you know, he's had to kind of account for injury and zips before and has done some research into sort of how guys bounce back from this particular injury. And it's, you know, if you look at Acuna's post-injury Zips projections, they're not that far off of what they were before. I think that the projection systems are optimistic that he

will be able to come back and be himself and be so exciting. But that doesn't, you know, it's kind of cold comfort to fans this year. So everybody just be nice to your soft tissue, please. It's really rough out there. All the soft tissue, all the ligaments, hold them close, but not too tightly because that to be seen and we can talk about that a little closer to the deadline so let's focus on the feel-good vibes of all-star week for now and next time we can talk about the all-star game and how that went and a little bit about maybe what we're looking forward to in the quote-unquote second half but for right now we will take a quick break and we'll be back to talk about the draft. And just so you know, if you're not a draft Nick, neither am I. And I don't know most of the names in those guys, although we did cover the top names, but also the strategy and the big picture and who had a good draft and who had kind of a confounding draft and who's going to get to the majors quickly

and a little bit about the reporting that goes into this week and Eric and Kevin calling picks before they were made and did we see any two-way players taken? Lots of interesting stuff. So we will be back in just a moment with Eric Long and Higgin and Kevin Goldstein. Pick a number, one to ten. And I'll show you how much I love you then. I know you've been waiting for these things I say.

But let me tell you, darling, that today's the day. One, you're the only one I'll ever love. Two, it's just the two of us. Three, three years since we met that day. Four, four words I'll always say Well, our guests today have spent the last few days mock drafting, draft recapping, Fangraphs live chatting, Twitch chatting, and tweeting, but they have yet to do a post-draft podcast discussion,

so they're here to put their stamp on one more medium before they can rest. Joining us is Fangraphs lead prospect analyst and co-author of Future Value, Eric Longenhagen. Hello, Eric. Hey, how's it going? And Fangraph's national writer and chin music host, Kevin Goldstein. Hello, Kevin. Hello. So I guess we should start at the start. And you guys were doing your woe-jing, which I want to ask you about. You were calling a bunch of the picks before they happened, but you were flummoxed, as was almost everyone, by the number one pick in the draft. What were the Pirates going to do? Who were they going to take? Everyone was wondering. Maybe the Pirates were wondering. And ultimately, they took college catcher Henry Davis out of Louisville. So tell us

a little bit about what you have gleaned about how that pick happened. What was the decision process? Why did it come down to the wire? And why did they go with Davis? Who's answering, me or Eric? That's a good question. I don't know. Lead prospect analyst?

Does that mean you're entitled to go first every time? I think setting the stage for where Kevin and I were as all of this was transpiring. I was at the Futures game. I left the Futures game in like the fifth inning of the Futures game and then hit like a place to get takeout between the Futures game and the hotel where I was going to hole up for the draft. And this whole time, Kevin and I are talking to one another and trying to ascertain who's going to go first so that we can quickly update a mock draft and throw it out there. And, you know, Pittsburgh played things so close to the chest that like nobody got the

first pick right in their mock. Yeah, your mocks were just derailed right away, which I guess you're probably used to, but maybe not quite that quickly. You guys had him going forth to the Red Sox, right? We typically do. The stuff in the mock draft that is more important is who the teams are considering. And we've all been saying for the last couple of months now that the more we all mock Marcelo Meyer first, the less likely it becomes that he actually goes there because Pittsburgh seemed motivated to cut a deal. And they really only began engaging, and this is where KG can speak to more of this,

like they really only began engaging agents in a serious way within the last 24 hours before the draft. And it wasn't known until an hour before the draft when Henry Davis, his agent, and the Pirates front office, and only a couple people in the Pirates front office seemingly, knew who the pick was going to be. We don't know how far under slot Henry Davis is going to be, but I'm going to guess that it's a pretty serious haircut because of what Pittsburgh did with the rest of their draft, which was take a bunch of overslot high schoolers. Yeah, I mean, it was weird. It was definitely weird. We were talking to teams picking below Pittsburgh, and all of them said, like, we don't know what Pittsburgh's doing.

And, you know, we even got in touch with some of the agents for players. Pittsburgh was considering with this pick and they were saying, we haven't heard from him yet. So Pittsburgh definitely took it to the last minutes, I think, before they ended up coming to do a handshake agreement with Davis. And then, you know, like Eric said, you know, I think it's real tough to judge anyone's day one by itself because you want to know what they're going to do with the rest of the money. And Pittsburgh, I think, kind of slam dunked this thing. If you talk about, you know, three guys who were seen as general first round talents after the Davis pick that they can now pay because of the money they saved on Davis. Yeah. So can you tell

us a little bit about Davis? Because the 1-1, that's an honor. That's a badge of distinction. But it doesn't always mean that you are the most talented or seen as the most talented player in the draft. But obviously, he's good. He was going to go somewhere early. So what did the Pirates get in Davis? He has that Paul Bunyan kind of body and power. I've seen this guy put balls out to dead center field like on a line, like ball andrera type of deft back control swing,

but the guy gets the barrel there and he has good plate coverage. And there's just so much strength that the likelihood that he hits and hits for power is very high. He's got a plus plus arm. He is not a good defensive catcher otherwise. Will automatic strike zones aid his ability to stay back there? Probably. Are there still issues even though that's the case?

Yes. If he's a first base DH type guy, or if, you know, the Pirates think, oh, he's athletic enough, let's pat burl him and stick him in left. Like I could see he still is going to profile as like a middle of the order anchor, a guy who's hitting cleanup on a competitive team

just because the hit and power combination is that good. And he performed for his entire career in a huge conference. So the degree of confidence in the stuff I just said is fairly high. Now, it's not to say that guys who hit at Louisville haven't busted before. Corey Ray is a recent prominent example who was number one on my personal draft board like some five or six years ago, who just didn't pan out. Like he actually can't hit. I think those issues are swing related. That's another story. But yeah, like this guy's a huge masher who has a chance to play a premium position. And if not, he still has the offensive talent to profile. So no one knew until right before what was going to go on. Davis comes off the board.

KG, maybe we can start with you on this one. When there's that much uncertainty at the top for the teams that are picking immediately after Pittsburgh, what is the draft room like for them in the moments when they realize that Davis is the guy who the Pirates are going with? Because I think that one thing we saw just in the fan reaction on Twitter, particularly once we got to Detroit and Marcel Omer was still on the board, there was an expectation among Tigers fans like, oh my gosh, we're going to get the highest ranked guy in the draft because he's still available here. When you look at a team like Detroit, where they seem to have stuck with their verbal commitment to Jackson Jobe, what are the considerations that they're sort of thinking about as their time is coming up on the clock?

I mean, it's almost easier to pick really high because you only have to line up a few magnets. If you have the fourth pick in the draft, just pick your four best players and take what's left. It's a lot easier than picking 19th, where you have to think about 11 or 12 players who might be there and make different decisions as far as how you're going to use your bonus money. But I think once Davis came off the board, I don't think it complicated too many things for teams. We kind of got some information kind of on Sunday morning, really, that the Rangers were really Jack Leiter or bust. No matter what was going on,

they were taking Jack Leiter. And so that one was simple. I think the Rangers were a set thing. And then all of a sudden it felt like Detroit was was a set thing and i think detroit you know i know some detroit fans like you said are kind of upset about this i think detroit should get some praise for acting honorably if you will yeah you know detroit was we thought all along detroit was choosing was a assume their favorite player on the board i think was meyer i do think detroit was you know we felt detroit was choosing between jackson job and and brady, who ultimately went much lower than that. And they had a handshake deal in place with Jobe and they honored it. And that's what allowed Meyer to go to Boston.

And there might also have been some money stuff there. We're not really sure what Meyer's going to sign for you, but I do think he's going to sign. And all of a sudden, Boston, after spending all of this time trying to get Jack Leiter down to them had in my mind and Eric's mind as well the best player in the draft sitting on their plate at four I don't think the first four picks were complicated I think the biggest scramble is probably five with Baltimore where they're wondering if one of the quote-unquote big four is going to get to them if something weird is going to happen in front of them and there was possibilities you know I mean there was late talk of Pittsburgh talking to Khalil Watson I mean it got very strange leading up to us not knowing who Pittsburgh's going to take.

But I think those first four were actually kind of pretty easy. And the first real scramble is probably Baltimore, who was considering some of the high school shortstops like Watson and Lawler who were available and were considering some of the college outfielders on a bit of a cut deal, which is what they ended up doing in the end with Colton Couser. Yeah. So we'll ask about Meyer, who went to the Red Sox with the fourth pick, but you alluded to the Red Sox saga with Leiter. How did that work? How do you maneuver things or try to maneuver things so that if you have a specific player in mind, you box out the other teams or you try to get that player? Obviously, it didn't work in this case. And Leiter went to the Rangers with

the second overall pick, the righty out of Vanderbilt. But what was the mutual attraction there and what leverage do teams or players have when it comes to that? When Leiter was in high school, he was a late first round comp round prospect coming out of high school. He went to the same high school as Anthony Volpe, who's crushing it in the Yankee system right now. And they were all well scouted and well known. And, you know, the Leiter family limited the number of teams that they felt as though they were willing to sign with to like the New York teams and Philly. And so it seemed as though that the family wanted him to end up in a certain market, preferably one close to home base. Then we had secondhand

information basically throughout this process that the club picking high enough that sort of fit this bill for the Leiter family and Al Leiter just was not necessarily tight-lipped about this around certain other people in the industry, which is how we found out is that Boston was the target this time, which makes sense. Like the Mets don't pick until 10 and the Yankees don't pick until 20. Philly was in there at 13. I don't even know if Philly was necessarily even in their mix coming out of high school though. I know the two New York teams were. And so, you know, what you do is you throw out a huge number, like a number that Texas would be intimidated by and decide to move off of you because of real, with real fear that if they don't have whatever it is, 10 million that they want to give you, that they won't sign you. So it didn't work.

The Leiter family seemed elated when he went second to the Rangers. It wasn't like the Eli Manning putting on a Chargers hat situation where he had a sourpuss on his face at the podium with hat situation where he had a sourpuss on his face at the podium with the commissioner. So I think that it's fine. I think he's going to sign, but I just think that it's fine. Like I think these kids should have a little bit more agency. I wish that they could pick their own employer with something that's a little bit more normal than they have. But yeah, this is the situation. And it's just so hard if the Rangers pick you second and offer you slot, which is like 7.8. Are you really going to go back to school and bet on somewhere that you want to be being bad the rest of this year and picking high enough that you want to go there? It just doesn't make any real practical sense, which is why towards the end we just started mocking Le Leiter two to Texas, because it just seemed like the logical fit, like the family and the player would blink and

just decide that this is fine, that the Rangers are fine, and that Jack is just going to be good no matter where he is. Speaking of teams that were bad last year, but no longer are, maybe this is where we should talk about the Marcelo Mayer pick for Boston, who are currently in first place in the AL East and still picked fourth here, obviously. So what about him put him at the top of your guys' draft board? You know, I just think everyone believes in the bat and it's the defense is I think he can play shortstop. And there are some people who wonder about the twitch. You know, he really is kind of a 45 runner and kind of runs funny. But if you watch the defensive video or see him play defense, it's just kind of so slick and smooth, and the hands are really good,

the arms plus. But he's also a big kid with a left-hand swing. You're talking about like a 6'3", 190 kid. He's going to fill out. He almost has like at times a left-handed version of Correa feel to him. And there's going to be power in there as well. So you're talking about a middle-of-the-diamond player who's also going to be a plus offensive guy. And I think he's really

exciting and really interesting. Eric, you described him in your recap as a waist bender, which is a wonderful scouting term. Can you explain what waist bender means? Yeah. So there are questions about whether Meyer can stay at shortstop or not, just because like KG said, I've had scouts tell me that his run times from home to first are low as like a 30 grade. And there are 30 grade runners who play shortstop in the big leagues. Like Nick Ahmed is a hell of a defensive shortstop who's a 30 runner. So waist bender, that's a Mike Mayock term that he used when evaluating offensive linemen. Like you want guys who can bend at the knees and the waist.

Like you want to see can bend at the knees and the waist. Like you want to see flexibility all over the body. When you watch really elite defensive infielders do things, a lot of times they're bending at the knees so deeply that like their quads and their thighs are parallel with the ground. They get really, really low to the ground to be able to make the plays that they do and turn the ball around either to the second base bag or to first base with quickness. And this guy doesn't really do that. This guy is a bend at the waist type guy. And so, yeah, I think that there's a little bit of stiffness there. Kevin alluded to it with the way he runs. It's a really minor thing. I think if this guy has to move to third base, oh no, like he'll be just fine over there. There's

enough stick to profile as a very, very good everyday third baseman. It's just, if he can stay at short, like this is, we're talking about like an 18 year old kid. So there are ways of him becoming more flexible that are much easier than it is for any of us on this podcast to become more flexible at this point like that they can remedy that. So it's not really a big deal, but it is one of those things where you're watching the best guy in the draft, you're going to pick him apart. And so I did. And so yeah, he is absolutely a wastebender when I've seen him and want to see a little bit more flexibility in the lower half in general. I think that'll give him a better chance to stay short. And he was one of several high school shortstops who were sort of highly touted coming

into this draft. Kiju, you mentioned Khalil Watson, who I think fell much further than most people were anticipating. He ended up going 16 to Miami. Can you give a little insight into what precipitated that fall, but also what the Marlins are getting in him? It's interesting because there was talk about, like I said earlier, the Pirates talking to him about maybe cutting a deal at number one. It was pretty clear he wasn't in the mix for two, three, and four, but we felt like he was in the mix for everything. We were from five to eight. And I think once weird things started happening, the Baltimore decided to do what they normally do, which is cut a deal with the top pick and save money downward. Arizona preferred Lawler.

And then things got a little weird. Kansas City did a funny thing and took Frank Mazzucato and kind of spread their bonus money down further. The Rockies got the guy they wanted in Benny Montgomery. And then all of a sudden, you're at nine and the Angels. And Khalil Watson has a $5 million price tag is what we heard. And all of a sudden, now it's over slot. And things got a little strange for them. And the Angels weren't taking position players this draft anyway.

And so they took Sam Bachman. And things got a little strange for them. And the Angels weren't taking position players this draft anyway. And so they took Sam Bachman. And all of a sudden, hey, look, the Mets are sitting there and going, Kumar Rocker's right here. We're going to take Kumar Rocker. And now all of a sudden, Khalil Watson still wants $5 million. And now he's significantly over a slot deal once you get down into the early teens, like almost a million dollars over. And teams are like, we don't want't want to like screw the rest of our draft to take Khalil Watson and and the plummet continues but you know to get him at 16 and and obviously it's going to be an over slot sign for the Marlins but to get that kind of tools at 16 you line all

these kids up and you know Watson's not the the biggest cat in the world he's he's about 5'9 180 but he might he has as many tools as any of these high school shortstops we talked about. You know, he runs very well. He's incredibly athletic. You know, might be the twitchiest guy in the draft. And he also, despite being 5'9", 180, has real power. You know, this kid has ridiculous bat speed and can hit balls out. It's not just sneaky pop.

It's real pop. And, you know, it feels like a steal at 16. But, you know, once it got weird and you got into the past 10, teams didn't want to do the over slot thing because they already had a plan in mind for what they're going to do with their entire draft pool. And Watson would have, in their mind, kind of muddied the waters too much for them to rearrange everything that they were doing. Definitely want to ask you about the Angels all pitcher draft because that was my favorite thing to follow on day three. the Angels all pitcher draft because that was my favorite thing to follow on day three. But while we're talking about players who fell, you mentioned Rocker, the other righty out of Vanderbilt. And Eric, you wrote, it's hard to explain Rocker's fall to casual baseball fans, but I'm going to make you try to. And I am definitely a casual fan when it comes to the draft. It seems hard to explain it to people who write about it for a living, you know? Yeah, right. I mean, he's one of the few names that people knew and he was like

the presumptive top pick for a while. So what happened here? So you have to take a look at the player's entire career here. So Rocker was famous since he's been 14. He had this body and this kind of high-end velocity since then. And then his senior year of high school, it went away. And as the draft approach, his stuff dipped. Where he was likely to go became below what he, and again, pro athlete parent. So below where he and the family were willing to take bonus-wise. And so he ended up matriculating to Vanderbilt. Then we have his freshman year at Vanderbilt, which ends basically with a no-hitter in the Super Regional, and he becomes a household name because of that.

And then he has no sophomore year, and then he comes out for his junior year, and the same thing happens that happened during his senior year of high school, where he comes out of the gates really hot, and his stuff tanks. His arm slot is wandering. It's different now than it was. There's a lot of violence about his head and shoulder when he's throwing. Now he's still executing his stuff. His secondary stuff is still very good. And even with diminished velocity, he's pitching really well.

So what teams see him as is, hey, this is a high probability fourth starter based on what he has looked like recently close to the draft and what he's looked like when he's been tasked with throwing a lot of innings two out of the last three years that he's been asked to throw a full-ish season's worth of innings. season's worth of innings. And the upside is if we can get him to sustain that peak performance, then absolutely he belongs among the best players in the draft. But he just hasn't been that for a long time now. Like he just hasn't been that guy and sustained that for quite a long time. So we had him ranked seventh. We still have him in our top 100. He absolutely is the player that we described him to be. But there are other players who are just less famous, who are in our minds and in the minds of most people in baseball, better prospects. When we put out our mock drafts, we did three of them.

We did one a month out, we did one a week out, and then we did one the day of. I think we had him seventh the first two. I think maybe we had him seventh for all three. Just like at some point, someone is just going to decide to do this. And our feedback for our mock a month out and a week out was still just like, he's going to go higher than seventh. Someone will just, they'll all look at each other in the room, or even the owner will come into the room and say, take the guy I've heard of.

And that's a terrible process, but it seems to be the one that most baseball fans and a lot of baseball writers seem to endorse. Like, it's just perplexing to me that people feel free to wonder and, like, criticize the industry, basically, for overthinking this when they have not – they don't even know the rules of this process some of the time. And, like, think that cutting an underslot deal is because the ownership is cheap and not because teams are trying to collect more overslot prospects later in the draft. Like so it's been pretty eye opening to me that the way as explicit as I feel like anyone who writes about the draft has been regarding Rocker, that there is still confusion around this. So that didn't strike either of you as like a precipitous fall, right? Him going in the top 10 isn't that surprising. We already talked about Watson, but who are some of the guys who slipped more than you were maybe anticipating them to and what precipitated that

move down? You know, it's interesting. After on Sunday night when it was all over, I got a text from a Skyeng director and that simply said, what the bleep just happened? And that was, it was a weird draft. And I think, you know know i said this before with watson but you know kind of what happened seven through ten i think through a lot of of people way off and and i think you know i don't know if there's another precipitous fall that's bigger than watson's but there was an expectation of all sorts of these these high school outfielders who could slip into the first round at the end. And none of them did. And we started seeing some of these, for lack of a better term, model guys, you know, guys who like real statistical performers who scouts like as well, guys like Trey Sweeney to the Yankees at 20 is a really good example. But, you know, I don't think

we saw a guy like, you know, Max Muncy and Carson Williams being the only high school position players taken in the last 10 picks of the first round. I think we thought it was going to be, you know, high school heavy. And all of a sudden that didn't happen. And I think, you know, part of it was the high school class put out big numbers. They all at a certain point, these guys all saying, you know, we want to be paid like first round picks. And teams started playing it safer toward the end of the first round. And then, you know, like Ben alluded to earlier, then teams just went kind of pitching crazy.

Watson is definitely the big one. Brady House a little bit because his home felt as early as three with Detroit. And then it felt like he was in the mix from picks five through seven at least. And that if not there, that the Angels would just consider him to be good value at nine and take him there if he were still there. So him falling to 11 and Washington was a little bit surprising. I still think Gunnar Hoagland, who Toronto ended up drafting from 19, he's already from Ole Miss. He had Tommy John during the spring. Before his Tommy John, he was unbelievable. And he doesn't throw all that hard. He's just like 90-94, mostly 91-92 with elite slider command, like absolutely precise, artistic, glove side. This is right in that spot that's tempting the hitters, but you can't touch it, slider command. work his body, maybe have him come out of rehab throwing harder than he was before we knew about the injury. Maybe he was even a little bit dinged sitting 91, 92, but hadn't really felt enough pain

or like that snap in his elbow. Maybe it was frayed, right? And like Walker Bueller is an example of a guy who was sort of dinged during his draft year, wasn't throwing all that hard, rehabbed and came back out of rehab sitting 97-99 basically in his first pro outing. So I like that Hoagland pick at 19 for Toronto. And then KG's guy, Ty Madden, who fell basically because his fastball angle, like he has a backspinning fastball, but he still works downhill. And the model-driven teams who are looking at pitch data want there to be a flatter fastball approach angle to have confidence that that thing

is gonna play at the letters. And Madden doesn't really have that. And so he went from a guy who, hey, it's Big 12. He checks all the scouting boxes. He's 6'4", 220. He'll sit 94, 97 on the best days with like a power breaking ball. But because of his fastball angle, basically,

he fell all the way to pick 32 with Detroit, which maybe they wouldn't have been able to do had they not held firm to their Jobe underslot agreement at three. Maybe that was at play there too. But him sliding where he, in a typical year, a college arm like that goes in the top 15, almost certainly. And he fell all the way to 32. Yeah, I wanted to ask about Detroit because they took Jobe at three and then they took Madden at 32. And Kevin, you mentioned in your recap that that used to be the Tigers type, that they would just take the hard throwers. And maybe that hasn't been their MO as much recently, although it was this week. But that kind of tendency has always interested me when it's clear that teams prefer to take a certain type of player in the draft. And I wonder if there were any picks that stood

out in that respect this year, like, oh, of course, that guy went to that team. And just in general, whether those tendencies are more or less pronounced than they used to be back in the pre-model days. I don't know if they're as pronounced as they used to be. There are certainly some tendencies. But I mean, you're right. I mean, Detroit used to be easy back in the pre-model days? I don't know if they're as pronounced as they used to be. There are certainly some tendencies, but I mean, you're right. I mean, Detroit used to be easy back in the David Chad days. It's like, what are we going to mock them? I don't know who's the big guy who throws hard, and that's who you give them, and you tended to be right.

But, you know, there are teams that have like general tendencies, but at the same time, I think we've gone away from the days of Moneyball. Like the Moneyball model, and that was kind of in some ways the first model, is broken, and no one really uses it anymore and with so many people putting different things into their model we do see interesting things like that you know the oakland takes a lot of high school kids now and then they took a high school kid in the first round i think the one thing that you you tend to be good might be san diego in the sense that san diego is going to go upside, go young and go with tools.

And they took a, you know, they their first round pick was a surprise in Jackson Merrill. And not that Jackson Merrill is not a good player. He is. But most people saw him as a second round talent. And then things made sense after that when they took James Wood in the second round. And Wood's another high school bat who had a big price tag. And that's where the money they saved off of Merrill is going to go. And Wood is six foot seven, somewhere in the 240 range and has, you know, crazy power, has more power than maybe anyone in this draft. And he's only 18 years old and it's just insane whether he's going to

hit or not is a huge question. But, you know, the power is nuts and they tend to go for tools there. And once they get the early tools guys they want, then they go safe. And that's what they did. And they took guys like max ferguson a little second base pretends he can hit they had you know one of the more interesting picks in kevin cops who was a reliever at arkansas multi-inning reliever who i was one of the best performers in the country this year he's 24 years old he's literally a sixth year senior this year and doesn't throw 97 but he was absolutely dominating it's like a cutter slider approach and and i mean i think there's and this is a big number to throw out there i think it's like a

18 chance he pitches in the big leagues this year this year and so i i think san diego kind of played it the way they play it i think the yankees have become a really interesting team to watch where their drafts are exceptionally safe very model model-driven, very college-heavy. And as I wrote for Fangraphs, they diversify their portfolio by their savings bonds or their draft picks, and their tech stocks are all the money they spend on the international market. And that's where they get their tools and upside, and they get all their safety in the draft.

So you just mentioned cops could be in the big leagues as soon as this season. Who are some other guys who could move quickly? Because that's one of the obstacles to getting the casual mainstream fan interested in the draft is that you take these guys and then you wait three or four years in many cases but not in all cases and you did mention in your recap i forget who it was but the braves taking ryan cusick at five the angels taking sam bachman at nine I think you mentioned that maybe those guys could move quickly, reliever type. So Eric, either those guys or any other guys who stand out

who we might actually see sometime soon? Yeah, both of those guys, Cusick, it's upper 90s, will touch like 101 or 102 with a big curveball. He's wild, so he could be pushed in relief the same way Garrett Crochet with the White Sox was. Sam Bachman with the Angels, we've seen them push college arms lately too, like Griffin Canning raced to the big leagues. And if Bachman, assuming he's healthy, he could be in a big league bullpen, again, like on that Crochet timeline, just because we're talking about upper 90s. Wipeout slider, absolutely has late-inning stuff, just has had hip and arm stuff pretty significantly in the past. Kai Busch, their second-round pick out of St. Mary's is another one.

Lefty, up to 96, it's deceptive, it has carry, slider, mid-80s, two-plane tilt. It's late-inning stuff. If you put the guy in the bullpen and he's going to be sitting 94-plus, then absolutely that could play relatively soon. From a more traditional development, leave a guy in the rotation type, but still gets to the big leagues relatively quickly, then Jordan Wicks out of Kansas State, a lefty who the Cubs took. It's plus changeup, plus command.

Those guys, especially when they're left-handed, always seem to do well. plus command. Those guys, especially when they're left-handed, always seem to do well. And Wicks, unlike a lot of the change-up control-oriented lefties, his fastball's got carry too. He's not a sidewinding lefty with a change-up. This guy, he cuts across it the way Devin Williams does, but he stays behind the ball when he's throwing a fastball. And so he can blow that by at the letters too. He's got to find a little bit better breaking ball, but he stays behind the ball when he's throwing a fastball. And so he can blow that by at the letters too. He's got to find a little bit better breaking ball, but he's got the mix to move quickly. Gavin Williams with Cleveland.

And boy, oh boy, like Cleveland sticks to their guns, man. Cleveland took all guys who don't throw hard, but have interesting traits to their stuff and who have like well demarcated pitch mixes. And they didn't do that universally because like Will Dion in the ninth round for them from McNeese State, that guy throws really hard. Gavin Williams, their first round pick, he also throws really hard. He might get there quick as a reliever as well.

But like Doug Nikhazy from Ole Miss, lefty. Tommy Mace from Florida who got passed over last year. Tanner Bibby from Cal State Fullerton. Rodney Boone from UC Santa Barbara throws like 84 to 86. But all these guys have like flat approach angles, backspinning fastballs, two well-separated breaking balls. Good dots is what Kevin would say. And almost all of them throw strikes.

Right, yeah. And so that whole draft class basically could move very quickly if they start throwing hard. So there are teams that like a particular kind of player. And then there's what the Angels did this year. I'm going to scoop this question from Ben. You know, when a new regime comes in, you always kind of wonder what it's going to do to their draft strategy. Obviously, this is Perry Menagian's first draft. What precedent can you think of for a team taking only pitchers? And what is – what? And what? I pitched a no-hitter. I was – literally.

And also, I was following this like a no-hitter. I'm not usually like glued to the draft live tracker in round 19 or whatever. But I was like, are they going to pull it off? Are they going to go all pitchers? And then they actually did. And I know a lack of pitching has been holding them back in recent years. So I guess this is one way to go about fixing that. Yeah. I don't have answers for you as far as what the hell they did and why, but at the same time, I think obviously the Angels are the most extreme example of this, but I think there's a much larger story happening here that

maybe people don't realize, which is that the dodgers went all pitching day one and two and went 17 of 19 on pitching the giants didn't take a bat until the 10th the toronto 11 of their first 13 were arms we talked about what cleveland did i think they only had one position guy in their first 10 and i wonder if you know part of this is a function of what happened in the world where we lost 2020. And all of a sudden, I talked to some people before the draft, including a person who makes the model, if you will, for the team he works for. And he said he felt like the model was completely broken for position players because of all the data you didn't have from 2020. And every model does way better on pitchers because you have all of this pitch data. And I think you just ended up in a world, this is my theory right now,

I haven't really talked to enough people. The draft just ended an hour ago or so. I think you ended up in a place where teams are just way more comfortable with what they knew about the pitchers than what they knew about the position players. The other dynamic that might be at play, specifically with the Angels, is that they want to run as much pitching up the minors as quickly as they can while their best players are still in their statistical prime. So that may have impacted their behavior. And I also wonder if, KG and I have talked about this before, but the innings increase for all the college arms from 2020 to 2021 likely means that most of them will just be shut down after the draft. Like they've already had a pretty significant innings increase year over year and are a lot of times,

especially the Angels recently haven't sent their college draftees out to a post-draft affiliate anyway. If you have fewer minor league roster spots to use and don't want to use them on these college pitchers like you basically have a whole draft class that doesn't push any of your current minor leaguers out of their roster spots so you can continue to evaluate them through the rest of the summer and then maybe some of these uh college arms that they just picked get fired up again during fall

instructional league which will make tempe a a place to be if all these guys indeed do start throwing again in the fall. But I do think there may be some team-specific dynamics at play here too. And maybe some of them that have to do with the consolidation of minor league roster spots and the way that most college arms seem likely to be shut down after the draft because of their innings increase. It means that you get to have another month and a half without having to release the kids who are on your current minor league rosters to accommodate the guys who you just drafted. So how did the late draft date this year affect things, if at all? I guess there were some individual players who had great standout college postseason performances who got to benefit

from that, and maybe others fell for similar reasons. But in terms of team preparation, Maybe others fell for similar reasons. But in terms of team preparation, what kind of wrench did that throw into the works? Nobody liked it. I mean, I can tell you that. I didn't talk to any teams like, yeah, it's great that this is in July now. No one felt that way. I mean, as far as players, I think the big story there was obviously Will Bednar of Mississippi State, who was the MVP of the postseason, was seen as kind of maybe a late first round comp second round type of guy and all of a sudden went 14th to the Giants and you know I understand why they're doing this I think it's

good to have you know we have this this four-day stretch where baseball is the focus of everything I just don't understand why you have it on Sunday night while you try to do the futures game kind of back-to-back with the draft I think it kind of takes a little bit of focus off of both. It feels like, you know, Wednesday would be the best day for the draft. You know, this off day after the all-star break and before the season starts, you can have the draft be the whole thing. And if you still, and you know, I also think you can go back to June and just pick a Monday and give every team off and do the draft that day as well. But I don't think it moved too much player wise. You know, when I, teams really kind of spent the extra month. A lot of them were already doing 2022 work.

You know, the high school showcase circus and the college summer leagues have already begun. And a lot of teams are just kind of sticking to their process that they always do in the draft and using this month to go get their head start on 2022. They're their head start on 2022. So, you know, the boards were already lined up and not a lot of guys moved too much after the College World Series was over. It was really more in terms of the draft meetings themselves. It was really just kind of sitting around, to be honest with you. Nick Nostrini, I do think that there are some individual cases because some of the draft eligible players this year went to the Cape or went to some wood bat collegiate summer

league somewhere in the country and kept playing throughout June and early July just to maybe rebound their stock a little bit. Like Nick Nostrini is the example, went in the fourth round to the Dodgers. Justin Choi at Fangraphs wrote with me on some statistical sleepers and I sent him a bunch of pitch data and he picked out N Nasrini. It was the first name that he cited. Nasrini couldn't get out of the first inning in his last two outings at UCLA, was shut down for the rest of the year, and then went to this collegiate, the California Collegiate League and like shoved and had a bunch of dominant starts out there. So

there probably were some individuals who were able to use that extra time to rebound their stock individually. But I've heard everything that Kevin has from my sources in the game, which is just that we don't like this. A bunch of us are already focused on 2022. I had an area scout literally tell me like, I forget what my prep list for this year looks like because I've already spent the last month and a half working on 2022 stuff. And like, I just want to move on to that. So I do think there's a happy medium to strike here. I think that it's doing the draft in Omaha during the College World Series so that there's a little bit more space between like the draft and then like Kevin said, the all-star break and then the trade deadline too would be nice if there was a little gap. And it's also weird that the complex leagues have begun and the draft didn't start yet.

So like, you know, the high school kids who have been picked will just report to the complex leagues after they sign, but they've already begun. And I wonder if there are some little interpersonal like assimilation things that will become more complicated now that not everyone is doing it simultaneously on the complex. things that will become more complicated now that not everyone is doing it simultaneously on the complex. So this year saw the debut of the draft league and a bunch of combine-like activities. I'm curious from your guys' conversations with scouts and scouting personnel, sort of what the impression of that initial foray into that space was and how you expect that to evolve in future years. Is this going to become something that is really influential in the draft? Is it just a place for folks to rebuild stock? How was that seen this year and how is it anticipated to be seen in the future?

It wasn't a big factor this year. I think the thing that I heard from teams who went to the combine, the best thing that they got out of it was the chance to sit down with these kids and talk to them, kind of have these meetings with them in person before the draft. You know, almost every team that went there also went there with their team psychologist or their mental skills guy or what's the Dodgers thing? Strong mind, their strong mind group. And I think that was maybe one of the best things they got out of the combine was actually sitting down with these kids. The draft league was not impressive in terms of talent. But when you talk to teams, they all were happy to kind of poo-poo both things. But they all also, for the most part, the consensus was that these are good things that will turn into valuable things.

It's good that they've gotten started. They're just not valuable yet. So I mentioned earlier that you guys were woaching and calling some picks before the teams called those picks. And I wanted to ask a little bit about the process there without burning any specific sources. What kinds of people, people in what positions does that information tend to come from with teams? And how do you go about getting that? And is that just sort of incidental? Like you're having conversations and these things slip out.

Are you actively trying to break news a few minutes before everyone else in the world finds out about it? Or like, yeah, I know it's a two-way street because you guys are talking to people with every team. And so maybe people with teams are trying to pump you for information as you were pumping them for information. So yeah, how does that work? Right. So there are some mutual incentives. For us, it is purely a flex. And for people in the room, it is helpful for them to know what's about to happen. Like if we can pass information along to them, either because we've confirmed something with a player's agent or, you know, the team's picking immediately behind who is selecting who's like on the clock right now. Like those are often the teams who find out the information soonest. And so, you know, sometimes we will literally, there were times on, what day was it? Sunday night when we were holding a tweet so that we could pass the next pick or two around to our sources for a little while before we tweeted it to like accrue some goodwill

that we would roll up into more dope later in the evening. And yeah, it's like, it's mostly people who are in the draft room and they are getting the other people in the draft room with them are also getting intel from other, other writers or other people in baseball mostly, who want them to be prepared for what's about to happen and, you know, have a contingency plan in place in case their board is about to be blown up. And just to reciprocate that, then we get fed more information about what is going on. And then, you know, it creates a little extra work. I'm frantic on draft night and often have trouble sleeping after the first night of the draft just because my brain is, is keyed into this process of like chatting with our

readers, following the draft and then shuttling information to and from a couple dozen sources in draft rooms. It's a lot of fun. It is a rush and, uh, and I, I love doing it. And I'm sorry if people get bummed that they'd rather hear the name said on the broadcast. That's cool. Like you can mute me. It's not a big deal. You know, and as far as like who we're talking to, it's everything from area scouts to honestly GMs. And I mean, I got really kind of surprised by a GM on Sunday night where it's someone

that, you know, I have a decent relationship and I wouldn't call him one of my best GM friends. And I just kind of text them, hey, things are weird in front of you relationship and I wouldn't call him one of my best GM friends. And I just kind of text them, hey, things are weird in front of you. And it's probably going to go like this, this and this. And he just responded right back. Then we're taking this. Oh, OK. You know, and there was I was surprised that he just handed it to me.

And I had the same surprise, you know, at another point where I texted a scouting director and said, you know, the three picks in front of you. I know this pick is Johnson. I know the picks two behind you is Smith. And the pick right in front of you is a bit of a wild card. We still don't know yet. And he wrote, they're definitely not taking this guy and that's who we're taking then. And so at times you're surprised, but like Eric said, like they're happy to get it from us that, hey, this is what I know in front of you.

So you can pull that magnet and it helps make your decision. But yeah, it goes all the way up from area scout to GM. And this is obviously not Eric's first rodeo. This is my first rodeo as far as kind of woe-jing picks, if you will. And I was pleasantly surprised at how much information these guys are willing to share at times. So you talked about how you really can't assess a draft in the first day. We can't really assess these drafts for years, which I think is one of the frustrating things for baseball fans. But just in terms of who was taken where, now that we have this thing in its entirety and we can kind of look at some of the

underslot deals that facilitated overslot deals later, whose drafts strike you as being particularly robust with the understood caveat that all of these guys could blow out or decide to become missionaries or just be bad at baseball and we won't hold you to it. But sitting here now with the full board, who strikes you as having done particularly well? Maybe we can start with KG and then we'll go to Eric. I'm not going to say we did the best draft, but I just want to say this because we don't get to say this enough about this team, is when you line it up and you look at it, and this is strange for me to say i think the colorado rockies did good and you know it's weird because every time they flashed to their draft room on on mlb network it looked bare it looked like there were

four people there um which might be the only people in their front office at this point where they went leaving and everyone else was doing the laundry everyone else was doing the laundry in the clubhouse and like we criticized the rockies all the time and with good reason. And then you suddenly look at what they did. And I think they did good. They got a real toolsy kid eight in Benny Montgomery. Jaden Hill was lining up to be a top 10 pick before he had Tommy John surgery. And if they can sign him and keep him from going back to LSU and he comes back, it's a steal.

They got a power lefty in the comp round. They got another guy with stuff and inconsistency in McCade Brown. Hunter Goodman's a dude with real power. And none of these are like slam dunk amazing picks. But every time they made a pick on day one and early day two, I just kind of nodded my head and said, yeah, I get it. And I didn't expect that from Colorado. And it's not the best draft.

But I think it's an above average one. And it's fun to say Colorado did a good thing. so I'm going to say Colorado did a good thing. Pittsburgh. Talk about Henry Davis. Slam dunk. Yeah, Pittsburgh's draft was unbelievable. They got Henry Davis, who we had second on the board. And then from the savings on that slot, they took Anthony Solomato, New Jersey prep lefty.

Super smooth, has the Madison Bumgarner arm action and delivery comp Lonnie White Jr. is a two-sport commit to Penn State who they did in comp round B tools the outfielder Bubba Chandler who was going to Clemson to play quarterback he's a prospect as a switch hitting shortstop and as a pitcher they took him they announced him as a pitcher and then even some of the other guy like those those are all big money, famous guys, but Owen Kellington, their fourth rounder is a high schooler from Vermont. He got to do this really cool thing where he pitched in the draft league for the Vermont Lake monsters as like a teenager pitching in his hometown. He's got big fastball carry. His curve ball has big depth. He's an interesting young high schooler who needs to throw harder,

but you know, the industry is good at developing that. And then they got one of my favorite seniors in the fifth round, Jackson Glenn from Dallas Baptist, who's a middle infielder who had 20 bombs this year, who they probably cut with to help facilitate some of the other guys who I just mentioned. And then Braylon Bishop, who they got in the 14th round, I don't know if he's going to sign, but at one point he was one of the most exciting high school players in the class who, as a sophomore and a junior in high school, had like 70 bat speed and was super short to the ball. And the way his swing finished had, you know, gave scouts Ken Griffey Jr. kind of vibes. And then when he started to face real, like, manicured peers of his that had real velocity, some of the holes started to show. I don't know what can be done to maybe rework his swing had real velocity. Some of the holes started to show. I don't know what can be

done to maybe rework his swing to remedy that, but he is a really exciting tools bet. And then the 13th rounder that they took out of Nevada, Owen Shartz, obviously elite baseball name, but yeah, it was also like 90-94 with carry and a good breaking ball and was good and really interesting type of guy who maybe when he was in high school teams had million dollar valuations on he ended up going to Nevada and didn't really get any better but he's got some long-term like oh we've been interested in this guy as an industry before and so yeah I thought Pittsburgh absolutely crushed it we mentioned the first round guys who we liked the Rangers again are doing this thing where they got Jack Leiter they took Aaron Zavala in the second round, 38th. I think KG and I were the highest on

Zavala. He was like a third baseman outfielder at Oregon, lefty stick, who had some of the best numbers in the country this year. And then they took a bunch of high schoolers later, which again, this is what they've done the last couple of years, where they go college early. Maybe one of them is under slots. I think there's a possibility that Zavala is. And then they took a bunch of high schoolers. Ian Mahler, a catcher from Iowa with big tools, questions about the hit tool. Mitchell Bratt, projectable high school lefty.

He's Canadian but then played in Georgia because they were hyper-cautious about COVID in Canada and didn't care about it in Georgia. So he pitched there. It's a lefty with a breaking ball high school kid who needs to throw harder. But again, we develop this stuff now. So yeah, I thought the Rangers draft will be interesting and I'm excited to see all the high scores they took on the backfields. Flip side of that question, again, too soon to say anyone had a bad draft or a good draft for that matter, but anyone have an eyebrow raising draft at least where people in the industry are wondering what they were doing,

I guess, aside from the Angels and their no hitter? That's a good question. I still don't, I don't necessarily understand what the Royals did. You know, they took Frank Muzzicato at seven. It was more of a late first round pick. And then you're like, oh, okay, they shaved some money. What are they going to do? And they spent that extra money on, you know, a kid with a $3 million price tag who most people didn't see as a first round talent. And so all of a sudden you're like, well, where's the first rounder here? You know, you had 7 and 43 and a comp pick at 66. And I don't know if they landed a kid who the industry saw as a first round talent. And after taking the high school arms, they went like super safe with Pey Peyton Wilson who Eric and I might differ on him but I I hate

guys like this um just like you know like this 5'9 grindy college infielder who can only play on the right side I get it's a he can hit line drives but yawn city and then you know and then nothing after that I mean Eric Sarantola is like an incredibly interesting lottery pick in the fifth. He's a guy with unbelievable stuff. Getting up in the 90s, like 3,300 spin rates. Never been healthy, and he's never performed. But, you know, maybe there's something there. But I didn't really understand what the Royals did at the end of the day. And I think another team that I think was a disappointment was Baltimore in the sense that it's a similar thing where, you know, they did what they've done in the past.

And they probably cut a deal at five with Colton Couser. And you're like, okay, what are you going to spend it on? that it's the similar thing where you know they did what they've done in the past and and they probably cut a deal at five with colton cows there and you're like okay what are you gonna spend it on and i don't know what they spent it on because they didn't take a high school kid they didn't take an over slot kid it was really kind of the the safety world of of college bats who mostly performed and you know i understand the cows are pick and colton cows are for a lot of teams was a legit top 10 talent i just thought at some point something would get redistributed down the board and I never saw that happen. Yeah, I like Colton Couser. He's going to be in our top 100 immediately. But yeah, it's puzzling that they didn't do any over slot high schoolers. When they cut with Heston Kerstad last year,

they ended up with a couple high schoolers in the fourth and fifth round, including Kobe Mayo, who I think very highly of. Although'll throw the Yankees in here. I think it's fair to say that Kevin and I are low on Eastern Illinois, shortstop Trey Sweeney. Or we're right. Or we're right. There were just other teams who were on him in this range. I picked 20, but he was ranked close to 60th on our board,

and so that looks like a reach on its own. Brendan Beck, who they took in the second round out of Stanford. I don't love Brendan Beck's stuff. Some of the other round out of Stanford. I don't love Brendan Beck's stuff. Like some of the other guys who I talked about who don't throw hard, but whose pitches have other traits. Beck sort of fits in that mold, but I don't think his secondary stuff is the same quality as some of those other guys where I can point and say, ooh, he's got an above average change up.

Like, ooh, Kevin Abel's got a plush change up when he's healthy and a good curveball. Like Brendan Beck, for me, it's four pitches. They're all fours except for maybe the curveball. Maybe, you know, the high speed that I have of Brendan Beck is like, ooh, there are a lot of two-seamers here. Maybe you change it to a four-seamer, but not a big Brendan Beck guy in the second round. Then Brock Selvidge, who they took in the third round, he had a lot of profile last summer as a rising senior. lefty from here in Arizona. He throws hard. And then he came out this spring and just could not throw strikes.

And there were a lot of guys in to see him very early in the year because like some of the kids from the Northwest had come down to work out in Arizona, et cetera. And he just didn't throw strikes all spring. A lot of teams were just like, we're not going to take this guy. He's got a $1.5 million price tag. He's going to LSU. And then things transpired where LSU's coach retired and they had a coaching change there. Selvidge's spring was so bad that maybe the new coach wouldn't honor his scholarship. Selvidge went to the combine and threw really, really well there. And so then all

of a sudden there were like 10 or so teams who were in at about 1.5 million. I just wouldn't bet a third round pick on one outing, one combine outing. Like I would much rather look at the senior season as a whole. And to me, that means that, you know, in the third round, Selvidge is a bit of an overdraft. So you guys have written at various points

throughout the spring and summer here about how the pandemic changed the dynamic, not only for last year, but for this year's draft class. I imagine that there are some things that teams will stop doing as things return to normal and we have a more complete season of data for the 2022s. But I'm curious what changes to the scouting landscape you anticipate sort for sticking around as teams have adapted to a different approach to their scouting and find things that are either more efficient or that they have found beneficial or that they maybe find to be more cost effective. And if I could piggyback on that also with the new CPA coming up, what will the draft even look like in the future? coming up what will the draft even look like in the future um i'm going to start with the last part of that question just because it's important to note that like the draft is always the last thing to get figured out in a cba two agreements ago they had the press conference with the the union and the and mlb saying you come to an agreement we're going to have baseball

and they didn't do the draft until after that press conference they literally had the press conference then went back and sat down and figured out how to do the draft it's always the thing in the corner that we'll figure out later it's never you know option is never you know rather primary thing number one two or three or 28 it's always the last thing so it's hard to say most people i've talked to in the street think that this is kind of the range of where we're going to be for the rest for the next CBA. It'll be 20 to 25 rounds. I think that's forever. But to get to Meg's question, you know, one thing that happened, obviously, in 2020, and it was forced on teams because of the pandemic. A, there was no baseball.

And B, even for teams that were kind of acting like nothing was going on and still playing in March and April, for the most part, scouts weren't getting out there for right reasons. And so teams found themselves developing processes and using a lot more data and video tools. And I think that a lot of teams that I've talked to learned that you can get really valuable evaluations out of that. Not to say that you shouldn't also go see them in person. Of course you should. that. Not to say that you shouldn't also go see them in person. Of course you should. But it also allowed teams to kind of get these additional data and video evals that they said they liked, and they continue to use them this year. And I think you'll continue to see that happen in the future. So I think you're seeing a lot more kind of data and video evals. And that is a forever

thing now, even now that we are, I guess I'll preface this with hopefully getting out of the situation we were in, is that this kind of modern 21st century eval process is now something that is being used by a lot more teams. Yeah, I'll echo that. A lot of the stuff that Kylie and I wrote about in Future Value has just been accelerated by COVID where data and video is becoming a larger part of the process. And a lot of the in-person stuff is being devalued. We mentioned this on Kevin's podcast last week, but Cleveland didn't send an area scout to any college games until the post-season. They just used data and video to evaluate college players this year. And then they still took a lot of them, but it is like a pretty hard line stance to take.

But you get these prospective GMs in the room with ownership and they tell them that they can streamline your scouting process like this and that. And it's what the owners want to hear. And they get told that ROI on player dev is much, much greater than it is for scouting. And so they want to dilute what they're doing on the scouting side and funnel more into R&D and dev. And I think there's some justification for that. But I think that there are some game theory elements to it that I think some teams are missing. And that when you have teams like the Dodgers who can just do everything, like literally whatever they want, and the Yankees who just employ some of the best front office personnel,

like scouting directors that there are, like they have big, big contracts and they still get really great players. And so, yeah, it's, I do think that things are changing in this way. I think that the better Cleveland does, the better Minnesota does. So some teams like that, I think now the Angels are definitely in this hard line model area too, it seems. If they do well, then you'll just see this philosophy begin to permeate even further. But then I think there will be some value in zigging while the other teams are zagging, which is what Washington and San Diego have done, basically. Eric, you mentioned one potential two-way player in this draft. Any other two-way names to know?

Not the next Otani, but the next Brooks Kieschnick at least. And any indication of an Otani effect where at least teams are becoming more willing to entertain the idea of a two-way player? Wow, we got to minute 58 before Ben managed to bring up Otani. That is a new... Continue to focus on the Rays. Okay, so they took Carson Williams in the first round. He was a prospect both ways at Torrey Pines High School just outside of San Diego. You know, would come in from shortstop cold and be sitting 95 to 97. And then Mason Auer, who they took in the fifth round out of San Jacinto Junior College in Texas,

is another, like, outfield prospect with an elite arm who I've seen up to 97 or 98 on the mound. So I still think that that... Oh, they took Johnny Cuevas in the 12th round too. I'm looking at their draft list now. Johnny Cuevas from the College of Southern Nevada has been playing both ways at junior college in Southern Nevada for a while too. So the Rays do still seem interested in doing it.

There are definitely other guys like Grant Holman, who the A's took, played two ways at Cal, but he's probably just a pitcher in pro ball. And there are probably some other guys like that who I'm not thinking of who did both, especially in high school. Like most of these guys do both if they're in high school. But even in college, there are probably a handful of them

who are going to be one or the other in pro ball, even though they were two-way in amateur ball. But I still think that the Rays, given what they've done, you know, Brendan McKay was hitting at AAA before he came back from his shoulder thing, which he's been shut down for again, by the way. And they still have Tanner Dotson in that system. Like, I still think watch the Rays. They're the ones most likely to continue to try to do it. I do think it's important to know, and I'm saying this to break your heart, Ben, is that there was a new draft rule this year

that I don't think a lot of people were aware of. So when you draft a player, you do have to designate a position when you draft them. And Major League Baseball did add the designation of two-way player this year. You could announce a player as a two-way player, and Ben, zero players were announced as two-way players in the draft.

Oh, that hurts. So last draft question will be about one of the last players selected in the draft not mr irrelevant but about 15 picks before that and kevin you were just tweeting about him samuel mendez who went to the brewers in the 20th round and there were a lot of really recent birth years in this draft. It's pretty depressing if you read down the 2003s and 2002s here. But Samuel Mendez is a 1993, which is pretty refreshing. And it seems like Corey Schwartz of MLB has kind of confirmed on Twitter that he may be the oldest player ever picked in the draft. So it's never too late to be drafted or i guess 29 is too late but not 28 at this point so who is samuel mendez it's it's funny because like you know i actually got a text

saying the brewers just took a 28 year old into the last pick and i was like you gotta be kidding me like no check it out like you said born in 1993 samuel mendez from cisco juco in texas and i tweeted i this has to be a record 28 has to be a a record. And, you know, Corey Schwartz and God bless him and his giant Ramones tattoo. They followed up just a few minutes later saying, you know, for all the drafted players for whom we actually have a date of birth, he is indeed the oldest at 28.

And I got a little background quickly. And Samuel Mendes is Dominican and spent a lot of time trying to develop a basketball career. He is 6'7". And obviously that didn't work out. Then he suddenly went to a JUCO in Texas as a pitcher and was 94 to 97. And so they took a chance on him in the 20th round,

and he is now the oldest dude to be drafted. That's pretty cool. So last thing, the Futures game was kind of an afterthought on Sunday, as we discussed, because the scheduling also kind of an afterthought in this podcast. But Eric, since you were there for at least part of it, is that a good scouting environment? Because you're actually seeing these high-level players play against other high-level players. And was there anyone either you saw or heard about who stood out this year? It definitely has a very specific scouting utility

where you're watching these guys take BP one after another rather than trying to kind of hold some mental image in your mind's eye between minor league ballparks to try to see Luis Camposano and Yoelke Cespedes and Spencer Torkelson take BP in three of the four corners of the country. So to see most – and MLB does a pretty good job of getting good players into this game. And so to see largely very good prospects take BP one after another is very instructive.

Infield this year was a bit of a snooze. There are – I tend to think that actually like when it's Team USA versus the world, that you can't beat the world infield this year was a bit of a snooze. I tend to think that actually, like when it's Team USA versus the world, that you can't beat the world infield. Like that's never a snooze. But they broke it up by American National League this year. And so it was kind of, you know, antiseptic, not a lot of flash being shown, like guys just kind of going through the motions during infield. So that was less useful this year than usual the individuals who stood out for one reason or another were Adley Rutschman who is just a freak of nature there's he was taking BP rounds lefty and in the middle of the round switching to righty he hit the face of the third deck at

one point like there's just no reason a guy this big should be this loose and explosive and also be an elite defensive catcher and locker room leader. Like he's everything that you want a baseball player to be. He's just gonna have to try to withstand the physical grind of catching. So his BP was ridiculous. Brett Beatty in the Mets system and Francisco Alvarez in the Mets system

should both be about like, in Alvarez's case, probably 20 to 30 spots. Well, no, I guess that would be too much, like probably 10, 15 spots higher than we have him. And Beatty should probably be about, I don't know, 60 spots higher than we have him on the overall list right now. Both of those guys had ridiculous BPs. Beatty's infield was actually impressive. This is a guy who was like 19 on draft day, really big. Most of the industry thought there was a pretty strong chance he'd eventually have to move to first base, but he looks pretty good at third still. So I think that it's probably time to reconvene on his defensive future and slide him

up into that like Nolan Jones, you know, close to 50 overall sort of area on the overall list. In terms of hitters, you know, like Shane Boz with the Rays was throwing really hard. His arm slot seems to have dropped to me. I got to do some film work on that to see if that's the case. Reed Detmers was throwing hard. Cade Cavalli in the national system was routinely like 97 to 101 with a plus change up. He's had injury issues in the past, so I'm not sure whether it's time to move on him yet. Then Quinn Priester in the Pirates system, who had a monster

fall instructional league and basically, you know, asserted himself into the top 100 based on that. He was also fantastic. He's now added a cutter. So he's got, I think, the only 80-grade breaking ball that I have evaluated on the board right now. And now he's got like this low 90s dastardly cutter as well. So I thought most of the kids look good. Matthew Libertor, the starter for the NL with the Cardinals, not a lot of velo there. And it's definitely not the type of, you know, the modern power pitchers fastball, but he's got four good pitches that he executes. He's going to be good. I missed Medina. I missed Luis Medina and Jake Eder and Ethan Small. Those are the three guys who I did not see because I left, missed the last inning of play. But I think those are the big names. Most everybody else kind of helped serve for me, which is to say that they're all very good. double a now and he has 91 strikeouts in 50 innings pitch that's your your basic 16.4 that gets pronounced not bad so thanks to you both for coming on because i know you've been

talking to each other a ton this week and talking to everyone else a ton this week so we appreciate you talking a little bit more and i know you're not done you already have a lot of written content out there which we will link to on the show page if anyone prefers their draft info in written form. And I imagine there may be some draft talk coming up on Shin Music a little later this week. You can find Kevin on Twitter at Kevin underscore Goldstein. You can find Eric on Twitter at Longenhagen. But don't. Yeah, it's optional Don't tweet As you tweeted earlier this week Kevin you talked to an AGM Who told you we'll know who's right by

2026 so we'll Reconvene in five years I guess to Talk about what went right and what went wrong Thank you guys Thanks so much Well it was a fun all-star game Another AL victory 5-2 this time We had winning pitcher Shohei Otani pumping 100 mph fastballs. We had Vlad blasting a dinger. We had mic'd up cursing closers who did not warn Dylan that they were about to do a swear. As ESPN's Marley Rivera tweeted, the winning pitcher was Japanese, the save goes to an Australian, and the MVP is Dominican. This is the game I love.

Cosign that statement. Just a good time. Good sport. Good all-star break. Good vibes. I feel energized by the whole thing. And I couldn't help but notice. Actually, I probably could have helped but notice because it was kind of low-key.

But the much maligned all-star game jerseys had stars on the back beneath the numbers that indicated the number of all-star teams that players have made, which reminded me of the email that we answered last week that suggested that players should have stars on their jerseys at all times, even during the regular season, just to mark the all-stars, to honor the all-stars, to indicate to casual fans, these are the guys who were good. So that was kind of cool to see. It was just for the all-star game, but same idea. Give a little nod to the players who've made it many times before. Of course, Salvador Perez gets actual tattoos on his body to commemorate the All-Star games and home run derbies that he has participated in. That might be a bridge too far for some players, but I'm into the Stars idea. If you're not Otani'd out yet, check out a feature I wrote for The Ringer this week about Otani's origin story, his rookie

season in NPB, and how he ended up making it as a pioneering player. I talked to some of his teammates from 2013 and people who covered him and worked for his old team, the Fighters. Got some insight into how he ended up where he is today and just how long he has been in the spotlight and how many doubters he's had to deal with along the way right up to today. So that was a fun one. Meg and I will probably talk a little bit more about the game next time, but she's going to be traveling home from Denver. So we may need a day to get that to you.

In the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Tyler Shaw, Doug Drinan, Ching Hao Wu, Peter Meyer, and Steve Boutin. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming

via email at podcast.denigrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. Get out of Denver, better go. Get out of Denver, better go. Get out of Denver, better go. Get out of Denver, better go. Get out of Denver, cause you look just like a guy.

And you might just be a member, better get out of Denver, better go.