Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2125: Baseball 101

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about injuries at spring training (specifically the Orioles’) and Jorge Soler and the Giants’ offseason, Stat Blast (21:04) about Kenley Jansen and the age of active career leaders in pitching appearances and recording five or six hits in a game against five or six different pitchers, and then talk […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2125 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello, Ben. How are you? Well, nothing like a nice dose of injury news to spoil the positive vibes of the first week of spring training. Positive vibes of the first week of spring training. We barely got any time to be bored by videos of pitchers throwing to catchers and people standing around idly. That's fun for a day or so. And you feel that nice little hope and faith and renewal.

And it's spring and it's a fresh start to the season. And then suddenly it's Justin Verlander had some shoulder thing going on and Kenryan Jansen has lat tightness and everyone on the Orioles is hurt. It's really sort of depressing to have that dose of reality, that just splash of cold water thrown on the season. The players are not invulnerable, even though this is a new season. Can I offer an optimistic spin on some of it? Not on the Orioles stuff. That sounds like kind of grim. Yes. Here we were. We were talking up the Kyle, Ben. We were like, that's a nice Kyle that they still have in Baltimore. Let's say nice things about the Kyle because

people got all fussy when I didn't say nice stuff about the Kyles last year. I'll say some. And then UCLs, what a useless, what a useless ligament, really. I mean, like very important, but useless. So, set that one aside because like we should talk more about that probably. But one optimistic way to look at this stage of spring training is that like it's so early that some of these guys are going to either not miss very much regular season time at all or might not miss any, you know, depending on how they recover and how far along in their sort of existing treatments and whatnot they are. So programs, there are various programs. So that's one way to think about it. Like, yeah, for every Kyle Bradish, there's like a Noel V. Marte who tweaked his hammy over the winter

and is just like trying to get back up to speed from a running perspective. But sounds like he's going to be ready to go in pretty short order and like compete in camp, which is what he wants to do. So like sometimes the first day like update where it's like not a debilitating injury, like, cool, you're going to get this stuff sorted.

You got plenty of runway to get up to speed before opening day. Gunnar Henderson has an aggravated oblique. He'll be fine. Yeah. He's going to be fine. That's okay. Right. That's probably okay.

John Means is a month behind the other Orioles starters after his elbow issue last postseason. Yeah. Might be back for opening day. Maybe. Maybe not, but maybe not serious. And then, as we will discuss a little later, Orioles catching prospect Samuel Basayo has a right elbow stress fracture. Yeah. He's obviously not a factor

for the Orioles right now. They have a pretty good catcher as I understand it. But the big one is the Kyle Braddish who has the right UCL brain and got the PRP injection, is starting a throwing program. Might be okay. Might be fine. Might be okay. Might not be. As we've discussed in the past, sometimes symptoms like this are preludes to more serious injuries. Sometimes not. Not always. Sometimes not.

But certainly scary because good pitcher probably would have been their opening day starter before the Burns trade. Right. So if you were saying maybe they could use one more starter with a healthy Braddish, then you are certainly saying that with added emphasis now. And I want to be clear that my emphasis is mostly on what an unfortunate turn of events for the young man, you know, and for his teammates. When one carves out a position that could be perceived as unnecessarily contrarian, like me vis-a-vis Orioles fans and our projections you get in this spot where you like you're not rooting for bad things to happen so that your numbers look more correct right like you I want like good things for the the guys who play for Baltimore and for their fans because I think that they have those good things coming to them, you know? So, it's just, it's really too bad. But here, can I offer actual optimism?

Yeah, please. This is maybe hollow optimism, right? Because it assumes a willingness to act that may not be present in either the front office of the Baltimore Orioles or their ownership group in transition, though it is, or maybe some combination of those things, which is, but I don't know if you know this, but there are a number of very good free agents, like, still unsigned. Yeah, I was aware. those guys who perhaps are going to command a price that Baltimore would balk at, there are still good starters presumably available in trade. And while we are fans at Fangraphs, let's say Joey Ortiz, who's on our Top 100, which went live earlier today as we record this on Thursday, they still have just a bunch of very exciting youngsters in their farm system, not all of whom will be able to find big league time. So I think that

if there is a will to address this issue proactively, either because they just want to fortify their depth in the event that it takes Kyle longer to return, the Kyle longer to return, or in the worst case that his injury proves to require more substantial intervention than a PRP injection, you know, they have options available to them if they want to pursue those. So is that hollow? Maybe, because I don't know if there is the will to kind of do that,

but they did trade for Corbin Burns. So, you know, like, they know and they have projections, too. You know, I haven't seen them. I'm not trying to, like, speak out of turn here or suggest an insider information that I don't have. But my guess is that their numbers are probably not all that different from the public side numbers when it comes to what the rest of the AL East looks like and what their own roster looks like stacked up against it. So maybe they'll spring to action, you know, maybe this will be a action moment. I feel like that was shockingly coherent for someone who got like two hours of sleep last night. I'm very proud of myself. You know, sometimes I come into the pod and I'm like, that was okay. And some episodes I'm like, yeah, I feel like we were really clicking. And then, you know, sometimes I surprise myself and I feel like this is one of those moments where I was like, good job, Meg. You were saying words that made sense in sequence. I sometimes find that when I feel most tired, I am actually most intelligible and coherent, or at least that's my self-perception, which I

probably shouldn't trust because you know how they talk about sleep deficits and it's like drinking X number of alcoholic drinks, right? And you shouldn't operate heavy machinery. Maybe you shouldn't operate podcasts either. And so maybe I'm thinking- Our machinery isn't very heavy though. It's pretty light when it comes down to it. No, but our mental machinery, very heavy. Weighty. Yes, substantial. And maybe I'm thinking, wow, what a wordsmith I'm being today. And meanwhile, everyone's like, what did he say? I do not understand what he just said. I guess we're going to find out. Sound off in the comments, gang.

It sounded okay to me, but I'm tired too, so maybe I can't tell. Gosh, Shane, we rely on you. You're tired because you were up much of the night. It's prospect week at Fandress. You were working on that. You were working on the top 100 prospects list, which we are devoting most of this episode to. Eric Langenhagen, the primary author of that piece, will be with us to recap it. And yeah, just final thoughts on the entries. There will be with us to recap it. And yeah, just, you know, final thoughts on the injuries. There will be many more where this came from. Sadly, I guess we might as well rip the Band-Aid off. This is probably more serious than a Band-Aid type of injury in some

of these cases. But might as well get back in the swing of things with UCL injuries, because they will keep coming. And as I have written in the past, spring training is peak Tommy John time, peak UCL time for a few reasons. One, because there are preexisting injuries from the previous season and guys say, I'll give it the off season to rest. So that little twinge, no biggie. I can rest for six months now. And then they come back and they're ramping up and they realize, oh, that is still a problem. And now I have to say something about it and report it. And sometimes it is the actual ramp up perhaps that causes the injury. If you

ramp up wrong, if you ramp up too quickly, or maybe it's unavoidable at times, but there is a big spike. This is the heaviest concentration time of year. So really, you just get into sort of attrition mode and you want to survive to the start of the season. There's some optimism and then you just get diminishments as the spring wears on and you just want everyone to make it across the,

not even the finish line, the starting line, the finish line of spring training, which is the finish line, the starting line, the finish line of spring training, which is the starting line of the season. So fingers crossed. We hope everyone is healthy, but we make fun of best shape of your life stories. And there are plenty of those, but at least those are harmless, innocuous. They might not mean much. They might not have very much analytical value, but at least they're not bad news. So I'll take any number of best shape of your life, weight loss, muscle gain, flexibility, whatever it is, over UCL's brain and PRP injections. I think that it's important analytically for guys to feel good, right?

For the vibes to be right. Does it persist? I mean, but it's a nice starting point. You know, like you said, there's like, it's like the happy, it's the happy opposite to the dour injury news. We want everyone to be, you know, having a good time.

So, yeah. And as you mentioned, many of those prominent free agents are still free agents. Free agents. The only notable transaction in recent days that maybe we can touch on, although we have a preview for this team coming up in the not too distant future where maybe we can get into it more. But the San Francisco Giants have signed Jorge Soler. Oh, yeah, they did do that, didn't they?

They did while you were not sleeping. That happened. That is a three-year, $45 million deal. Basically the Mitch Hanegar, I guess, sort of the Mitch Hanegar, Michael Conforto special that they handed out last offseason, which didn't go so great, but they're doing it again.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Third time's the charm. So Jorge Soler, I've just been kind of questioning to myself the Bill Simmons-esque question. Are we sure he's good? No. I mean, I think he is, though, Ben. I've come around on Jorge Soler, you know? I'm really not sure because he— I was skeptical before, but I think I'm confident now. He has some notable accomplishments. He won a home run crown. Yep.

He was a World Series MVP. He was an all-star just this past season. Yeah, how about that? And yet, only once in his career has he accumulated even two wins above replacement in any single season, which is sort of the baseline where we say average player, two war. He's only gotten there once. And that was the year when he had 48 homers and still was a 3.7 fangraphs war, which tells you that he's not offering a whole lot of value in other aspects of his game. And he's also not the greatest at being available and staying healthy. He is often injured. That is true. So no speeds, no defense, not the greatest plate discipline.

It's okay. He walks. He has some slug. He's kind of a low average guy. Yeah. He's okay. So he makes the Giants better, I suppose, assuming he's healthy, but not that much better. I just, I don't know what to make of the Giants better, I suppose, assuming he's healthy, but not that much better. I just, I don't know what to make of the Giants this offseason because we've covered, and I don't want to belabor the fact that they have tried to throw money at more prominent free agents.

And so they've basically been forced by circumstances to play in the middle ground of free agency where, you know, maybe you want to be, it's like with pitches, right? You don't want to be right in the middle of the distribution where everyone's throwing pitches like that. You want to have a weird type of pitch and maybe you want to have an extreme sort of free agent signing where you're bargain bin shopping and you're finding some steals or you're splurging on the elite talents. Right. And that's not what the Giants have done. Not for lack of trying.

Now, they signed Lee. I think Lee is a good guy to have. I think that was a smart pickup for them. But some of the other moves they've made, I just, I don't know. You know, we don't talk that much much about spending efficiency in dollars per war anymore. Right, yeah. Because kind of who cares? Because teams have a lot of money.

And it's not our money. And there isn't so much an opportunity cost. Maybe the way there used to be where you spend the dollars on this guy means you can't spend the dollars on that guy. Or the equation is kind of different. But the way that they have spent the money that maybe they had hoped to spend on other more prominent players and earmarked and ticketed for that and then repurposed toward Jordan Hicks, for instance, or Robbie Ray or now Jorge Soler. Robbie Ray or now Jorge Soler, just sort of speculative signings, sort of risky, sort of, I guess this is the best we can do kind of deals. And you look up and pretty much everyone who's spending more than they are from a competitive balance tax threshold perspective is good or pretty good. And then the Giants are just middling. At least it certainly appears that they're projected to be middling again.

A drift, perhaps. They're kind of in the Padres range projections wise, but it's just not really where you want to be where you're spending a fair amount, but the return on your investment is not what you would want exactly. So we can get into this more when we get to the Giants preview, but I don't know. I just, I don't know. Yeah. Here's what I think about it. It does strike me as like, you know, it's like if, this is so mean. Like, you know know if you're like a little kid and no one wants to come to your birthday party so then your parents invite like your entire preschool class and they're just like we just need bodies in here at some point so like yeah just gotta pack the room yeah like there will

be cake hopefully that's enough i mentioned that i've sort of come around on Solaire in particular. So maybe I'll just like finish that thought, which is that, you know, it looked a lot like he was maybe despite looking like a guy who could really hit for big in-game power, like he was perhaps a juiced ball mirage, right? Like his 48 home runs came in 2019, a year that is famous for a lot of guys hitting a lot of bombs so there's that but like you know i think that he has done a better job of getting to his power in recent years you know he had 27 home runs in 2021 he had 36 last season a lot of the the knock on the war is that like you know he's taking most of his at-bats as a dh at this point with some like not great outfield defense sprinkled in there and so he's just going to get

whacked by the positional adjustment and war pretty heavily which you know it's maybe too stringent and hard on dhs that's just one managing editor's opinion perhaps but i think that like when you look at that team i can see this being useful to them i mean i think that like, when you look at that team, I can see this being useful to them. I mean, I think that when you can't get a judge and you can't get a, you know, Otani and you're, you're sort of deciding to operate in this space where you're, you're cobbling it together, you're sort of Voltroning together production. you're cobbling it together, you're sort of Voltroning together production, like having a guy who can give you 35, 40 home runs, like that's, that is useful,

Ben. That's a useful skill to have. Yeah. Especially if you're the giants who have not had anyone with that skill. Not had anyone with that skill. It has been pretty thumpless as a group. And that's partly a ballpark effect, but Solaire has been popping those dingers in Miami where it's not any easier to hit them.

And even if you look at the stat cast adjustment, I think it dings him maybe four homers if he'd been in San Francisco instead still would have cleared the 30 threshold. So maybe that's enough of a moral victory, if anything. Yeah, like he's projected for, you know, we're projecting him for 30 home runs. Like that's basically double. Well, I guess you, Stremski, we have close to 20, but like that's basically double everyone else in the anticipated starting lineup on roster resource. So do I think that it's going to make the difference between them being a real wildcard contender or not?

I mean, probably not. I think that they're going to probably go the direction that their rotation goes more than anything else. But it is a useful skill. Also, good on Jorge Soler. Dude bet on himself, and it paid off. Yeah, he upped Soler. Dude bet on himself and it paid off. Yeah, he upped it out. It worked out. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's fun. But yeah, they do feel a little caught in between. And I think that some

of that probably should inspire something of an organizational audit on their part. And I'm not saying that they're going about this in an obviously bad way or that they're like being, I don't know, weird in the room when they sit down with these guys. Like, I don't think that that's what's at play here. You know, getting a free agent deal done, as we have talked about a lot, requires not just like organizational buy-in and a willingness to spend, but like you do have a human person with agency on the other end of the table. And like, sometimes they just want to be a Dodger or they want to keep being a Yankee or whatever, you know. So I don't want to give them too much of the benefit of the doubt because at this point it is such a stark trend that like it probably merits investigation. But I also don't want to be like, I don't know, there's like a curse on the conference room where they're trying to woo these guys. Like that doesn't seem like a real thing. So. Well, happy 32nd birthday,

just slightly in advance to Jorge Soler, who turns 32 a little later this month. I'm older than Jorge Soler. Oh, by a considerable margin. That feels bad. Like surprisingly bad, you know? There's something about someone being really big and strong where I'm like, they should just be older than me. Like kind of on principle. Right. Yeah. We grow up thinking that about people who are bigger than we are and it seems like it should continue to apply. But because you said that, I will reserve my comment about my anxiety over Jorge Soler's aging from 32 to 35. Yeah, we got to save something for when we do our preview pod. Yes, which will be sometime next week. So lastly, before we get to some hot prospect talk with Eric, let me give you a quick one, two stat blast punch.

They'll take a data set and sort it by something like ERA minus or OPS plus. And then they'll tease out something interesting like a tidbit, discuss it at length and analyze it for us. So you're a stat blast, like a really math blast. Just can't get enough blast. Get some help from Dan Hirsch. I'm that stat type, always lots of data type. Talking Mike Trout type, might seduce Ben Lindbergh type. It's the stat blast.

Duh. All right. It's the stat blast. Duh. All right. So one stat blast concerns a player I just mentioned, Kenley Jensen. He of the lat tightness. I don't know if he has lat tightness because he is also in his mid-30s,

but that is what this question is about. It's from Patreon supporter Nathan02, who says, I was browsing and the current active games pitched leader is Kenley Jansen at 817, but he is only 36 years old. This seems young for an active leader. Is this historically significant? It feels like there seems to be fewer decent random old guy relievers that hang around beyond their peak into their 40s than there used to be, like Darren Oliver, Terry Mulholland, Jesse Orozco, Fernando Rodney, or even Oliver Perez more recently. Yeah. Rodney's trying to make a comeback, right?

I wish him well. Sure for that. Yeah. Though this may just be anecdotal. Actually, Nathan02 is the username. Gary is the user who asked this question. So thanks, Gary, for that. Nathan02 is the username. Gary is the user who asked this question. So thanks, Gary, for that.

So yeah, we've talked about some older relievers who've retired. But maybe, I mean, just generally, players are coming in younger these days and maybe aging out older. And also, maybe the three batter minimum makes it tough for a lefty loogie specialist to just hang around forever and ever and ever. So perhaps there's something to that. But Ryan Nelson, frequent StatBlast consultant, find him on Twitter at rsnelson23. I don't know if I'd say it's historically significant, but it is slightly on the low side, certainly, for a active games pitched leader to be this young. So the active games pitched leader prior to 2023. So Kenley Jansen here, we have 817 games. So Kenley Jansen here, we have 817 games. 36.25 was his age on December 31st of this past year. That's the date that Ryan used. Now, prior to Jansen, who is the oldest through 2023, Joe Smith had been the oldest through the two previous seasons or at the end of the two previous seasons. And Joe Smith recently retired himself. I believe he did not pitch in 2023, but he was the active leader in the two seasons before that. And then I think not in 2020 because he didn't pitch in 2020,

though he was not yet retired. So Joe Smith was 38.8 years old at the end of 2022 when he led the majors with 866 games pitched. So 2020, when Joe Smith took a gap year for the purposes of this stat blast, Tyler Clippard, who has also since retired, he was then the active leader with 777 games pitched, and he was a mere 35.9 years old through the end of that year. So he was younger than Jensen was at the end of this past year. So that was unusual. It was not the youngest. It looks like the youngest active leader. And Ryan went all the way back to World War II with this, it looks like. Actually, he graphed all the way back to World War II with this, it looks like. Actually, he graphed all the way back to World War II. He went all the way back to the very beginning when the oldest active leader types were very young because baseball had just started, Rodriguez. At the end of the 2016 season, he had 920 games pitched and he was 34.98 years old then.

So that was historic. That was anomalous. That's about as young as you can go and be the active games pitched leader. And I guess that makes sense because he came up so young. So it would make sense that he would have the most games of anyone also at a young age. So at the end of 2016 and 2017, he was the leader. But then 2018, 2019, it went to Fernando Rodney, who was well into his 40s already. Right. So before that, Latroy Hawkins had a couple year run.

Mariano Rivera had a few years. Trevor Hoffman had a couple of years. Mike Timlin, Mike Stanton, John Franco, Jesse Orozco had a five year run from 1999 to 2003. So that was special. Goose Gossage had a lot of years on here. Kent DeGolvie had a bunch of years. Clay Carroll, Sparky Lyle, Lindy McDaniel, Hoyt Wilhelm is maybe the king of this because he pitched until he was 50. So he was the leader from 65 through 72, it was Hoyt Wilhelm every year. And the last guy, I guess, to be on here and to have started more games than he relieved was Charlie Huff in 1990, who, of course, was a knuckleballer and was 43 years old, essentially, at the end of 1990 when he led all active pitchers with 745 career games.

So he hung around forever. He also relieved almost half of his games. So you really have to go back decades to like Warren Spahn, I guess, in 64 as a starter who had 714 appearances or early win before him, Bob Feller, guys like that. And you can sort of see the changing pitcher usage where once you had bullpen guys who were pretty prolific in that role, it became tough to be the active games leader if you were a starting pitcher, of course. Yeah. So Kenley Jansen, young for a leader in this category, but not super duper young, I guess. My favorite thing about Tyler Clippard was when he was a Diamondback and he'd wear his Rex backs and it made him look like he had snake eyes on his face. Yeah. He looked like a Diamondback, you know?

Yeah. It's funny. I love a reliever with the goggles. Oh, yeah. The athletic goggles. It's a good look. Yeah, it's funny. I love a reliever with the goggles. Oh, yeah. The athletic goggles. It's a good look. Yeah, it's great. It looks like just going back quite a bit here. The average for the guy who has the games pitched lead is like 41 and a half.

So, yeah, Kenley Jansen, like five years younger, I guess, than the typical games pitched leader, at least since World War II or so. So we wish you well. Hope your lat heals, Kenley Jansen, because for one thing, the Red Sox are trying to trade you. Apparently, everything must go. It's your Boston Red Sox. Okay.

Second and final stat blast comes to us from Patreon supporter Reggie, who says, this is a baseball wormhole. A couple nights ago, I was reliving an old Phillies and Marlins game from 1993 on YouTube when there was a reference by the Philly announcers that then Marlin Alex Arias had a five hit game the prior year with the Cubs off five different pitchers. I went and looked up the game. It was a Cubs game at the Pirates on September 7th, 1992. Arias doubled off Tim Wakefield in the second, then had four singles off of Steve Cook in the fourth, Roger Mason in the sixth, Denny Nagel in the eighth, and Stan Belinda in the 10th, respectively. Now, the fact that this game went to extras takes a slight bit of the shine off this in my mind, but has any other player had a five-hit game off five different

pitchers? It can't be something that has happened often. Or so Reggie asserts. Ryan Nelson has checked this one too. And I guess it depends how we define often. Is this often by baseball standards? Because it has actually happened 86 times that a hitter has gotten five hits off of five different pitchers in the same game. Four hits off of four different pitchers has happened 1976 times. That is considerably more manageable. Six off of six has happened twice. So because the five off of five has been surpassed, I don't think we can say it's as notable that five off of five has happened, but it's fairly rare in the grand scheme of things. Now, Ryan made a handy dandy little color coded chart, which I will share here.

So if you want to know, for instance, the distribution, if you have four-hit game, five-hit game, six-hit game, what's the most common number of pitchers to have those hits against? If you have a four-hit game, 3,038 times that has happened against just one pitcher. Wow. 10,676 times it has happened off of two pitchers. So that is the most common way to have a four-hit game, two pitchers. Barely less common is three pitchers, 9,862. And then four pitchers is 1,976. So it is hardest to get it off of four pitchers, second hardest to get it off of one pitcher.

And then it is two and three are considerably easier. Now for five hit games, one pitcher is 110 times. And that is the hardest. But then two pitchers is 483. Three pitchers is 1028. Four pitchers is 481. So it's easier to get five hits off of three pitchers than it is off of any number. It's basically the same level of difficulty for two pitchers and four pitchers, but hard to do it against five pitchers and also pretty hard to do it against one pitcher. However, the extreme end of the scale here, six for six off of one pitcher, off of six pitchers, et cetera. So if you have a six hit game, it has happened only once that all of those six hits have been against one pitcher. It has happened 10 times against two pitchers, 33 times against three pitchers, 39 times against four pitchers. That's the most common.

And then it gets hard again, 18 times against five pitchers, and finally two times, as mentioned, against six pitchers. Wow. Now, Ryan gave me the details for the two games where someone got six hits off of six pitchers. two games where someone got six hits off of six pitchers. It was done by Jesus Alou on July 10th, 1964 for the Giants against the Cubs. And it was done by Bob Oliver on May 4th, 1969 for Kansas City against the Angels. And when I saw that, I was actually surprised. I haven't thought this through thoroughly, but I would not have guessed that both of those games would come in the 60s in a low offense era and also an era that predated

the bullpen usage that we're used to today. So you weren't usually going to get six pitchers in a game. And also those were low batting average eras when it was pretty tough to get six hits. And those were regulation games. Those were not extra inning games. So that sort of surprised me, but it happened. So Bob Oliver, he singled off of Clyde Wright in the second, and then he doubled off of Eddie Fisher in the fourth. He homered off of Pedro Borbon in the fifth. He singled off of Phil Ortega in the seventh. And then in the same inning, they batted around and he singled off of George Brunette. And finally, he singled off of Tom Murphy in the ninth. And that's how that happened. And as for Jesus Alou, and I guess really it's more impressive to do it off of six different pitchers. Not that they would have thought so at the time.

But what we know about times through the order and everything, you know, pitchers at an advantage, relatively speaking, the first time you see them in a game. So, you're not learning as the game goes on. Impressive. So Jesus Alou, he got his first hit in the first. He singled off of Dick Ellsworth. In the third, he singled off of Lou Burdette. In the fourth, he singled off of Don Elston. In the sixth, he homered off of Dick Scott. And in the seventh, he singled off of Wayne Schur. Finally, Lindy McDaniel, who was mentioned in that previous stat blast, he surrendered the last single in the ninth. And that was how it happened. At what point, you're the manager and your starter has given up five hits to one guy.

And what number does it have to reach before you're like, I should have taken him out of there? your starter has given up five hits to one guy. What number does it have to reach before you're like, I should have taken him out of there? Because it just seems like you're going to, maybe someone sees a pitcher particularly well. Maybe the rest of the lineup isn't able to muster anything. But in all likelihood, it's like if you're getting hit five times by one guy, you're probably getting hit by other guys. So it's like,

of course, one guy is less common because why are you leaving him in there? You get him out of there, you know? Well, except maybe that's the problem that they kept changing pitchers and that's exactly played right into his hands. So maybe after five hits against five different pitchers, you think, you know what? Maybe I'll give someone a second look at this guy. Statistically speaking, it shouldn't help the pitcher, and yet try something new, I guess, because bringing in a new pitcher every time hasn't helped, hasn't worked today. But you're playing the odds, I guess, not the small sample. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And if you're wondering, but wait, what was the one instance of a six hit game against one pitcher? Well, so was I. It was June 16th, 1934. White Sox at Philadelphia A's. This date makes more sense to me. Higher batting averages back then, even fewer relievers.

Bob Johnson went six for six against Whit Wyatt, or as Stewie Griffin would say, Whit Wyatt. Johnson hit two homers, one double, three singles, including the walk-off in the bottom of the 11th. Heck of a game. Whit Wyatt pitched 10 and a third, seven earned runs, four walks, six strikeouts, 16 hits. And the A's walked him off. Thank you, Ryan. Okay, let's take a quick break. And we'll be right back with

lead prospect analyst of FanCrafts, Eric Lagenhagen, to discuss the top prospects of 2024. All right, I just gave you a stat blast about players with the most career pitching appearances. Now we are joined by the Effectively Wild guest with the most career podcast appearances on this podcast. Not in the world on any podcast, probably. He's not just the lead guest. He is the lead prospect analyst of Fangraphs. lead guest. He is the lead prospect analyst of Fangraphs, and he's here to raise his record and to discuss the 2024 Fangraphs Top 100 Prospects list, which he co-ranked and co-wrote with Tess Teruskin. Hello, Eric. Hey, this is the sound of my voice again. Oh, yeah. Here I am. Grant Brisby. Get at me, Grant Brisby. You got nothing on me, Grant.

We might talk to Grant sometime soon so it's good that you're keeping pace with him here just preemptively let me tell you spot on thank you it's really me doing Dan Soder doing Macho Man I always affectionately

make fun of you for having more than 100 players on your top 100. 112 last year, 114 the year before, 133 the year before that. That was a banner year for the top 100. Bumper crop. And you do that because 100 is an arbitrary number. I admire that you are not bound by that. You rank all the top prospects.

You go by the tier. If they have a 50 future value, if you think they're going to be an average big leaguer someday, then they get on the list. I still get a kick out of the discordance between the top 100 headline and the top 100 whatever list. Although I guess technically the headline isn't inaccurate because the top 100 are there. They're just joined by 10 or 20 or 30 extra prospects. But this year, you turned in a baseball prospectus-esque top 101.

And as you put in your write-up, you had a hard time getting to 100. So what's going on here? Are baseball players bad now? I don't think baseball players are bad now. What's going on here? Are baseball players bad now? I don't think baseball players are bad now. I do think that, as I wrote in the piece,

that there are a few dynamics at play that make the prospect crop somewhat weaker. Just changes in roster rules, whether it's like September days count against your rookie eligibility now, and they didn't as recently as a couple years ago. And we're only a couple years into the draft pick rookie of the year incentive interaction that for sure had teams behaving differently with the way they promoted guys last September so that they'd be up for long enough to get experience,

but not so long that they lost rookie eligibility. And as teams get feel for some of that stuff, maybe we won't have quite so many guys graduating the year before. Just in years past, there were guys with more big league time. If you came up August 15th and were up for the rest of the year, you were still rookie eligible the next year, most likely. And now that's not true. You now have like 45 or so roster days back half of August and all September and graduate. Whereas in the past, you'd have the 15 August days and then the clock would stop in September when rosters expanded and you'd remain eligible. So there's some stuff as simple as that is just part of it. And I wrote this in the piece too, you know, Keith and Kylie and the BA folks and everybody else who works on this, I think had the 2023 draft class represent a larger portion of their hundred than is typical, like much, much larger. And I think some of that is because that 2023 class was quite good. And also because like the rest of the group is maybe not so good i do think

that they're this is like kind of spreading across baseball i think you can see it in the behavior of the way teams are promoting players faster we have fewer minor league roster spots now like some of the analytically inclined executives who have been part of the movement to reduce minor league roster spots feel that there is a where wherever the line of fungibility is is like probably closer to the back of this top 100 than it is like the bottom of a 40-man roster. The gap between Owen Casey, the Cubs prospect who has monstrous power and so is in the middle third of the hundred basically, and someone who is only a platoon guy is razor thin. Owen Casey might need a Harold Ramirez partner or something like that, or a team might be inclined to give him one so that the production

they're getting from their corner outfield spot across 162 games and 650 plate appearances is better than if they just gave all of those to Owen Casey. And so whether then Owen Casey is actually like a 50, an omni situational player, like a guy who's just on the field all the time, you know, is pretty debatable, but also his rate stats are going to climb when he's not hitting in situations that are less favorable for him. And so like from a war output standpoint, maybe he will still be a 50, but I do think that like the rubber sort of meets the road in this area where, you know, how many, as you know, some of the teams use this

like scouting terminology, how many B grade players in the minors are there actually at any given time? And I think it's probably something like between 30 and 50 and maybe, you know, on the high end, like 50 to 75, like in a really, really strong year. And the other thing that I think we're missing on the public side is we have collectively been loathe to rank complex level guys in this mix. It's just their performance track record is never as long as the guys who have succeeded through high a double a beyond. And especially as it pertains to the Dominican summer league prospects, we don't see them, you know, like, uh, I mean, a lot of the teams have their DSL games streaming on YouTube now with like a track man readout. It's pretty, pretty awesome. streaming on YouTube now with like a track man readout. It's pretty, pretty awesome.

And I watch a lot of that, like, you know, first thing in the morning with my cup of coffee, it's like such a nice thing to do to watch the Rangers commits play their like newly signed guys, you know, on their complex on freaking YouTube. But like, we don't tend to rank those guys. There's a lot of volatility down there. The data doesn't mean nearly as much as it does, even when you get to the complex level here,ically. And it doesn't matter all that much then either just because the pitching is so, so weak. The umpiring is terrible. The differences in physicality between the 19-year-old repeating the DSL and the 17-year-old who's in his first year are pretty significant. There's all kinds of noise. But at the same time, as we have a domestic reserve limit that we only have four full-season affiliates per team anymore, the teams that have two domestic complex affiliates,

especially the teams that have two DSL affiliates, even if you just have one complex affiliate, we're talking about, you know, three of your seven minor league rosters are rookie domestic complex or below. And I think at some point, like a portion of the player population is just so big rookie ball and below that some of those guys have to be in here, right? Like Meg buys a lottery ticket when the jackpot is high enough. She doesn't buy one every week, but once the jackpot's high enough, she'll buy one. And I think the same is true of some of these players. Like there are some other DSL guys who, for one reason or another, like were in the mix to be towards the back with Yoandri Vargas and Sebastian Walcott and some of those other teenage monster ceiling guys, because at some point the jackpot is high enough that I just want to value that player despite his volatility in this mix towards the back. And I don't think even I, who am more inclined to like stick my neck out and look like an idiot a

year later, because those guys aren't actually good. I'm like more inclined to do that than other shops, but I'm still probably not doing enough of it. I've definitely been listening to everything that you've said, but ever since you mentioned Owen Casey having a Harold Ramirez partner, I've been picturing like some sort of in-home caretaker situation where it's like, oh, and we can, we'll have someone come in. Like you don't have to hit lefties. We'll have Harold come by and he'll just hit the lefties for you. And you can, you know, you don't have to do everything yourself. That's where my mind went. Shortside platoon on wheels. Yeah.

I did say to Eric yesterday, I felt like Bill Pullman in Independence Day when he's like, doesn't anybody have any missiles left? And then Eric like flies in with Johnny Formello, like strapped to the bottom of a plane. Like, here he is. It was like 9 p.m. last night. And I was, I, you know, was talking with Tess and I was like, find me one more guy. Find me one more guy who you really like. And then the first guy she mentions, I was just like, find me one more guy. Find me one more guy who you really like. And then the first guy she mentions, I was just like, find me a guy I like. Yeah.

You can't just give 100 prospects on the top 100 prospect list. You got to leave the people wanting more or give them more than they knew they were getting. Well, maybe we can, you know, you mentioned that there are some high upside guys who you felt like you needed to like value the potentially positive volatility that they represent. I wonder maybe we can start with just like the guys on this list who you feel like you're maybe high on relative to industry or reader expectation. Because I think there are some there are a lot of names here that are kind of chalky, right? Everyone knows who Jackson Holiday is, but I think there are some names on this list that might be less familiar to listeners. So who do you got in that sort of bucket? Gosh, let's see. I mean, I think in those top couple of groups, I think there are some others who are about as high on Wyatt Lankford as I am. So Wyatt Lankford was a high

draft pick out of Florida. You could have argued that he was the top guy in the 2023 draft amid Paul Skeens and Dylan Cruz and that group. Very, very fast runner, but terrible defensive instincts in the outfield. Fast enough that he theoretically should be able to play center field, but just has zero, zero feel for the outfield crush pro ball, uh, all the way up through triple a after the draft, you know, 20% walk rate, uh, more walks and strikeouts slugged, you know, six 50 in a month at double at high a, and then, you A and then crushed double and triple A for the better part of two weeks. He turns on premium velocity in a way that the rest of the guys way up here on the list do not. His ability to clean out mid-90s fastballs up around his hands is way different than Churio, Caminero, Wood, Lawler, Cruz. These guys, their swings are a little bit longer.

You can work them with big velocity and around their hands. Langford, no way. Good luck. He's dangerous all over the place. He is just below the rest of this group, mostly on the defensive spectrum. Some of these guys pretty profoundly. Jackson Churio, the Brewers prospect who signed a big extension this offseason, he's a plus center field defender right now.

His floor is higher than Langford because that defensive component is there. I think you can make an argument for Churio over Langford for that reason. But in terms of the guys who are ready to mash in a big way right now, Langford is arguably the top of the list ahead of Jackson Holiday. So there's that. Other guys, I mean, you start working through the 55 future value portion of the list. I think Keith Law at the Athletic is high on River Ryan, close to this area, maybe not quite as high as I have River Ryan. He was a two-way college guy, UNC Greensboro, really shrewd draft pick by the Padres, surprise, surprise.

The industry really did not have a great sense of what he was because of the pandemic. He was like a backfield find who ranked towards the bottom of the Padres list for me during like, I think, you know, fall of 2020, maybe like spring of 2021. It was like, Hey, look at this conversion arm basically, who is really athletic and has some of the fastball traits that I really care about. The Padres traded him to the Dodgers for Matt Beattie, who's nice, you know, 40 role player. And, you know, Ryan has really exploded. I don't care that he's 25 really still young in terms of the mileage on his arm and young developmentally he's a great athlete

mid to upper 90s plus quantifiable movement on all his secondary stuff really think the ceiling on his command is bigger than what we've seen just because again athlete new to pitching give me that stuff i love it um Love the scratching the surface guys. So he's stuffed pretty good. And then I stayed on some guys who were hurt or whatever it was or had a weird down year. Curtis Meade had a left wrist injury. I think it was a fracture, if I'm remembering correctly.

Chase DeLauder was hurt for a good portion of 2023. Looked really, really good in the fall league weird swinged guardians outfielder, you know meads wrist fractures his eggs velos were down pretty typical of guys who have Wrist issues during the season to like lose power that applies to adele amador the rockies prospect Who is some of the best bat to ball skills in the entire minors? diego cartaya dodgers catcher.

Harry Ford, Mariners catcher. Both those guys had pretty surprising seasons in some ways. Cartaya's season was really, really terrible in his first year on the Dodgers 40-man. Harry Ford's underlying power was way, way down below what you would expect. But he caught like 140 games. Yeah. Like all year between, between WBC and then 80 regular season games. And then he went to like European championships for great, caught for great Britain.

Some more, they came to folly, like 20 year old catcher playing that much traveling over the world. Like that guy was probably gassed. You know, as I'm looking down the list, some of the other guys who I think are probably higher here than in other spots are just guys who play really really fantastic defense i feel like access to synergy sports and being able to watch like dozens

of plays that guys are making on the defensive end has made like me much much better at accurately grading defense and that that reflects in the rankings so you've got like victor scott from the cardinals i'm still on miguel blaise from the red sox another guy whose injury was beset by injuries he's chase prone prone, monster bat speed guy. I think there's, you know, the floor is high because he can play center field for me. Didn't play center field a ton before he got hurt in the minors this year because Roman Anthony, who another Red Sox prospect, who's very high on this list, also played center field at that level for a little while. And Blase played a bunch in the corner, but you put on the tape of him in center and it's good. bunch in the corner but you put on the tape of him in center and it's good uh so still on him and those uh dsl short stops at the at the towards the back of the list jeremy rodriguez

and starlin kaba definitely higher on those two guys kaba's ridiculous like kaba is like jose iglesias level defense some of the highlights of him like just messing around are they seem like a trick like a magic trick like uh is this an illusion this guy's like what's you know he's like playing hacky sack with the baseball and like people are hitting fungos to him and he's like it's crazy but you know he and jeremy rodriguez from the mets who came to the mets from arizona and the tommy fan trade are just like really well rounded i buy their good shortstop defenders that's a really big deal to me. Kaba had like near elite contact rates. Again, the data isn't great, but you watch him hit and the visual report backs it up enough that maybe he's not like an eight bat or anything like

that, but it's a lot of contact for an elite defensive shortstop. And Jeremy Rodriguez is like slightly diluted, maybe a little bit more well-rounded doubles power, you know, version of this. Those are the names that stick out to me most of all. They're probably due to, you know, like where I've got Leo Dallas DeVries valued as like, you know, the Padres fresh $5 million international guy that might look silly a year from now, like to have him close to 50th overall. But I just think like on on talent he's the type of 17 year old who goes the first couple picks of the draft and i just want to have you know that guy valued in this range where like brooks lee who just went in the first couple picks of the draft and has performed is in this range uh jet williams who

was like a top 10 pick and so far has performed, is in this range. Max Clark, who was a really high pick in 2023, is in this range. So it feels okay to have him valued there, even though I've never personally laid eyes on that guy and just have had international scouts. We're gushing over him when we were doing the international list in January. So there are probably some other dudes. Royber Salinas from Oakland. I think we're the only one who has Royber and maybe Kyle Hurt from the Dodgers on our top 100.

Wouldn't surprise me if those two guys were only on our list and nobody else's, but I'm not totally sure if that's true. Kyle Hurt's got an elite changeup. He's a heavier bodied dude. It's not a traditional starter look. He came over from the Marlins along with Alex Vessia for Dylan Floro. Whoops.

It's mid nineties, plays down a little bit, but he landed his curve ball for strikes. Elite changeup. It's enough pitchability that he could start for me. Not a great looking build, but like that's why he's at the back and not in the middle or top. Roy Bersolina, same thing.

Husky dude, probably goes about 240, 250. Super smooth, really loose and fluid. Fastball ride gives him enough margin for error in the zone that he doesn't have to have great command, which he doesn't. Can also land his breaking ball for strikes. High speed video from the fall was like four seam, one seam sinker, two seam. All kinds of fastball manipulation happening, really like what's going on there and think that – it wouldn't surprise me if he were – in the middle of the year, we're like, hey, Roy Bersolidis from the A's, like Sean Murphy trade. Like, okay. Not – they didn't nail it or anything like that, but like this guy is good.

that, but like this guy's good. So those are some of the names I think we're a little bit higher on, which is I think more likely to occur when it is largely a singular voice that is doing the analysis here. I think you're more likely to break from consensus when that is the case. So you have four Jacksons in the top 30 and you have four Orioles in the top 30, in the top 25. In fact, one of whom, Samuel Busayo, is hurt now. Taking the Josh Young, you know, memorial, who is an Oriole, the number one overall prospect, Jackson Holiday, who is the only prospect that you have put a 70 future value on. What was it that differentiated him from all other prospects? And how do you expect this Orioles infield situation to shake out? I guess it's a little less crowded than it was. There's no more Joey Ortiz in the mix, but still some uncertainty about when everyone's going to arrive and where everyone's going to

play. You know, the thing that gave me conviction to 70 Jackson was JP Crawford's 2023 season. when you look at Crawford's 2023, this is pretty reasonable for like a middle of the road, Jackson holiday season, like on balance. What I think he will do for the lion's share of like these six years is what JP did in 2023, which is pretty neutral shortstop defense. Not great.

Like JP's gotten bigger and heavier and you can see he's stronger. There's been more power. Pretty neutral shortstop defense. A lot of walks. Premium OBP for a shortstop. And then like 20 homers with a ton of doubles. And that was a five win player in 2023. And so when I'm calling a guy 70, that is what I'm saying on average, we should expect him to produce for his pre-free agency

years. So JP's line from last year is right there with what I would expect from Jackson. It was a five-win guy. That's a 70. So that really helped me push Jackson, like, up above Churrio and Langford, the other 65s. And as far as the Orioles' infield situation is concerned, I am lower on some of their guys, right? Like, I was not as big a Jordan Westberg guy. I have him, like, a full tier below the 100, like, probably closer to, like, 175 overall last year. I don't think Jorge Mateo, it like probably closer to like 175 overall last year. I don't think Jorge Mateo, it was nice that he had that one peak year, but like realistically, he's a 40. He's a pinch running, perfectly acceptable shortstop defender. He's versatile.

It's good to have this guy in your roster, but you're not, you know, you're not like, what are we going to do? We have Jorge Mateo. Like, I don't think so. Ramon Urias, what happens with him? I don't know. I think what are we going to do? We have Jorge Mateo. Like, I don't think so. Ramon Urias, what happens with him? I don't know. I think really what's going to happen is, you know, something has to give with the Austin Hayes, Ryan Mountcastle, Anthony Santander group. Maybe Ryan O'Hearn too, although, like, I'm not sure. He's not as redundant as the other guys, but, like, I think you could argue he is.

not sure he's he's not as redundant as the other guys but like I think you could argue he is but yeah I think like Jackson still needs to play a better shortstop before I'm like Gunnar Henderson move aside you know what I mean like Gunnar Henderson is a is a much better defensive shortstop right now than Jackson Holiday is or at least they were you know at the end of the year but I think like it's not so crowded that, you know, all these guys won't play. I think it'll shake itself out. They're arguably more crowded in the outfield where I think, you know, that group I just mentioned is blocking Heston Kerstad, who I think, you know, is going to be about as good as Santander has been at peak,

better than Mountcastle has been at peak, although there are some chase issues there that has kept Mountcastle's OBP and overall production down. But that is where I think the logjam really is, is among their outfielders. I don't really like Colton Couser as much as everybody else. I'm sure that there are people in baseball who like him more than I do and would be chomping at the bit to acquire that guy in trade.

I think that he's also a trade candidate. Certainly would be for me now that Kyle Bradish's elbow is barking at him. Go get somebody else. But yeah, they have the volume to make a deal, I think, and help the rotation. And now they seemingly need to do that more than they did. I thought they did 24 hours ago. So I bet, I bet you that that's how things end up settling. This is not super unusual for a top 100, but you don't get to a pitcher on this list until Paul Skeen's at 10 and he is right ahead of Andrew Painter, who, you know, is incredibly

talented. And we have, you know, as of 60, number 11 overall, but is, you know, perhaps in some ways a further example of why you don't rank pitching prospects super high, because he's not going to pitch presumably until 2025 from Dombrowski. So I wonder if you can talk about those two guys kind of in conversation with one another, but just like what you expect from each of them from a timeline and performance perspective. 101, 102, huge plus plus slider, Leviathan, physical entity. There's, you know, some suboptimal fastball shape stuff happening here. Skeens has a low arm angle to try to shallow out his fastballs approach angle and kind of give it some of that top of the zone playability that tailing fastballs like his tend not to have. His fastball is just so hard that it's really nasty

anyway. I think the NL Central's wide open and that the Pirates have incentive to move some of their guys more quickly than they have to this point. I think Skeen's chief among them. Is he going to break camp with the team opening day? I don't know about that, but he certainly has the innings counting through like 130 innings last year. He is ready for the big leagues in basically every way. I'd like to see a third pitch develop here, but he can survive for a while, you know, subsisting just on fastball slider and be fine. Maybe not totally actualized like top of the rotation guy, like he hopefully will be

because he's got to find a third pitch before that's the case. In Painter's case, like all that stuff was there before he got hurt, you know, the end of 2022. It was better than Skeens and like wasn't even close. It was a Verlander look. It really was. It was that bodylander look. It really was. It was that body, top of the zone, you know, power pitchers, fastball playability

in a way that is superior to what Skeens can do. Even though Painter has that super steep approach angle. When I first, I saw Verlander for the first time in person this past year here in Arizona. It's just so hard to tell. His fastball is just coming down like a truck stop ramp, you know, like on the side of the highways with those truck ramps,

like those emergency pull-off guys are so steep on the side in case like their brakes go out on them or whatever. Like Verlander's fastball has like such steep plane and the way his breaking balls interact with it and each other, such that, is this a fastball above the zone, or is it a slider that's going to dip down into the top of the zone? Or is it a curveball that's going to break down below the zone? They all look so similar coming out of his hand, and the same is true of Painter,

hand. And the same is true of Painter, where it's like that build, that arm slot, that type of difficult to parse tunneling situation, so to speak, you know, his ability to land his breaking stuff and like mixing a change up was much, much better at the end of 2022 when he reached double A than when it was when I saw him early that year in April in Clearwater before he climbed, you know, three levels. And he was just ripping fastballs past everyone. Like he had no reason to do anything else other than like throw fastballs and sliders. But he was a very complete pitching prospect by the end of the year. And so I think Painter's ceiling is bigger than Skeen's. If he were totally healthy right now, he would be ahead of Skeen's, probably in the James Wood area ranked. I would have thought about having him in that tier two with Churrio and Wyatt Langford. But like if Andrew Painter's not hurt last year,

he's not even on this list. Like he's just in the Phillies rotation for most of last year. He's graduated. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, but yeah,

like pitching, you just go back and look at the historical prospect lists. Either we all suck at it at like projecting pitching or pitching is just so prone to injury and physical degradation that has a meaningful impact on guys ability and then conversely you have guys pitching is as quickly and readily developable as any other position in baseball like it's not even close i don't think and so not only do you have attrition from the top down, but you have development from the bottom up. And so I think lining up pitchers

is really hard. It's just, there's subject to degradation and improvement at the same time in ways that make it hard to predict how they're all actually going to perform. And so I tend to lean on the stuff that is you know, is there are analytic aspects to it, no doubt, but the stuff that plays, like you look at the war leaderboard and it's big strapping dudes who have the prototype body and delivery. Their delivery is almost always beautiful and fluid and really athletic. It is Zach Wheeler. He's beautiful and fluid and really athletic. It is Zach Wheeler. It is Spencer Strider.

It is Garrett Cole. It's, you know, Sandy Alcantara. It's Dylan Cease, you know. So Mitch Keller figures it out. You know what I mean? Like, do you have the body? Do you have the delivery? Do you have feel for spin?

All that stuff over time tends to be what allows these guys to bubble to the surface and be Logan Gilbert and George Kirby and be Charlie Morton, even if it takes until his thirties to do it, that stuff tends to govern the way we're lining up the pitchers, especially when it comes to like, Mick Abel didn't have a great year. Well, he's 6'5 and has elite arm speed. His delivery looks like Garrett Cole's. I don't care. Like over time, that guy is just going to be an absolute monster, I think. And so I'm not going to overreact to him, like walking a bunch of guys. That was true of Sandy Alcantara. You know what I mean? Like it's been true of a lot of guys. It was true of Corbin Burns. It was true of Dylan Cease. Like stay on the guys

where the look is right when it comes to pitching. On last year's list, you had a Yankees center fielder at 50, Jason Dominguez, who we got to see briefly before he got hurt. You have him at 53 now. On this year's list, you have a Yankees center fielder at 15, Spencer Jones, who there has been some reporting the Yankees refused to include in trade offers for Corbin Burns or Dylan Cease. Obviously, they like him a lot. Obviously, they like him a lot. Obviously, you like him a lot.

Yankees sure could use a true center fielder. What do they have in Spencer Jones? When you think about how he might be scratching the surface, this is another one of like, give me this category of player, please. Spencer Jones was a two-way high school player in Southern California who was a really good prospect, like a late first round prospect as both a pitcher and hitter. Injuries in high school funneled him toward Vanderbilt. It took a while for him to even get on the field there rehabbing and other guys, it's a quality program. So other guys

are sort of playing ahead of him and eventually eventually like they just let him hit every day. And he still hasn't really been doing that for very long. He is in like that freak athlete category at like six foot five, can really run once his legs gets going. Big, big power. You can see it visually. You can see it measurably.

It's like plus big league power right now. I do have him a grade ahead of Jason Dominguez, who is like lower down the list because Jones is a tip of the iceberg type of guy who just hasn't been only hitting for very long. very long. He's the type of athlete, has the type of body where I want to project long-term growth, both in terms of how much room he has on his body for more muscle and him growing into like feel for his body, which is like six foot six. Him being able to shorten up over time to more consistently get to his power in the way Shohei Otani did. After a couple years of dealing with major league velocity, figuring out how to use his body and shorten up what he's doing with his hands so that he can be more dangerous. Those are things that are in play for Spencer Jones, who also has a chance to develop in center field for some of the same reasons. He just hasn't

been doing it all that long. It's rare for guys this big to stay there. But I think for at least for a while, the early portion of his career, or maybe in the same way Aaron Judge kind of moonlights there, Spencer Jones could too. So I have him and Roman Anthony of the Red Sox. They're both similar in a sense that I want to project on aspects of their game. In Anthony's case, it's his feel for lift. He's still like a downward sloping swing guy who makes a lot of contact. He's a low launch guy, is expected slugging on the 2023 season, is way below his observed marks.

Still think there's a swing tweak there that can occur to make his power really pop. I'm projecting, I'm projecting. Chance to do everything, play up the middle, hit for power, hit for contact, all the stuff. And the same is true of Spencer Jones, except it's like, could this be seven power on a center fielder?

Yeah, like it could. I like, you know, Spencer more than Jason Dominguez, even though it breaks with some of my typical syllogistic reasoning because, like, Dominguez has gotten to the big leagues. He's two years younger than Spencer Jones. And, like, wouldn't you prefer that guy over the 22-year-old at AA?

And I think you could for sure make that argument. I think that some of the other publications probably have. I think Kylie likes Jason Dominguez more than I do at this point. Dominguez is not a very good defensive center fielder, even though he's been playing it his whole life. I like Dominguez's chances to get to power because he is a short levered guy. He's just going to be, he's so strong and rotationally explosive. And I think he's going to get to power. But I think the ceiling on his hit tool is pretty low. He's just grooved through the middle of the zone mostly.

I still think he's going to run into a lot of power. Like a switch hitter with this much pop is so rare. But he still needs to develop in center field as well. And just like the reasons to project on Spencer Jones that I mentioned, like they don't exist with Dominguez. Like he's physically maxed out. If he develops physically at all, it's going to be in a way that makes him heavier and less likely to stay in center field.

Jones has room on his body for more mass before he slows down. And just like the tip of the iceberg traits with Jones, I just care more about than the stuff that I like about Dominguez. And then the injury to Dominguez is going to put him on a delay for a return this year. I think the Yankees have had enough turnover in their outfield mix that he might get squeezed out of playing time for the entire season. Like if Austin Wells can't catch and they just move him to left field or whatever, I like his bat, the stability of it a little bit more than I like Dominguez is, which is why Wells is like ahead of Dominguez on our Yankees list. You know, Verdugo's there, Stanton and Judge and Soto were there. Like is Dominguez even

going to play when he comes back? I don't know. So it wouldn't surprise me if 12 months from now, this were an obvious way to line these guys up. I'm curious if, as you were putting this together, if there were any broader systems that seem to have moved appreciably in one direction or the other. We'll obviously do a full farm system ranking when we're done with our org list, but were there any teams that you used to said, hey, like these guys are a lot better or a lot worse than they were a year ago? You know, at the end of the year, we had the Cubs, really the Cubs, Red Sox and Nationals were in tier one of the farm rankings at the end of last year. And I think that's probably still true, that the Cubs and Red Sox especially have very, very good farm systems that put them at or near the front of the class.

The Dodgers always have guys. There were other Dodgers who were in the mix for this list who didn't make it. They have a kid in the DSL named Eduardo Quintero, who I really love, and just doesn't look the part physically yet. really love and just doesn't look the part physically yet, but like bat control, Maven converted catcher who looks good in center field, you know, really amazing contact skills for such a young player. He was in the mix.

Andy Pahe's power hitting corner outfielder. Who's on their 40 man got hurt last year. Super consistent lift, like going to be below average hit tool, but getting to all his power, he's been on the hundred before and was in consideration for this year as well. Like the Dodgers always seem to have a bunch of guys.

I think if you talk to people with other publications, they would tell you like Nick Frasso belongs on here. They might still like Gavin Stone enough to put him on here. The Dodgers are always developing players. I'm a little bit lower on Baltimore than others just because I don't really like Colton Couser as much. I think he's more of like a fourth outfielder. I don't think he can play center field.

It's a below average hit tool for me. There are a few other Orioles who I like and were in the mix for this list. Chase McDermott is just outside our top 100, more of a leavery, but still a really good player. And so that's an org that's probably a little bit lower. I think Colorado is the other one where I know that everyone just closed their podcast window listening to this

when someone was just like, Colorado Rockies? We're not going to give any kind of content like a page view if we're talking about the Colorado Rockies, but the Rockies farm system is good uh their international scouting department is very good i think um even though i think they have like 500k left for this signing period so they should spend that like give uh mr monfort like give those guys that money to spend like they're crushing it down there for you so there were a couple other rockies DSL kids who were in the mix for this list. Robert Calaz, power hitting guy in the DSL.

Kelvin Hidalgo, super muscular, like shortstop who hit for power down there, repeating the level. Derek Bernard really flashed for me on tape. The Rockies DSL group was good. Jordy Vargas, a young pitching prospect in their system probably would have made it had he not needed TJ. He was like a pick to click for me last year who ended up blowing out, but probably would have made this list if not for

him having Tommy John. We consider Drew Romo for the list, you know, just because the inventory at catchers is a catcher with a 90% zone contact rate. His defense is still... It's not quite good enough for me to overlook the fact that he's got three power and plate discipline. Just like, hey, it's one tool on offense for a good defensive catcher. You could argue that guy's going to be a 50, but the defense wasn't quite there. I really think that... I don't know that Colorado's like... be a 50, but the defense wasn't quite there. I really think that, I don't know that Colorado's like, they've got other issues, right? But issues that make it

hard for them to tussle with the rest of the teams in their division. That's a tough division. But I think that their farm system is pretty good. Well, I guess maybe we can use that as a follow-up. You mentioned a couple of guys who had been 50s and made top 100s in the past, and I don't hundred for you and, and why I know that, you know, when we were talking about some of these names, like Kyle Manzardo came up, Marco Luciano. So who are some of the dudes who are still going to be ranked prospects on

their org list, but aren't top 100 guys for you? Yeah. I really liked Juan Brito of Cleveland. He came to Cleveland from Colorado in exchange for Nolan Jones. I really like the way Cleveland and I tend to be on the same types of players, especially in the amateur markets. We like these contact-oriented middle infield dudes.

And I thought that they made a pretty slick trade when they swapped Juan Brito for Nolan Jones. And then Nolan Jones gave the Rockies exactly what the Guardians needed last year from any of their outfielders. Juan Brito was a pick-to-click last year, switch-hitting middle infielder, contact-oriented. On tape, the defense is just not where it needs to be. He cannot play the infield right now, and so he fell out.

Kyle Manzardo, another Cleveland guy. Manzardo. I don't know why I like to say it that way. I like him from Baltimore. I like Carl manzardo another cleveland guy manzardo um i don't know why i like to say it that way like i'm from balmer um no i like carl manzardo uh but you know came over from tampa in the aaron savali trade honestly doing the how's my driving piece for the site where i looked back to the 2017 top 100 to see how those guys did seeing how the first baseman without monster power basically didn't produce consistently enough to like feel good about ranking high made me move off of Manzardo. It's just not enough power for that position to really be what I want him to be as like a 50.

And it's not like John Ulrud level contact. So I just don't think it's enough to make up for lackluster power at first base. So he slid out, you know, Jack lighter. I had a, a light touch with last year and then he didn't rebound in the way I hope. So he fell out Gordon Graceffo who had a velo spike in, you know, kid from Villanova went to the Cardinal system. Good job, Mort. Had a VLO spike coming out and then struggled with walks and injuries and looked like quick moving number four starter there for a minute and then has had some speed bumps now. Fastball playability is not great, so he's got to throw hard for that pitch to play. And just from the injuries, I'm just not sure that's going to happen. Some approach-driven risk dudes include Yankeel Fernandez from the Rockies.

He's 21. His minor league numbers are absurd. He looks the part in the uniform in a profound way. He has ridiculous power. But it's 30-grade plate discipline on a corner guy. And for the same reason I omitted Oscar Colas from last year's list, I've omitted Fernandez from this year's list. He's just in that Colas, you know, Jesus Sanchez mold where it's like, Holy cow, look at this guy swing.

My mouth is watering. And then over time it's just like, Oh, he's really swinging a lot though, isn't he? And that's Jan Kiel. James Triantos from the Cubs, who we've had 100 graded in the past, his fall league look with the bat was great. Like, I think this dude is going to sting the baseball man. But again, three plate discipline. He's got that Josh Vitters disease where, sorry, Cubs fans, I know it's like close to home, baby,

but where you can hit everything until you try to and then your OBP tanks. And when you're like Triantos and they've tried you at third and second base, they've tried it, they've tried it, they've tried it, and you just haven't really gotten any better, you're probably going to be a left fielder. I can't deal with you having three plate discipline as much as I could

when you maybe could play second base. So James Triantos fell out. Other dudes who like were considered but didn't make it, you know, Ben Brown from the Cubs has been on there in the past. We just felt like the gap between his likelihood of starting and some of those other relief risk guys like Hurston Waldrip and Roy Burr, Kyle Hurt. Like there was a little enough of a gap there that, you know, Ben Brown's just outside the top 100. Now he's still really, really good. Like it's, it doesn't even really matter. You can put him on the back there and it would be okay. Some of my Cuban guys who I liked last year fell out. Yidi Cape. He's a Marlins Cuban infielder who got off to a delayed start. 21-year-old infielder where by the end of the year,

it was like, this guy's clearly going to play second base and not shortstop. Really sleek 6-3 projectable frame, but just over-projected him last year. Got a little too... The Marlins system is really terrible, and so trying to find anyone in that system that I liked last list cycle was like pretty difficult. And so I like over-projected this guy,

Dion Jorge, another Rockies guy, Cuban, a middle infielder has that, you know, Ferrari build. He's definitely in better shape, you know, as a prospect than Kape, but 20 going on 21 was great on the complex last year. Swing path kind of got exposed once he got promoted to low a, is he a shortstop? Is he a center fielder? Uh, enough of that stuff is still like a question mark that I didn't include him. Dodgers prospect host way to Paula was probably a pick to click for us last year. If my memory serves, uh, this is the guy who the Dodgers told me were like, yeah, he has a kinematically perfect swing. And it is really sexy when he's taking his best swings.

He's going to have gigantic lefty power. But the field to hit for like a corner only guy is not where I want it to be to like put this guy on the top 100 right now I'd rather wait until like Owen Casey he's like hit for huge power through the mid minors you know into the upper minors and like onto a 40 man before I 50 a guy who's like swing and miss is still where DePaula's is I know that he only struck out 17% of the time or maybe it was 18 like something like that only struck out 17% of the time, or maybe it was 18, like something like that. Um, at low a, which is really great for a guy who was like barely 18 on opening day. It's still just the underlying swing and miss stuff was not as good as the, the strikeout

rate would indicate. So like a little bit tentative there. And I think that's like the, Oh, I guess you mentioned Luciano may. Yeah. Marco Luciano with the giants, uh, really terrible look defensively in in the Dominican winter league I just do not think he can play shortstop and then you know it's seven power for sure it is but there's just no big league precedent for a guy swinging and missing this much no matter how much power I mean like Joey Gallo there you go like you know if you think he's gonna have Joey Gallo's power god go. Like, you know, if you think he's going to have Joey Gallo's power,

God bless you, you can put him on your top 100. But like, I think this guy's going to move to right field. The Giants are buck wild, man, with like someone with, they're just like, yeah, let's go. Casey Schmidt, go play shortstop. He can do it. Let's tell everybody he can do it. We love this guy.

And then everyone overreacts and it's like, no, like he has three plate discipline. It's going to be a problem. Like these things tend to be a real problem. And so like, if the giants run Margo, Luciano out there at shortstop to start the year, it's just like,

yeah, go get them. Like, I don't know, buddy. Uh, I think it's been pretty obvious for a while that he can't do it. And I'm apprehensive enough about the hit tool to have moved him out at this

point. But, uh, there were a bunch of guys, you know, who got cut, who I gave, it and I'm apprehensive enough about the hit tool to have moved him out at this point but there are a bunch of guys you know who got cut who I gave thorough enough consideration to that their report has already been written I mean I'm looking at a list of cuts right now that is like 50 60 guys deep yeah just because you know you want to put these these names in front of scouts and executives who you're on the phone with rather than ask them an open-ended question like, search the infinite void for the names that aren't on my rough list. So just to have them scroll through another couple hundred names and go, oh yeah, like Nizam Zanatello, we loved him. You know what I mean? Like in the draft, we loved, you know, and just like hear that kind of stuff was useful.

But yeah, I had a harder time finding guys who I felt good about this year than I did cutting them. If anyone was wondering, I think the Angels, Royals, and Astros are the only teams without a top one-on-one guy this year. I think that's right. Yeah. I mean, like, I gave Troy Melton, outfielder from Oregon State,

who the Astros drafted, got a lot of consideration. Just don't think his feel for center field is good enough to play there and, like, make up for some of the hit tool stuff that is underlying. Power hitting, you know, corner outfield guy, sure. Not quite a top 100 guy for me. The Angels, I guess Nolan Shanwell was the one guy who we really considered. But again, first base, unless that kid got in the weight room and like comes into camp looking like a different kind of athlete, just don't think there's going to be power

there that profiles in like a, you know, top 15 first baseman kind of athlete. Just don't think there's going to be power there that profiles in like a, you know, top 15 first baseman kind of way. And then the Royals. Yeah, man. Like we looked at Blake Mitchell, their first round pick high school catcher. I really love Blake Mitchell and I've loved him since he was a high school sophomore. Like, I just think he's a bad-ass he's, you know, high school two way guy was like into the mid nineties on the mound. It's huge left-handed power for a catcher, but he's so bad defensively. Like he just needs so much love developmentally as a catcher. And the rate of attrition for teenage catchers like this is not great. It felt good to wait for Harry Ford to like fix this stuff before we moved in on him in the middle of last year. And that's just sort of the situation

that we're in with, with Blake Mitchell now from the Royals where it's like monster lefty power. I really, really love it. If you can't catch it's a problem. Like there's enough swing and miss it's long through the zones, like a, you know, low ball swing where there's a hole against fast balls up in a way. Okay. If you're a catcher, whatever, I don't care. Like you have huge power and can catch great, like get in there. But you know, if you can't catcher whatever i don't care like you have huge power and can catch great like get in there but um you know if you can't catch and now we're talking about like a four bat first baseman or like right fielder and he's in rookie ball like far far away so yeah those teams it's a it's kind of a rough look i'm sure at some point like during the year, especially Houston, who had other interesting guys, you know, someone will leap onto here. It wouldn't surprise me if even during like spring training,

it became clear that like someone from one of those orgs belongs on here. So final closing question here, and probably somewhere in one or more of your previous 29 appearances on the podcast, we've gotten into this a bit, but I know you're always reviewing your process and evaluating yourself. You mentioned your How's My Driving piece where you look back at your first 100 from 2017. I was wondering if you have any new insights into how you were wrong and how you have become better at this, maybe since the last time we asked you about this. I also was curious, I know you obviously look at all the advanced stats and indicators that you can get your hands on, but I wonder whether you look at the Zips top 100 as

you're formulating your list or whether you try to keep some separation between church and state or something so that the two lists will be more useful to look at in isolation. Obviously, the prospect-based lists will take into account some sort of scouting-based information, and you are obviously taking into account stats in your scouting evaluation. In the past, we've sometimes had a stat person projecting prospects and a scouty person projecting prospects on the same episode. And they go back and forth and they talk about the differences between the eye test and the system, which is always fun for me. So I wonder whether you have consulted that, whether that is part of your self-evaluation. Yeah, so Dan did send me the rough Zips Top 100 a couple days ago. And I do use it as just like a sanity check.

And it's a great way of pulling names that weren't under consideration into consideration. Some of the guys who are prominently on there, I understand why the model loves them. And I can also feel quick to move on because I feel like they fit into a lesser role than like deserves to be on the hundred. Uh, so for instance, you know, Jorge Barosa was in like smack in the middle of Dan's initial run, right behind Curtis Meade and Tank Hentz, right in front of Noel V. Marte. And I like Jorge Barroza a lot. He can really play center field.

And he's also literally like a 5'4", you know, light hitting. four, you know, light hitting. Like it's just no chance that this guy is an impact player. Very likely that he is a like fourth or fifth outfielder. He is not as projectable, like physically bodily as most 21, 22 year olds. And I don't think Zips knows that. physically bodily as most 21, 22-year-olds, and I don't think Zips knows that. I don't think Zips knows.

Maybe Danny puts in that he's listed at 5'5", maybe, and that that alters what Zips thinks of him. I'd actually really be curious to know if that's part of what's going on there. But yeah, there are a bunch of guys like that. Another Diamondback, Yu Min Lin. Left you with a good changeup, pitchability guy, like he sits 91. And I worry his fastball is going to get, you know, sh** on by big league hitters. Like it's like a low arm slot lefty who sits 92. And so I have like more of a backend grade on that guy, even though Zips thinks because of his his rate stats from the last couple of years that he's more like a mid-rotation starter.

That guy has ways of tricking minor league hitters that I just don't think is quite sustainable at the big league level and so I know that off the top and can quickly move on. Improving is hard because you have to like swallow your pride. You are trying to balance reflection and what you think is, especially with my approach, the evaluation of a guy with the valuation of that profile. And the valuation incorporates the risk of that profile into what you're doing and the time that it's going to take for a player to mature into a big leaguer into

what you're doing. If two players are exactly the same and one's at double A and one's at low A, well, you want the double A guy. So factoring in some of that stuff into the valuation could sometimes make me feel like I'm hedging away from conviction I have in the evaluation. And so like balancing those two things is important to me and a constant, constant challenge of like fighting. You're like, yeah, I see the, like the player. So stuff them, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not super into doing that. I feel like writing thousands of scouting reports for public consumption is already like an alpha enough thing to do. It's like here, you know, I like prostrating myself before you, like, this isn't just like a list of names, like on Twitter or whatever, but you have to

swallow your pride and be like, ah, I was influenced by this. Like, oh, we have 101 guys on this list instead of 97 because like, I didn't want to hear about it. You know what I mean? Like, doesn't anyone have any missiles left? You know what I mean? Like, it's just some of that stuff. You just, I feel better having removed myself from the social media apparatus that I can do stuff and have thoughts that are like truly my own. And I think maybe that line of thinking is great for creative pursuits or stuff like this, where you don't want to be an echo chamber with the model, especially when you're already considering stuff that you know would influence a model in your thinking. You don't want to be double counting that stuff.

like be double counting that stuff. And, you know, it is maybe not the best idea for stuff like understanding medical science to do your own research and have your own opinion. But for prospects, when it's me and I feel like, you know, I have my doctorate and at this point, I'd hope I can do that. And people who aren't, you know, miserable will give me the benefit of the doubt. Now, like, I haven't looked at a comment on any of my pieces in literally years. And so I don't know if they are or not. But it's more important for, like, my peers, people whose, you know, thoughts on baseball I respect, whether it's other writers, not even just prospect writers. Although, like, you know, especially prospect writers and people in baseball scouts and executives. Like if I get a text from them that says, Hey, good job. Then that is like part of what fuels me. And I got a lot of texts from

folks after the, how's my driving piece went up that were like, Hey, good job. Thank you for doing that. That is not really a thing. Like accountability is not an internet thing. Not self-accountability anyway. And probably not in like the prospect space as much as it should be. I mean, what are we going to do? Like evaluate everybody and then be like, all right, hey, you're the worst squid game, you know, style send off. Here we go. You've been replaced with, you know, one of you're the worst squid game style send-off. Here we go. You've been replaced with one of the scouts who got fired by the teams during the pandemic. But I'm trying to do a better job. I think that a lot of the – some of this stuff is just wrangling me.

Some of this stuff is just like, hey, get done. Like, just enough already. Like, just write half completed scout sentences like Dane Brugler does for his NFL draft coverage. His NFL draft coverage is second to none. And these are just sentence fragments of like scout terminology. Just do that.

But like, we don't do that. So some of it is like on the content side rather than on the scouting side. And honestly, like I should go to the Dominican Republic. You know what I mean? Like if there's anywhere someone my age range is going to be able to buy a house, maybe it's the Dominican. Maybe I should just live there and see, you know, the DSL and Dominican instructs and make that the next way I try to get ahead of everybody else. Now that like everyone is using the data that only Kylie and I seem to be using for a couple of years.

And folks are starting to get on the Synergy bandwagon. So my ability to evaluate defense better than everybody is only through effort and time if I'll be able to sustain that at all. If, if, you know, I'll be able to sustain that at all. And so, yeah, those are some of the, you know, but really the, the North star is for me is still like the David Lynch, make sure you have final cut, do what, stay true to yourself and like take joy in doing the thing rather than try to be chasing some sort of like accolade or clout or it's certainly for me like attention like I hate I hate it I was that kid who did not like people watching me open my you know birthday gifts like can I do this after everyone goes home can we just play the new Madden

please can someone just get next with me in Madden until the end of this party? And then I'll open your stuff and like send you a thank you. As long as I'm doing that stuff, totally independent of the baseball stuff, then like I'm probably doing okay. Well, I apologize for heaping so much attention upon you by asking you to come on this podcast 30 times. So many times. We've enjoyed them all. I hope you get some texts from people after this appearance to say, good job. Thanks for doing that. I will say, good job. Thanks for doing this. Always a pleasure. I will link to all the pieces that Eric is diligently churning out. He will not read your comments that you leave on them. However, I'm sure he appreciates your reading them.

I read the comments. Someone will read them. I read comments. I read your comments sometimes. I've read more of your comments than you have. So I'll let you know. Are we codependent in this way?

I don't know. Who's to say? Who could say? Thank you very much, Eric, for all the diligent work and the many podcast appearances. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on again.

We'll keep having you on even if you lose your competitive advantage in evaluating defense. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. Next time, we will be doing another preview pod. It'll be the Cardinals and the Guardians. I suppose we'll preview the end of Rob Manfred's tenure as commissioner, since he previewed that himself. 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 monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Jonathan, Kenneth, Silverhand, Andrew Simpson,

and Kevin Warwick, Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more. Patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, never fear. You can contact us via email at podcastatfancrafts.com.

Send us your questions and comments. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with the aforementioned next episode soon. Talk to you then. Anything is fair game, even Kike's dirty pants. And maybe if you're lucky, we'll cope all by chance.

You never know precisely where it's gonna go. By definition, effectively wild.