Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2235: Arizona Fall League Bits and Baldwins

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Meg Rowley and guest co-host Eric Longenhagen, FanGraphs’ lead prospect analyst, discuss some of the eliminated playoff teams, Meg’s grand unified theory of Grimace, and a few of the things they are looking forward to in the coming Dodgers-Yankees World Series. Then they discuss what Eric does and doesn’t look for in his Arizona Fall […]

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Hello and welcome to episode 2235 of Effectively Wild, a FanGraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raulia, FanGraphs, and I am joined today by Eric Langenhagen, also a FanGraphs, subbing for Ben while he is away in Los Angeles. Eric, how are you? Class, you can call me Mr. L. And today we're going to be watching The Patriot, and this will teach you about the Revolutionary War. So yeah, so I'm subbing. I'm good. What's up with you? How are you? Sarah Boudreau I'm well. I am enjoying this little bit of

a down period between the conclusion of the CS's and the start of the World Series. I feel like I can get my bearings, wrap my arms around the World Series. We're going to talk about that a little bit. We're going to talk about preseason predictions. We're going to spend some time talking about the Arizona Fall League, which is off and running here in the Valley. Why don't we start with your thoughts on the World Series on this Tuesday, October 22nd. What do you think of this matchup?

Yeah, it's great for baseball that there are so many marquee names to marquee franchises. I think anything would have been a good World Series from a baseball standpoint, no matter what the matchups would have been a good World Series from a baseball standpoint, no matter what the matchups would have been. I was skeptical that the Dodgers would be able to do this. I just thought that they were top heavy, that the depth of their starting pitching would be a problem, that the up the middle defense and the production they weren't getting from

those positions would be a problem. And Tommy Edmond played very well and stabilized things. I think Andy Pahes did too, more than I expected. Adding Kevin Keirmeyer, these weren't super close LCS games that a play that he could make in center field mattered versus one that Pahes could into or anything like that. But they clearly made moves to address that situation via Edmund and and Keir Meyer and you know poor Will Smith just seems I don't know hurt or run down or whatever but like it was better up the middle and the pitching thing didn't matter as much as I

thought it would and so here they are. Good for them. And then the Yankees, like I picked the ALCS right. At least like when we did our playoff predictions here at the beginning of the postseason. So there were like no surprises there. But yeah, the way the NL played out was pretty surprising to me. And at times very unpleasant. was pretty surprising to me. And at times very unpleasant. Is that the former Phillies fan peeking through at the disturbing, grimace led New York Mets? Yes, that's one too many Venom 6 commercials or whatever they are playing during sports in the house.

And so yeah, that's whatever version of that is still in me is it's still in there. Nicole We've had a running discussion on the pod about the bits that the Mets were doing. It felt like they had a lot of bits. And to me, it struck me as too many bits. Ben was of the opinion that too many bits was their bit and thus it worked. What is your take on the bitsiness of the New York Mets? The Mets have always been kind of bitsy. It's charming to some and there are people, I'm more of a stoic guy and that's the flavor of baseball that I have tended to prefer. Colin Coward had a bit of his own a long time ago about the Mets versus the Yankees and sort of the Yankees' regality and the carnival-like nature of the Mets as a franchise

in contrast to one another. And Colin's had some shanked field goals of opinions in his life. But that bit really made me laugh in real time as he did it. Yeah. And I, because it is one of those like roast jokes that hits too close to home type of bits that is sort of the Mets, the Mets way. But I think you can see the types of people who will gravitate toward one franchise or another in any city that has those like multiples. And so I think that like the people who like the Mets are the types of people who like the Mets. It's John Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld and people like that.

And then there's the Lorne Michaels type who are front and center at the Yankee game or whatever. So yeah, anytime the Phillies lose to the Mets, it sucks. In the playoffs, it's terrible. It was awful. I dissociated for a day and a half in a city that, you know, isn't my own. So I could like get out of my head and deal with it. And I did. And so now I can, you know, feel free to like, it would have been fine if the Mets were in there. It would have been super cool

to see a subway series. Yeah. Comedians in Cars with Grimace. The bit. Did you see, I don't know why I connected these dots, but Grimace, do you have a preflist of the McDonald's like cohort of characters? Oh gosh. Do you remember all their names? Well, I remember, I remember some of them. Isn't it just the Hamburglar is number one, probably? There are so many.

Oh my gosh, there's a wiki about this. There's like a bird girl. Yeah, Birdie. That's one of them. Birdie the early bird. I'm now looking at the- Okay, breakfast loving mascot, I guess. Yeah, I think she was part of the McMuffin cohort.

And then there were like the ones that only really appeared in like the play space. You know, like I remember the McDonald's play space at the Ballard McDonald's in Seattle, shouts to the Ballard McDonald's in Seattle. I don't know if that's still there. And it had like a statue of Mayor McCheese. Oh, Mayor McCheese, yeah, probably be high on my list. Yep. Nicole Bragalia Yeah, and Officer Big Mac. And I don't know if Officer Big Mac was trying to catch the Hamburglar. Like, were they pitched in a battle? I think that Grimace is,

like, as fast food mascots go, surely one of the better ones. Grimace and the Hamburglar, they're good mascots. At the end of the day, they are selling fast food, so your mileage may vary on that. My grand theory of Grimace as it pertains to the Mets is that you're right that there has always been this met this Metsy energy surrounding that franchise. I do wonder, and I'm going to like really offend Mets fans when I offer this as a potential explanation. I think that most baseball fans will acknowledge that the fanatic is the best of any of the mascots, right? Like the fanatic is the best

baseball mascot in my opinion. Clearly, you know, what am I going to say? No? Right. I mean, I know I'm speaking to a friendly audience when it comes to this particular theory, but like the fanatic is the best mascot. The fanatic embodies like a fun, chaotic, mischievous energy. It does not take itself too seriously. You know, it's got that tongue, it's moving its body around in a funny way. It is a tamer version of the more feral Philly fan manifestation that lives in Gritty, right? And so you need both in Philly. But I think that the fanatic is really like the peak of the form.

And while Mr. And Mrs. Mett are delightful in their own ways, particularly Mrs. Mett who seems to have been for focus grouped to be just the right amount of horny for an anthropomorphized baseball lady. But like she lives on a different branch of the mascot tree than the fanatic does. And I think that the Mets to their credit, maybe looked at Blooper, the Braves mascot,

which is as our listeners know, in my opinion, unabomination. It just looks like a college, the rug at a college kid's dorm or apartment. Yeah, it's not great. And so I think the Mets, to their credit, looked at the Braves' attempt to also mimic the fanatic spirit and said, well, we can't do that. It went disastrously for them.

It'll be too obvious. But like, how do we get this weird, funny energy? They outsourced it to Grimace. And look, I think that in that respect, they were successful because Grimace does have that vibe. There was the Grimace shake, which I didn't try, but I'm given to understand actually didn't taste very good. Why was it purple?

That makes me nervous. What flavor? I don't know. I imagine it was just vanilla with purple food coloring, right? But anyway, sound off in the comments, friends, if you know- Berry flavored. Berry. See, don't make me mention berry. Berry hyphen flavored.

No, that's not right. But milkshakes should be chocolate, they should be peanut butter, they should be vanilla, they shouldn't be fruit flavored. That's what a smoothie is for. Yeah, what point would you cross into smoothie? Right. You can't have, yeah, that's what a smoothie is for. You can't have it. Anyway, that's not the point. So they were like, he's got a weird shake and he's like a funny bulbous shape and he's got a fanatic vibe without trying to be a carbon copy of the fanatic and thus being a failure. So like, I think that the reasoning was sound and I get people liking Grimace and I get people enjoying Grimace's presence with the Mets.

If it had just been Grimace, I wouldn't have had any problem with this. But then they have like the Oh My God thing and then they have, you know, Pete and his little pumpkin. Where did the pumpkin go? I asked this last episode, the pumpkin disappeared. They stopped winning. Okay. Who's fault is it?

It's them abandoning the pumpkin. So all of that to say, I think that they were kind of trying to go to school on the Philly shot when it came to the incorporation of Grimace, but also they were in the CS and the Phillies were not. So, you know, I'm sorry to say that again, but also, you know, who won the Mets until they didn't. The Mets, it wasn't ripped from them in a way that was cleansing or satisfying to me, but yeah, they did lose.

So yeah, the Dodgers, yeah, I would say they don't have any sort of mascot. They have the hot dog, which isn't very good. No, yeah, it's really not good. Not good eating in that ballpark, but it is a nice ballpark that I like. It's aesthetically pleasing. When we were there for All-Star and Futures Games stuff in 22, beautiful ballpark. We didn't enjoy the food very much, but we were also working. So I don't know that we got to sample the like best of the food, you know, there might've been better food that we just didn't happen

upon because of where we were sitting in the Oxbox. I guess so. Yeah. I've been to that ballpark like double digit number of times, but I've still never seen a big league regular season game there. It's just been UCLA USC 14, like Nick Lodolo pitched there. I saw him there and yeah, futures game and da da da. But yeah, do you have, oh, I guess you're gonna do a proper world series prediction pod later this week. But if I'm, you know, odds making here or picking a favorite, gosh, I just, I really do think that the Dodgers bullpen

might be buck nasty enough to support some of their starting pitching issues. I would guess that Jack Flaherty's reasons for struggling are contained maybe and there will be a bounce back there. I think any game Garrett Cole pitches though, like the Yankees might just win. Yeah. So I'm going to take the Dodgers. I like the depth of their lineup more. Yeah.

Do you think that, you know, I was like over concerned about some of the starting pitching depth stuff? It's not that like Walker Bueller looks great or better than I thought or anything like that, but I just think the bullpen has, I think they have the ability to get there. Have we heard any more about Shohei throwing bullpens or anything like that that I've just missed from kind of being offline and at the field? They have pretty strongly denied that he will pitch in the postseason. I don't buy it.

If it's the kind of thing that they're vaguely open to him doing, don't you just deny it publicly as long as you can to spring it on New York? I'm still skeptical that he will pitch. I don't know where he is in his rehab. It does seem like that has sort of taken a backseat to them playing in the postseason. I don't know if he's throwing sides or anything right now as they get ready to face New York. But in my reflection on this postseason and my predictions, et cetera, like I went back and looked at our 2024 preseason staff predictions, my 2024 preseason staff predictions, not a one of us at the website picks Shohei Otani to win the NLMVP. Yeah.

at the website picks Shohei Otani to win the NL MVP. Yeah. And so, but you know, this is an unbelievable guy. Yeah. And so the ridiculous thing for him to do in this situation is come out of the bullpen for an inning or two if the situation comes to that. And so I just, you know, would you dare doubt this guy? There's nothing about the roster that they have to mess with for him to come

into a game and pitch, right? Like they don't have to signal that this is a thing that could be a possibility at all. And so, yeah, if you get a game that goes into the 12th or 13th inning or something like that, it's game six or whatever. Hell yes. I bet you we see it. I'm going to, I bet you we do because why would we dare bet against this guy to do anything other than like whatever the Roy Hobbs thing would be?

Yeah. So I'll take the Dodgers. I don't know where I've settled. I really appreciate, I said this last time, just how close this feels like it's going to be and that it seems, you know, it doesn't strike me as the kind of series where we're likely to see, you know, a sweep in four or anything like that, which is, is nice. It's nice that we're I think going to get evenly matched squads.

I hope it's a banger. Uh, and to all of our friends covering the series in person, congratulations on all of your cross country flights. I hope that you have a good flight sleep plan because it's going to be a lot of bappin' back and forth. Bappin'? Boppin'? Boppin'. Boppin'. I would say the cross-continent flight is more than a bop, but I don't know, I can't

sleep on a plane, so good luck to them. Well, you don't have to get on a plane to go to the Arizona Fall League. Hey, look at that transition. Fall League is underway. And we have you on, I think, most years to talk about Fall League. But for our new listeners, I want to talk about who you've seen, you know, what has stood out to you in the early going here and whatnot. But maybe we can just start by you doing a little reminding of like, what are you looking for and what do you feel comfortable kind of ignoring when it comes to fall league evals?

Because you get, you get all these guys have just played for, for many of them, at least for the ones who aren't coming off of injury, they've just played a full minor league season most of the time. And so what, what are you hoping to get out of these looks and what do you feel like, eh, that doesn't tell me all that much new. Arizona Fall League is like a six week developmental league. It takes place here every year. What teams use it for, if it varies and as the minor league structure during the regular season has changed, what teams are using the Arizona Fall League for is growing and changing as well.

You have some teams like the Padres who are just like, let's send our best, most famous teenage prospects to this league. And then you have some teams like the Cincinnati Reds who are sending big league rehabbers to this league. Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Matt McClain and like Connor Phillips are playing in this league. We've got like 28-year-old Indie Ball Sines whose stuff is being stress tested in this league. So it's, you know, what it is, even as like a place to develop and scout

players is kind of all over the place and really has changed since, you know, the changes after the most recent CBA where we had, you know, minor league unionization and reduction in roster spots, like the league changing, how many minor league affiliates each franchise could have. And there have been so many knock-on effects to that, the reduction of the affiliates, the pace and types of players that teams are developing, prospects at, the rate of promotion, all sorts of stuff has changed. And the fall league is feeling the effects of that. So that has sort of changed the way you sit there

and scout a game, but there are still things that hold true about the fall league every year. One of them is it is a hitting environment. It is a hitting friendly environment. The altitude here in Arizona, the way the barometric pressure is changing here, and the quality of our air is changing here at this time of year as we transition from summer to fall, but it is still often hot. Like there have been fall league, you know, this is going to be the hottest October

in the history of this city. And so there have been fall league games where it's like 104 degrees and the ball is just, you know, absolutely flying. The Santa Ana winds are blowing autumn into the river basin and Thomas Segise can hit a ball 95 miles per hour off the bat to the opposite field. And even though dead center at Scottsdale Stadium is 430 feet, that ball carries out of there that day. Like right of center. It's not a league where you look at the hitters triple slash lines and go, oh, tag Bozide's awesome.

Right, right. But it is a place where you are looking at how this strange cross section of athletes looks on a field with, you know, one another. Right. It's also a place where you want to be forgiving. So like Drake Baldwin, the Braves catching prospect, who have got like firmly in the middle third of my top 100. He'll, you know, he's moved way up via graduations in front of him during the 2024

season, but he's going to be somewhere in the middle third of the hundred when it's all said and done. He's basically ready, everyday catching prospect. He looks terrible. He's just played a whole season. He's a squat, he's not a giant six, three Salvador Perez type guy. Like he's five 11. He's taken a beating all year. He's going to go play with team USA in the premier 12 somehow. And he's here like catching guys to stay sharp for that for a couple of weeks before he goes and does that, which is going to be an adventure on its own. These are all new pictures to him, except for the couple of Braves who are here on

the roster who he's also catching. And so, he looks terrible, but he's probably exhausted and is in an unenviable situation. And so, we just throw out the fact that I see him run to the backstop three, four times every game I've seen him catch so far because he's not moving very well. And so you just throw that away. And that's the type of thing that you do with a lot of name players here every year. Kyle Tucker was terrible. You know, it was like, oh my God, does this guy even care? Does he want to be here? This is such a bad look. He doesn't care. Like he's not trying at all. And it's like, no, this guy's unbelievable. Throw your look out. Some of these guys are not psyched to be here. Some of them are exhausted,

whatever the case may be. And you just like toss out the bad look at the guys who have otherwise like been awesome. And then sometimes it's, you know, very, very important. A lot of these guys are gonna be in the big leagues next year and your look at them here is important for like advanced scouting or 40-man roster crunch stuff or whatever the case may be. So I'm running around doing all kinds of stuff. I've had a couple notebook pieces drop on the site. There's the fall league tab on the board, which I'm updating. You'll see like guys who have been added fresh have like a little icon in the trend column. And yeah, just sort of like running around the Valley, trying to be efficient with my looks

and see as much of everyone as I can. Like I do every year while also like trying to write and make content and cover the post season when I need to. I thought Drake Baldwin looked very good at the futures game when I saw him at the futures game. I remember him having a very impressive and loud batting practice. Yeah, and then he had a good futures game as well. I remember him having a very impressive and loud batting practice. Yeah.

And then he had a good futures game as well. And yeah, he checks, you know, that guy in particular, other than being a maxed out 511, you know, checks all the boxes. Yeah. So I think it's interesting that he's here. Obviously the Braves pumped a ton of resource into acquiring Sean Murphy, like a lot. When you see how good Contreras has become, Sean Murphy liked to move on from him at this stage, feels silly he was dinged and it would be foolish. They'd be selling

low on him if they tried to move him, da da da, like Travis Darnoe is around. So I think Drake Baldwin is here to be showcased for trade. I think he was in the futures game to be showcased for trade that they would love to package him and whatever to get another, to make another Matt Olson type of deal. And I like Drake Baldwin and would like for him to be at the center of a deal like that. But yeah, like Luis Roberts got to be Randy Moss for somebody. Right, right. Might as well be the Braves. Yeah. And the other purpose that Fall League serves is often to give you a look at guys

who are coming back from injury and like the marquee guy in that category this year is Andrew Painter. So for folks who haven't had a chance to read your first Dispatch from the Desert, can you give people a current report on Andrew Painter? Yeah. So Andrew Painter, you know, from my point of view, Jackson Joe was just pitching in the postseason and Andrew Painter is, you know, 150 feet in front of me on my first day of scouting fall of the years. So when you know vaguely what the pitching prospect landscape looks like just sitting here and those two guys should be in your mix to be the top pitching prospect in baseball. One of them hasn't really pitched for a couple of years because of

surgery. The other guy has looked really, really good. Definitely like overmatched at times with, you know, at the big league level and the short time that he's been there. But like Jackson Job has had his health stuff too, but like you've seen him pitch well lately while Andrew Painter has like been a black box for two years. Right. So to sort of see both of those guys operate within the same week, week and a half of one another is a really important thing, especially as they're both like kind of airing it out

an inning or two at a time. Painter as he was blowing up and just rocketing through Philly system in 2022, I mean this is crazy, but it's true like it looked like Justin Verlander, where his style of operation, his body, how much arm strength there was. The breaking ball quality part of it was not on the Justin Verlander level, but he was 19, 20 years old. He's six foot seven with a totally remade body. This is one of those guys who was like, you know, softer build as a high school underclassmen. And like, as he has matured, has meaningfully changed his conditioning and physicality in a way that like gives him a longer athletic tail and gives him

room for more like strength and positive mass, all kinds of good stuff. I saw him in the Florida State League just rip fastballs past guys, like, basically didn't throw anything, but fastballs for six innings and had like, you know, 14 strikeouts or whatever it was. Yeah. Just monster, monster game. Just totally overwhelming. And then he gets hurt. The Phillies try to take a conservative line with his rehab. He gets PRP, plasma-rich platelet injection to try to stimulate healing in that elbow rather than have surgery right away. Maybe you can rehab over a couple months and at the end of 23 help our big league team for a stretch. It didn't take, so he had surgery late in 23, which cost him all of regular season 24. And so here he is. This is his first

competitive inning since 2022, essentially, or spring training of 23. And he's 98 to 100. It's a little bit more violent looking to me, unless his hat just doesn't fit the same way his Clearwater Threather's hat did in 2022. this guy's got a little bit more of a head whack going on than he did before the surgery. But the arm strength is there. It's often the first thing to come back once these guys are done rehabbing from Tommy John. And the breaking ball quality is not quite up to snuff from before, but like, that's fine.

This is usually this guy's first couple innings coming back. He's working on five days rest. He threw on Friday last week, which I didn't go see because I doubled up on the East Valley rather than basically only do painters game on the West end of the Metro that day. And so then he'll be the probable again to throw Thursday at Salt River Fields. Everyone can follow along with that start on Thursday on Baseball Savant. Just like go to the Fall League game day, you know, go to the Fall League website, click on the scores, open up the game day for that Glendale Salt River game on Thursday. And then in the URL, there's that little six digit game ID code and just like cut that and paste it into whatever baseball savant game feed. You know, just replace the six digit game ID code.

And you'll be able to follow along with the Trackman data from Salt River on Thursday when Pager pitches there, but he's awesome. Like it's a very good place for a pitching prospect this age to be coming off of surgery, to be sitting 99 basically across a couple of innings. And like, let's just see how this trends over six weeks. How deep is he going to be allowed to go here at the end? You know, if Glendale is in the mix for the championship at the end, like they're currently tied for first in the league and Painter is the guy who's like going in the semifinal game or in the finals or whatever. What does that look like? How does he handle that? Like all of that is relevant, important data for us to, you know, collect and it's not, you know,

all of it is not objective. So in videos like, all right, painter, like you're pitching for this or that important thing for the first time in your life. Because again, you've only been a pro baseball player for a little while. Right. You've been hurt for most of that time. It's the fall league championship game. Like, what does this look like? Does it look like Jackson Jobe getting shelled in a playoff game? Does it look like Jackson Job getting shelled in a playoff game? Because if it doesn't, that's good.

But yeah, so like very, very encouraging from Painter. He's definitely one of the marquee guys here, you know, part of a group that is candidly very exciting. Like some of it was I recharged my battery, chilling, hanging out most of September, traveling all over the country and like seeing my family and friends. But this is a pretty stacked folly group that I'm like very excited to spend out most of September traveling all over the country and like seeing my family and friends. But this is a pretty stacked folly group that I'm like very excited to spend all six weeks just like being totally immersed and doing as much of it as I can. Snowbird traffic be damned.

Yeah, I was going to ask like, you know, Painter's obviously a priority eval in this group because you have to see how he is coming off of injury. But like who are the other guys who either stand out to you as just like exciting prospects to be here or who you're hoping to maybe settle your eval of them on? Like, you know, you're not going to have seen all of these guys in person over the course of a season. Like who's a priority for you? J.D. I think there are like 20 guys here who are like either on or in the mix for an off season top 100 spot, which is like a super duper high number or, you know, players who you might consider of that caliber, like Matt McClain is here.

But, uh, you know, of the guys who I have ranked really, really high as of the end of the year, there's Raze first base, Xavier Isaac, who has, he's going to have 80 grade raw power. This was, you know, a high school pick that quote unquote, raised some eyebrows. It was one of those like nothing burger phrases that I despise, but like there it is. Anyway. It's funny though, cause he, it though, cause he's a Tampa Bay Ray. That's why Ray's some Ira.

I thought you were doing- I'm just going to move on from that rather than absolutely flame you over that. I thought you were doing a joke. No, I was not. I thought you were doing a little bit of wordplay. You were doing some- No. Uh-uh.

But you know, this was like a first round pick that at the time was, it was strange. I didn't have a first round grade on Xavier Isaac. He was a heavy 270 pound high school first baseman who, again, on a pro strength and conditioning program, he's made himself into a completely different athlete. He's had hustle doubles here in Arizona because of how well he's moving now and is going to have elite raw power at peak. He's swinging and missing a ton. It's going to be an issue.

I, you know, Keith Law and I were hanging out this week watching games together, and Keith was shocked when I told him where I had Xavier Isaac ranked at the end of the year. So there are probably gonna be Different opinions about this guy, but I'm all in like he's gonna have 80 power There's way too much happening with this swing right now. He just does not need as much movement in his lower body as as he is currently employing to generate enormous power and

It's just making him late on everything and like over time, I think that his talent will win out. Like these are the types of things that are happening here this fall. So Xavier Isaac, Ethan Salas, the Padres catching prospect, Chase the Lauders back here again this year and then Leo Dallas DeVries from the Padres, another potential everyday up the middle player. Cole Young went home, it seems, with wrist tendonitis or something like that. The Mariners, middle infield prospect, they still have Colt Emerson here. Teyron Larranzo, who came to Detroit via the Dodgers in the Flaherty deal. Switch hitting catcher with enormous power. He's here. Jet

Williams, the Mets prospect who needs to settle somewhere defensively, was hurt most of this year, might be a shortstop, probably not. Centerfield for me looks good out there in limited looks. Does Jet Williams. Drew Gilbert who came to the Mets via the Astros in the Justin Verlander trade, another potential everyday outfielder, he's here. Turmar Johnson, the Pirates Prospect is here. Jack Caglione was just the top five pick of the Royals. He is here. So those are like most of the marquee names who, in my estimation, have a chance to be like

everyday foundational players at the big league level, probably not stars, most of those guys, unless everything clicks for like a Lorenzo where he gets to catch and have rare switch hitting power for a catcher. That's possible, but he also might not be a catcher. Jack Hegelione might hit 40 home runs or he might not hit at all. Yeah. Um, so like there's, there's some variance there, but, uh, then you have like the down ballot boys who are either like trying to prove that they belong in that group that I just mentioned.

Josue Bresenio, the Tigers catching slash first base prospect, uh, who's off to a hot start here. He is of that ilk. Carter Jensen, the Royals catching prospect, is another guy like that. Luis Lara, a Brewers outfield prospect who's more like, you know, five, seven, twitchy speed, catalytic qualities type of outfielder. Ken He, when you look at this youngster on the field with, there's Christian Encarnacion Strand, and there's Xavier Isaac, and there's Brock Wilkin, and Bryce Eldridge, what does Luis Lara look like on the field with these more mature athletes? And what does he look like when we see like, okay, there's

Matt McClain who used to be, is this guy too small? Prospect. Right. There's Jet Williams who at one point was, is this guy too small? Right. And Jet Williams turned himself into like a little tank. Caleb Durbin, same thing, Yankees in field prospect who's like, we're playing more outfield out here. Five-six dude who's, you know,

built like Tyler O'Neal, but five foot six. Peyton Graham, who's like the opposite, who is, you know, ultra ectomorph, lanky, shortstop, who's like also playing more outfield out here, it seems like because, well, he's hit well in my look or two at him, but there are so many interesting guys. People should just go to the board, which is what I'm looking at right now. There are just so many, and then there are the guys who you move off of from their look

here. You're just like, okay, Daniel Susak really doesn't look any better. Yeah. Of the many catching Susaks? Yeah. Coleman Crowe's velocity is not back. So there's some of that stuff that's like, ah. And then you try to like forgive these guys for whatever the context of the look is, but

it can be, it can be tough when it's like, yeah, you haven't really. Adam Meyer like is sitting 89. It's like, ah, that's not the best. But yeah, like people should just check out the board. It's tough like the dudes who I want to update based on how they look like I have a sentence or two, but it is a lot to just like go in and be like, hey update 1022. Adam Meyer just sat 89 for me, shrug. Did you mention Zaheer Hope?

Did you bring up Zaheer Hope in that long list of guys? No, I did not. So yeah, Zaheer Hope is like a 19 and a half year old Dodgers outfielder. He was a high school draft pick of the Cubs in 2023. He was their 11th rounder. And you know, teams take high school outfielders like this every year. There are probably like, I don't know, like a dozen, 12 or 15 of them who they're not slam dunk first 35, 40 pick type of prospect, but they're signable. The area scout correctly assesses signability in like the 400 to 700 K range. Sometimes it's, you know, 300 K and the cross checker likes the player too. And the team has about that much money to play with based on cutting a slightly

underslot deal at some point earlier on in the draft. And you end up with these guys and a lot of them don't pan out. Like you could just sort, you know, the board by signing bonus and look at all kinds of players in that, you know, range from years past and see names that don't work out. And it's quick, you know, how quickly it becomes clear that they are not going to work out. And a lot of times they look in high school like Zaihir Hope, where there are swing and miss questions during the high school showcase period.

Um, a lot of the time when you're facing the best cross-section of the high school pitching from your draft class during that window of like trying out for Team USA, going to area code games, whatever it is, if you don't perform, especially if you swing and miss a lot during that window of play, it's a red flag. And as more teams take an analytical approach toward decision-making in that space, the number of teams who consider

that to be true has grown. And so Zaheer Hope was definitely of that ilk. His hit tool as a prospect is still in a volatile place, but some of what's going on is like very, very positive. So he has gotten very strong and he's done so while retaining what, while he was a high schooler, like this was the tool that sort of drove his whole profile, was he's unbelievably fast. He is like a 70 runner now with plus present raw power. Like, 60 grade big league raw power right now at age 19, while he's retained, you know, seven speed. He is not a very good defensive outfielder

from a feel and instincts standpoint. He mostly played left field this year. He was part of the Michael Bush trade, by the way. Like I should have mentioned this at the top, but like the Cubs drafted him, they gave him over slot money, nothing crazy. He was part of the Michael Bush deal. Michael Bush had a great year and you know, as I hear hope now, there's a chance, like this guy is in a space where he might outproduce Michael Bush, you know, eventually by kind of a lot. If he can develop in center field, and if he can continue to access his power,

I do think that there's gonna be more swing and miss here in a way that like becomes more problematic looking on paper as he climbs the levels. His swing is grooved. He does not have especially good bat control. This is not someone who's spoiling tough pitches. We saw Juan Soto grind out that Hunter Gaddis at bat until he homered, and the fact that he could homer on that pitch at all is like nuts. And so, you know, the best hitters in the world have all those skills and all that talent and power. That's not a thing like Saeher Hope's going to do, but he is so compactly built and short to the ball with like natural lift in his swing that he is, any contact he makes is going to be

like dangerous, threatening power contact. And so if you can develop in center field, especially, his ability to do that is going to be enough for him to be like a meaningfully good player. If you can play center field, you can be flawed. Like look at the year Parker Meadows had, you know what I mean? Sure. Swing and miss some great whatever. Jose, it doesn't matter as much when you can play a good center field. If you're getting to power and playing a good center field, like that's a really good player. So he's in position to be that. Not all of that stuff is polished and there is volatility.

If he's gonna be a left fielder and have like a three hit tool, which is in play, like that's in this guy's range of outcomes. Now it's like, ah, some of these like Josh Lowe type stretches where this is gonna hit a buck 80 because he never gets into a rhythm this year. And like the good years are him hitting 240 with 30 bombs and playing left field. That's in the mix of outcomes for this guy too. I think that would be okay, but it's like well below what his ceiling is, which is 30 homer average center fielder. So it's going to be very interesting to see how he continues to develop the fact

that he's doing well out here, which for a 19 year old, this is a relatively advanced trial. Yeah. He's facing 24 year old, you know, junior college arms who found something via dev and have like a six breaking ball. And he's doing well. and have like a six breaking ball and he's doing well. So, you know, he's a big deal guy like who broke out during the season in a partial way because he was hurt for a bunch of it.

And now it's like, at least in my eyes, like really, really happening in a way that, you know, is more tangible. I want to return to the age related thing as it pertains to Ethan Salas in a second, but hope strikes me as someone like we've had conversations as Folly has been unfolding here with you and I've overheard your conversations with some scouts and other media sorts who have been out in the desert for the early going here. And I wonder if you can talk about sort of when a guy has like a freak thing he can do, you know, when he is able to exhibit, you know, sort of top of the scale speed or power defensive acumen.

What kind of floor does that give a prospect in terms of where you might put them on the hundred, what your long-term expectation of them is? Like, how does that shape your understanding of them as a player? of them is like, how does that shape your understanding of them as a player? If you just look at players who are on big league teams, there's almost always something exceptional about them. Even part-time players tend to have a thing or two that is like that, that helps facilitate them to be like the good version of that thing. So, you know, like Brent Rooker, he's a flawed player, but he has seven power. So ideally you want Brent Rooker, there are situations where he is way less likely to succeed than others. And ideally, a contending team keeps him from being in those situations. Like, ideally, there is someone left-handed like Brandon Marsh or like whatever,

who is on your roster, who can take some at-bats against righties, who Brent Rooker type player is not well suited against and who can like represent a defensive upgrade to Brent Rooker late in the game. And the teams that like have Manny Margot and somebody else or have, you know, Keir, young Keir Meyer and like somebody else or whatever it is, they like get the most out of their players by doing stuff like that. But at the same time, most of the time those players like Manny Margot was like a seven defensive outfielder and you know, Josh Lowe has like seven power or whatever it is. And so yeah, if I were going to write a scouting manifesto again, I guess, or like a future value follow up with, you know, these,

you know, five chapters and one of them is like a scouting manifesto. One of the very early clauses in it is like bet on freaks. O'Neil Cruz is flawed. It's frustrating as hell to watch him, but come on, like you don't want, that guy should be, if you're looking at all the minor league players, just because of what he might be able to do, he needs to be like eighth when he's a prospect. He has to. Ellie Day-the-Crews, regardless of what issues he might have had, there are, there are universes where like Ellie's issues that he had very early in his career, persist in a way that make a, you know, that dilute his production in a meaningful way. But like, no, we're getting, we got, you know, rule changes that accentuated his skills. And so, holy s***. Like, look at what Ellie did this year. Like, that was amazing.

How was there ever a point, like, when I put Ellie on the hundred for the first time, why was it anywhere south of like number 12? Right. I just think that's true of like most of these guys. And for sure, there are going to be players who totally fail in a complete and utter way because they can't do this. And sometimes that's, you know, like Monte Harrison, right? Like I've done, it's not like I haven't done this before and felt, you know, dumb for it. I'm following how you're doing it playing football though, Monte, if you're listening. But the fact that he's playing college football now is incredible.

Like it's incredible. Sure. Like, it's amazing. Yeah. But yeah, it didn't work out. And so, yeah, but it informs how I think about guys like Austin Charles and whatever. In this particular fall league, does it apply to Ethan Salas necessarily? To an extent, when you see Ethan Salas standing there at 18 years old and he's one of the biggest guys in the whole team, yeah, it does make me go, all right, this'll be okay.

I'm not worried about this really. There are things about Ethan's swing that are not great. I just don't think he's on plane a ton. I think he's dangerous enough in like the middle, middle, middle, middle, middle down, down and in portions of the zone that he's going to have power through those areas enough that it's going to be fine. Might he end up striking out like 27 plus percent of the time? Yeah. He just doesn't seem on plane a ton.

We'll see how things develop, but like he's going to be enormous. He's going to have enormous strength. His year as an 18 year old at high A was better than Adley Rutchman's freshman year at Oregon State with like, you know, BB Corp bats and crappy Pac-12 pitching. So like, let's all, I'm relaxed and I'll just still have a top, you know, I'll have a 60 on Ethan. Yeah. The thing that bothered me during the year on tape was, you know, again, this is so specific

to Ethan, but he was afraid of the baseball for a while. I just think that he probably took one too many on the chin. And there was a while during the year where like, he put on him versus balls in the dirt with like runners on base. Yeah. You know, you just like set synergy to like show you that. And he looks afraid of the baseball.

And I just think it's like part of being back there. It's miserable. It's like why Adley didn't hit? Why Will Smith didn't hit? Like you just take an absolute beating and this is what it, you go through stretches like this. So yeah. Well, and I think, like you said, like all you have to do is look at the guys who were

in the postseason and you know, even the guys who were in the postseason, and, you know, even the guys who still are, like, none of the catchers are hitting particularly well. I guess Smith has sort of picked it up of late, but even the ones who aren't Austin Hedges, like Austin Hedges didn't hit, but like he's Austin Hedges. He doesn't do that anyway, but you, but Adley has for long stretches of his career. Will Smith has been a productive backstop. Right. Austin Wells, whose slash line was below his expected results. Austin Wells is definitely on my end of year Spotify fan graphs, year Spotify, Fangraphs, frequently visited player pages, like my Fangraphs wrapped.

Austin Wells is definitely on mine because I've stuffed him ahead of Jason Dominguez on the prospect list last off season. And so I was very invested in him being good. And I can tell you he had a 340 ex-WOBA this year, but then he struck out 42% of the time in the postseason. So once you start playing every day, because it's clear that you can hit and Jose Trevino can't, you just take more of a beating back there and like, this is what happens. It's October. Do you have any other fall league thoughts? So many of my thoughts are like specific to me and my dumb weird process or like being here like, Hey, if you're coming, make sure you're going to the Arizona Department of

Transportation website. Oh yeah. Yeah. What are your fall league tips for those who might come down to enjoy a fall league? Cause yes, we have been under relentless construction in the valley for the last year and a half. So it's, you know, look at the schedule. Number one, check the schedule.

Make sure that your hotel or Airbnb or whatever is close to places where they are actually going to play games. My suggestion is if you can afford it to stay somewhere in Scottsdale, from Scottsdale, you have fairly easy access to Mesa, Scottsdale, Salt River. And also, if you're staying close to the 101, that loop, the 101 loop that runs like a square around the metro, you can take that to Peoria and Surprise.

And that highway is less traveled than the 10, which is like the main east-west artery that cuts across Metro Phoenix. And it's also like, you know, the 10 can be closed on from 10 PM on Friday through like early morning Monday for construction entirely. So some of the traffic like ends up on the 101 and that can suck regardless, especially as like the snowbirds come back here. But like if you're coming, check the schedule, you should not come for fall stars. That's the amateur like clout chasing influencer move. You lose a day of games to the home run derby. And then on a day when you could see two whole games, you just get fall stars. And it's like, you know, it's fun to whatever, like here comes

10 kents for an inning. Okay. Here comes Nate Pearson for an inning. He's going to air it out, whatever. But if you wanna try to max out how many games you see, don't come during that time. Come during one of the weekends with like a double header at one facility or a triple header at a facility or something like that and like have a day like that.

Other things, I don't know, like places to eat. Go to Backyard Taco, you know, just for like a mess of tacos, especially if you're in the East Valley. Go to, and your West Valley taco place is Tacos Calafia. If you're in the West Valley at Peoria or Surprise, find Tacos Calafia. Those are your two suggestions if you're running around the valley Valley and just want like a quick mess of tacos, but that's sort of it. Oh, the other thing is again, like you got a week to get here, but like the premier 12 team USA, premier 12 is an international tournament. Um, right. And team USA,

they just announced their roster. There are a bunch of good prospects on it. There's some interesting like big leaguers and stuff. Rich Hill, awesome, awesome. They are going to scrimmage against ASU on November 1st at ASU's stadium, at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. So go to the Botanical Gardens and then see Team USA and ASU scrimmage like in some order. There's like a trippy nighttime exhibit at the Botanical Gardens. So like go to the scrimmage, then go to the Botanical Gardens. There you go. November 1st, check it out. So my like curve ball topic, and I am hesitant to bring it up this late in the episode because

we've, you know, well, Ben's way, we're doing shorter shows, you guys. But today is October 22nd as we're recording, as I mentioned. It's 85 degrees. We've come down from the wild ride of 100 plus degree days that we were having for most of the summer, but it is still warmer than average here in the valley. We also have seen the devastation that hurricanes have sort of wrought in Florida over the last couple of weeks. I just wonder, what are we going to do about that?

Eric, long term. Can you solve global warming and or MLB's response to it, because it's like, it's not good scouting out here when it's 115 every day in the middle of the summer. So what are your thoughts on that? It is very difficult from a player development standpoint. What Major League Baseball appears to have the incentive to do is do as much playing and development as you can here and outsource as much of it as you can to colleges, to college baseball, where like let the University of Florida incur the cost of developing these players.

Other than the handful of high school players who go like very high in the draft, it's mostly college players who are drafting anyway. Our rate of multimillion dollar widths on some of these guys or like glancing blows, you know, the Mickey Moniacs of the world. Sorry, buddy. Like, you know, but you know what I mean? Like you don't want to give that guy $10 million and then he's a one-war guy. That sucks.

As baseball, if we want to put a stop to that, well, everyone goes to college. Or this is how many minor league levels there are now, like sink or swim, go. Which is kind of what it is right now. So for here, there's already been talk of some of this stuff where some of these minor league affiliates, Cal League affiliates, there are a couple instances, Modesto, I think there's like Discord up in Eugene right now, around like minor league facilities. It's possible that at least temporarily, that some teams will have an affiliate play out of one of the spring training complexes

here in Arizona or in Florida. You could see based on what happened to the trop, that that might be true in Florida too, for any number of reasons. Or it might be a problem in Florida for any number of reasons. Long term here, I don't know. We rent. They're big facilities. They have an enormous footprint in terms of what they're doing

with water usage. It's not to the magnitude of a golf course. And so I would say that if in the event things with like the Colorado River and agriculture in California or whatever it is starts to get so out of hand that the water that we have here in Phoenix becomes scarce that golf courses will be on the chopping block for some sort of tempering or rationing or whatever it is well before the baseball facilities are. And so like, that's like a beacon to use as a real, we're getting to a point of real concern when that stuff

starts happening. But yeah, like you're asking players some days and it's, it's during Bridge League and Instruction League. So it's in September and it's in October, but you want them to play a game that starts at 11 a.m. and so at 2 p.m. if it's 107 degrees, that sucks. Yeah, it sucks. And it sucks for everybody. You want to preserve the wear and tear that your big league spring training stadium field is dealing with because you've got a fall league affiliate that's got to play there in a couple of weeks. uh, is dealing with because you've got a fall league affiliate that's got to play there in a couple of weeks. Well, I totally understand that, but like you're asking 60 and 70 year old. Scouts and like personnel uniformed personnel to like stand in the third

base coaches box or, you know, behind home plate for three hours. And it's just like not great for everybody. And when like the kids stopped throwing strikes, maybe because it's just like not great for everybody. And when like the kids stop throwing strikes, maybe because it's that hot, everyone, like the quality of everything takes a dip and it's like noticeable. There are safety concerns too. And I don't know what the answer is. Like this time of year, a good answer would be play at 7pm or even 6pm. Like the sun goes down early enough now that even on days when we spike, so like this week, while you're visiting your mom, it's gonna be 97 again, which I'm sure you don't care about, but I do. And, you know,

to scout at Glendale where the stadium is facing the wrong way because Jamie McCourt wanted to look at the mountain, then it sucks to sit in the scout section there and just get smoked for three hours. But I think at 6 PM it would be fine. And that's one thing for fall league, but it's another when it's like instructs and you're asking like these lights to be turned on and you're teenage players to like be up working until like 10 or 11 PM. Like at the office, this is 18 year old Dominican kid who you brought up here and it's like, we're going to play at six and by the way, our video guys are going to be here till midnight cutting up the game that we just played that lasted until 10, because no one

threw strikes. So like, that sucks too. So there really aren't great solutions. There's no like, nice clean solution to any of this. And there are so many variables, like the traffic here can be terrible. And so if you start a game at 5 PM or 6 PM, you know, in July, it's like miserable. Right. Getting there, like the team bus, you want to, you can't take BP if you're driving across the valley. Like you can't take BP at your place earlier in the day and then take a bus across the valley. Like you have to get there and take BP at four. Right. To play at six. And so it's like show and go, and it's not really a big league experience at all to do it that way. You know what I mean? So it's just like, there's a lot of cost cutting happening. I think you can feel its effects in the quality of some of what's like happening at the minor league level, the flow that the scout mentioned

to me. And this is more like a prospect week study or article, if in fact what he's saying is true, but there's just a scout who told me that like mostly saw gringos at AA and up this year. Like what's going on with like the flow of Latin American players in the minors? Yeah. There's like a weird imbalance where they're all at the lower levels right now. What happened? Did something about post-COVID changes, is it a gap thing caused by COVID that we're feeling reverberations of?

Or is it something to do with short season ball as a bridge, like a college quality baseball-like bridge for Latin American players, like doesn't exist anymore and so they're struggling to perform their way out of high A. These are the questions that the scout and I just sort of kicked back and forth under the assumption that his observed, you know, pay, it's like mostly, you know, Gringo's playing at AA and up in what's going on with that. So there are all kinds of things still happening that whether it's fallout from COVID or, you know, something fallout from the CBA and changes to how many affiliates, the minor league reserve limits, whatever it is. Yeah.

It's not like great out here. And, and yeah, I don't, I don't have an answer for you. I would think that the state of Arizona, as a guy who just had a desk job here for a little while, at least you have to have air conditioning. Like it's a state law that your workplace must be air conditioned here. Right. And if your AC blows out at your office, you get like a reverse snow day. You go home.

It's over. When your job is construction worker or baseball player or landscaper or whatever it is that's like outside, I don't know how that stuff applies, but we've had some players who have had heat exhaustion or something and collapsed and had to like go to the hospital, dehydration, whatever it is. I can't, I wasn't made aware of any that happened here this year. Yeah. But yeah, like it's definitely happened. And I wonder how, what the players association thinks about that and if they've had conversations about that.

But Florida, it's like a whole natural disaster. I can't even begin to wrap my brain around, I guess just by the time hurricane season rolls around, for the most part, there's no more baseball activity in Florida. I bet there are some teams who still had players on their complex in Tampa or Fort Myers or wherever. And that they, you know, a lot of them are Latin American players who are just like here temporarily or for like a period of time for whatever it is.

And whether or not they get sent home, like it's not like the hurricane doesn't pass through Latin America too. So I don't know if they like stay here or they get shipped home fast and what the logistics of that are. But I imagine it's just like, you know, for these are like the jobs of people who work in baseball is to like handle all kinds of stuff like this. There's, I have a source who I talked to about like their farm systems players, the Latin American amateurs from any given class,

and then also like building facilities. Like when a shovel goes into a ground, it's like partially his doing. Like his job is like, yeah, that player is good. And also this facility is going to be, here are the measurements and a blueprint for this thing. It's like, you know, working in baseball, I'm sure is just, you know, so many different challenges that you never anticipate. And one of them is going to have to be wrestling, grappling with, yeah, climate crisis, mass migration from where we live right now, what that's going to look like and the vacuum it will create here and what that might mean. All that stuff I feel like is potentially looming. Well, that's kind of a bummer note to end the episode on. So...

All right. Yeah. What else you got? Well, I was going to say, give me one thing from each of the World Series teams that you are most excited to see unfold when the fall classic starts on Friday. All right. I guess, yeah, just like Garrett Cole against the Dodgers, like California, UCLA guy versus the Dodgers. That's, I guess, number one. I guess like that same is true for Giancarlo. And Judge, I mean, Fresno State is not, you know, but the Yankees do have like a Cali

vibe sort of with this whole group. And so that's pretty interesting. Nicole Soule Yeah. Certainly among their American born players. Yeah. What else am I going to say about the Dodders that isn't like just Shohei in a world series is awesome. I guess I'm bummed. I'm just bummed about Glass now. Yeah. Like that's the thing that where it's just like, this guy is good enough to be on the stage and have like, you know,

12 punch-ados over seven and be the MVP or whatever, like, and we don't get to see him. So I'm bummed about that. But I guess, yeah, like what else is there to say other than it's like Shohei in a world series and Mookie's amazing and you know, Freddie Freeman playing through injury. And I worry about Gavin Lux. I have like background anxiety for Gavin Lux. Like in the key moment throwing one, like airmailing one. So that's just as I'm like looking at the names on the rosters, that's the other thing. And I guess we'll see how the quality of baseball is after the Yankees played a pretty sloppy ALCS.

Yeah, it was a sloppy series. We commented on that point a lot on this very show. Slappy, very sloppy. And just like multiple weeks of yo-yoing, like for the Dodgers, did you yo-yo back and forth across the country for two whole weeks, basically? Yeah. No thanks. Yeah. Well, we hope that people will enjoy the World Series. We hope that they will plan their Fall League hotels close to ballparks that actually host Fall League games. We hope that they

will be spared construction on the 10 and the 60, although that seems unlikely. And Eric, we look forward to more dispatches from the Fall League and the start of Lists, which is coming up pretty soon. We're going to have some Lists soon. What are you thinking are your first couple that you're going to roll out? I know the answer to this, but our listeners don't. Yeah, Travis and I are working on East Valley stuff. So the Angels and the A's are kind of like getting pieced together right now.

I've been watching Angels DSL film either early in the morning or late at night, the last couple of days. Travis has kind of started on some of the Oakland upper level guys, big leaguers and like triple A guys. So those will probably be the first two in some order. And then, you know, it follows Cubbies, Giants, Rockies. I saw a lot of Rockies during Instructs because they played the Angels exclusively the last like week and a half. They went deeper into Instructs than the other teams,

which is part of why like the decision was made that this would be our first cluster of lists. And then like the D-backs who I did not see as much of during Instrux, although their group was mostly like the high school draft kids and the guys who were on the complex team during the summer. But they'll like get roped into this group, but I'll probably have to do more like external sourcing on that org from lack of like in-person instructs looks at them in particular, like relative to the rest of this, this

group, but that's, those are the first like half dozen or so that'll go. And then I'll start turning my way through Florida, but it's just interesting. Like, you know, doing the fall league stuff, which is what falls into place sooner than, than other things. I've randomly run into Peoria more than other West Valley teams to this point. And so the Marlins list is more done. The Marlins list is more done at this stage than I would have guessed it would be. So they might move up the hierarchy and start when I start working my way through Florida, like just Kemp Alderman and King and Pintar and like all these guys they traded

for their reports have more or less been written fairly recently, right? So that's just how this stuff sort of falls together. But yeah. Nicole Soule- You've rejected my notion that Pintar should end up on the Philly so then there can be a Pintar and a Pintar, but that's fine. You know. I have a, well, I have a cornball aversion. And that's why you're not a Metz fan to bring it full circle. Well, Eric, thank you very much.

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