Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2441: Re-signed and Resigned

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about recent signings and injuries pertaining to teams whose seasons they’ve recently previewed, the Diamondbacks re-signing Zac Gallen and the thrilling resolution of the free-agent-contract over/under draft, the winter of Bryce Harper’s discontent, Harper and Manny Machado’s comments about the Dodgers’ spending, Max Muncy’s extension, the worsening of the allegations against Emmanuel Clase, new details about the challenge system, Mike Trout’s impending return to center field, and (44:33) the momentous, surprising resignation of Tony Clark as MLBPA executive director. Then (1:00:22) they bring on FanGraphs prospect writers Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Gawlowski to discuss their ranking of the sport’s top 100 (well, 110) prospects. Audio intro: The Shirey Brothers, “Effectively Wild Theme” Audio interstitial: Benny and a Million Shetland Ponies, “Effectively Wild Theme (Pedantic)” Audio outro: Xavier LeBlanc, “Effectively Wild Theme” Link to post on recent Padres signings Link to Preller extension story Link to MLBTR on López Link to MLBTR on Rengifo Link to post on Gallen signing Link to EWStats site Link to over/under draft history Link to Harper video Link to Harper article Link to Harper t-shirt Link to Happy Gilmore scene Link to Harper/Machado comments Link to Muncy extension story Link to the latest on Clase Link to Ben on Clase Link to Manfred’s Clase comment Link to Clase’s 2018 balk Link to EW Episode 1269 Link to challenge system explainer Link to broadcast details Link to MLBTR on Trout Link to The Athletic on Clark Link to ESPN on Clark Link to MLBTR on Clark Link to Baumann on Clark Link to 2024 whistleblower complaint Link to federal probe report Link to federal probe report 2 Link to federal probe report 3 Link to OneTeam Partners explainer Link to NLFPA meltdown Link to FG top prospects list Link to Griffin’s Instagram Link to ZiPS Top 100 Link to top 100 prospects chat Link to piece on prospect debates Link to Brendan’s return post Link to Ben on pitching prospects Link to latest Wade/Ward mix-up Link to Wade/Ward history  Sponsor Us on Patreon  Give a Gift Subscription  Email Us: [e-mail]  Effectively Wild Subreddit  Effectively Wild Wiki  Apple Podcasts Feed   Spotify Feed  YouTube Playlist  Facebook Group  Bluesky Account  Twitter Account  Get Our Merch! var SERVER_DATA = Object.assign(SERVER_DATA || {}); Source

Hello and welcome to episode 2441 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs, presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. We are taking a brief break, pressing pause on our season preview series, which will resume later this week. But today we're bringing you some prospect talk from Fangraph's prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and Brendan Goulowski, who published their top 100 prospect list this week, and we will be discussing it. But first, just a bit of news to discuss. A few things have happened in baseball, one of which involves Tony Clark, who as we speak,

I suppose technically, is still the head of the MLBPA, but will not be for long. It may not be by the time you're hearing this. And this is such a developing situation, and meetings are taking place about this right now and reports are trickling out that maybe I'll just leave that for the end of the intro, just in case anything substantive comes out before we get to that. But I think more will certainly come out in the days and weeks ahead. But this is big news, obviously, on the eve of bargaining for the head of the MLBPA to be residing. So we will discuss some of the implications of that.

Just a quick little roundup of some transactions and player news and signings and such. As is always the case, we have to start the season preview series early in order to finish by an early opening day, which means that teams continue to do stuff after we talk about them. So we previewed the Padres. We previewed the Diamondbacks. They've been busy. The Padres, since we talked about them last week, went and got Hermann Marquez and Griffin Canning. And Nick Castellanos is now a San Diego Padre. Walker Bueller.

Yeah. Oh, I missed that. That just happened to. Minor League deal signed yesterday. Yeah. And they did indeed sign AJ Preller to an extension of, I believe, undisclosed length. So we talked about how that seemed to be in the offing. Teams don't love to go into seasons with pobo's being lame ducks.

And so they have signed Preller to some sort of extension. And so he's the one making these moves. And teams just waded out the Phillies with Castellanos. The Phillies seemingly were we're hoping trying to trade. him somewhere. They were hanging on to him, even though it was just a fade-up complete that he would be going somewhere. But they ultimately just made them cut him loose. And now the Padres have picked him up for league minimum. I don't know exactly how and where he fits on the Patres. But he's now on that team. And the change of scenery very much seemed to be in order there. But the Phillies couldn't

find a taker where, you know, some team would pay some portion of the remaining money or give them a prospect or something. Nah, I guess teams kind of had the Phillies where they wanted them on Castellanos, so they knew that his days were numbered. Now he's on the Padres. And also the Diamondbacks, after we discussed them last week, well, not only did they sign my number one minor league free agent draftee, Joe Ross, but slightly bigger news, they did indeed bring back Zach Allen, a possibility that we discussed on our preview. We talked about how they needed a starter. Well, now they got one,

and it's the same as the guy they had before. Lots of just bringing back players that they had in last year's rotation. But obviously, this has implications. Not just for the Diamondbacks, you know, West, but for the effectively wild free agent contracts over underdraft, decided in your favor. Uh-huh. stunning buzzer beating fashion.

Thank you. A thrilling conclusion. And as we discussed recently, he had to sign for $30 million or less. And indeed, he did. He signed for the qualifying offer amounts. Yes. Now, unfortunately for Gallen, he, I suppose, did himself a disservice by not taking the qualifying offer in retrospect. because he got the same guarantee, $22.025 million,

but most of it is deferred now. Yeah. And so he's actually getting less money in present-day value than he would have if he had just accepted the qualifying offer and not been twisting in the wind all winter. So I guess he misjudged the market or the interest in him coming off a down season or seasons and with the draft pick compensation attached. Yeah. So that didn't work out well for him or for Scott Boris, I suppose, his agent. We can relitigate the whole is Boris washed conversation. No, he's not. But evidently, there are some misfires.

And, you know, if he stays true to history, then maybe Gallen will have a bounce back year and he'll hit the market again next winter and he'll do great for himself. Unencumbered. Yeah. But didn't do so great this winter. However, this does work out in your favor, just an improbable. come from behind victory. I guess we both came from behind, but you came from behind last, and you got the last laugh here. And we're separated by a mere $8 million. This is, I believe, the smallest margin in effectively wild free agent contracts over under draft history. So it was $265 million for you and $257 million for me. And that $8 million makes all the difference. Congrats to you and to all of us because this was quite an entertaining competition. Yeah. And once again, I'd like to say that I feel bad that this trivial victory, this, you know, bit of bragging rights and really nothing else, comes at the expensive players making less than they were forecast for, right?

You know, we want, we want guys to make their money. We're not opposed to anyone getting the bag, I swear. but I will say you were so obnoxious about your minor league free agent draft win last year that I am taking extra pleasure in this. And I know it was a squeaker. I know it was close, which I think is more a testament to how well dialed in these estimates are, have been in especially or lately, right? there isn't quite as much big margin to be had, although, you know, we've each enjoyed a couple of deals that have really moved the needle for us. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I'd like to thank my family and the intense prep that I did for the draft. And I guess also these markets being misjudged in some cases.

But I'd like it if we were winning on the overs. more often than on the unders. And, you know, as we go into a contentious labor year, I worry about that. Although the last time, guys were about to get locked out, teams doled out of just a boatload of money right at the last minute. So who knows what we'll see come December. But yeah, what a wild ride, what a roller coaster it was. I'm excited to get to watch Gallen in the desert again. Last year didn't go well for him. But when, you know, he's really, right. Like, he's really fun. He's a really fun pitcher to watch. He's got the glasses, you know. We love a guy in specs out there on the mound. So I hope that this is a nice bounce back year

for Zach Allen and that he is able to secure the contract that he wants. And I think at various points in his career has very obviously deserved. But in the meantime, I'm glad for you to get taken down a peg, buddy. Yes. Yes. So there we go. You earned it. And it was, in fact, a squeaker, unlike the minor league for agent draft, which I won in a walk. Okay. And it was really just, you know, this was more entertaining, I think, because it came down to the wire. We have to be done faster than usual this episode. I have so much editing to do and you're going to, you're going to grandstand.

You're going to Adrian Brody this? No, you're done. The other draft was kind of just like waiting to see how much I would win by. Okay. Okay. Anyway, what else you got for me? I'm going to hang up and go work if you're going to do this. I'm happy to see, though, that we both still got it.

Because when we did this over underdraft, we were thinking, well, maybe there's no point anymore because the predictions are so well calibrated that maybe there's no edge here. Right. And maybe there's no point in continuing to do it. But we ended up being a combined 500 million plus bucks in the right direction, I guess, given our forecast, which, you know, was largely because of this trend towards players and teams meeting on these trampoline contracts. these short-term high A-AV deals as opposed to maximizing the years. So if this becomes the norm and MLB trade rumors starts predicting those, well, I guess we'll continue to evaluate whether there's any point in doing this. But I'm glad we did it this year because it led to a quite entertaining outcome.

I was hoping that he'd signed for exactly 30 million so that you would win by the 0.025. But it was quite close as it is. Okay. So that was exciting. and also more injury news has continued to pile up. So we did do a twins preview. And since then, Pablo Lopez, it has come out, now has a torn UCL and is likely facing season-ending surgery.

So not that the twins preview wasn't dismaying enough, but if we were to do it again today, it might be even more dismaying. So that's not great. Also, coming out of Philly's camp, not just Nick Castano's departing, But Bryce Harper continuing to re-air his displeasure about Dave Dumbrovsky's comments, which were just honest, I guess, and fairly accurate his evaluation of Bryce Harper's season and how it was good, but less than elite, not as great as he's been before. And I don't know whether Dumbrovsky was just caught in a moment of candor and was just saying what he thought, which is not usually what team executives do, or whether he was hoping to motivate. Harper light a fire under him somehow, but obviously Harper was upset about that at the time and about the trade rumors that Dumbrovsky's comments spawned, which he wasn't actually suggesting

they would trade him, but of course sports talkers took that and ran with it. And so Harper did not take kindly to that and asked about it again at Phillies camp. He in somewhat more measured terms, but still smarting from that clearly, just said, I don't get motivated by that kind of stuff. For me, it was wild. The whole situation happening, the big thing for me was when we first met with this organization, it was, hey, we're always going to keep things in-house and we expect you to do the same thing. So when that didn't happen, it kind of took me for a run a little bit.

Obviously, I didn't have the year I wanted. Obviously, I didn't have the postseason I wanted. My numbers weren't where they needed to be. I know that. And I don't need to be motivated to be great in my career or anything else. That's just not a motivating factor for me. For Dave to come out and say those things, it's kind of wild. and maybe ineffectively wild if Harper is to be believed, though,

wouldn't be shocked if he just has a Bryce Harper revenge year, I think. Right. He was wearing a not-elite shirt. I mean, clearly this touched a nerve. And I don't know whether this had anything to do with the alternative treatments that he has pursued and that we have discussed to no end this off-season. Wait, what would, what about his, what alternative treatments would he have pursued that would make him grouchy? Well, yeah, I don't know whether the circulation of the blood makes him grouchy or whether they're just a manifestation of his motivation or his own lack of contentment with how he plays.

I see. Yeah. So I wouldn't be surprised if even though he says he's not motivated by this, that maybe he actually is. I mean, sorry, my not elite T-shirt has people asking a lot of questions. Like, he's, he's clearly somewhat motivated by this. Like, he, yes, I think so. He's clearly somewhat motivated by it, you know. Yeah.

I, and look, fine, you know, sticking it to your boss, that, that's a motivation as, as old as time. Sure. Tail is old as time. Mm-hmm. But, Bryce, Bryce, buddy, come on, come, we can, we can, we can, you can, you can be honest about what's going on. You can be like, that really piss me off. I'm proven wrong. I'm going to prove him wrong, you know?

Yeah. And I don't know whether that will make him play better or not, because presumably he's trying his best at all times. And so maybe if he's just consumed by rage and he's just like seeing Dave Dombrowski's face superimposed on every pitcher's body he faces this season. Like, I don't know whether that'll help or hinder his efforts. But, wow, George Plimpton's delivered.

So weird. Yeah, there is a resemblance there. Still got great hair after all these years. but you know what, so does Bryce. Anyway. Yeah, so we'll see how that all plays out, but clearly still smarting a little bit. It's still a little bad blood, so to speak.

Oh, boy. I also noticed that Harper and Machado both addressed the Dodgers and their spending. Okay. In a way that almost made it seem to me as if there were marching orders, there were talking points perhaps provided by the union. I don't know who knew with the union. There are still a lot of other people who work there. Yes, it's true. But since we were talking about how various calmness are framing payroll pieces and salary cap pieces around the Dodgers and Kyle Tucker, and there's been so much just unrest among fans and public sentiment about the Dodgers. And Harper said, I love what the Dodgers do. Obviously, they pay the money, they spend the money. I mean, they're a great team. They understand how to run it. They run their team like a business and they run it the right way. They understand where they need to put their money into. You might almost think that,

he's trying to work his way onto the Dodgers or something, that he's that sick of Dave Debrowski. But he did reportedly pass up an offer from the Dodgers when he was a free agent. But I don't think it's that because Manny Machado on the Padres was saying the same thing. He said, and I'm going to quote Machado here with some profanity. So be warned, I fucking love it. I love it. I mean, honestly, I think every team should be doing it.

The Dodgers have figured out a way to do it. It's fucking great for the game. Every team has the ability to. do it. So I hope all 30 teams could learn from that and cue the chorus of people saying, not all teams could do exactly what the Dodgers do. It's absolutely true. They don't have the same resources. But if he's just suggesting that many of them could spend more than they have been spending, then I'm largely with him on that. And that's coming from Manny Machado, division rival of the Dodgers. And there's been plenty of bad blood between those two teams. So

that almost makes it sound to me like, you know, how when we had Vinnie and Brent Rooker on the pod. And they were talking about the players kind of reclaiming the narrative and making a proactive case as opposed to just being on their back foot and signaling that, hey, a lockout, that's owner driven. That's not player driven, which not everyone would know. I wonder whether this is something that the players have decided to present some sort of united front here to have some influential veterans and stars and high earners say, hey, this is a lot of, you know, This is actually not a reason to impose a salary cap. We like this.

We approve of this. We want teams to be aggressive. I don't know. It was conspicuous, but the fact that they were both saying similar things at roughly the same time stood out to me. Do we know if they were asked or if they volunteered this stuff proactively? Yeah, that's a good question. Just, hey, anyone wondering what I think about the Dodgers? This memo with talking points, I suggest that I should bring up the, no, I don't know.

I would imagine that it is somewhat calculated that there have been, maybe not talking points necessarily, but sort of guidance given and just as well, right? Like you're going into a period where you understand there needs to be a shaping of the public narrative around this stuff, that there is value in players presenting a united front, having it comes. from, you know, a direct division rival who, as you noted, no love lost for the Dodgers, right? And, you know, a guy playing for a team that very reasonably might expect to have to bypass the Dodgers in order to make it to the World Series, that they would say, like, hey, why don't we all get on the same page here? It's, I think the way, and I'm not saying you're suggesting this is like a bad or anything, but I always find it, curious when people are like, well, they got talking points. Well, it's like, well, yeah. Yeah, they should. They should. You need to, you need to present your message on this stuff publicly. And this isn't this guy, these guys is job, right? Like having a position and sort of a well-calibrated response on labor

questions isn't necessarily Bryce Harper's job. Bryce Harper's job is to drink weird milk and hopefully prove his boss wrong, right? Manny Machado's job is to make the Dodgers' life difficult, not to say they're cool. I think having, you know, messaging around this stuff is good. I do think that, you know, one of the challenges that the players are going to face over the next year is, you know, finding a way to articulate this stuff, not in terms of team capacity, but in terms of sort of directly countering some of the, um, I think incorrect, but at this point, pervasive talking points that the league has put forth that, like, this is a question of competitive balance, right?

This is about competitive balance because on some level hearing a player say, yeah, we love it when a team spends on players. Well, that's an unsurprising conclusion for them to draw, right? Because they're players. Of course, they want players to get paid. These guys happen to have already gotten paid, so I suppose they could do a, like, well, I got mine. And now I'd love a salary cap so that this team I don't like can't play well. But, you know, that piece of it's not surprising to me. I do think they need to think about, like, how do we put this in terms that are compelling to fans?

Because I do think that a lot of fans kind of buy the argument that the league is making. I think that argument is incorrect. And I think it's also insincere. But I think that, you know, that particular argument needs to be met head on. But you can only answer the question you were asked, you know, within sort of reasonable bounds. So it's better for them to come out and say, no, I think what they're doing is great, even though, like, I have to deal with the Dodgers 13 times a year, however many games it is for division rivals. And they're the main stumbling block for us getting to the World Series, but I'd rather they do this than not. Yeah.

Harper getting on the Dodgers would be weird. Like, where would he even play? They have a first baseman. Could he be a shortstop? They have one of those. Could he be the DH weight? No. They do have a pretty good DH.

Is blood guy a position? He could be their blood guy. That makes it sound like he's doing something very nefarious. Yeah. Yeah, I'm their blood guy, you know? That might be one way to take down the Dodgers, just appoint Bryce Harper as their director of alternative medicine. Yeah, just have him be a trainer, team doctor, whatever it is. I'm here to deal with your blood.

He's like a shady weed dealer. You have to like, before you get the blood from him, you have to let him play video games for half an hour. Yeah. I'm imagining Bryce Harper just. trying to go to his happy place at the plate. And it's like Happy Gilmore, when Happy tries to go to his happy place, and Julie Bowen is lying there with pictures of beer in her negligee. And then Shooter McAvon crashes his happy place and starts making out with her, except it's Dave Dombrowski.

He should change his walkout music to Blood Bank by Bonny Ver, just to troll the rest of us. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And one thing that I know annoys people about the Dodgers is not just when they outspend everyone, but when they don't even have to because they get a discount on a guy. And that's sort of what happened with Max Muncie, because it wasn't huge news, but he signed a one-year extension,

and it's a guaranteed 10 million. And then there's a, he gets 7 million next year, and he has a club option worth 10 million for 2028. And I know that he's 35 and he's had his ups and downs, but he's still a pretty good productive player. And he just, like, clearly is not interested in testing the market. Like, he just wants to be a Dodger. He's been a Dodger. The Dodgers sort of salvaged him, and he's not going for market rate. So that is a complication because the Dodgers have been so good for so long. Not only can they outspend everyone, but also sometimes people just want to play there. And that's kind of tougher to counteract, at least without getting in the way of their being able to spend and attract good players and win every year. But it would take some time to

dismantle the Dodgers reputation. I do think that this stuff washes over fans differently when it's like the guy who's been there. Yeah. Muncie, I mean, obviously he didn't start his career with the Dodgers famously, but he's a Dodger. Yeah, he's a Dodgers find. Yeah.

He's a Dodgers find it. They developed him, yeah. And I think that he is so closely associated with that franchise, he's been there for a decade now, right? Like this is, he's going into his 11th season with them. So I do think that these tend to not bother people quite as much, but you're, you're not wrong. He's also a specs guy, you know, a specs guy and a team wolf guy. He looks like teen wolf. He looks like he's like pre, full transition to teen wolf. He does. It's not even a hair thing. It's like he has prominent canines. Mm-hmm. You know?

Yeah. Gosh, the Dodger. signed him, well, April. I'm letting that fly. Sure. Teen Wolf, yeah, whatever you said. He does. He looks in Teen Wolf. He looks like a mid-transition to Teen Wolf. I guess it's... You're never really not thinking about it now. April 2017 is when they signed him.

So nine years almost. But yeah, for the Dodgers, that's a long time. They're not very homegrown these days. Also, we got just a couple of clarifications and details about the challenge system. Nothing really revealing because we kind of had some sense of how it would work, but one slight downer because we had sort of celebrated that the implementation of ABS in any form, the challenge system might mean the end of K-Zone. Yeah.

And sounds like that won't actually be the case. No. Yeah, it might lead to a change, but here's what the MLP.com explainer says. Will the broadcast still feature the strike zone box? It remains up to the individual broadcasters to determine whether and how to present. the zone. The only change is that MLB is now requesting broadcasters no longer differentiate the circle in the box depending on whether the pitch is a ball or a strike. In other words, some broadcasts would show a filled in circle on the zone if the pitch was a strike and a hollow

circle if it was a ball. MLB is asking its broadcast partners to do one or the other but not both. So I guess A, the broadcasters are not bound to do anything differently if they don't want to. Be ungovernable. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess. MLB is itself overseeing a lot of baseball broadcast now. So they get their way a lot. They can kind of do their own thing maybe there. But this is such a subtle change.

It wasn't until fairly recently that I even noticed the filled in circle versus hollow circle thing. I mean, I think Sam may have mentioned it in a pebble hunting. And I thought, oh, yeah, that does happen. But I didn't even really notice it before then because really where the circle is in relation to the box is kind of all you need to know because it will be filled in or hollow depending on whether it intersects with the strike zone on the screen. So it's not like there's much mystery there.

Right. So, no, this doesn't appear to be changing in any significant way. And I guess that's kind of unfortunate because, you know, even though you can kind of come to rely on the K zone and maybe you even think you like it, it does tend to make you dissatisfied and upset at all times. Yeah. And there's still going to be a delay in stadium or, you know, in. stadium, like, depending on the feed that you're seeing, it won't show this at all.

Or, you know, there will still be a broadcast delay, of course, as there has been to this point, which is kind of annoying. You know, it's going to be like a nine-second delay when you're watching on MLBTV, and then there's like a five-second delay on game day or whatever. I don't know if the delays are longer than they were or not. The downside of the delays, as we have noted, is that the center field camera, is the one with the delay. And so there's this, once you're aware of it,

there's this sort of jarring little change because there's like five extra frames added because of the K zone so that they can, you know, render that in real-time-ish. And that's on the center-field camera. So when you switch from another camera to the center-field camera, you're sort of like losing two-tenths of a second or something.

And then you switch back to the field view and you're fast forwarding essentially. You're kind of losing a little time. And so you lose a little field or reaction time and you're less likely to see someone make a catch on a sharp comeback or that kind of thing. And maybe you can tell with the crowd noise, it's subtle, but can bother people

when they become aware of it. But yeah, we're going to continue to see broadcast delays and, you know, in stadium. This is all concern about sign stealing and, you know, people picking up on stuff in real time. and using it to challenge or whatever. And so, you know, in the stadium, the strike zone box will only appear like in the broadcast booth. It won't be on the jumbotrons and any monitors people can see.

And I guess it's slightly disappointing, though, that KZone will probably continue to be a thing. So, you know, we're kind of pro-challeng system anyway, but that seemed to be an additional benefit that maybe we won't actually get. Yeah, I agree. And one nice little thing is that, I don't know if this was confirmed or assumed before, but there are two challenges, but then in extra innings you get an extra challenge because you're kind of managing under the assumption that it will be nine innings. So if the game goes to extras, if you start the extra inning out of challenges, then you get a challenge for the 10th inning.

And if you use that, you get another challenge for the 11th. And if you have challenges remaining at the start of the 10th, you won't get an additional challenge, but you will for a subsequent inning if they're out of challenges at the start of that inning. So that's good, I guess. You don't want teams to have used their challenges and then be in those high leverage late inning or extra inning moments without them. And also, this was kind of amusing, but when a position player pitcher is out there, you can't challenge, which is just kind of funny. I mean, there can still be bad calls. Maybe even you're more likely to get bad calls potentially, I don't know, just because it's so...

But once you've gotten to that point, it's like, moving along now. Yeah, it's just like, who cares? Yeah, let's wrap this up. And also, you can't challenge after replay reviews. The article says so as to avoid a complex series of challenges. So like nested challenges, just contingent challenge on another challenge. But if there is potential for a replay review after an ABS challenge, umpires will check to see if either manager wants to initiate a re-release.

replay review before restarting the pitch clock. If a challenge and a replay review are requested simultaneously, the ABS challenge will be accepted first. So lots of little wrinkles that are being straightened out and announced. So I'll link to that if there's any question in anyone's mind about how this system will function. In speaking about individual pitches and calls, the manual Class A stuff just keeps getting worse, like it keeps coming out in dribs and drabs.

And indictments are getting unsealed. And, you know, Luis Ortiz is trying to sever his case from Class A's because Class A seems to be much worse, which doesn't mean Ortiz is innocent. But he doesn't want to be lumped in with Class A and maybe wants to sort of paint himself as he was the ringleader. And I just went along with it, which based on what we know, seems like it may well have been the case, which doesn't absolve Ortiz. but he doesn't seem to have been doing it as long or as often as Class A was. But there are all sorts of details about how, yes, he was trying to kind of code it, hide it, and make it be about cockfighting and rooster stuff. And the feds are saying that is not what it was.

And, you know, additional folks have been charged here. But I guess the biggest news is that prosecutors have implicated him on some additional pitches, because it was nine pitches mentioned in the initial indictment. And now it seems to be up to 15, including one pitch, at least in the postseason, in game one in the ALDS in 2024, because the indictment had said that it started in 2023 and continued through 2025,

but hadn't mentioned any specific instances in 2024. But now it is lumping in that playoff case. And when we talked about this and when I wrote about it, I mentioned that pitch because it looked so suspicious. And actually, this is mapping on really well to the analysis I did in that article where I think I pinpointed 14 pitches that seemed somewhat suspicious because they were waste pitches on OO counts. And now I guess they're saying 15. I don't know if it's exactly the same ones or not. But yeah, it's not looking good for him.

And it looks worse the longer this goes and the more details come out. And the trial is scheduled to start in May. We'll see if that gets delayed. But then it'll all kind of come out probably and all the dirty laundry. And as I noted, Rahmanford was asked about this just recently and said, why didn't this get flagged sooner? Because this was going on for years. And he just said something about how it takes time for the patterns to become apparent, which, you know, not really reassuring. And my analysis, of course, was after the fact.

but you could have been doing something like that just to flag it proactively, and you could have picked that up when it was actually happening potentially to say nothing of just whatever wagering was going on that you hope would be flagged by the betting integrity firms. So it doesn't inspire confidence. Yeah, the wagering piece of it is the more concerning part to me. I agree with you that the whole thing is alarming, and the fact that it takes this long really makes you question how confident you can be in the sort of competitive integrity of the entire enterprise. I also wouldn't want to damn a guy on a couple of misreleased pitches that were genuinely just, you know,

flubs on the pitchers part. So I can understand how you would need to see a real pattern. Although I say that. And then you're like, it's actually, you know, it's nine pitches. It's 15. It's like, well, that doesn't. seem like very many. It's when you marry that with the with the betting data and then all the other stuff. Yeah. And like pitch characteristics and arm angles and all sorts of suspicious stuff. Yeah. So I can understand how you would need to have a high degree of confidence. And obviously for it to be a criminal investigation, like this isn't, this can't just be the league being like, well, we think, you know, you have a, you have an evidentiary burden as, you know, a prosecuting authority who's going to deprive this guy of his liberty, right? Like, you can't just

be like, hey, he got sweaty. A couple of those pitches. They went a flying. So it's a tricky thing. You're really counting on guys just wanting to play clean, right? For the incentives to not be strong enough for them, not to, for the incentives to be powerful enough to prevent them from doing it in the other direction. You have to rely on integrity. You really do. I mean, you have to have these systems in place, and I'm glad that even if it's on such a profound delay, that there is some mechanism for them to try to assess these things and that the betting is being monitored, but it's a vulnerable system. You know, they can do a bunch of stuff and they should do all those things, but you're really counting on a lot of people simultaneously having some sense of integrity

or principle for it to all hang together. And that's unpleasant to think about, because we know people, you know, we know how people are. Maybe they're not quite this compromised. Maybe they're not quite this uncaring about this thing we all care about. But you're really relying on a lot of people doing the right thing. Yeah. That sucks. Still unanswered. The thing that I'm still most curious about is, is why. Just what was the motivation here? What was Class A getting out of this aside from some small kickbacks, was it just kind of doing a favor to benefit these people? Was it just feeling like he would do it because he could

and did get away with it for a long time? Was there some other ulterior motive here? That's what I still want to know. Yeah, it does make you wonder, and I hesitate to speculate about these things, but it's like, was there more than this, right? Because you could imagine a scenario where even though these are relatively, it's like the, it's like moneyballing crime, right?

Where it's like tiny edges over time. We're going to accumulate it to a big, a big score. You know, did they just think that they were going to be able to get away with this in perpetuity? And that, you know, they look back 10 years from now and be like, wow, we made a couple million dollars doing that. But you would think that he would just, wouldn't you just rather make money play in baseball? I don't know. I don't know. Emmanuel Class A, man.

Who could know the heart of a man? Right. You know something about him that he's like, you know, what people will have sympathy for if I say it's cockfighting instead. It's like, no, I think that's pretty bad too, actually. I understand that like this is a, that that is an endeavor that has some tradition that I do not have, you know, a connection to, but also, yikes, my guy. Yikes.

Yeah, I know. Leave him be. Yeah. And I know that the analysis I did did not show anything suspicious in Class A's data prior to 2020, which if anything just reinforces the red flags from the period that I looked at. But I was reminded recently that

we talked about this years and years ago on the podcast, and I had forgotten. But Class A was at the center of a Northwest League title game in 2018, which was won or lost because he did a walk-off

Bach to surrender the Northwest League championship. This was Class A, you know, the Eugene Emeralds. And not saying that... It's pronounced Claesee, Ben. Oh, yes. Thank you.

Yes. You're okay. That was good. You should have laughed. That was good. I didn't know where you were going with it at first and then it dawned on me late. But yes, sorry, didn't mean to no sell your excellent wordplay there. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying that Class A was throwing games in A ball in 2018. And I don't know that people were even betting on those things at that. time. But it's just once you open the can of worms or Pandora's box or whatever's in that box, then suddenly you're looking askance at everything. And it's so weird because he was so good during this period when he was doing this stuff, allegedly, that you can't even say, oh, it can't be him because look how good he's been. Clearly, he's trying to win. But no,

you can win and also throw some pitches in the process. And, you know, he could have done this for eternity and he wouldn't have been much money if what's been reported. is accurate because the people who were in cahoots were making some money, but he personally seemingly wasn't. So it's weird. Right. And that's, you know, that's the piece of it that I imagine, you know, if this does go to a lengthy trial that we will have more insight into, which is what is the motivation beyond that? Because based on what we know, it doesn't seem to fit like an obvious logical framework for him, but we don't really have a great sense of was this being done sort of in in these purely for the assistance of others making money because like you know

well this guy couldn't throw the pitches the class they could but yes yes money right so credit to listener steve to reminding us of that back which was discussed on episode 1269 way back when also didn't even notice the brewer signed louise renfifo since our previews so we're talking about who's gonna play third base who's gonna be your infielder now well now we know i guess it's like it's almost as if we identify these trouble spots on rosters and then teams see the same problem and they're like yeah we're on that just give us a minute we do know season didn't start yet yeah and uh and also mike trout apparently returning to center field or from all appearances we'll we'll talk about this more on our angels preview but yeah he says he wants to play center he says he's talked to manager and gm and they're both on board with

it and uh are they going to contradict him at this point who knows and you know he also said he wanted to play in the WBC. I don't know if he could have made the team, honestly, if not for sort of sentimental reasons, but insurance issues evidently. I was going to say there's no way he could get insurance. Yes, right, because of all the injury issues. But moving out of center was one way to theoretically keep him healthier. And I guess it kind of worked, but not really because he hurt his knee and then he ended up deaching the rest of the year anyway. But he says he feels more comfortable in center. And he says, at least that he felt like he was running more in right field and that it was actually less strain on his body in center,

which I'm pretty sure the data shows that center fielder's run more. But, you know, I don't know about Trout specifically. And maybe I can understand why he would just feel better in his natural position. But I guess if the Angels had a better center fielder, because even though Joe Adel hit a bit better last year, the defensive stats were pretty ugly. Yeah, he's a corner. Yeah, and Trout in 2024, like, he could still play some center.

He wasn't great out there anymore. You know, he wasn't that great out there really since he was a rookie, I guess. But he was still at least average seemingly at the position or close to it. And so maybe they just figure, eh, make him happy. He's going to get hurt one way or another. So, like, at least he'll be worth a little more in center. And we just, you know, we have Bryce Teidosio, who is a great fielder, but can he hit at all? who knows, so maybe they can replace him late in games, but yeah, I don't know.

He wasn't like great shakes in right trout either, so maybe it's just kind of like managing his happiness because they figure he'll get hurt somewhere anyway. And a lot of his previous injuries weren't necessarily like while he was playing center or going all out out there. It was just a bunch of stuff that happened for one reason or another. And I guess you could say in center at least you're maybe a little, less likely to run into a wall or something, maybe. But yeah, I don't know if this will last, but it's hard to bank on him staying out there

at any position for very long. I guess what I would say about all of this is right now, we project the Angels to win 72 games. We have a, you know, a 5.4% chance of making the postseason by our odds. That number might shift between now and opening day. Sure. Sure. That could happen. Might shift down.

Could shift up. Why not? You know, I agree that is it the most conservative move that they could make to manage his health and availability? No. The most conservative thing they could do is just make him a DH, but they don't want to do that. And he doesn't want to do that. And they're in this weird spot where it's like there's enough time left on that deal where there is benefit to,

to keeping the relationship good. There's also enough time left on that deal that it can't be like totally cavalier with his health either, right? Like, they signed for so much longer, Ben. Like that 2030 is the last year on that contract. Now, will he play that whole time? I don't know, no. Will they work something out if it gets to a point where he's unplayable?

Maybe he's not unplayable now. You know, it's not like he's, he was a 120 WRC plus hitter last year. Like, he is still a viable big leaguer, but he, you know, we are aware of the decline because of the height of the height. Yes. High. Height of the high. High of the heights.

Previous heights. High of the previous heights. Anyway, they're in a weird spot because you want to keep him happy. You're not going anywhere. So, like, some return to prior form from Mike Trout, well, it would be useful to improving that 5.4% playoff odds, but also give him. your fan something to be excited about. But like, you got to maintain some kind of good form for this dude for a couple more years yet if he plays out the whole string. So I don't know.

It's a weird, it's a weird spot to be in. He's not Anthony Rendon, but maybe they figure whatever we get from him is gravy at this point. And 120 is not really that valuable if you're a DH full time. Right. So if he can continue to be a 120 as a center fielder and if he feels more comfortable out there, then maybe they figure, well, let's get what we can from him before he breaks or until we find a better centerfield alternative. But he's going to turn 35 in August.

It's tough to play center field well at that age, even if you don't have a lengthy injury track record. So if it's kind of a manifestation of denial and thinking you can still be great, which we've talked about with Trout before, just always saying, I'm almost there. I can get back to who I was. And he's saying the same thing. Like he ended last season hitting preempt. well and he feels good about his swing and I hope he's right. I hope that he can be good and

actually stick in center and stay healthy. We'll talk about that more in the Angels preview. Okay, the plan here to backload the intro and sort of bury the lead on purpose didn't really pan out because there hasn't been any new news about Tony Clark that has emerged while we've been recording this. But what we know, and if we had recorded this this morning, it would have been a bit different. And if we recorded it later, it would probably be a bit different. And I imagine we'll return to this as more details come out. But the upshot is that Tony Clark is out after, what, 13 years at the head of the MLB Players Association. And when I saw that news on Tuesday morning, I was somewhat surprised. And this was kind of a last second announcement because he and the

Players Association were about to start doing their meetings at various camps across spring. and they wanted to put a stop to that just as it was about to begin. But when I saw it, I thought, well, it's not the most shocking news because Clark has been embattled, I guess we could say. Sure. And my colleagues at the Press Box podcast would probably say embattled is one of those only in journalism words that you ever really use in kind of regular speech. But he's been embattled now for, gosh, the better part of two years because the feds have been probing. And they have been doing various investigations as they did into the NFL PA, which led to sort of a spectacular self-destruction and leadership change there. But also there have been investigations, really a multi-pronged investigation into one team, which is the joint licensing program and also this growing the game initiative called Players Way that there's been some suspicion that funds were maybe misappropriated, that it was just kind of a way to say that this spending was happening and really it was being repurposed.

And this is all stemming from, I believe, a whistleblower complaint to the NLRB back in 2024 about Clark or maybe other leaders in the union just misappropriating funds or doing some self-dealing and maybe some nepotism happening. And so all this stuff is swirling. And of course, Clark survived essentially a mutiny within the union in 2024, where there was a power struggle and a contingent was trying to force out his number two, negotiator, Bruce Meyer, who I guess would be the number one by default at the moment. And Clark weathered that and seemed to sort of consolidate power. But there's been a lot of that going on. Yeah. And, you know, sort of a divide within the union between the executive subcommittee who were not gungho about the CBA that ended up being ratified and the rank and file, the players who did ratify it.

So against all of that and that backtrue. It was not the most stunning news to me that they might make a change with their executive director. But then Jeff Passon and Don Vanetta reported at ESPN that he actually resigned after an internal investigation revealed that he had an inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law who had been hired by the union in 2023. And as we record here on Tuesday afternoon, that's about all we know about that. So there could be many more details, some more salacious than others that surface about the nature of this inappropriate relationship and whether and how it was romantically inappropriate, whether it was inappropriate in a nepotism sort of way, or maybe both. Why not both, right? Right. But this is getting messier.

Yeah. And the initial, what came out of various camps and player leaders were sort of signaling, this will be okay, and we just want stability. And, you know, they were saying something to the effect of we want to go with an interim leader for now and just sort of project some stability heading into bargaining. And I guess you could even say that maybe it's better for Clark to crash and burn for personal misdeeds than. for indictment misdeeds, but they are not mutually exclusive, I suppose. Right, yeah, why not? We don't know what the ultimate result of the ongoing federal investigation will be. Yeah, right.

That feels like the most journalistically responsible way for me to frame that. Yes, if it came out that everything was innocent, except for Tony Clark having some inappropriate relationship with his sister-in-law that didn't really reflect on the rest of the union or leadership or some sort of holistic misdeeds, then I guess that would be maybe the best case scenario, but all this other stuff is hanging over everything also. So I guess the main takeaway is that it's not good to, you know, I guess not having your house in order is often the expression that's used here. They're about to embark on a contentious round of bargaining. There's a lot at stake. And, you know, bargaining hasn't really picked up. It will after the season

starts. And so it's kind of like, well, it reminds me almost of when the Nationals axed Mike Rizzo right before the draft. And it was like, well, that doesn't seem ideal to have a change in leadership right before the draft. But then again, once you decide you want a change in leadership, then better to do it sooner rather than later. Yeah, you want him to be able to pick your guy at 1-1? Like, yeah, exactly. Right. So it's still, it's not ideal. You could say, well, it's better to rip the band-aid off now, than it would be to have that happen in the middle of bargaining.

So that's, it's certainly preferable for this to come out now than several months from now or in December when the owners impose a lockout or something. So in that sense, better to have it out. But ideally, of course,

there would just be more confidence in leadership and you wouldn't have sort of internal power struggle a couple of years before bargaining kicks off and then an actual change at the top. a couple months before bargaining kicks off. And the assumption seems to be in some quarters now, well, they'll just default to Meyer running things for now, which might be true and might be okay.

He's obviously an experienced union executive and has led rounds of bargaining before. And it's not as if you can necessarily say that Tony Clark was great with some sort of negotiating savant, you know. I don't know that the players have gotten great deals in recent rounds of bargaining. they haven't given up everything, obviously, but he's come in for plenty of criticism about the priorities and how he's handled everything. And so you could say maybe they'd be better off

with a non-former player running things with a career union negotiator actually handling things. Of course, he would have been handling the negotiations on a day-to-day basis anyway. Then again, that player revolt a couple years ago was sort of centered on trying to force Meyer out. So with Clark,

out too, then maybe Meyer is seen as his guy. Maybe Meyer gets the boot, too, or his own power is reduced. So that's why we kind of have to wait and see which way the players go with this and whom they anoint as their next leader and what that signals and also what comes out about Clark and the circumstances of his resignation here. But it's not ideal, I guess, is what you would say. You know, I'm sure Rob Manfred and the owners are thinking things are in disarray over there. it's messy, it's drama, and you'd prefer a united front and someone who had institutional memory and had been around for a while in whom everyone had confidence in. That would probably be better than sort of changing leaders right on the eve of everything kicking off.

Yeah, so this is like, I think a couple of things. Guys are being asked about this in camp and Andy Costco, who was our preview guest for the Orioles, spoke to Chris. Bassett in camp. Remember Chris Bassett's on the Orioles now? And he's a member of the executive subcommittee. And he basically said, you know, this is without a doubt added stress, added problems. But at the end of the day, I think we'll be okay and went on to say, we're structured in a way that losing Tony is a big piece because he was the head of our union. But he was not our head negotiator. He was not our head lawyer. So we need to make adjustments. But we are okay. And, you know, of course he's going to say that. He's a member of the executive subcommittee. He wants to present this. as something that is survivable, but obviously an obstacle they have to overcome. I think that if what we come to learn is that this is the real reason that he resigned and that whatever results there is from that federal investigation keeps the rest of the PA out of it, that this is something that is very survivable. You want to have cohesion within the membership going into the CBA negotiation.

Yeah. And that's why you go with an internal interim director as opposed to some full-fledged external search right now, which could last for a while. Yeah, that could last for months. I mean, I also think that you want your membership to have confidence in the union as a force for its own advancement. It's being the membership's advancement, not the people who have. the union's advancement. That's part of what is so potentially destabilizing about Clark's being a part of this federal investigation. If you, you know, have followed any of the reporting around the shenanigans that have gone on in the NFLPA, that does not seem like a body

that had remotely the best interests of its membership at heart, right? And I would have, as an NFL player, a lot of trepidation about that body represented. me in any kind of a negotiation with ownership. And so that's an important thing to avoid from the PA's perspective because if the owners decide they really want a salary cap and they are willing to lose games over it, you are going to have to ask your membership to sacrifice and lose money to hold what I think is a very important line, what the PA has persuasively argued is an important line, but is going to be a painful line to maintain. And if you have doubt within the membership about the leadership of your organization, that could be a real problem. And to your point,

it's not like it's been totally smooth sailing for them over the last couple of years. I also think that, like, I want to be careful in the way I say this. You know, I think there's a lot of value in having a former player in the senior ranks at the union, to having multiple former players in the senior ranks at the union. I think that you have credibility with active players when you have that kind of a conduit. I also think that in the course of a CBA negotiation, you really want to have a good negotiator,

and that person is likely to be a labor lawyer, not a former player. And it doesn't mean that they can't be complimentary and reinforcing skill sets. But I think part of where the union went wrong in the last CBA negotiation before this most recent one was that the interests of a certain tranche of player,

trance of player, was prioritized over more junior members of the membership. More junior members of the membership? You know what I mean. Guys who were earlier in their careers, right? Guys who were, in many cases, pre-arbitration. And I think that there has been an important course correction on that regard. I also think that maybe more importantly than any particular issue that the union has prioritized negotiating around, there has been a revived and healthy skepticism of whether the owners are going to act always in good faith.

Because I think some of the failures of the last, that was the 2016 negotiation, right? was the one that preceded this most recent agreement, right? It was the 2016 negotiation for the 2017 agreement. Yes. I think that a lot of the failures of that CBA can be attributed to the players assuming and taking as given a greater commitment to winning baseball games than ownership has necessarily displayed over the course of that CBA. because some of the behavior that has been most damaging to players or that was the most damaging to players over the term of that agreement came down to them prioritizing money and retaining talent past the six years over winning baseball games. And I think that they did a really good job, they being the union, of clawing back a lot of their losses. They couldn't claw back all of them.

And some of the ones they weren't able to claw back, I think, were the source of the consternation. But I also think that, like, Bruce Meyer did a good job. The union as a whole did a good job, as they likely were going to be able to, given how much ground they had to make up. But, you know, it's a big union, and it is a interesting union from a, like a demographic perspective, the amount of stratification within it in terms of, earning potential, the variety of guys. You also have like a union that is populated with a lot of conservative dudes. So that can be kind of at odds like the entire imprown tag on their union. So it's just like it's a hard, it's a hard thing to wrangle. This is a long-winded way of saying the best time for Tony Clark to have resigned if he was going to was probably six months ago.

the second best time for him to do it if he was going to do it this year is today because you got to get your ducks in a row you got to get your house in order you have to employ several other metaphors that are about shoring things up and then you got to be able to go into the negotiations which start you know they start before the the agreement expires they will be engaged in negotiation around the CBA all throughout this year so you got to get your You got to get your now, I'm going to do a swear, shi an order so that you can come to the table as a united front and say, hey, this is what we want. This is how far we're willing to go to get it. Also, Tony, what are you doing? What are you doing? Sir.

Sir. Well, I guess we'll find out what he was doing. For now, we can only imagine. But there will almost certainly be more to come on this subject. And there is also more to come on this podcast. So after a brief break, we'll be back with Eric and Brendan to talk about top prospects. Well, it's moments like these that make you ask, how can you not be pedantic about baseball?

If baseball were different, how different would it be? On the case with light ripping, all analytically, cross-check and compile find a new understanding. Not effectively while there can you not be pedantic. Yes, when it's a minute. It comes to baseball, how can you not be pedantic? Well, this year's top 100 prospects lists at Fancrafts, which of course was a top 110 prospects list in actuality, was a three-person affair. And we are joined by two of those people today.

James Fegan, I'm sure, will join us for our White Sox preview. Maybe we can talk about some prospects when he's on to talk about the White Sox, too. But today we have Eric Long and Hagen and Brendan Goulowski. Hello, guys. Hello. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks for having us. So you have been hard at work, and you have ranked many prospects, and we will talk about some of them,

and we will talk about the differences between you when it comes to some of those prospects, because you have published a piece on prospects you disagree about. But I take it there was probably a little disagreement about the number one guy on your list, so we can just start where the list started. Connor Griffin, number one overall at Fangraphs and everywhere else during this process. back ranking season. Also number one on Den Simborski's Zips list. So stats and scouts, not that they're all that different these days like him very much. And your write-up on Griffin was among the most effusive, dare I say, horny that I can recall in FanGraft's top 100 list history. And I think what is

most fascinating to me about Griffin is not just how good a player he appears to be, how promising how loud the tools are and everything, and I definitely want you all to talk about that. But also just how quickly he climbed these lists. Not that he came out of nowhere because he was a top 10 draftee, but last year when you made this list, he had not yet made his professional debut. And he was not yet on the Fangraph's top 100 list. He was on some top 100 list a year ago, but not super high on them, I guess understandably, given his youth and lack of professional experience. But now he's just a no doubt number one. So I don't know that I can recall a scent as steep as Griffin has made from someone

prospect heads might know a year ago, but no one else really would, to just household name that everyone is super excited about. So, Eric, you've been doing this a lot longer and better than I have. So can you recall a comp? He's definitely one of the most promising prospects you have ranked, but just in turn. of how quickly he ascended to that position. I think the only couple of comparisons are when Vladdy Jr. and Wander Franco went to the Appalachian League and both really destroyed it.

Just for anyone this young entering pro ball, there are aspects of their skill set that are black boxes. You just don't know how things are going to go. And for Griffin, that was true in a couple of ways. One on defense, because, you know, when you're watching Connor Griffin in high school in the environment that matters most, which is like with Team USA during Team USA trials on the showcase circuit at like, you know, perfect game All-American and, you know, where the other 40 guys around are the best 17, 18-year-olds in the country. We're at some of the international competitions like on the planet.

it. You know, the apples, apples, these guys in that space is really important. And in Griffin's case, he was playing right field. Like, there were better shortstops on Team USA's roster. There were better center fielders. And so, you know, to see Connor Griffin pitch and play shortstop at his high school field is one thing. And then to sort of see, you know, him hit and struggle a little bit against, you know, sliders or whatever it was, there were still questions about him entering pro ball. And his ceiling has been this the whole time. Like, because some of the overt physical tools were all, you know, just as evident as they were

for some of the other, you know, elite high school players soon after they debuted. And it's like, oh, actually, hey, Mike Trout can hit. And this is going to happen really fast. Trout is probably the other one for him to go from a late first rounder to the top prospect in baseball. although not in a unanimous way more because of the presence of Bryce Harper, you know, and Matt Moore. But yeah, this is, this is meteoric, truly,

to the point where Pittsburgh was playing Griffin in big league spring training games in center field, you know, 12 months ago, because we just weren't sure, they weren't sure, what is the best spot for this guy going to be? And then by the end of the year, it's like, oh, this is a plus shortstop. He's added, you know, 10, 15 pounds of muscle over the course of the season, like showed up for spring training last year, stronger, continue to progress and get stronger throughout the year, which is, you know, runs counter to what is typical. You play in a six-month seasonally, you shed weight.

So just, you know, special in every way and at the point where it's just hard to deny that he does everything well to, like, very, very well, including the defensive part of it at shortstop, which was the thing that really struck me most. But, like, Brendan, like, when this was happening and you're working literally for the Pittsburgh Pirates, like... Yeah, Brendan was a pro scout for the Pirates, to be clear. What were the internal conversation? Like, when did the word that this is happening?

This guy is actually going to do this start to become clear within the org, if you don't mind talking about it. Pretty quickly, actually. And one of our scouts actually called me because he had just seen our Bradenton team. And he was pretty effusive, and he's not somebody who's inclined to hyperbole. And he's been scouting for 30 years. And he said, this is the best player I've ever scouted at this level.

And so that made me set up and go, whoa. And so that was last April or early May. So we had an idea pretty early on. The other funny conversation that happened was actually with Eric, like June or so, because I was with him at a field scouting a complex league game. And we were talking about top prospects. And I was like, you know, I think come 2027, I think Connor Griffin's going to be the number one prospect in baseball. He probably won't be, but for a very different reason than I thought at the time. I'm curious, and this can kind of go to either of you, you know, the defense piece of this, I think, was the most sort of incredible.

to me and obviously I haven't seen Griffin in person other than when he came into the suite at the draft combine and I was happy that I had enough of my filter on to not go oh my god your neck because he's just like such an enormous guy like you said the physicality is like obvious when when he walks in the room and that was true when he was a pre-draft guy when you're thinking about how his defense has evolved and the way that he's sort of made himself into this plus shortstop is that do you think just the benefit of reps, of continuing sort of physical development? Like, how do you go from being someone who can't even necessarily start at short for Team USA to being this guy? Well, I think some of it has to do with the repetitions because once you get into the end of your first pro season and you've played 100 plus games, you've just done this now every day for longer than any other sustained period in your life. And when you're doing it at high A, double A, the pace of it is totally different than when you're taking infield at area code games or whatever. And I just think that there are certain players who it exposes, and then there are certain players who adjust to it and rise to it,

not like in an emotional way, like, okay, like I can do this, just that your skills sharpen because the environment you're in forces them to do so, or you're going to center field. And some of it is that this is just such a talented athlete that the baseball field for him seems small. Like, there are really great players. You know, Jose Al Tuve's had an amazing career. He doesn't make the field look small in a way. Like, he's skilled enough that he can operate within it. But it's really like Corey Seeger, like watching Corey Seeger do some stuff on defense because of his size.

like the ease with which Corey Seeger and Carlos Correa make some throws allows them to be as big as they are and play the position. It's stuff that, like, Francisco Lindor has to do something acrobatic or athletic or agile to complete. Carlos Correa and Corey Seeger make look like effortless, like they're just sort of sitting in a lounge chair. And kind of Griffin does like both things, where he's so ranging and explosive that he does some of the Lindor stuff and also can just sort of put his first. foot in the ground and chuck it over there on a line from all these tough, like deep in the hole, weird up the middle, like all sorts of things. As we were going through the group of middle infielers towards the top of the list, and there are several of them, and you're re-watching all these guys back-to-back-to-back play defense. Most of them are it's like, okay, this is

fine, or you can play there, and then there are a couple of them who stand out and really blow your mind. Connor Griffin is in that group. He's in that group with like Carson Williams and Franklin Arias where this is a special defensive shortstop, not merely someone who is fine to play there. And when Connor Griffin was drafted, if you would have guaranteed me, he would have been fine to play there. Well, then he is someone who is probably just like,

you know, 75th on the top 100 list 12 months ago. I was looking at his Instagram, and evidently he got married a few weeks ago. He has yet to turn 20. So he is just ahead of the typical developmental type. timeline in all sorts of ways. So I guess this is tough to project, but if and when he gets promoted this season as soon as the pirates are ready to flip that switch, would you expect him to just be ready to star from day one a la Tatis, or could you foresee some growing pains

a la Jackson Holiday or Bobby Wood Jr.? The comp that felt right from a tools standpoint, like two weeks ago was young Hanley Ramirez, where the stolen base piece of it is what is going to jump off of the page at you during the first like year and a half, two years of this guy's big league lifetime. And then the power is really going to start showing and there are going to be some peak like 30, 30, maybe 40, 40 seasons or 30, something like that. where he's also like hitting 280 just because of how hard all the contact is, even though it's like roughly an average amount of contact. But, you know, when you look at like Bobby Witt's prospect DNA,

when you look at Hanley's plate discipline and, like, zone contact rates and stuff like that, Witt and Hanley are better, like, pure contact hitters than Griffin is. By like half a grade, at least in Witt's case, and more than that in Young Hanley's case. really, really special player was young Hanley Ramirez. Griffin, I bet you will struggle with the big league breaking ball enough that he's not going to be like super duper star right away. But playing plus shortstop defense and like getting to power on its own makes you an above average player.

So I think like over the course of the season, he's still going to be like a two and a half, three and a half win player in year one, even though we, I think, will have seen more strike counts than we will at his best and less like in-game power than we will at his best. but still really, really good basically right away. So we can maybe pivot now to some of the other guys on this list. We could just talk about young shortstop all day, and I guess we'll hit on a couple of them. But I want to actually talk about a duo from Detroit,

because if I'm a Tigers fan, I have to be thrilled with where Kevin McGonagall and Max Clark placed on this list, not only because of how much you guys like them, but how close to the majors they both seem to be. Talk to us about those two guys, and then maybe when you think Tigers fans can expect them in Motown. I think what stands out with those two is just how mature their skills are. They're obviously tooled up.

Kevin McGonigal, I think, had the highest hit tool on our entire list. Max Clark has a chance to be a plus center fielder. They've both grown into more power than we expected them to have on draft day. But the way they're able to cover the zone, the way that they're able to take a mature at bat, the way that their approach has grown, just kind of screams competence. And these are guys that even though they're young,

they're moving very quickly. And that's why somebody like McGonigal has a 2026 ETA, and it wouldn't shock me if Clark also gets to the big leagues at some point in the 2026 season, even if he's probably got a little bit more runway ahead of him than McGonigle does. Yeah, I think that's right. like McGonigal has worked at second and third base because he's probably not a big league caliber shortstop. I don't think either Brennan or I really care where he ends up playing defense.

He worked at third base more during the fall league. I thought that it was a pretty good fit for him. And if Colt Keith doesn't hit or if Claiboriz gets hurt or, you know, Zach McIntry crashes to Earth, good player, I think. but, like, you know, Zach McKinstree strikes me as great utility guy on a real contending team rather than the year he had last year. And then the same thing for, like, with Clark, at Parker Meadows, who deserves prolonged, like, healthy period to show us what kind of player he actually is at 26? But if, like, by July, he's hitting a buck 80 and Max Clark is destroying in AAA, well, Clark should probably be up if the Tigers are serious. about going for it in scoobles last year. So both guys, I think, are really talented.

There's something about the way how explosive Max Clark's hands are that is just really, really special and has been so since he was like a high school sophomore. There were times scouting Max Clark in high school where he was kind of worried for the safety of, like, the pitcher because of how hard, like, back through the middle of the field his contact is just at that level. Like some of these kids could not, were not capable

of protecting themselves, you know, how hard he was putting the ball into play. You know, towards the end of our process, I did mention to Brandon. I was just like, you know, we like Clark in Center Field and we think McGonigal's more like second or third base. Is there an argument that these guys should be flipped? You know, I like McGonigle a lot. I do think it's more closer to six hit than seven hit and think that the reverse might be true of of Clark, ultimately because of how quick his hands are, but McGonigle's just like so short to the ball

with sneaky power for his size and it just feels so much safer. But, you know, great draft, great draft, great first round for the Tigers, like, you know, it's totally change your fortunes in potentially you have your franchise with one year. What was John Schneider picking players for the Tigers? Yeah, for just one night to completely reset the trajectory to the franchise potentially. This is not like, when the tigers had the two of the top hitting prospects in baseball and Torkelson and Green, when there was a little bit of hit risk or just kind of a lower floor for Torkelson, if he didn't really hit for power because he was kind of locked into first base. These are, nobody's truly safe, but these are young, up the middle types or third base,

in McGonigal's case, if it goes that way, with mature hit tools, they're just higher floored players, and it's really exciting because there's also ceiling. And there's one other point that I kind of wanted to touch on with those two is just like how different they are and how different they carry themselves out on the field where McGonagall is this extremely intense competitor. You know, he's going to get in fights with umpires. He's going to be yelling at himself. And Max Clark is this extremely polished, you know, all over the video board, has a full-time crew that goes around and handles his social and travels around with him. they're very different people, but they're also kind of tied together in a way that is special and kind of rare. Well, we could keep talking about short stops for a while because you've got seven of them in your top 15. I don't know if that's unusual. Obviously, short stops are valuable.

So a lot of top prospects tend to be short stops, and a lot of the most athletic guys start out as short stops, at least, in pro ball and maybe move elsewhere. But maybe we could linger a little longer on two of the top. Six guys, two fellow teenagers, Jesus Made and Leo DeVries, and they came up on a couple of our recent team previews, but happy to hear more about them. Yeah, I mean, Jesus Made probably talked about him on the pod last year at this time, because, you know, then he was coming up from the DSL and was ranked and rarefied air for a player who, you know, had that level of experience. And again, just like he's been pushed through the miners pretty aggressively.

and perform basically the whole time. And the way things are going to pan out for him, I think, there's still variance as far as what position he's going to end up at and what he looks like physically when he's hit maturity. There are like Robinson Canoe type outcomes for Mardi, where he's like a switching version of that at second base, times when his left-handed swing looks like that. And then there's a version of him that stays more agile

and ends up being a really good shortstop where there's a lot of contact and great plate discipline and he sings the ball but doesn't necessarily lift the ball enough to hit for 25 plus home runs. All that stuff is still in play. He's still changing.

He showed up for camp looking stronger such that I'd like tailor my forecast more toward the physical second base bucket now than I did when we wrote the Brewers list you know, in the fall, winter, but still, like, an unbelievable prospect where there's just a chance for him to do everything at a premium level. And then DeVries is more big switching power, probably going to strike out, and some of the same variance, I think, applies to him on defense.

I think what sticks out with DeVries also is just that, and, you know, this is true with Made, who made a very quick ascension, is actually even a little bit younger, but in an era where prospects are getting to the big leagues quicker than ever, partly because there's better training, partly because we've eliminated a level, and that's just kind of having a propulsive effect on everybody. Leo DeVries was extremely young, even by those standards, to get to AA last year. And so he was still 18 when he got promoted for three weeks or so, and he hit five homers in 21 games and just took mature at bat after mature at bat.

He's facing pretty good competition there. And against Mitch Bratt, one of the best command guys in the minor leagues, he sits on a change-up on the lower outside corner and hits a homer the opposite way from the side of the plate that he's not as good at the right side. If this is what it looks like from that side of the plate, the ceiling here is very high. Defensively, he's not quite as advanced. He'll make some incredible plays occasionally. He'll also be a little slow or he'll one-hop a throw that you'll. You'd think, you know, why didn't you just like step through that and get it to first on the fly?

And I think it's just a case where the glove hasn't quite matured as quickly as the bat. But looking at the tape, you know, unless he grows in a way that we're not quite expecting, I think he's got a very good chance to be there and be all right. This is a special talent as well. There are a lot of pitchers on this list more than we typically have. Eric, I know you made mention of that in the intro. And a lot of these guys are going to be guys who, who our listeners are at least partially familiar with,

in the case of some of them like Tray Savage, because they saw him throw incredibly good and important innings in the postseason. But, you know, you have a bunch of guys who have made big league debuts and gotten a couple of starts in the majors. So I want to ask who each of you would highlight among the pitchers who have not yet debuted, because I don't think we need to extol the virtues of Nolan McLean, but there are a number of guys on here who listeners might be less familiar with. So can you each pick one and tell us about him?

And maybe Eric, we can start with you and then go to Brendan. We can talk about it in a lot of different ways because there are some individuals who are interesting to talk about where to place them in the hierarchy of all these pitchers and why. And then there are definitely guys where their names to know for the 2026 season. And they end up being clusters of players as we're working on these lists. We do it in buckets so that we can apples to apples everyone, and then sort of fold everybody together. Brody Hopkins with the raise,

he's one who I think is going to blow a lot of people's minds because he's so athletic, his arm is so fast. We're talking mid-upper 90s. He's a former college position player who converted pretty late, like smaller school, and it was part of the Randy Rose Randolphade.

It was drafted by the Mariners, and then really quickly became, I thought anyway, the Mariners' best pitching prospect. He gets traded for Randy. And then the raise, even though what is working for Brody Hopkins very, very quickly,

you know, the raised aside, we're changing this. And they totally overhaul his approach. And now he has gone from like Camillo Dolval looking sidearm guy to more traditional looking, three quarters release,

uphill fastball, and then this dynamic cutter. Like if there's a guy, there are maybe a couple guys in the miners who, you know, if they're going to be a manual classet, like, this is the guy in just the baseball way. I love that we've gotten to mention Wanderfranco and a manual classet on this podcast already so much fun. But just, you know, the outcome for Brody Hopkins, even if he isn't going to be a starter,

look something like that freaky, totally unique guy with crazy uphill fastball and cut. and the ceiling, you know, if he's a starter, is, well, we don't really know because there aren't many starters who look like this. And it's one of those pitchers who, if the Rays are competing for a division crown, you could see this guy, like, pitching. He could be this year's Trady Savage. His stuff is that good. And we're just like waiting for some of the, this to solidify because he is a recent draftee from a small school who is. new to pitching. And so, you know, his trajectory, like, who knows if there's going to be, if that thing clicks for him this year, then he could be Trace Savage, you know, 12 months from now.

I'd like to highlight Ryan Sloan. Mariners' draftee second round 2024, continues the pattern of the Mariners crushing it at the top of the draft in recent years. And this is one that I wanted to push up the list from the start. I mean, you know, I started the blurb on the site with, can I interest you in three plus pitches? How about from a good athlete with a traditional build? What if I told you that he struck out or that he walked less than two per nine last year? You'd like that, right? That sounds good. He throws mid-dupper 90s, flashes a plus slider, plus splitter. Looks like it's going to be a relatively platoon neutral mix.

Field the spin gives him a chance to develop another breaking ball. He's still only 20. So this might not be the fully fleshed arsenal yet. But it's a really good combination of athleticism, size, ingredients. The one blemish, if there is one here, is that the way that his body and his delivery works is he tends to fall off the mound a little bit towards the first base side. He tends to pull the ball with him. So his glove side command is very good for somebody his age, but he's not as adept at getting to the other side of the plate. And so that predictability in locations is the most obvious nitpick there. And finding a way to get to other parts of the zone should be a developmental goal for 2026.

but that shouldn't attract from all the really, really good things that are happening here. And for me, he was the best pitcher in the low miners last year. So we've talked about the trend toward fewer pitchers appearing on prospect lists. I've written about that. As you noted, a few more on this list, 40% of the top 10 and 40% of the top 110 are pitchers. Any particular reason for that, Eric, or is it just sort of a cyclical thing? Well, I think we're going to find out over time whether there's a reason for it or if it is. is just a random one-year thing,

that, like, I think there's an argument for, at some point in the prospect population, there should be more pitchers and hitters. At some point, if we do, like, the top 500, there should probably be more pitchers than hitters in that sample. The depth required for pitching just necessitates more dudes. And so at some point where the fungibility line is,

where the margin is, for pitchers, It's just way deeper in the player pool than it is for hitters. I don't really need a backup second baseman like Isan Diaz. Like, I don't. But I do need the pitching version of that guy. I probably need the pitching version of that guy to throw like 30 innings from my team at some point during the year. And so is that line going to consistently be within like the top hundred and 15 guys or so? Probably not because I still just think.

in a lot of instances, we would rather have a maybe very good hitter than a probably pretty good pitcher. And that's why you see so many teenage infielder's high on this list. And just throughout this list in general, there's definitely a greater variance in bus risk for guys like Dax Kilby and Yolfram Castillo and some of the young infielders or center fielder's on this list than there is for Trey Gibson and Michael Forrest. and, you know, players who are, you know, don't have a chance to win a Sion Award ever, I don't think, unless Michael Ferrette becomes, you know, Shane Bieber, who is the reason Michael Ferrette's on the list. Like, you know, the some of the revisions, the reflection, the how's my driving type work that we've been doing, like, it says, well, you undervalue Farmer Valdez and Ranger Suarez and Shane Bieber. Why? You're not properly noting that they have, like, roughly seven command of good secondary stuff. while who in the minors is that perhaps Michael Ferret. I think some of it is a change in strategy by teams,

understanding pitching depth is important. Some of it maybe is just a one-year thing. I've got two quick theories if I can. It seems to me that there's a number of pitchers who got very close to graduating, Nolan McLean, Trayy Savage, and then others who debuted, Bubba Chandler, Peyton Toley, Connolly Early, Logan Henderson, I'm sure there's a couple others.

Just a very high number of those guys. and if four or five of them had thrown another three weeks, they're off the list. Maybe it looks more normal. The other thing that crossed my mind as we were doing this list is that the threshold for being a big league hitter is really high right now. You need to be able to deal with elite velocity, really, really good stuff with an approach.

And there's just not that many guys in the minor leagues who can do it. And there were tons of guys that Eric and I talked about in the course of constructing this list where there was just something scary in the profile that we felt wasn't getting. enable them to hit at the highest level to the degree warranted to be on this list. And so both of those things working together, I think, creates a list that reflects that there's a lot of really good pitching right now. Yeah, that makes sense.

I think it's just obviously the injury factor, but then also increasingly the best position players are just more valuable than the best pitchers in the big leagues just because position player playing time hasn't decreased as much as pitcher playing time has. So all else being equal, you want the good position player. who's more likely to stay healthy and just have more playing time than the pitcher who's more likely to break. And even if they stay healthy, won't pitch as many innings. But all of what you're saying makes sense to me. And yeah, we know there's pitching depth because there's just innumerable guys who have absolutely nasty stuff. They're just not showcasing it over as many innings.

I wanted to ask about Ethan Salas because, Brendan, if I remember correctly through the haze of Top 100 editing, you wrote this blurb and noted that he is perhaps the youngest patient to come down with a case of prospect fatigue. He is 19 right now if our listeners aren't aware. And this was a guy who at points was placed very, very highly such that Eric, you felt compelled to basically write a piece to our readers being like, hey, relax, please don't hound this kid into desperation, trying to get his autograph on backfields. And now he's a couple seasons removed from that, has had injury, has had underperformance, What do you guys see as Solace's, like, realistic long-term trajectory at this point? I don't know that it's changed that much.

Part of this is just like one of those cases where I don't know if the ceiling from last year has changed much as just like all the mitigating factors from the last two seasons have made it so that he's less likely to reach it. This is still a very strong defensive catcher. Eric is highlighted in a couple of places where the blocking is the one part of his game that's not as polished to the, the same degree as his receiving, which is elite, and his arm strength and his ability to get out of a crouch and his ability to work with a pitching staff. All of that is very good. At the plate, he had a really bad 2024 season. Some of the numbers under the hood with respect to his contact rate weren't quite as scary as some of the top line numbers would indicate. And we were kind of looking to 2025 as a chance to see to what degree he was going to be able to bounce back. And

then when he missed the entire season with a back injury, a pretty scary one, you know, we didn't get that opportunity. But this still looks like a guy who could grow into significant power and be a power and defense backstop. And those are really valuable. Obviously, we've got a lot more risk than we would have guessed two or three years ago. But this is still a good player. This is still somebody who deserves to be ranked.

And somebody I'm excited to see this spring. What did your time with a team in between stints at Fangrass teach you, if anything, about team prospect ranking versus public prospect ranking? And I've always thought Eric's approach to prospect ranking is maybe a little more aligned with teams than some, just kind of giving credit to players who might not be as flashy, but just will provide value, which teams care about more so than, say, fantasy players, I suppose. but I wonder what your perspective is on that, Brendan, or what you brought back from your time behind the MLB paywall? I think there are a couple things that are similar and a couple of things that are different. So I think that you're right to know, like Eric's focus on,

like the whole game is definitely something that is emulated within a team structure. I think the biggest thing that was different for me going to the Pirates from Fangraphs was, I noticed, or at least I felt on the public side, and I don't know if my colleagues felt or feel similarly. But it feels to me that there's sort of an incentive to be conservative with guys. I think readers understandably want to know who will be good. And kind of rounding down on players is just a way to be more accurate.

And on a team side, it's the exact opposite. You want to find guys who have like any shot of being good. Like, can we get this guy even if he's not that likely to be good? Can we get him in a deal? Do we think there's something that we can do with him? Can we buy low? Is there any upside here at all where his current employer may not see it? And so that manifests in scouting reports in a couple of different ways.

One, it leads you to being optimistic on way more players, the equivalent of like the 50 FV, where we have 110 in the game. I'd probably write that 30 or 40 times a year, including several times at levels where you would very rarely see it on our top prospect list. The format also lends itself to staying on guys a little bit longer. And I think the discrepancy again makes sense where we're dropping Ethan Silas because he's been hurt and there's real risk introduced there. If I'm a scout, my report on him hasn't really changed a whole lot because I still see the same tools.

And I can factor in the injury a little bit, but I'm staying on the player and what I think he can do. and ultimately it'll be up to the decision makers higher in the front office to weigh that kind of thing differently than I would as a scout. You guys were largely able to come to consensus on these guys. Ben mentioned that you wrote a piece today for the site on guys you disagreed on, but I'm sure that you each had a guy on this list or two or maybe three who you both agreed should be there, but who you were the, like, real champion of, he's your, he's your guy. So who are those guys? Connor Griffin. Well, I guess the players to talk about, Brendan, are probably the ones who ended up on our 55-grade

bubble and then tipped into that tier. That grade, you know, 55, we have like 30 of them. The number of players in the minors at this time, you know, who are given that great, like it tends to hover around 25, 30 guys. There are times in the past when my list of 55s and above has, like, cut down to 50. So for us, that was Carson Benji with the Mets, former two-way player outfielders, is one of the best swings in the minors, really performed well throughout our 2025 season and that ended with him at AAA.

And then, I guess for Brendan, it was probably Bryce Rayner. Yeah, just that was one of those. You pull on the tape and you see what he's able to get to with his bat speed. And it's just one of those moments where it's like, whoa, that's electric. That's different than what other people can do. Let's stay on this. There's risk that he's young and that he only played, I want to say, 25 to 30 games last year before. He missed the season.

with an injury. And so that maybe robbed us of the chance to have a little more nuanced view of who he is and what he can do. But in what little he put on tape, it really stood out. The other one here that I think could be interesting for Eric to talk through a little bit is we talked about Carson Williams a lot

because of the degree to which that he struck out when he got promoted, which was consistent with how often he struck out in the minor leagues and some of the elements in his swing. But I thought Eric's case for ranking him that high in spite of that was interesting and maybe something that listeners would like to hear. He's 22. He's an unbelievable defensive shortstop and there's some amount of power. And it's just about how, for sure, there is like a binary hit tool risk where there's just so too many strikeouts for you to survive even when you're doing enough other stuff to be, have been a really good prospect to this point.

But, you know, Carson Williams has always found a way to perform even though he's had. these underlying issues. He's only been a shortstop for so long. He was a two-way high school player who was a pretty serious prospect on the mound too. So he doesn't focus on hitting for all that long, even though it feels like forever because he's 22 and a half and we've known his name since he was 17. But, you know, there's just, there are enough examples. Willie Adomas is the version of Carson Williams that really pans out to the degree that we had hoped for when Williams was doing nothing but thriving into the upper levels of the miners, where, yeah, he's striking out like 28% of the time, but there's enough power for him to hit 25 plus homers and play

unbelievable defense. And now with Williams, it's trended below that to this area where he's, you know, more in like that 30, 33% strikeout area. And that's definitely a little bit dicier. It doesn't feel like a big gap between what William Adams has done and what Carson Williams seems poised to. to do, and that's why he's not a 60. It's interesting because when you look at like position by position,

what the DNA of the typical player looks like at shortstop, contact is just a big, big part of it. The average rate of players who play contact rate for short stops is better than that of like some of the quarter positions, and it's not because the standard for offense at, you know, shortstop is higher. It's just because, well, the guys who can actually play shortstop tend not to have quite as much power. is the athletes who can play first base or right field. And so what they have to be able to do then, if not hit for power, is make a lot of contact.

And so it is tough to find comps for a guy like Carson Williams, even if you're relatively optimistic that he's going to dial down what he's doing strikeout-wise. Trevor Story and Zach Netto and Willie Adomis and these guys striking out 25% of the time, that's like the high end of the position group at short. and it's still a good bit better than Carson Williams. But you're just hoping that someone will, this young and precocious and relatively underdeveloped, is still going to be able to make enough adjustments to get into that sort of area. 53 of the prospects you ranked are listed with 26 ETAs that includes some guys who actually already arrived and made their debuts. of those guys, and it makes sense that the list would be largely composed of them, because the closer you are to the majors, the more certain you can be about someone's outlook.

Is there anyone there you feel most confident about just making a splash this season, whether it's Yassavids just picking up where he left off in the league not really adjusting, or someone we got a glimpse of like McLean or Samuel Bessio or chased a lotter, someone like that, just immediately making an impact. Obviously, it's going to depend on playing time and opportunity, too. But is it going to be someone like that or someone like Andrew Painter? We've been just waiting forever for him to be healthy and in the big league. So whether this is someone you think will be the best prospect long term or not, I'm interested in who you see as an impact player for this year. There are a couple of teams Atlanta and the Angels both stick out as

if you're a good player in their organization, they are going to get you to the big leagues fast. Sometimes it's a detriment of your own performance once you arrive. And, you know, Tyler Bremner with the Angels is a good bet on this list. I sort of tip my hand with Brody Hopkins, and I think a lot of the time the answer is just one of the best young pitchers on a team that ends up making the postseason. And so that could be Peyton Toley,

could be, you know, Bubba Chandler, fingers crossed, Pirates fans. That would be really cool. I think I'm going to say Brandon Sprote. I think that Milwaukee's player development machine, it's exceptional. And the Mets are great with pitchers, too, but there were changes made to Brandon Sprote last year that clearly didn't work. I'd like to see him get back to the player he was for a pretty big window from 2020 to 2024, where there's a better change up and his arm slots a little bit lower. There were things that the Mets changed, or that Sproote changed.

I don't really know who was motivated. to do that stuff. But he'd just been so successful. But I think now that, you know, there's been a change of scenery there, Milwaukee always finds a way to contend. And, you know, Sproats' 2025 season really is the weird blip that feels different than the rest of his career. And I would just bet that he gets back to be in the well-rounded, like heavy, sinking, fastball, great change-up, you know, upper 90s starter that he has mostly been throughout his career and probably way heavily on the way the NL Central unfolds. I don't want to take the cop-out pitchers.

Like, I think Nolan McLean is pretty obviously going to have an impact as long as he stays healthy. So I want to highlight an outfit that I think has gone a little under the radar in Dylan Beavers. He's somebody who was drafted in 2022 out of college. He was at Cal. By the standards of a prospect drafted in the first round out of college, he's moved somewhat slowly through the minor leagues.

And then last year, he managed to get to the power that scouts have been forecasting for a while and it was kind of like everything fell into place. Because now he's got above average raw. He's still really quick to the ball despite longer levers. He's got a great approach, great feel for the strike zone. He's going to be a solid corner outfielder. This is not the highest ceiling guy in the minor leagues, but he's there. He produced a little bit in his call-up last year.

And he just feels like somebody who could be a good player right from the outset. I'll take Walshmit, too, in that vein. I'll take Walshman over Beavers as a 2026 Impact guy, because the way Baltimore has tended to behave is like, oh, it's sort of takes, you know, Heston Kirstod, and there's just a crowded group there that I think they have to sift through and might be difficult for Beaver's to do nothing but hit such that he seizes a job where Walshman,

if Walshman goes off during spring training, and Jorge Berosa is your, you know, alternative starting left fielder, like, I think that these things are just a easier path to playing time for Ryan Walshmidt in Arizona, and a clearly motivated club now that, you know, they're all in financially on a roster that has Zach Allen and Merrill Kelly back. Well, we will end Prospect Week or be close to ending Prospect Week with our annual picks to click piece where everyone highlights guys who didn't make the 100 this year,

but who seem likely to be top 100 prospects in 2027. And I won't ask you to spoil much of that, but if you could each pick, one guy who you anticipate being a pick to click for you and telling us a little bit about why they didn't make it this year, but what about their profile is exciting for next year? Bishop Lettson with the Brewers, if you're looking for who could be Jacob Mizorowski, who could be Peyton Tolly players who, you know, a year ago, well, Tolly wasn't on the list yet, Mizorowski was stuff pretty good. But just like Monster Extension, huge slider, projectable young Brewers pitcher who, if he comes out the spring throwing 96 consistently,

that guy's going to be a slam-down top 100 guy a year from now. I'll take another pitcher. I'll take Trey Gregory Alford in the Angel system. This is somebody who was on the complex last summer and then got called up to low A towards the end of the season. Really big fastball. It doesn't have great traits, but when you're reliably upper 90s and touching 100, you can get away with that a little bit. some projectability in the secondaries, big power pitchers, physicality.

And one thing that I'm watching for all of the angels is that they have a new director of pitching in Jared Hughes. The angels for years and years have been a little bit behind the curve and what they do with their arms developmentally. They tend to take guys who throw hard and don't really have good secondary traits and then just have them throw the fastball through a brick wall practically. And Gregory Alford seems like somebody who could really benefit from a little bit of a double. different approach, which it sounds like is what the angels are going to be taking by and large, just shifting directions and how they develop their arms. And so he's somebody who was already kind of in the conversation for this list just with the big arm and some of the way the secondaries flashed. And just in his natural progression could have been a pretty reliable

pick-to-click anyway. And now there's even like secondary reasons to have optimism. He's just somebody who really jumps out to me immediately for that question. All right. Well, go read the top 100 slash top 110 reward the labor that these guys and James. And of course, the many hours that Meg sank into this thing to make it worthwhile. And also check out their supplementary coverage, their debates about other prospects. They did a chat on the website. So other players that you may be curious about may have been asked about there. We will link to all of that.

And as always, we welcome your prospect wisdom. So thank you, Eric, and thank you, Brendan. Thank you. Well, no white smoke after day one of the player conclave. The union's player leadership did not vote on naming an interim director. Chris Bassett said, I feel we have made mistakes in the past by making rush decisions. The executive subcommittee and all the reps agreed, we want to get this right. We don't want to get it done just because there's a void.

He then went on to say, I would think we would have this wrapped up within 24 hours. But at the end of the day, I believe that making sure all 1,200-plus players have a true. opinion on this and a true understanding of everything we know is more important than filling it as soon as possible. Sound smart. More to come. Also, thanks to a Patreon supporter who goes by Duke in our Patreon Discord group for spotting a rare example of a Tyler Wade Taylor Ward mix-up in print. Usually it's a verbal stumble, but here we have a Ken Rosenthal column for The Athletic from February 14th, which reads, The Orioles also signed free agent relieverer Ryan Halsley and centerfielder Leody Tavaris and traded for outfielder Taylor Wade. That's right. It says,

says Wade, not Ward, and at podcast press time, a few days after the piece was published, it still says Wade. I do see one comment from a Ryan F that just says, Taylor Ward, not Taylor Wade. Add another example to a very long list. Tigers and A's previews coming next time. Until then, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash Effectively Wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast coming, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks. the following five listeners. Atticus, Leo Weber, Baby, Galen,

and Michael McAvoy. 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, personalized messages, shoutouts at the end of episodes, potential podcast appearances, discounts on merch and ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash Effectively Wild.

If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can contact us via email. Send your questions, comments, intro and outro themes to podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to EffectivelyWild on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, music, and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group, slash effectively wild. You can find the Effectively Wild sub-eddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show notes in the podcast posted Fangraphs or the episode description

in your podcast app for links to the stories and stats we cited today. Thanks to Shane McKean for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode a little later this week. Talk to you then. Effectively, it's the zombie runner Bobby Shenz, Bobby Shenz, Bobby Shenz. Joey Manessus, walk off three-run digger. Stop it. Walk off three-run shot.

Oh, my God. Meg, he's the best player in baseball. Effectively, why?