Fantasy Baseball Today - 2025 MLB Draft Recap! Early FYPD Rankings w/ The Welsh! (7/16 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Welcome back to The Welsh (2:30)! ... What's the overall view of this year's MLB draft class (5:37)? ... Let's hop into the picks with the Nationals selecting Eli Willits (9:25). ... The Angels surprised everybody by drafting Tyler Bremner second overall (15:21). ... The Mariners taking Kade Anderson is a match-made in heaven (20:30). ... Full circle moment as the Rockies selected Matt Holliday's son Ethan Holliday (22:44). ... Liam Doyle maybe has the best fastball in the class (26:43). ... Pirates fans are dreaming of a rotation with Paul Skenes and Seth Hernandez (28:43). ... Marlins are trying to boost their lineup with Aiva Arquette (32:33). ... What about the Blue Jays taking JoJo Parker (34:44)? ... Who rounds out The Welsh's Top-12 FYPD rankings (39:03)? ... What about 13-24 in the FYPD rankings (48:06)? ... Which MLB draftees could move fastest and which actual prospects could make an impact in the second half (1:01:18)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Download and Follow Fantasy Baseball Today on Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sptfy.com/QiKv⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow FBT on TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow our FBT team on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@FBTPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CPTowers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@CBSScottWhite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@Roto_Frank⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join our Facebook group at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Now here's Frank Scott and Chris. What's up and welcome into fantasy baseball today. I am Frank Stamphill and it is All-Star Week. So that's the time to change things up, do things a little bit different.

And so today on the show, we will be recapping the MLB draft, at least the top picks in the draft. We'll take a look at way too early first-year player draft rankings for those in Dynasty Leagues, and we'll have a little bonus on impact prospects for the second half towards the end of the show. And you know, there's only one person that can help us break it down. Welcome back to Chris the Welsh. Welsh.

What's going on, man? Frankie. Frankie Stamps. What's up, buddy? Glad to be back. Glad to talk with everybody here at Fantasy Baseball today. Just glad to see your face with my friend. And your background is just getting even better. You got the Diamondbacks hat on.

Just I'm loving everything. I had to get the D-Backs hat on from my guy, the Welsh here. And look at, I mean, you're talking about my background. Look at you. For those watching on YouTube, look at this guy. He's got, we've got some similar things going on here. The light up lights, LEDs and all that fun stuff. Let's go, man.

Yeah, we got the baseballs. We got the LEDs. We got, yeah, there's a lot going on in my background. But, you know, take a little bit of photo. focus on people having to stare at my face or even if they drown out listening to me talk. I haven't found, like, somewhere to hang this up yet, but I have, I also got this. My parents were like, hey, we found this in the house. For those listening on audio, it is a signed macho man Randy Savage, WCW made out to Frank.

I don't know if it was to my dad or me. Dig it. But I got to find somewhere to hang that up because. I can put it up, like right behind you. Like, maybe, well, taking Mariano off might be kind of tough. That's amazing, Frankie. Yeah, there's a lot going on there. Of course, you can follow The Welsh on X Twitter at Is It the Welsh?

And why don't you let everyone know what you got going on this time of year, Welshie? Oh, man, I mean, this specifically is very, very busy. You know, it's funny, I was just telling somebody, I was like, I don't realize like a niche category that I cover until the draft comes around. And then it's like, I don't, you know, just kind of hanging out, doing my thing. And then all of a sudden I hear from people. And it's like, oh, yeah, because of the draft and prospects. But if you guys want to check out, it's a crazy time.

the draft just ended. I rank all these prospects on my Patreon, which is my thing, in this league.com, top 500 prospects. I've actually, my update that's coming out today or tomorrow, has all of these guys

that we're going to talk about and more. All of them added to it. Plus first year player. I also do Dynasty. That's a great way to support what I got going on in the prospect world as well, Prospect One podcast. And then of course,

in the background behind me, Monday through Friday, I'm on Fantasy Pros. We're always talking about you guys. and we're talking baseball, we're doing all this stuff, and I also did a little draft show there. So check out my stuff over on Fantasy Pros and check out the Patreon at Endisleague.com, my friend.

All right, and before we move any further, for those listening, even if you don't play in Dynasty leagues, you might have made it through the first three minutes here and thought, well, I don't play in Dynasty. I probably don't need to listen to this podcast. You are wrong, because let's think about all the prospects that have moved so quickly over the past couple of years, right?

Every draft class is different. I get that, but I have feeling, even a couple of pitchers in this class that we're about to talk about could be pretty fast movers up to the majors. So just thinking the past couple years, Paul Skeens, Wyatt Langford, just last year, Nick Kurtz, Chase Burns, these guys were in the big leagues within a year and making huge impacts already at the major league levels.

So not everyone will make it, we know that, but there will be some of these players here. So even if you play and just redraft, I think it's a good exercise to learn about these players before they make it to the big leagues. And before we actually get into specific names, Wells, what about just an overall take here? Obviously, a popular theme of this year's draft class

was high school shortstop and college pitchers. What's been the general overall view of this year's draft class for fantasy? Okay, so for fantasy, I think what those two things tell you is it is weak. It feels weaker. If you're talking about pitching and you're talking about high school bats, it is typically a bit weaker. I think from a real term, you look at what happened. And this is something I've been thinking about.

It's always a copycat league, like any sport. Like if there's something popular, you're going to see just a big trend of it. Everyone's throwing splitters. So now, you know, two teams are everyone's throwing splitters. Like you're going to follow trends. Torpedo bats, everybody's ordering them. So if you look at last year's draft and you go, man, look at all these incredibly big hits from the college hit you would think that same process would be brought to this draft where it's like,

let's get the college hitting in. But it's because they're not up to par. Like the top, very tippy top of the college bats, they just don't, they just don't measure up with probably the top five or six, the guys that are all in the majors right now, they would all rank well below them. So I think from that perspective, you had like organizations to understand that. And obviously like pitching in general is going to, you know, be king in real baseball. But I think with the lack of.

college bats that the teams feel that can contribute right away. I think you saw a lot of guys and a lot of teams just decide that they're going to take that money that they'd have to spend and they're going to invest it in the future and they're going to play the developmental game because I'd also say like, all these high school guys are really interesting, but I don't think really even any of these guys are at least on par of what Connor Griffin was last year. You can argue maybe one or two of them are on par with Bryce Rainer, but then you have them all a lot lower. So I think that the in-roll thing I'm going with is like it was just a little bit weaker overall of like a real life class you get all these short stops that that's the best position to move you've made a bigger

bet on pitching overall especially college pitching and then how that translates to fantasy is chaos it is going to be chaos my ranks we're going to talk about here they're not the next persons and they're also not the next persons I've done two different shows with chris Clegg and eric cross we all have different number ones we all have different number twos it is that is real crazy it is and I think that's going to continue that way. Maybe we'll get some like, you know, as the next couple months go on, some of the college guys are going to play in the minors. There's the bridge league that's out here,

which unfortunately you guys won't get stats for. They play half of the games here, so I'll see some of these guys. So maybe some of these guys will start to position themselves in a more firm space. But I think there's a lot of big question marks for this draft because there's so much high school, because there's so much pitching, that it feels a lot weaker. And this might be one of the few drafts I've said in a long time, that give me later picks.

If I had the fifth pick and I could trade down to get like 12 and 15, I probably am because I think there's some really solid depth, but like, do you want to bank on a fourth overall pick with a high school shortstop

that's like third in the class? I don't know. Do you want to bank it on pitching? I don't know. That's on to you in fantasy. But it looks top end overall kind of weaker, but there is some pretty sneaky depth and that's why it's good we're talking about all these guys.

Another like added factor here. We were talking about this beforehand. It's very niche, but if you play in a head-to-head points Dynasty League like we do in the Scott White Dynasty League, this might be the draft for you because there's so many college pitchers, right? So potentially these guys can move pretty quickly and a lot of names up at the drafts were pitchers. So could favor that format as well. Let's start at the top of the draft where I think we had two potential surprise picks here. The Nationals had the first overall pick, and they wound up taking a high school shortstop, Eli Willits,

who is a switch hitter comes from a baseball family. His father played in the Biggs. His dad also coached with the Yankees, known mostly for hit and speed, but obviously going to take a while here to get to the Biggs. What are your thoughts here on Eli Willits going first overall and his long-term upset? So just the first overall thing,

there's been lots of disagreement, lots of just back and forth about why this pick happened. We'll get the answer here pretty soon, but whether it is that they're taking a nice little hair, cut and they're saving money later and it was a big underslot, whether it is that they actually, because many people think he is the most talented shortstop in the class overall, or, it said, they really don't want to deal with Scott Boris, who I believe Eli Willits is like one of the only top guys that is not a Boris client and they wanted to make sure that they could save their,

you know, Mike Rizzo had a really good relationship with Scott Boris and Rizzo's out. So, you know, whatever those, all those pieces are, Eli Willits is really fascinating. pretty high potential to be a five-tool guy. The bigger question is going to be the power. And that actually doesn't scare me away a ton because in that prospecting world, the last tool to develop is going to be power. It's a high-motor, high-hit tool,

really good ability for contact. He can run, plays defense really well. I've thrown out a high-end comp. And I'm going to give you actually another comp I heard. Jacob Redner from Baseball America, I think was the one that gave this comp. Or it could have been RJ Anderson from CBS here.

Forgive me which one. You know, I'd actually think I might have been R.J. Anderson, who did write-ups for you guys, that the low-end comp of Eli Willits, I think he put Heraldo Pardomo. And I thought that was fascinating. And maybe this version of Heraldo Pardomo, who doesn't strike out a lot,

barrels on the ball, is showing some power, aggressive on the base path, just really good eye. That's like that floor. I'm throwing out that maybe one of the things that the Nationals really saw too, is maybe he's Trey Turner 2.0. Kids stole 46 bases in high school this past year, didn't get caught a whole bunch.

Really, really high contact, as I mentioned before. And there is some potential that that swing can get some more loft into it. You know, they've done a good job with like CJ Abrams, who has a high launch angle. If he's barreling up the ball or making good contact, getting the ball in the air with his ability, you might walk into 15 to 20 homers. He might steal 30 plus bases and he hit for high average. So I'm throwing out like a high end that maybe this is going to be a Trey Turner. type. I do think there's still some questions about like if the power does develop and I really like

the power of who we're going to talk about Ethan Holiday. So I don't have them as my number one overall prospects. Some will. But that's kind of my general take on it. He's not a slam dunk. I think he's safe. And that's another balance people are going to do in first year player. Do you want to shoot for the moon? Because there's so many questions. Or do you want safety? And it's high school even safe. Eli Willits kind of checks a lot of these different boxes and why he might be really appealing to a lot of fantasy owners. Yeah, so Welsh has Willits ranked third overall in his early FYPD rankings, and I'll recap those towards the end of the podcast,

so not that you need to just kind of keep writing down. All right, third overall, I'll recap it, and you'll have a full list towards the end there. And you mentioned this at the top of your analysis of Willits. This is just your annual reminder that the MLB draft can be very wonky, right? So teams have pool money that they use to sign these draft picks, and so sometimes they take a lower ranked player so that they can pay him under slot, or, you know, I guess less than what that pick is worth,

so that they could spend more money on later picks in the draft. Did I explain that correctly? You did a great job. I'll give you two little anecdotal things. The Braves already have almost signed their entire top 10 class today, which is crazy. And guess what? Everything is underslot. They've saved over $2 million because it's the top 10 picks that are allocated to their pool money.

They got about $9 million. dollars. They've saved already, I haven't signed every single person, but it looks like around $2 million based on under slot. So what they can do now is they can use that to go, they got a kid named Briggs McKenzie, I believe it is, who is going to take a lot more money. His slot value is around $500,000. So if he needs more money and they want to pay him $2.5, they now have the money and they have to keep it in with the player pool. So that's kind of that example where teams are going to look for haircuts, as I would say, to sign other players. That's why another example last year, Travis Bazzana took a little bit less to go at the top because the Guardians wanted to be

able to overslot Chase Mobily. So that's, you know, and same thing with the Rangers did it with Brent Rooker, or I'm sorry, with Kumar Rocker and Brock Porter. So that's a pretty common practice. The one thing I was critical what the Nationals about. And I'm like hand up like, it's probably okay now. But on the onset, the idea of underslotting a guy. is you want like some really cool high school guy that's going to take more to sign. You want them to fall, right? Like that's why you would do that. So if Eli Willits, the reason was to save money, they didn't have a pick till 46.

And then they took a college bat right away. And I was like, okay. And then they started taking a couple high school guys. I'm not sure any of them really warranted like big overslot. There's one kid I really do like coy James who they got in the fifth round who looks like he has first round potential. Maybe they'll overslot him. But I guess my thing here is, is like, I feel like that's an over, if you, if we see that he signed for like two million dollars under slot, where did you put that?

This draft didn't work well for that because you wanted guys like steel hall to fall. You like, you wanted a handful of these really cool young short stops to fall so you could pay them. And none of that happened. So I just didn't like love what the nationals did. But again, I don't want to make it too much about that because Eli Will, it's like really is talented. But you'll see a couple positions. And the next guy we're going to talk about the rumor is that. the number two overall pick, who many did not see going,

also is taking an underslot deal. Let's talk about the Angels who perhaps made an even more surprising pick here. They took college pitcher Tyler Bremner, who was out of UC Santa Barbara, 21 years old. So a local kid there out in California, MLB Pipeline had Bremner as their 18th ranked player. And so he went second overall here. Looks like a strong fastball change-up combo with good command.

This won't surprise anyone, but Bremner is supposed to move pretty fast. through the minors, which might explain why the angels took him of all teams. Welsh, what are your thoughts here on Tyler Bremner? You have like the angels are like really good. I'd be like, he might be up August 1st, legitimately. So Brimner was not expected. I expected this to be Liam Doyle.

And the biggest takeaway I would have with this is that what I believe, take it for what it is with the angels and their development, the angels went through this process saying that that's the guy that's most major league ready. because that's just how they work. That's their assumption. They passed on Kate Anderson, who was seen as a top pitcher. They passed on the top high school guy, and they passed on Liam Doyle, who has the best fastball.

So why did they do it? Because they obviously clearly felt that Tyler Bremner was the guy. Tyler Bremner, huge, huge fastball change-up combination, which I think that's what they're banking on. Seth Hernandez has the same combination, but this is college. You're just talking big, big strikeout potential with him. And the best thing that I can say outside of, of the slot bonus benefit is they really truly feel like he's going to get this done.

He had a three and a half ERA last year, 29.6K minus walk percentage. Fastball's got really good shape and movement. 19 IVB, if you guys pay attention to just baseball to the shapes on fastballs. His change up lots of arm side on it. And he's also got a splitter in there. So it just again, I think they truly felt, or it's like a splitter change up combination, that they felt that he's the guy that could be up really strong. soon, and I wouldn't take it away that maybe he is one of the best pitchers in this class.

I just don't trust the angels. And my walking narrative has been like, I think Kate Anderson might have been one of the biggest winners in the draft by dodging the angels. We'll see what Brimner does. Last thing I'll point out, this is just an interesting thing. I didn't even know this until the draft, but Tyler Brimner's mother passed away a month before the draft, which is obviously brutal. We can all just feel for that.

kind of an incredible moment that that kid gets to stay home like he gets to be in his hometown team with his family, you could see his family explode that was really cool, we're all rooting for him I've got him a little bit lower in fantasy because I don't trust the angels and I just, you know, I like a couple of these guys

in the development process and some of their stuff but Bremner's a guy that could move way up in drafts. Yeah, so you have Bremner 11th overall in your FYPD rankings. He is your SP5 and just to quickly touch on that story that you mentioned as well with his mother passing away. I actually saw a quote from him that said it's pretty crazy how this works out.

A month later, I'm drafted by the Angels a month after my mom passes away. So pretty crazy stuff there for him. But, you know, rooting for the kid. Hope it works out. A surprise pick there with the Angels selecting Tyler Bremner. Before we hit our first break, just a reminder that Scott Chris Towers and I will be back Wednesday night

with sleepers, breakouts, and busts for the second half. And big thanks to those watching us live right now. Make sure to hit the like button and subscribe on YouTube as well. Let's take a break. We'll talk about more picks right after this. Welcome back in fantasy baseball. Today we are recapping the MLB draft,

talking way too early first year player draft rankings for Dynasty Leagues with our guy, the Welsh. And after the top two picks, things settled down a bit, got back on track here, and just what the Mariners need, another stud arm. They selected Cade Anderson left-handed pitcher out of LSU. He's 21 years old, arguably, the best pitcher in college this past season.

He doesn't throw hard, but the fastball gets up in the zone. He's able to get whiffs with it. Has four different pitches, good command. Welsh, what is the ceiling here? How fast can we potentially see Cade Anderson in the majors? So this landing spots like the best of the best. Like I said, I think he dodged a bullet. He's going to what could have been one of the worst situations with the Angels and throwing him up.

To him going to pitching you, as I've been saying, the Mariners, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal spot with really great smart pitchers and a pitching organization that can really help optimize him, whether it is, you know, like all those guys follow suit. Like Bryce Miller and George Kirby, it's like if one throws a splitter, they're all throwing a splitter. You know, so whatever like the trend is. And even if it's not, Brian Wu has been awesome. So I love this landing spot for him.

I've fallen in love with this one comp. Max Fried. I've just really falling in love with this comp on him because, you know, he's got that, that kind of buckley curve, like the shape on the, fastball, even though it's not like a monster pitch again, like 19 IVB that'll taper back down. You can watch Lance Prostowski's videos, really good whiffs on it. He had a 30K minus walk percentage. Another positive, he's already had a Tommy John.

He had a Tommy John a couple years ago. So like that's a little bit out of the way. I think there's a legitimate shot that if Luis Castillo is gone and all those rumors that we've heard and has been talked about, I don't think it's out of pocket that Kate Anderson could be in the rotation at the beginning of next year. He just dropped 120 in a hundred and college world series, led the, nation in strikeouts. Maybe he takes a break.

You know, maybe they do the Hagen Smith thing. They give him a couple innings or whatever. And then next season, they can build him up. You already have maybe, what's that? 100. Let's say he pitches like three or four games total this year. 130 innings. Could you push him to 140, 150 in the first year?

I kind of think you could. So I'm not thinking it's going to happen. I'm just saying it's not out of pocket seeing Chase Burns. It's more likely the Chase Burns path will happen. But I think the development's great. I'm really high on him. And it is a little bit to do with. him being with the Mariners.

Welsh has Kate Anderson second overall in his FYPD rankings, and he is his SP1. What about the fourth overall pick? The name that many were waiting to hear, and the Rocky selected Ethan Holiday, another son of Matt Holiday, obviously brother of Jackson Holiday, who is currently on the Orioles.

First off, love the full circle moment here. I mean, Ethan drafted by the same team that selected his father in the first round way back in 1998. and there were some cool pictures floating around of Matt Holiday walking around Corse Field back when he was on the team holding a baby Ethan who was wearing Rocky's attire at the time

and now he's being drafted by the Rockies here in 2025. So a pretty awesome moment there. Ethan, a high school shortstop imposing 6 foot 4, big left-handed bat. Doesn't have the hit tool that his brother does but perhaps the best power projection of any player in this draft. And Welsh, what he's lacking in hit tool might be able to make up playing in Cores field.

So what do you think about Ethan Holiday here landing with the Rockies? Yeah, it's kind of my take too, is that I'm always a little bit more of a risk taker in fantasy than some. Like, I'm, you know, famously, it looks good right now. I can kind of like gloat about like how good Spencer Jones looks right now. But then, you know, he strikes out 38% of the time and people remind me, you know, but like I'll take some swinging whiffs on some of these guys, especially when you're going to put like a potential like elite power in front of me with maybe a guy that's going to steal. And also you look at the not even just like bloodlines, but like I really love how the family is just high in analytical.

You know, they've got the farm with all the data and all the data points. So offseason, you've got the family ties, whether it's his brother or his dad to work with. Because let's be honest, the Colorado Rockies, they're as bad or worse than the Angels as far as player development goes. So that doesn't make me feel good. Though I will point out, Charlie Condon had looked like a disaster up until like about a month or two ago. And things seemed to be adjusting. He was swinging at every off-speed pitch. He looked really, really bad.

So maybe they are doing something better. But yeah, I think the power potential is like 30, 35 plus. I think the hit tool is being maybe like a little bit. I think people being a little bit overdramatic about like, oh, it's negative. And like, yeah, it might not be great. But if it's 260, it's going to play well. And then obviously the home ballpark plays like a huge, huge factor into what he's going to be able to do at home. My main point just comes back to, he's my number one overall guy.

And my main point would come back to like, what's your flavor? I don't think there's a lot of floor. Floor is pitching. And if you're in a league that doesn't benefit that like in a points league or whatever, like you got to take some shot. So do you want to play it safe with a high school guy or do you want to take a big shot? Maybe Eli Willits is the safety net here. But I really think that Jackson's, that, that, I say Jackson's. that Ethan Holiday, there's a floor of a high upside fantasy value and name that I'm just willing to take.

So he's my top guy. I love 30 plus home run power potential and it becomes a 30, 10 guy and hits for 260, 270. Hopefully they can put some good guys around him, but that's my top guy. Do you think that he can move as fast as his brother did? I think there's the potential for him too. The reason Jackson moved so highly was because that dude was like walking 100, you know, 100 plus per season. He was hitting over three. He was hitting like high batting average.

If Holiday comes out swinging and gets early on, like I do think he can. Luckily, he should come out here. The Bridge League, as I mentioned, it's like an instructional league that you guys won't get any stats for, but they play sanctioned games. I'm going out. You can bet that as soon as he signs his contract and he's in some games, I'm going to be out there because then what could happen, they could keep him here the whole time or he can move to high A. Or I'm sorry, low A.

What if he moves to low A next season? you could then push him low or high a, gets to double, then all of a sudden, maybe he is on the Jackson holiday kind of train. But I do think you got to wait at least a couple years, but there's just immense immense high potential, especially like we're a big, big power bat. The Cardinals are next up, and they like their left-handed pitching prospects.

They selected Liam Doyle fifth overall college pitcher out of Tennessee, 21 years old with a 75 grade fastball, according to NLB pipeline. I saw some highlights of this kid, the draft, he seems just like a firecracker, high energy, he's yelling at dudes, he's throwing a hundred mile per hour fastballs, max effort. Seems like there's big upside here, Welsh, but perhaps some more downside, maybe some reliever risk as well. What do you think about Liam Doyle? Yeah, I think you laid it out. That's really well said. Like, this is the fastball that you're

betting on. Like, you're betting on the highest graded fastball. Again, shape is great. It's high V-Lo. It sits like in the high 90s. It can touch even higher. He's got a split finger, which at a 40% whiff rate, which is really intriguing. Some version, I think Lance broke this down of like a slider cutter, whichever kind of direction they want to end up going with that. But, you know, there was some stuff like they were talking on the broadcast about how there was almost a point where like he might not have been on the team anymore and it was a conditioning thing and he lost weight and he's fiery and he's yelling at people. I think some of that breeds to if he is only a fastball guy that if things don't end up working out,

maybe that goes to a closer. But the same thing was said about Jacob Misrowski. And even to me, like a couple of years, you're like, well, this guy's just walk in dudes. He can't keep it straight. You know, he's got this one pitch. If he develops these other guys, then I think he's going to be a starting pitcher. Cardinals are probably a pretty great organization to do it.

I just don't know if he'll move super fast because they've also got some guys like Tukal Roby and Cooper Jerpy and stuff that are in front of him. So they might let him simmer a little bit with that fastball. but there's a little bit of relief risk, but I don't play a ton into like relief risk range with like top 15 or even really like first round pitchers. They're going to give him every chance to be a starter and his fastball is going to play very, very well at the lower levels.

All right. So that was again, Liam Doyle, who Welsh has sixth overall in his FYPD rankings and his SP3. With the six pick, we got our first high school pitcher, and it was Seth Hernandez out of Corona High School. What a school, by the way. I mean, they had three players selected in the top 32 picks. For one high school, I mean, that is insane.

That is unheard of stuff right there. So just breeding talent right now out of Corona High School. Seth Hernandez, only 19 years old, but physically imposing at 6'4-foot-4, huge fastball, strong secondaries. It's going to take some time here, but Pirates fans can dream on a rotation that features Paul Skeens and Seth Hernandez

if they don't trade Paul Skeens by then. trading Paul Skeen. How about Bubba Chandler too? How about the best minor league fastball? Jared Jones at one day. I mean, imagine the top four skeens. Jared Jones,

Bubba Chandler, Seth Hernandez, my goodness. Yeah, and also just throwing this out here, like Hunter Barko in their system has like a sub three ERA right now. Like he's a monster.

Everyone loves Thomas Harrington. They're kind of like mini pitching you. I would say, stare at them a little bit with maybe some of the injury stuff. You know, Jerry Jones getting hurt and Bubba's had some. You wonder about. that, but like from a developmental standpoint, they, like, have like a really good idea what they

want to do with pitchers. I think this is an incredible landing spot for him. We're talking four plus pitches. Uh, change up fastball. This is where the comparisons with Brimner comes in because like, again, great shape as you're going to expect really good spin as well. Like this guy has really, really good spin, but he's a big, big, big advanced fastball change up guy, but he's also got like a 126 curveball with a bunch of spin. He's got a plus slider. So you're talking four plus pitches, thicker, projectable pitcher already. He's a little. He's also. He's also got a 126th, he's He's a little bit older for the class, like already 19 years old. Man, fantasy, the biggest bugaboo is high school pitching.

Drafting high school pitching is scary. But there's just sometimes guys. There's sometimes guys I can't help it with. McKenzie Gore, for better for worse, was one of those guys. This is one of those guys. If the things work out, I don't think it's like crazy that he could advance decently. I say that with, you know, one side of my mouth also saying that they'll never bring a Bubba Chandler.

he'll literally never get called up. But like two years maybe, you know, and if he stays healthy and doesn't have a Tommy John, like he has got the stuff to be maybe be the best pitcher in this class. And I don't even think that's debatable, but he's high school. So it's super scary. So you got to figure out your, you know,

your ability to balance like if you pass on a college guy like Doyle or Bremner, you pass on a hitter, but they're high school guys. Like what is your level of risk? He legitimately could be a year from now, top five SP in like in prospect fantasy two years from now

a year and a half from now it might be the number one pitching prospect kind of like an Andrew painter but you know that there's too much more time there's Tommy John risk pirates with some of the injury stuff pirates also stink by the way when is it ever going to turn around

where they have run support Paul Skeen's favorite for you know Cy Young or right at the top minus money yet he has four wins and he's going to have to win over 50% of his games the rest of the way through to get to double digits It's like those are things you can think about, but two years from now, you hope that they can fix it.

I love Seth Hernandez. He's a guy that I think is worth taking the risk. Probably only one of the high school pitchers I would really like take that risk for. Yeah, and Welch has Hernandez fifth in his FYP rankings and his SP2 in the class. You brought up Paul Skeens and his lack of run support. We just did redrafting the first two rounds yesterday on the podcast.

And I mentioned with Paul Skeens, averaging 3.15. runs of support per game. To put that in perspective, Terrick Scouble, averaging over five runs of support per game this season, which is just, you know, they're supposed to be the top two pitches in the class, but I mean, you know, in baseball right now, but one's getting run support and the other is not. All right, maybe Chris Towers as Marlins are finally getting some bats here. They took Aiva Arquette with the seventh pick, first college bat selected. He's 21 years old, big dude, six foot five out of Oregon State. MLB Pipeline has Arquette as power overhit.

but this is somebody I know you like quite a bit. Why is that? And how fast can he move as a college hitter? Because we've seen college hitters move quite fast in recent years. Well, one of the things, this is a total name drop. And I've mentioned this if anyone listens to what I do. But I had like a 10-minute conversation with Travis Bazana the other day. He's out here rehabbing.

He's very close. He should be out of here any day. So just there's a little nugget for everybody. He should be in AA looking good. But I just mentioned Iva. And then he just like turn around. And we just, we'd like walk to the cars together. They just talked about, he was just talking about like he's what baseball players are built for.

An infielder, six foot five, big power, really good ability for contact. There might be some swing and miss in his game. But also looking at the data, he was above average. His 90th percentile EV was 108. That's great. 32 percent, or 32 percent barrel percentage, one of the best of the first round hitters. Really, really above average, EV 95. So that's the percentage of balls he hits 95 or more and in zone contact.

All of those are just like really good with some maybe potential swing and miss rates. Listen, college bat should get pushed. If Marlins are close to like winning right now, this is a guy you want to get on the field sooner rather than later. There's a physical comparison I feel like to maybe like a Colson Montgomery, except I don't think he has the chase issues of Colson Montgomery. But he might play 30. He might play short. He's my number one college bat in kind of a weaker class. And I just think from a projectability standpoint, from a lot of the underlying.

data that says like this is a pretty strong hitter. I don't know if he's going to be elite. You're screwed if you're going to start comparing him to Nick Kurtz and Jack Hagg Leon and guys like that. But like, could he be Cam Smith? Like, I don't know. I think that could maybe be the realm of possibility. So it'll be on the Marlins how much they push him.

But I've battled with him being two as high as two at one point and then moving down a little bit further. But I really do like Iva Arquette. Yeah. And Welch has Arquette fourth overall in his FYPD rankings. Back to high school short stops with the eighth pick as the Blue J selected Jojo Parker. He's 18 years old. Looks like hit overpower here, but could provide both. Again, high school shortstop, so he's further away from the majors. What do we need to know about

Jojo Parker? Yeah, the thing about Jojo Parker that's interesting is he's just like a really good combination of a lot of the stuff. So if you look at Eli Willits, you're like, okay, he can do, you know, he does a little bit of everything. Maybe he doesn't have power projection. I think a lot of people looked at Jojo Parker is like, well, if you want to live in the hit world, he's the best combination of hit tool that is combined with power. We mentioned holidays lacking maybe the hit tool. Willits is lacking a little bit of the power. Jojo Parker is like that middle ground that you're going to find. I don't know what the run is going to look like, but, you know, at the MLB draft combine put up like really good solid EVs across the board. His brother actually got drafted in the

19th round by the Diamondback should have been way higher. It's going to be super difficult for them to convince him to play. But, you know, really big pull hitter. I think Jojo Parker's got that. I have seen Joe Parker as high as one in first year players already. Wow. And that's the battle that we're having with a lot of these guys. And it's all high school shortstop, which is the funny thing too. And I think that's what you're dealing with with Jojo Parker. It's like if you want the best hit tool combination that maybe doesn't have speed,

he's going to be your bag. If you want the all power projection and hope things click, it's holiday. If you want to bank on a guy that can run and steal bases and make contact, it's Eli Willett. So I really do think that this could be the combination of players you're looking at. But I like the hit tool overall. I think grades you've seen like 60 hit, 55 power. I think he's in the conversation.

But I do, I've kind of tiered out some of my prospects as well. And I personally think Jojo Parker is under the tier of Willett's holiday, I have Arquette, and a few of those pitchers that we've talked about. And I think he's at the start of kind of this tier two of guys. But again, like I just want to point out, you don't have to just listen to me. there are people that have them at number one overall, but that's just my take on it. Welsh, you mentioned the word earlier, chaos.

I love it. Chaos. No consensus in terms of FYPD rankings right now. So look, things will change by, you know, the time people are drafting for Dynasty leagues. Maybe we'll get a look at some of these guys and, you know, they get some early playing time here. But right now, everyone seems to be all over the place and I love it. Welsh has Jojo Parker's seventh overall in his FYPD rankings.

Let's take our final break. When we return, jump around to a bunch of other names here. We'll do all of that right after this. Welcome back in Fantasy Baseball today. Again, recapping the MLB draft, taking a look at early first-year player draft rankings for Dynasty Leagues. And of course, we're doing that with our buddy, the Welsh.

And now we're just going to jump around a little bit, and we're going to focus more on your dynasty rankings of these picks. You have Jace LaViolette. I hope I said that right. Did I say that right? Yeah, you do. He is ranked eighth by you. he was taken 27th overall by the Guardians

college outfielder from Texas A&M, huge dude, 6 foot 6, massive power potential, also lots of swing and miss in his game. Why do you rank him so high? Do you think maybe the Guardians can blend some of their contact approach with his profile here?

Yeah, so this is going to be my controversial one. I think I have some support in the chat, though, here. If people are hanging out as they should with you guys. I've seen some Jason here. I'm going to probably, I don't want to claim it because someone can prove me wrong. I think I'm going to be the high guy on Jace Lavalette. But you also need to know, like, kind of my process again is I'm banking on like big offensive power potential.

And that's what he is. Like to me, there's a there's a baby Caglione, as I have said a lot in him in that there's just big bat speed, tremendous power. He's got one of the best launch angles to like a 20 plus degree launch angle he was putting up in college, low ground ball rates, pull the ball, all that type of stuff. You mentioned the swing and miss, absolutely a problem. But you'd be surprised one of the lower chase rates out there. Like I said, high barrel rates.

He had an injury last season, which I think really took away from him as well, because one of the things you look at is you hear high strikeouts and you look and it's like, oh, you only hit 256. You know, that's not great. But he had over 400 OBP and still had 1,000 OPS. And I think that injury took away from a decent amount of what was going on with.

them. But best pull percentage of all the hitters, you know, with that launch angle. So you're battling these negatives. He really did stink, by the way, against sliders. So you've got this strikeout slider issue. He doesn't chase. He's got big power. You know what's super interesting about all of these things? It's a little Chase the Latter to me. And I've been saying that a lot because guess what? Chaste a Lodder at one time was like a number one overall pick. LaVolette was seen as one of the top overall bats coming into this season. Now, Now, De Lauder doesn't have the strikeout issues that LaVolette has, but you also have lower chase rates. You have a big physical six-foot-six lefty outfielder who, remember that little we've talked a ton about, you've got that little panel in right field that's opened up.

And all of a sudden, left-handed hitters, the home run ballpark factor in Cleveland has gotten better. Did they draft another high barrel, high-pole guy that does that? Last year, they did. Travis Bezana. He gets the ball in the air. He pulls the ball. So I think they kind of see a path of the type of players that they're looking for. They feel they can fix it.

And maybe they're also kind of looking at like the injury kind of set him off a little bit. So all of that to be said, there is inherent risk in him because of the strikeouts. But I think just the overall offensive potential is off the charts. He's also a college bat. So I got him in my top 10. I'm probably one of the only ones that are going to do it. But if he has like a really good showing, then, you know, maybe he's going to move. I think he has a potential to move up boards if he has like a good showing.

And I would assume like low A or high A. through the rest of the season once he signs. Your ninth ranked player is another college pitcher, Jamie Arnold, who the athletics got at the 11th pick, a potential steal based on where he was ranked at least, 21 years old out of Florida State. Great fastball slider combo has this funky arm slot from the left-hand side. It seems like at least based on some other rankings

that I've seen early on here, you might be a touch lower on Jamie Arnold. Is that true? Why? Yeah, I think that's probably true. There's a little bit of concern and I don't want to get a hat tip because I want to say Lance Brasdalski pointed this out and I thought this was really interesting that you also see that he throws a lot of sliders

to right-handed hitters and that's probably not going to work at the major league level and I think that's the big question for him but he's like monster spin one of the top guys he also does manipulate his slider which I think is really interesting as well in not only like how he throws it but the whiffs he's got probably needs to work on a change up

but I think like right now it's just a nice, you know, spinning, sinky type of fastball with the slider combination. Maybe I don't like the A's so much in their ballpark for the next couple of years. I do like Jamie Arnold. There might be some stuff to work on. He's had a lot of interesting comps too with Chris Sale as far as like the delivery goes and maybe some of the movement of the slider. So yeah, I think I'm like a tiny bit behind.

But again, like I push down pitchers a little bit. Bremner. I got like 11. I got Arnold like right near him. I think there's a lot to like. If you're in a pitching heavy thing, push him up. But we'll see what the A's end up doing with him. Jeffrey Springs is like a disaster at home.

You can't start him at home and you can start him away. So is that going to work if he's throwing sliders, you know, across to right-handed hitters and they're playing in a summer 105 in Sacramento and just pulling the crap out of it. So I guess I have a little bit of worries, but I do agree with you. Like a lot of people are like, this is a steel.

This is crazy. And he's definitely a really great pitcher. I think there's some stuff that still needs to potentially work on. I wouldn't be surprised if he's ahead of all these pitchers. but I also wouldn't be surprised if his production is lower than guys like Bremner and Doyle and Kate Anderson and it takes a little bit more. Your 10th ranked player is another one drafted a little bit lower in the first round. Xavier Nions, a high school shortstop taken 21st overall by the Astros.

18 years old, big dude, 6 foot 4, big power from the left hand side. MLB pipeline threw out a left-handed Austin Riley comp, which seems pretty awesome. Obviously, you know, we're dreaming on some high-end stuff there. But what are your thoughts on Xavier Nions? Yeah, it's my dude. I mean, again, I think this is another guy. I think I'm going to be higher on. I think I've dictated or seen like five or six guys that I'll probably be higher than the pack on

and trying to be a little bit more concise about this. But just huge power. Like, I love the power potential. I think there's a great hit tool. I think he's a monster out there. This is like, I don't think maybe there's some questions on some of the chase and contact, but I think it's better than some others. I think it's tremendous power.

It's a beautiful swing. I just think he's an offensive onslaught. I love the Austin Riley comp out there. I think Houston's a great destination for him, and I think he can move up the system quite a bit. And I think he's a good representation of why I really like having multiple picks in the teens. We're going to talk about another guy here, but it's like, man, you give me like, somehow I could get like 10, 12, and 15.

Like, I think you're going to come out of this like with crazy, crazy future production. So I really like Nines. Your 11th ranked player is Tyler Bremner, who we talked about earlier. Your 12th rank player is Kaysen Kony. another high school high school shortstop drafted 18th overall by your Arizona Diamondback. Smaller dude, 5 foot 10 has hit in speed. And MLB pipeline comped him to a lefty hitting Jet Williams, who is a current prospect in the Mets organization.

I love, I'm just going to tell you, I love Kasun Williams before he was in Arizona Diamondback. I got to see him when he played out here in the Dream series earlier this year. I think that this guy could be a top five first year player, maybe by the end of this season, maybe early into next year. Body is built, maybe a little like Jose Ramirez-esque, too. You know, it's a little bit thicker. The kid can run. He can hit for contact.

He has raw power. That's the thing that people question on him. He's got some of the best bat speed. And I've said this once before, but there's this really great interview. If you haven't heard this, where he said he interviewed with the diamondbacks in June. And they had a pitching simulator. And they asked, you know, did he want to do it? Who did he want to go against?

He said Paul Skeens. And he went against Paul Skeens in their simulator, took him deep a couple times. He said he was sitting on fastball. All of that's just fun. But he registered like 114, 115 max EVs in that. Wow. So Bat speed showed out in the home run derby.

We saw guys, who was the guy that hit the 513 homer? O'Neill Cruz. What does he have? Number one bat speed in baseball. Junior Camerre made it to the finals. I think he's number two, bat speed. This kid has bat speed. He can run.

He's got a great hit tool. I think sky's the limit with him. We'll see where it ultimately goes. Maybe his floor is Jet Williams and his ceiling is just a much, a lot higher. I know I've got him at 12, but I think there's a lot of room to grow. I'm very excited to see him hoping the Diamondbackness isn't coming out of me. But a lot of this was me before. It doesn't matter where he was going.

This is what gets exciting. But also it's pretty good ballpark for him to hit him. Yeah. Again, that is Kaysen Cunningham who wound up with the debanks. Just to recap Welsh's way too early top 12 FYPD rankings. Ethan Holiday with the Rockies, Kate Anderson with the Mariners, Eli Willits with the Nationals,

Iva Arquette of the Marlins, Seth Hernandez of the Pirates, Liam Doyle of the Cardinals, Jojo Parker of the Blue Jays, Jace Laviolette of the Guardians, Jamie Arnold with the athletics, Xavier Nions with the Astros, Tyler Bremner with the Angels,

and Cason Cunningham with the D-backs. Let's quickly run through a second round, assuming, you know, people are playing in 12-team leagues, and, you know, I'll throw these names at you in Trio as well. So you can kind of give us a little bit of a rapid-fire take on some of these guys. But 13 through 15 in your FYPD ranks, you have Gavin Fiends, a high school shortstop who went to the Rangers, Ike Irish, who was a college catcher slash outfielder,

who went to the Orioles, and Gavin Killen, who was a college shortstop who went to the Giants. Yeah, I think all pretty interesting. Gavin, Gavin Fiend's one of those like, you know, potential big power, develop into big power, pretty good contact skills. His brother plays with the A's. Ike Irish was a really good deal, good exit velocities. One of the better college hitters that was seen as like a top 10 pick, he fell to the Orioles.

And I think that's a really good environment for him. And Keyline is super fascinating as well because this is one of those guys that he gets the ball in the air. Bad speed launches him up, 20 plus home run potential. There have been some Gavin Lux kind of comps that have floated out. around him. But I think all the, you know, you're starting to, we've, we've already invested a lot in like the high school short stops that I think have big high offensive potential. Now you're dealing with like these short stops that I think are bigger questions that are

maybe defensive or really low power projections versus college guys. And that's where it's like, right, Fien is good. He's going to be probably a third basement. And then I jumped into a couple college guys. With Ike Irish, where do you expect him to play a long turn? Outfield. Outfield? Yeah.

They also drafted Caden Bodine, who is probably like the best catcher in the class. Really good framer, good contact. So like if you have Adley and you got Bodine, I'm not sure that there's much room for Ike. I think Irish is going to be an outfielder. Maybe they keep them around in there, but Orioles were sick. They had, they drafted four guys in the top 37 that were seen as like top 20, 25 overall picks. Like they did a really, really good job. Fantasy is a little bit different on the value because of Bodine.

But yeah, Irish is super interesting. I mean, what do you think the Orioles do long term here? Obviously, look, the cream rises to the top. Things will kind of figure themselves out usually. But I mean, between Adley Rutchman and their top prospect is a catcher and Samuel Bessio and, you know, they draft, all right, like, Ike Irish probably going to be an outfielder. But you mentioned they took another college catcher too. Like, what do you think is happening here long term with the Orioles? I think they're going to trade. I think there's a lot of criticism around that team of like, what did they do? I mean, they pulled off some stuff, but like they just gripped tight to every single one. We're not trading. and Westberg and Holiday and Basile. You don't trade anybody. You can start trading them. Like, start making moves.

Unfortunately, they made the wrong move with Kyle Stowers. How good does Kyle Stowers look right now? But you don't have space for like Kobe Mayo that I think with the draft that they have. I'm not saying they're going to do this, by the way. But I think like logically, with restashing like they did, they got just really quickly. Slater DeBrun is a super fascinating like Slade Caldwell type outfield that they got. They got the Golden Spikes winner in Alloy from Arkansas. Like they just got all these dudes that.

If they want to go now, I think you have even more flexibility to move a Kobe Mayo. You have more flexibility to move off of Heston Kirsta. I just think there's so much criticism that they're not winning games and they're just hoarding all these young prospects. They got to make some big moves here. So that's what I kind of assume you do when you have a draft like that and you've got more capital. But, you know, maybe they don't. Maybe they just like all they do is trade Cedric Mullins and they just move on. And it's just like they're building the greatest dynasty team ever that's never going to win.

They just waited too long, man, on a lot of these guys. And look, it's easier to say now, all right, Kobe Mayo hasn't worked out. They also haven't just given him a real opportunity to play every single day. Same thing with Kirstad. Yeah, they gave him some playing time early on. But man, just give him a chance. Let him know every day that he gets to the ballpark he's going to be in the lineup, right? And just see what he can do.

So, look, these guys were regarded as, you know, top prospects in all of baseball. They could have traded maybe one of them for like a Joe Ryan before the season. Why didn't they try to pull something like that off? just, I don't know. The orios are confounding. I don't know. I will say three of those big five picks were college guys. So pay attention to that.

Like, again, I'm not saying it's for sure or anything, but they did invest in three college players that could move through the system. So if you were to move off of a Westberg, a holiday, whatever it is, a Kobe Mayo, you've got reinforcements. You got a guy in a lawyer that can play in the middle infield. You've got a new catcher. You've got a new outfielder. They covered all the points with college-based guys that are going to move quicker

through the system that could help if they decide to do it. I think that's what winning teams should do. Winning teams and dynasty should do the same thing. How many of your prospects should you really hold on to? You should take advantage while you can while building the best team. And I think they just got kind of lost in it. So I completely agree. Like Joe Ryan would have been great.

They really need to, I think they need to look and see if there's a team. I don't know if they can make that move now if it even makes sense. But, you know, into next season, you know, making a big prospect trade. I think some of these guys provide that. 16 to 18 in your FYPD ranks. have Andrew Fisher, who was a college corner infielder taken by the Brewers. I was watching the MLB draft. They kept describing him as having Jersey Shore energy.

I don't really know what that means, but just imagine him with like spiky hair and I don't know. We're going to nickname him the situation, like Andrew, the situation Fisher. I hope so. Steele Hall, a high school shortstop taken by the Reds. I heard a few Trey Turner comps thrown out for him as well. And Daniel Pierce, a high school shortstop with Tampa Bay. What do you have on these three? So Andrew Fisher might be the one that people get like the most annoyed with because I legitimately think there's some people are going to put him top 10, which again.

He's great bat speed, really, really good, just bat overall. Like he's a classic first baseman. So like in traditional baseball, he might rank lower because he's like a, well, I mean, you know, he's a third baseman. So I shouldn't even just say that like he can play 30. He can play first. I think ultimately he's going to play first. His bat is really, really lively. I got him at 16.

Don't be surprised if guys have him at 10 and stuff. If you want, you could do that. I think I'm totally cool with if you want to draft him higher because I think these tiers are really close. So if you had more of a need on a corner infield and you're like, well, I don't want Keyline and I don't want Ike Irish. I think Fisher's in that same grouping.

So just throwing out. The other high school guys, this is the range where I start to fall off a little bit. Hall is big speed. Super excited about that. I just don't know where the overall hit tool is going to be. And Daniel Pierce is like a lower end, maybe version of Jojo Parker that maybe there's a little bit of everything.

I just think those are more steps behind. So I'm not as excited to invest really heavily. So you can see there's like a little tier of some of the college hitters that I'm putting above a few of these high school guys. That went much higher. You haven't even mentioned the 10th overall pick in the actual draft. I don't even have them in my top 18 yet because he's a defensive guy. Well, let's get to that name.

19 to 21 in your FYPD rankings, you have Ethan Conrad, who is a college outfielder with the Cubs. Billy Carlson, who is a high school shortstop, another one out of that Corona High School along with Seth Hernandez. He went to the White Sox, again, regarded more as a defensive player. And Kyson Witherspoon, a college pitcher who went to the Red Sox. I know he has a huge fastball. I saw a clip that you and Jim Bowden were on HQ,

and he was raving about this kid, Kyson, Witherspoon. So what do you have with those three? Yeah, Witherspoon is a guy that actually just did an article on Fantasy Pros. And I said, just keep an eye on him outside the top 15. This is another one of those like four plus pitches. but there's some question about his consistency, his command. He's also got really small release. So there's a little bit of a question there, but he is fascinating.

I mean, Red Sox are becoming pitcher you with all their prospects as well. Billy Carlson, one of the best defenders in the class. I just don't know about the offense. They said he got a little bit bigger. We'll see. I'll see him out here in the Bridge League. I'm just much lower on his offensive potential. That's a real life versus fantasy situation that we're dealing with,

that I'm just not like 100%. I think like White Sox fans would be annoyed by that because, but it's like he's a great defender. I just don't know if there's as much offense. And I think his offensive potential is lower than pretty much every other guy that we've talked about. And then who's the other one? Ethan Conrad. Yeah, Ethan Conrad.

That's another guy that I might be a little bit lower on than some of the other guys that I've seen. I've seen him inside the top 10. I've seen him like in the first round. College bat, physical guy, you know, really good bat speed. There's good power. season-ending shoulder injury. Shoulders are kind of a little bit worrisome. He got drafted pretty high based on where most people had him ranked.

I'm just a little iffy. If we see him healthy and see him just balling out, I think he's another guy. Fisher and him, I think have the most potential to move up. Or, you know, if you're just like, well,

I don't care what you have to say and you go look at other people, you might see Conrad and Fisher like a little bit higher in some other spots. And I'm cool taking Conrad if you want over, say, I don't want Steel Hall. I don't want these high school guys, push them up. Same tier. That's the weird thing about this trap.

We're in this big old globy tier of like, what do you like? You want potential upside on high school shortstaps. You want college bats that can play. You want pitchers. We got 15 different players for you. And 22 to 24 in your FYPD ranks, Gage Wood, college pitcher went to the Phillies. Quentin Young, high school shortstop,

went to the twins' 54th overall picks. So you have them quite a bit higher here. and Devin Taylor, a college outfielder who went to the athletics, another one who went pretty late. 48th overall, you have him at 24. Admittedly, I don't watch college baseball. I don't know much about high school baseball. Welsh, I just don't have the bandwidth,

the capacity to just take on anything else. But even I have heard of Gage Wood, who threw a 19 strikeout no hitter in the college world series. So why does he rank so low compared to others, right? 22nd here in your rankings. Yeah, and there's a great question. I am generally worried that he fell because of injury concerns. Like the thought process is he might have some of the best stuff in this class of pitchers.

I'm totally open for it. So then why would you fall? Why would he be a guy that would end up falling after, you know, doing what he did last season? And I think some of the best reason behind that would be that there are some medicals that pushed him past guys like Kaysson Witherspoon and Jamie Arnold. stuff is great. He's a little bit, you know, six foot dude, but he only had 37 innings pitched last year. Huge 41, I think it was 41 K minus walk percentage,

really good extension. Again, like shape on the fastball. It got massive whiffs. Crazy, crazy good curveball. He's got a nice slider. Brasdowski kind of compared him to Hunter Brown. But he had a shoulder problem. So my assumption is if all the medicals were good,

you're going way higher with all the risk that's going on. But he didn't. He went quite a bit lower. So I wonder, is there a surgery that's going to be in play? Is he going to be babyed? I don't know. He could totally fly up this board. If you see him pitch with the Phillies and he's healthy and everything's good, he's got three pitches that make it work. He could be a value. I could be way super low. And frankly, if we talk in six months from now, I could have him above Jamie Arnold. That's where I feel Gage Wood is. But I told myself, if he fell in the draft, there must be medical concerns that team. would allow that to happen. So I'm going to kind of stick to that right now. And, you know, treading lightly a tiny bit. The other two guys, I'll jump to Devin Taylor for a second. College bat, incredibly good offensive profile, ranked lower because he's kind of an defender.

But I love the bat. Just really, really good underlying data. I've got some college data that he ended up putting up. High contact rate, low chase rate, almost 94 average exit velocity. One of the highest barrel rates compared to the first round guys, high expected Wobah gets the ball in the air. Like, I just love all of the stuff. He also almost doubled his walk percentage over strike percentage. So I love Devin Taylor and he plays in that little baby ballpark.

The last one, though, is Quentin Young, who I believe is the cousin of Delman and Demetri Young. He is the exact type of player I like to take chances on. He is a freak athlete, 6'2, like 20 plus shortstop, listed as a short. stopped by the Twins, broke all the records at the MLB Combine. He was like O'Neill Cruz there. If you look at the top, what is it, like eight exit velocities, they all belong to Quentin Young. There might be some swing and miss in his game, but he has just got that like James Wood, not even just like from a physical, like dreads and stuff, but just like big six

foot six body with a guy that has insane already like pro level max EVs. I hope the twins can do some stuff with him. He's the guy I like to bet on. So I've got him very high. I'll probably be one of the higher on him as well. All right. Again, recapping, Welch is 13 to 24 in the FYPD ranks. Gavin Fiends of the Rangers, Ike Irish of the Orioles.

Gavin, how do I say this name? Keelan? Fine? Keelan. Yeah, Keelan. Gavin Keelan of the Giants. Andrew Fisher of the Brewers. Ethan Conrad, Cubs, Steel Hall, Reds, Daniel Pierce,

Rays, Billy Carlson, White Sox, Kyson, Witherspoon to the Red Sox, Gage Wood to the Phillies, Quentin Young, twins, and Devon Taylor to the athletics. I want to wrap up with a few other questions here, Welsh, and I mentioned up at the top, we have been spoiled in recent years, stud players moving fast through the minors, Paul Skeens, Wyatt Langford, Nick Kurtz, Chase Burns, who are some names in this draft class that you think could move the fastest to the majors?

Okay, in this draft class, I would say, I think the most obvious is Bremner, just Angels. I think that's the number one guy that's going to move fast. Number two in my mind is Kate Anderson. I could be wrong on this one, but it's just, Luke Castillo goes, you know, guy had 120. I kind of laid it all out. Like, I think Kate Anderson is a guy that could move high up in this.

I'm torn between Liam Doyle and Jamie Arnold. I may be lean that Jamie Arnold is a little bit closer. I think it's pitchers. I think that's what you're looking at here. There might be a couple relievers that are floating out there as well that some guys that can move. But Brimner and Kate Anderson would be, at the top. If I had to pick a hitter, it's probably Iva Arquette. You know, I know that's like a little,

that's like boring for people. Maybe I would throw out if something happened, maybe next season, maybe Andrew Fisher, you know, if Reese Hoskins is gone in some capacity and Andrew Vaughn, I mean, it just feels like he's a little bit blocked. But that seems like another guy Fisher could be coming up. But I have Arquette, Kate Anderson, Bremner. Those would be the three that I would bank on. I know it's like a little boring. Yeah, I'll throw something crazy out there. The Phillies could use a closer, Welsh. Gage Wood? Can we get them up in the bullpen? Well, how about I'll throw one at a different one at you?

I've got Andrew Painter. Maybe Andrew Painter. They got a top prospect pitching guy that's in AAA right now if they wanted to do that. How about throw him in there instead of Gage Wood? All right, well, let's wrap up with exactly that. A bonus here. If you sat through this for an hour, you get the bonus of hearing some potential impact prospects that can help us at the Major League level in the second half of this season. So Welsh, is there maybe one hitter and one pitcher that you think can come up? Maybe it's in August. September call up and maybe make a redraft impact and fantasy this season.

All right. I'll start pitcher because I've got a fun one. I'm going to go out on a limb on a fun one for the hitter. Pitcher is not as fun. I'm going to be kind of boring. It's Painter or Bubba Chandler. Painter, I think, is super interesting. People are down on him because he's had kind of a bad run.

But you do have this situation where it's like, Aaron Null is going to throw in like a week. And then he's going to have to go through a rehab stent. Then, you know, maybe at this point, like Painter is the second half guy. this is what they built us up to do. I would worry he just doesn't have long-term sustainability. Bubba Chandler has had a couple really good starts. He's just finally, he's pairing some good starts. And the back of my mind, I do think the pirates,

I actually think they, if I was in the organization, I would probably do this as well. Why not manipulate and wait until September? Then he has prospect eligibility next season. You let him break camp. He gets a potential rookie of the year bid and you get the PPI pick. It's all a big win. So you probably should do that.

But there also might be some negative stuff. with him staying in the minor so long and up and down and maybe just need to get him out of there. I think those are the likely guys. I could go out on a limb on some other pitchers. You know, like Nolan McLean with the Mets is maybe one Logan Henderson coming back. On the hitting side, I'm going to give you like this is my fun one of the group. Bryce Eldridge. So Bryce Eldridge got hurt.

He played 60. He was in AA. He started the year hurt was here in Arizona, moved up to double A, then moved up to AAA, got hurt again, but he's back in action out here. He is, he played on Saturday. He should be playing today. Or no, he played today's Tuesday. He played on Monday and Tuesday.

That probably means in a couple more days, he's back up at AAA where I think he played 16 games. Looking at that lineup, they got Dom Smith at first. They got Devers at DH. I know they have William Flores, but maybe they kicked Dom Smith by. You get Eldridge's bat and he could DH.

He could play some first base. you could balance it out with Devers a tiny bit. I'm going to say, like, what do they benefit? They're going for a playoff spot. His bat could probably help them right now. I think that's one that could happen because the AAA guys, especially hitters, it's kind of few and far between of like who's going to really impact. Could Alex Freeland come up?

Yes, I think C.J. Kaffis is a great name you guys should pay attention to. If he comes up with the Guardians, I really love KFIS. That would be one of them. But it's just a little bit few and far between of the guys that could make, that could really surprise us. So a big, surprising, bold prediction prospect would be Bryce Eldridge. And how crazy it is, I mean, Red Sox fans must be loving it, that, you know, they trade away Devers. And as soon as the Giants get them, their offenses goes completely ice cold.

Over the past 30 days, they're 26th and run scored. And the Red Sox have done the complete opposite. Last 30 days, they're third in run scored. So it's like they make the trade, boom, everything starts clicking for the Red Sox. Everything goes south for the Giants. So do you think Devers will be better in the second half. but that's a good name there, Bryce Eldridge, maybe someone that could be up,

you know, late August, September type call up here for the Giants as well. Big thanks to the Welsh for coming here, lending his expertise on the MLB draft. Make sure to follow him on Twitter X at Is It the Welsh. And just remind people where they can find your work, buddy. Yeah, just follow me on Twitter. That's the best way to do it.

You can listen to me on Fantasy Bros if you'd like to do that, if you want to continue hearing my voice for whatever reason. I got a prospect show, Prospect One. That is where I talk about a lot of this stuff. I'll have an episode this week. So I definitely suggest go check out Prospect One and one of the best things to do to either A, support me if that's what you care about

or B, you just want to see my stuff is my Patreon in this league.com. That is where I got my 500 prospects, 400 Dynasty, and all of this draft stuff we're talking about, first year player board, all that fun stuff so you can go and check it out there. Yeah, and I can vouch for the Prospect One podcast firsthand. I mean, I have a rotation, but definitely in there as one

because, look, I don't know much about prospects. I got to go somewhere to learn about it. And the Welsh prospect one, that is one place that I do. You've been a guest on a couple episodes, though. You don't give yourself enough credit. Frankie and the Dynasty Streets is pretty hardcore. Don't shoot yourself. Oh, God.

I just made a crazy monster trade in the Dynasty. You told me about that. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I traded away. Catelle Marte. I rolled this Chapman, Sunny Gray. I got back Bubba Chandler, Logan Henderson,

Otto Lopez. So I don't know. Money's attached, though, really important. When you hear you that he's trading Cotel Marte away, that there was money attached. You did a good job getting Bubba. Oh, man. Let's hope that there is such a thing as a pitching prospect, Welsh, because I need them.

We are going to wrap there for the Welsh. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in. Some fantasy baseball today, please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify. And we will be back again tomorrow night. Bye-bye. Paramount Podcasts.