Rates & Barrels - 2023 Rookies of Interest: Hitters Edition

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Which rookies/prospects should you pay attention to for 2023 drafts? Eno and Welsh discuss players the have locked down jobs, some of the fringe to break camp and a dart throw or two if you're feeling lucky. Rundown 3:53 - Pitching + projections 15:16 - Corbin Carroll 24:52 - Gunnar Henderson 32:45 - Masataka Yoshida 37:12 - Triston Casas 40:46 - Triston Casas vs Josh Jung 43:53 - Ezequil Tovar and Esteury Ruiz 47:35 - Is Miguel Vargas the most underrated rookie/prospect to own this year? 51:10 - Can Jordan Walker, Oscar Colas, Oswald Peraza and Matt Mervis break camp? 101:30 - Speculative rookie adds? Anthony Volpe? Elly De La Cruz? Brett Baty? Colt Keith? Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hello, friends, and welcome in to Rates and Barrels. We're here at The Athletic. I am Chris Welsh, joined by Eno Saris, and we are very happy to have you here today as we are doing. I believe this is called the Project Prospect, as we've been calling it. Eno, that was DVR's name. DVR, by the way, is with the family. Baby's good. And we're going to be holding down the fort.

We did not have an episode yesterday as it was a holiday. But normal, I will be here for you guys Monday with Eno. Eno, did you enjoy not having a second to yourself on a holiday where your kids were home? Yeah. Yeah, we had a degree of difficulty and had a party. So it was a pretty insane day. A couple of moms had birthday parties, so the dads had to do a little extra heavy lifting with the kids.

We took them to the park. And I had this maybe three-minute sequence where one kid came up and whacked me with a stick in a way that still hurts on my thumb and then i threw a like a batting practice pitch to this other kid who his swing wasn't didn't look good but he was kind of athletic so he pummeled me like the he just he hit a line drive like i don't know like 60 70 mile an hour line drive, like, I don't know, like 60, 70 mile an hour line drive, like into my solar plexus. And then as I'm down, the kid who hit me with the stick comes back and hits me again. I was going to joke that he's going to come and whack you.

Of course he would. It's like, oh, leave me alone for a second. People don't realize when you have kids like holidays and day off they're not like fun because it's just chaos that's going on all right so you would have rather been recording rates and barrels and being hit by a stick so all right that's good i actually spent some of the time if anyone's watching on the youtube channel i am quite red as i'm looking on my face i look even redder i've been out in the sun every single day as spring training is here. Camps are going on. I have been to probably five or six of them. And it's cold. So you forgot

to put your sunscreen on. Well, that is exactly right. The first couple of days, famously, as people know now, Jacob DeGrom was supposed to come out and work with all the pitchers on day one, which was Wednesday. And then he felt some tightness. But also, people were very dismissive of it because they're like, cold in Arizona. I was there. It had snowed the night before. I'm not even joking. It was 37 degrees. And it was insane.

And it was cold the whole way through. So I was really not paying attention to sunblock. And then on Monday, it got me because it was like 79, 80 degrees out here. Sun was blaring and I had not sunblocked up. So a little red out here. We got lots of baseball to talk about, which I'm excited to do. It was a total, it was, and I live here. It was the biggest rookie move ever done.

So today I was like, just sprayed out. Everything was good. But you guys can always find us, by the way, on the Twitters. If you got any questions related to that. Also want to tell you guys that the 2023 fantasy baseball draft kit launching soon. It's actually, I think available.

I think I saw a tweet. Our boy, Jake Sealy had put that out there. You guys can go and find that the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. If you guys want to sign up on the athletic $2 a month for the first year, get you in the door. So go and sign up the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. And you

can check out that article, which, um, you and I, you know, we both have, you probably did a whole bunch more. I know I wrote a sleeper on the hitters and the pitcher side, which is in there and a whole bunch more. You guys can check out as well. I don't know if this is a part of it. This is very, very exciting. If you guys don't know, the Pitching Plus Projections are out, and I believe they came out today, Eno. So give us the drill here. I kind of wish I told you before we started recording, I kind of wish we were talking about pitching today for it, but talk to us about the Pitching Plus Projections that just came out. Yeah, it's really fun. Jordan Rosenblum, who's worked at a few different sites around the

internet, doing cool work statistically, basically took my model, the Stuff Plus and Location Plus, and made pitching projections with it. And a couple of really interesting things came out of it, which is, you know, to date, the model's been more powerful in season because it comes online really quickly and it can be a great way to like look at a debut for a young, for a young pitcher or how a pitcher is coming back off an injury. And so in that way, it's a little bit been like the radar gun and it is heavily influenced by Velo, but there are other shapes and other things in it. And what we found is that year to year, it wasn't as sticky.

And that's partially because command isn't that sticky year to year and partially because we weren't including real life results. And at some point, there's a there's at some point. There's a there's like sort of if you have good process and bad results, at some point, it's just bad results. You know, there is a point at which you have to just be like, well, you know, Jarrell Cotton, I know this model has been saying this change up is amazing, but it's been we're on year five. I don't I don't think there's a Jarrell Cotton breakout coming. So what we did was married it with normal projections. And that also allowed us to park adjust and do aging and like do all the things you need to do to make something better. And one of the one of the really interesting things that came out of it was, you know, in baseball and Linux, there's been this whole thing about defense independent pitching.

You know, it's FIP or dips theory, which is that because a pitcher's there's so much noise and a pitcher's Babbitt allowed. is that because there's so much noise and a pitcher's BABIP allowed, there's basically the assumption that pitchers can't control their BABIP and that they can't control suppress hits. They can't control their batting average on balls in play. Our model found that stuff and location made the most difference in projecting BABIP. And our projections have a wider spread in projected BABIP than other projections. And our projections have a wider spread in projected BABIP than other projections. So you'll find that somebody like Paul Seewald, who has great stuff plus and great location plus, our model loves him to death.

Last year, he had a 170 BABIP. Every other model is saying 270 BABIP this year. And we're like, nah, more like 210 230 so that is i think 230 lowest is around 230 so can you also talk just real quick we had an interesting one uh fair if you just want to get into it i know we're going to talk about prospects we're going to talk about hitting prospects actually rookies for 2023 on the impact but you and i uh i would be remiss if we didn't talk about this you actually mentioned a player that really fell down also when you were talking about ballpark factors. And I was like, I had just talked about this guy as a breakout.

Do you want to just give like the quick little 30 second summary of what we were talking about with Nick Lodolo and what happened with the pitching plus projection? Yeah, I was looking at Nick Lodolo and, you know, when I looked at it through the lens of just stuff and location, I thought, oh, man, this guy is ready to go. And I still think that's pretty true. And we now have projected stuff. So he's projected to have a 105 stuff plus. That's better than Sonny Gray and better than Kyle Wright and better than Dustinny Gray, and better than Kyle Wright, and better than Dustin May even. And, you know, so it's on the level of, well, he's not like Logan Webb as a pitcher,

but it's, you know, he's on that level where he's got good but not elite stuff. And then he's projected to have a poor command, 97 location plus um but that's enough for me i had him pretty high based on that stuff plus like dustin may i have at 41 and so i had nick lodolo at like 42 just right around dustin may once we park adjusted his numbers though he came out with a 4.15 era uh the park adjustment for dustin may is he's got a 3.61 you know ppera as we call it so uh i just had to drop nick lodolo down i've still got him in my top 60 i'm still excited for him and i think you know there are reds pitchers that beat the park but it was instructive to me to be like oh yeah you know what this is a tough park and we have to remember that when we're looking at Nicola Dolan. Yeah, it's a great

point. It's something that I was just telling you, like I'm trying to be very cognizant more than ever before about some of these other factors, ballpark factors, of course, also just team context of run support defensively, what they've got out there. Sometimes you just kind of like blank out and you're just like, this guy's stuff is just so good. And I like this picture so much. And you forget, well, team context, ballpark factors. He might have nine wins on the year and the ERA might be a little bit inflated. Where can people find pitching, pitching plus pitch plus projections right now? I know you tweeted out about it.

There's a tweet out my newest rankings. If you just look for my newest rankings, look on my on my author page on the athletic. They're they're attached to those rankings. They're linked in the Google Doc for the deep divers that have been using the Google Doc. They've got full projections in there. And we fully projected their line against, their barrels against, all sorts of stuff. So you can even take our projections and insert them into whatever sort of value sheet you've got, hopefully.

And we're taking some suggestions. If there's something that's not in the sheet, in the projections that you'd like in the projections, let me know. Jordan is still hard at work on this. But we're really proud of the work we've done. And it seems to perform well when we did validation tests. And the model is already quicker than strikeouts minus walks,

which is the other most powerful in-season indicator we have. So it's really great in-season, and it just got a lot better season to season. I love it. I love it. And remember, theathletic.com slash rates and barrels. Go and get that and go and rock in. And we'll probably have more conversation around this in coming episodes as well. Next week, when we do the rookies pitchers for 2023, but today we are talking about the hitters. That's what we're going to get into here for this episode.

It is the rookies of interest hitter side for 2023. So really what that means is players that you're going to be drafting, players that you guys most likely are going to be taking a look at with your drafts that are coming up, whether you're doing like NFBC drafts, you're doing your home leagues or whatever it is, what level of interest should you really have? And that's like a perfect segue before we talk about specific names.

You know, I'm curious, what level of interest do you usually put into rookies when constructing rosters? Because as a prospect person, you're like, that's what I'm apparently known for now and everything. And that's great. Dynasty and prospects. I'm pretty agnostic to the fantasy side of prospects.

I just don't want to be interested in them. Like, I don't want them for for redraft. The return is relatively minimal unless they're coming at like a super low cost. And there's a couple of guys that are at the top. So like what level of investment do you throw in, whether it's hitters or pitchers to rookies on just like any given year? And if you want to be specific to this year, you can, because I know you and I talked about pitching plus projection on a certain rookie pitcher.

But how are you going to invest in rookies? Yeah, I think my general strategy is I want to draft them somewhere where I don't have to depend on them. And so that's usually not in the first five to 10 rounds. I'm taking people I really, I think are projectable, have high floors, you know, that I can depend on. If you think about it, I think they've done some research into how much, how likely is it the player stays on your roster? And you're talking about the first five rounds, uh, they're, they're sort of like 70 to 80% likely to make it to the end of the season on your roster, you know, in these, in these situations where even in fab leagues, then you start going from that and it starts dropping. And then, you know, down at the

end, it's like, you know, it's like 10 likely. That's when you start taking the real shot. So it's really easy at the end of a draft. And I got lucky in my NFBC main last year and took Julio Rodriguez as my fifth outfielder or as maybe my first reserve. So it was way, way low. It was kind of a fluke, i just got it was just getting lucky but did you draft that in like november or something november december it was march i was like this dude is killing it he's gonna start with the team i think he's killing it and even if he doesn't start with the team two weeks later he's still be killing it down there that's

gonna be embarrassing for them he's gonna be to be up soon. So that was easy. But the process that, that sets you up for easy decisions like this is to kind of be like, think about depending on them. So I was, I was available to take a prospect there. It could have been anybody. It,

you know, I was lucky that Julio dropped to that and it was Julio Rodriguez. But at that point I'm like, yeah, yeah. Now I'm looking for a, like a one in ten shot at a like a star you know that's what i want to do of course the problem is that the the quality of the

prospects that you're getting is going down as you're waiting so see that's interesting there is like kind of a sweet spot there there's two things in this i had a conversation on my in this league fantasy baseball podcast with Derek Carty. We were talking about projections. He's the creator of the Bat-X. And he had made a statement where he was, I was kind of pushing a little bit on the accuracy of rookies overall. And he's like, listen, over time, it's just right. Like he believes in the accuracy reports he gets back about his projections on rookies,

except the top end. I think the top end is where, when rookies are kind of brought back down, obviously last year is a prime example of it with Julio and Bobby wit. Like overall, you could be right about lowered expectations on rookies, but are you really right? If like the top three or four actually do work out or three of the top

four workout and then the next 15 don't work out? And there's also this context. People who drafted Bobby Witt high last year pretty much got their return. They paid off. But it was like 75, like 75 overall or something like that. It was high, but it wasn't insanely high. But the other thing to question. I mean, that's the Corbin Carroll bet this year, right?

And that's where we're going to start with this. The other question does kind of center in my mind around how teams are treating rookies. So because we now know they're they're being incentivized, obviously, to break camp. They're being more incentivized than ever to bring these guys up. And we're just seeing more of a commitment to rookies overall. And that's kind of also changing the scope of when you're talking about the accuracy or, you know, how much do they stay on the roster? Well, I don't even know if like you can look over a three or four or five year period to get proper results because things have really changed dramatically over the last 12 months with how

baseball is treating rookies and guys that are closer and development overall has changed. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one. Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton Bike or Bike Plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply.

Treat yourself to Tim's new fudge brownie lattes. Made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced only at Tim's. So that's where this kind of comes into question and the first player that comes up on this list is the highest player in any draft order if you're looking at rookies it is Corbin Carroll Corbin Carroll actually pulled up um the ECR the like the ECR of ADP fantasy pros will have like all the sites they have all the

sites up now NFBC I think is a great one to take a look at as well where the high stakes guys are, but this is like a aggregate of all of them, all different kinds of setups and stuff. Yeah. So it's like, you want like a broad spectrum because not everybody plays like high advanced.

So give me some outfielders. He went, he went before because in my draft and hold, I just finished and shout out to those guys. We find it. We finished and they, they, guys we find we finished and uh they they uh they had my rankings open and they made it very difficult for me but uh in that one i got george springer after corbin carroll okay so he went 82 his adp is 82

on this list so here are a couple of the outfielders that are right behind him this and i gotta tell you there are some that are hard to stomach here i'm looking at george springer by the way george springer is 67 on this list so george springer went normally goes ahead of him yeah yeah on the average adp but the next player is brian reynolds who has an 83 adp there's a perfect sort of oatmeal versus upside moment yep Yep. How about this one? We want to talk about volatility. Byron Buxton was the next one after that at 87 overall. Byron Buxton versus Corbin Carroll.

I had a debate about Corbin Carroll versus Eloy Jimenez. Byron Buxton versus Corbin Carroll is such an explosive rookie potential working out versus a hitter that way. He's the Jacob deGom of hitters byron buxton is when he's out there he's electric and he's a 30 plus home run hitter speed has kind of gone away uh also just a couple others and i'll get 382 yeah he's absurd and then just throwing out like a couple other outfielders for you to simmer on here to get your takes on this it actually falls off quite a bit on the adp it It goes down to 104 is Tyler O'Neal and Seau Suzuki and

Steven Kwan at 113-114. Those are the guys that come right after. I expected this to be more ludicrous because I'm looking at my draft and being like, man, I got Springer after Carroll and people are pushing this too hard.

Actually, given the names that you just put forth i'm okay with drafting carol there because all of the names that you listed have list have risk now reynolds has less risk but he also doesn't steal you know know, and steals are, are tough. And, and Carol could have Carol could steal like 40. So that is, this is, this is a huge thing for me. Cause I do have a very specific question. I want to ask you on Carol here for a minute. I'm I've not Carol's my number one overall prospect in the game. Some people have Gunnar Henderson. It's fine to each his own and how that works. Um, Corby goes the fastest player in baseball last year if people understand that and i was

looking at the sprint speeds for 90 feet and this is something really crazy i think it was for example that put me on to this so when you go and look the top 30 are usually between like they're within like 0.01 of each other you know it'll be like 3.8 i think uh cj abrams is 3.82 if you're looking at it you're going to see what i'm about to say. 3.01, it's now 3.83. There is no bigger gap on that entire list than the number one to the number two player, Corbin Carroll to, I believe it was Bubba Thompson, maybe? Or whoever number two is. It's a 0.12 difference there from between them.

And if you take the next 0.12, you go from Bubba Thompson, the next 0.12 at Bubba Thompson at two, all the way down to Alec Thomas at 50. Well, well, it was 3.66 and I believe Bubba Thompson was 3.74. There's no bigger differential. That was a 90. 0.12 is 0.08. So was 3.74 there's no bigger differential that was a 90 not 0.12 it's 0.08

so 0.08 that's what I'm saying 0.08 was the difference between 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 and 40 that's crazy 1 and 2 and 2 and 40 it's absurd so it's one of those dumb things that we can throw in here something I have been

very adamant about, and you just said it, and I'm actually really happy to hear you say it. I have said, I think Corbin Carroll leads the diamond backs and stolen bases. And that's not, that's kind of a McCarthy and Thomas. They have,

they have some fast guys. That's why it's a takey type of thing. By the way, McCarthy's eighth on that sprint speed list. So he's a fast guy too, but that's why it's 50th. So like they, they're a fast team.

It's kind of a take from me on it, but I think projections are way undersold on Corbin Carroll. The power numbers, the guy hit 27 homers last year. Actually, I'm sorry, 28 homers across four different levels. So I want you to think about that. 30 plus stolen bases, 33. Tell me something though. You know about these.

So the triple a for arizona is is is really aggressive hitter friendly right yeah pcl yeah what about their double a double a uh i believe that's the texas league it's um i don't it's not on the pcl level like all of these are relatively hitter friendly environments there's not a big pitcher environment i would i if i'm remembering correctly i want to say double a of the high a double and triple is probably the most pitcher friendly but if i'm wrong someone will 100 correct me but i just remember like when we talk about fod and we talk about their pitching prospects coming through like we talk about it being difficult for their pitching prospects in the high mind. Well,

now it was PCL. Well, but that's why Brandon fought. Like what he did in the triple a was very reminiscent of what Zach Allen did many years ago, but someone brought this up to my attention. I'm curious to get your take on it. I have cited this for quite a bit where I've said one of the most

impressive things in my mind about Corbin Carroll, when we're talking about sustainability is this guy, it powers, the thing that comes up, by the way, everybody questions the power. Cause he's a little bit uh you know smaller of body though he's really filled out and uh he's pretty jacked if you when you see guys see him this year that he has had a 200 iso at every single level of his professional career except for rookie ball which

is fine someone had brought up though one of the things to think about with him is he's the fastest player on the planet essentially and that is ISO might be taking is, is obviously taking into consideration also just doubles and triples. And he's just such a magnet to those things that is that something that you take a look at when you look at Carol and you see, you know, really good ISO numbers, knowing he's one of the fastest guys on the fricking planet. And he also makes really great contact. Do you maybe think that the power might be a little bit oversold when you see 28 and you understand that that ISO is going to be generated a little bit by the guy who hits a decent amount of doubles? I'm looking, he had 31 doubles between

AA, AAA, and the majors this past year, and he had 10 triples. So that's going to play a little bit of a role in it. So, I mean, how do you factor when you're looking at Corbin Carroll, you're looking at projections and his actual value for this year? Yeah. I don't normally think about it with a guy with a three 30 ISO like he had in, in, in double A when you, when you get up to three 30, I'm like, yeah, you got legit power. A lot of times I think about it with a guy who has like a one 85 ISO, you know, or like a one 80 ISO. And you're just like, Ooh, how'd you get there? You know, like a 180 iso and you're just like oh how'd you get there you know like a story ruiz type stuff you know but with a 330 i feel like that's no doubt on the other hand there is doubt about corbin carroll's power in terms of he did not put up a great max exit velocity last

year and his barrel rate was below average for a starter basically it's not the kind of line that you'd expect in the stat cast stats for for a guy um who did hit four homers and and did do fine had a 240 iso but the underlying stats are a little bit worrisome and that's probably why the bad x has him projected for a lower iso than anybody else basically a league average iso at this point and uh more like 12 to 15 homers in a full season i don't know man i think with the steals the way they are i think this is actually a high floor prospect in terms of like what's the worst that could happen he hits 240 with 10 homers and 30 steals and you spent a maybe pick 75 like you think you're really going to regret that if you got your 30 steals and your 10 homers?

Is that going to be a regret for that type of investment? I guess it's close to where Bobby Witt went, but I think Bobby Witt was pushing. So as long as he's where he is now, I'm okay actually with Corbin Carroll. But if he starts pushing ahead of George Springer, then I'm going to be like, yo, George Springer's good too,

and you know he's good too, you know, and you know, he's good. And like, you know, I, so where he is now, like Byron Buxton, a lot of risk, Tyler O'Neill, a little bit of risk. Like he's actually in the center field group right now, trying to try to win the center field job. That suggests that suggests a little bit of risk about his job because they've got like five outfielders there. And that what's very fascinating about that is um one of my biggest sleepers of this year is

lars nupar and it kind of maybe creates a little bit of job security with lars nupar that tyler o'neill is not vying on any of those spots he's going up him and dylan carlson are battling up against each other it's not against lars nupahr. All the names that you said after him, other than Reynolds, but Reynolds is just so kind of boring in a way that I could see reaching, and especially with the steals, I could see reaching for Carroll a little bit.

But I think in this one case, and in fact, maybe even the next name, I think Gunnar Henderson is next on the rundown. Yep. Yeah, and I was actually going to battle those two against for you because Gunnar Henderson comes in at 94. So there's not like a, it's about a round difference. I don't want to say that it's not anything.

It's also a little bit more of a premier position. Gunnar Henderson, if you guys are not really familiar with it, phenomenal 2022 in the minors, had 19 homers, 22 stolen bases, hit just around 300 across both those levels, up to the majors hits 259 another four homers another stolen base double digit 12 plus percent at every stop walk rate and a strikeout rate that got a little bit up there and everything but you know still it's about the same team context maybe a little bit worse of a hitting environment added a little bit more of a premier position. This is 1A, 1B.

Better stat cast, though. His max AD was four points higher. His bail rate was doubled out of Carroll's. So is Gunnar Henderson more exciting for redraft than Corbin Carroll? Corbin Carroll, I think, fits a little bit of a different need, but maybe, you know,

you talked about floor with Corbin Carroll. Could there be more floor with Gunnar Henderson, especially that it's at maybe a little bit more of a premier position at third base? Yeah, I think the positional argument is the one that might have me have more shares of Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll, because I find, despite what people are bellyaching about the outfield position this year, that there are still plenty of outfielders late. There is some playing time risk there because there's third and fourth outfielders that, you know,

are in platoons and stuff like that. But I still find names that I like late in outfield. I do not find that in third base. And so for me, Gunnar Henderson is actually the last acceptable third baseman that I want. I know there's a sad thing about him. There are other guys behind that I could just tell myself, oh, it's okay.

Brian Hayes, at least he'll steal some bags. Or Jose Miranda, maybe he'll hit 22 homers and have a good batting average. I can convince myself that somebody else, but I would much rather have one of the top six uh third baseman is that six there's jose ramirez uh wit machado riley devers and bragman so the top seven i say right now yeah so that's one two i kind of think of wit as a shortstop but um people might play him at third one two three i think he'll be primarily played at third so there's eight there there's eight there but i just think you can even see

it in the projections where uh after gunner henderson even in in in our draft here that i'm looking at gunner henderson went in the sixth round uh round after carol so that that's about right and then another third baseman did not go for four rounds. The next one was Matt Chapman four rounds later. Yeah, and it really talks about, and it's something important to think about. I know it can get overplayed sometimes. I've been talking about it as well, that you do have to pay attention a little bit to position stuff.

I'm going to give you a prime example. I'm doing, I'm in Tout Wars right now, and I'm in the draft and hold. And I got, I hold and I got I know why I got him fall I had uh Jordan Alvarez fall to me at like 10 and the the hand thing has people concerned and I was praying for Mookie Betts to fall to me didn't happen so I got Alvarez coming back around I had a decision between Pete Alonso and Rafael Devers and devers has never been like a and this is an obp by the way in tout wars this one and devers has never been a dominant obp guy pete alonso

maybe just a little bit better pete alonso offensively i kind of like a notch better but i went with devers because positionally he was the last of those third basemen to go i could have maybe waited but i don't think i would have got back to arenado and i decided in that where i'm probably push come to shove might have taken him or goldie goldie was another one that i was like because that's a much better obp guy i decided to focus on the position scarcity in that instance because it gets really really bad and if you think about a 15 team this is a 15 team roto draft and hold give me de Devers in the middle second round here. Because you're going to have to take a second and third third baseman,

so you already have to get other guys. So taking your first one high up allows you to wait a while and then take an okay second one. You know what I mean? You have to think about the draft and holds that way. But yeah, I think just generally I'm in on Gunnar Henderson. I really like the max EV, the barrel. He hit a few too many ground balls,

but he didn't really have a problem with that in the minors. So I expect him to kind of lift the ball a little better next year. I expect him to steal more because he is fast. And so I could see him hitting 275 with 25 homers and 15 steals. Is there anything that worries you? It's not what he's projected for, but you have to think about that with elite prospects that the projections are not always great. Just like even Cardi is saying.

Yes, the projections tell you what happens as a group for prospects, but Gunnar Henderson is an elite prospect. And if he's in that different group, then maybe he just hits the ground running. What did you say? Like 25-10? Was that your thought or 25-15? 275, 25-10, 25-15. Do you like 275, 25-10,

or do you like 240, 10-30? That's Carroll. Yeah. Which one do you think fits your mold of like the team construction you would want? My drafts want the gunner henderson types because i want to get 15 steals at a time 15 steals at a time and not fall behind in homers so i always so i always win homers and i'm always like fourth and stolen bases

i've been getting stolen bases pretty hard in a lot of stuff is there any worry last with gunner about baltimore suppression of power three of the top 10 expected home run um guys so what i'm saying is the top 10 guys that lost homers on the expected home run stat came out of baltimore you had trey mancini who obviously left but he was on there anthony santander and ryan mountcastle so three of the top 10 came from that place when they changed their their ballpark factors you think that's maybe like a little bit to think about with corbin with garner henderson as well one thing to point out those are all right handers and the oh good call that they changed the wall was out there and left the the pull the pull alley for left for left field so um i'm hoping that you know gunderson and

henderson as a lefty is not necessarily battling that particular problem yeah and uh interestingly enough gunners four major league home runs covered the entire ballpark you had one pull one dead center and the other were i'm sorry one oppo middle, and then two were semi-pull, not severely pull. So just something to- That's pretty brilliant. Yeah. How about we talk about the next guy in here? We're going to fall down a little bit of a list when you're looking at the top rookies.

Those are the two guys you're going to look at with investments of the top 100. And my advice to people, I'd say, is no rookie or prospect has a true floor. But if you're looking for the floor those are the two names and i you don't want to be crazy and and compare we shouldn't come back i think you're 240 uh 10 30 for carol is almost more of a floor projection so a floor projection i think for gunner henderson to be really uh to be really more in line uh to compare them is like you know something that like like the bat is always the most negative if you want a floor projection on an elite rookie you look at the bat and uh and so that's 250 15 10

yeah and still pretty solid but i also don't want to be right i think the floors are pretty good for these two guys yeah and i don't want to be too crazy and and be like hey look at what bobby witt and julio rodriguez does so the next two guys are going to do the same thing. It's not about that, but the skill sets, they're very different than, ironically, they're very different than Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt, but they really play to this game, and they've both got unique spots. Gunnar Henderson is also probably going to

be able to hit in the middle of that lineup, and Corby Carroll might lead off for the Diamondbacks. He's the fastest player in baseball. The next one is a drop-off here, but a lot of people are into it and i'm very fascinated to get your take on this it's masataka yoshida he technically does qualify to rookie as a rookie here in first year player drafts you're probably looking at him as well uh he's got a fantasy pros adp of 188 and the thing that stands out about him is he broke every model um he

essentially came out as like the number one batting average hitter in steamer projections. The bat X, I believe he was like the fifth or top 10 overall hitter. And we've kind of seen this happen before. Bat X has him at 282, 16 homers, two stolen bases. My gripe, and I've had a couple of people tell me not to do this too crazy, and I'm trying not to. And I've had a couple of people tell me not to do this too crazy. And I'm trying not trying, trying not to.

If you look at Sayaka Suzuki and you look at his translation coming over 37 homers down to 14 batting average kind of tank down a bit. Yoshida is a almost double walks to strikeout guy. He was a mid three hundreds batting average player, but there's almost no power regression built into him. The projections are wild and they're running wild with him and he might lead off for Boston. So this is a unique case of a little bit more of a veteran overall with no strikeout, high walk, tons of contact. I do not believe the stolen bases and I really don't believe the power, but what say you, Eno, when

you're looking at rookies? Because this actually might be the most enticing rookie for anybody out there because he has professional experience. He's older. He's not like a lot of these other rookies and projections love him. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we're talking floors, he's got to probably have a better floor than the last two guys we talked to just because he's mid-career and he has, he has numbers. The Japanese league numbers are fairly easy to translate. They are stronger in terms of signal than, you know, our double a and triple a,

you know, it is really like a quad a league where like, it's not like Hassan Kim coming from the KBO. That was more like a, almost like high or something. I would guess. Yeah. You know,

exactly. So, uh, you know, so I, yeah, floor really high. Um,

I, I, I tend to just go into Stephen Kwan territory just because of these, this kind of elite pairing, a bit of walks and lack of strikeouts. But, you know, people tell me subjective reports say the power's there, but, you know, a lot of it's tied into like, oh, I just saw batting practice and oh yeah, the power's there. I bet you Stephen Kwan could get into some and batting practice. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So I saw that with Luis Garcia, actually something very funny. Luis Garcia with the nationals is one of the most slappy hitters you've ever seen in your life. Kind of a big boy too. And just hits across his body and hits everything on the ground. But I was during the AFL some years back,

he gets into BP he gets maxi b is good he gets into the dude he gets into bp and his swing is different and he is crushing balls in surprise to right field and i wanted to be like where is this why is this not there it's such an interesting approach thing that bp comes in and these dudes can just start crushing it and he's a prime example so i don't know i i would say uh buy the atc projection buy him at 286 with 15 homers and three steals and uh then you'll bake in the possibility he has more power than that or even more batting average but um i think if you try to just basically use his most negative projection and pay for that. Like you, you are allowing for better outcomes.

And I like that you said that I like taking the most negative projection on that, because this is, this is an instance where he is the only rookie not being treated with gloves for, for some right reasons. He is going wild. It actually,

it's very reminiscent of years back when Vladimir Guerrero was going to be his in his first year, and Steamer Projections came out in November, and he was the number one hitter in baseball. He came out with the best batting average, and he's Vlad, but this one seemed a little bit wild. I remember all the way back to Dom Brown being projected, the Bill James projections for a 30-30 season going into his rookie year. You've got to love him. Oh my God. It's Don Brown season. Let's talk about a player that you have.

Actually, you and I have both spoke to. We spoke to on the same day. This was after our infamous in my truck podcast recording that we did. You, me and Chris blessing when we drove down into Mesa in my car, right? According a podcast. And then we proceeded to go and talk with Tristan Casas, I believe it was. And Tristan Casas is set to be a starter with the Boston Red Sox.

Again, these are players we're talking about that have locked gigs, rookies that have locked gigs right now. And Tristan Casas has an overall aggregate ADP of 201. So what do you think about Casas? They're actually moving Bobby Dahl back around. They're going to experiment with him in some spots. It looks like it is his gig to run. Very smart baseball player, very in tune to who he is, has a different two-strike approach. Sometimes some of these guys don't. I like Tristan Kostas, but do you believe there's going to be enough impact,

especially after talking to him and getting to, you know, get to see some major league experience as well? Yeah, one of the things that was interesting was that he kind of was more of a field guy and he wasn't into some of the more advanced metrics or training styles. And that's not necessarily a negative. I mean, especially because a lot of times you don't care what the player is doing if the coach knows these things,

you know what I mean? Like the coach can look over at the machine and, you know, ingest it and coach the player without the player ever knowing that some of their analysis is based on his launch angle or whatever, you know? Um, so I think it's, it's not necessarily So I think it's not necessarily a negative.

Sometimes I do count it as a positive when someone's super into it, just because I feel like, oh, this player is like, like Nupar is super into it. And I've got an interview coming with him for Rates and Barrels where he just, he talks about like learning everything about hitting and learning a bit of and and applying that to his craft and like he upped his uh bat speed like six miles per

hour in two years you know and like became a much better prospect he was a guy you've seen that before i don't mean to interrupt you but like do you see that often that type of increase in bat speed over that period of time? That seems absurd. I mean, I think that I think it's it's more common at lower parts of the minors. And so there are teams like the Guardians and other teams that will draft good bat control guys and then be like, here's a way to bat program. Like, go try to swing harder you know we know that you've got and that's why new bar works so well because he's got great you know uh he's got great eye contact like he's got great eye at the plate he's got great hit tool so he just

you know like no now just swing harder and like swing faster you know and he used all these tools to get there so i will use i will think of it as a positive, but I don't think it's necessarily a negative when they don't. And Casas, you know, is a little bit like Nupar in that he's got the hit tool. And it's kind of a rare combination of hit tool and extreme patience that I think could lead to like, startup. Like, you know what I mean? Like extreme power too. Right. Like there's, there's a real chance this all clicks and he, he's like a Freddie Freeman ask, you know, like there are some of his numbers in the minors that, that,

that, that approach that possible outcome, you know? Okay. So I got some, by the way, have you conducted that new bar interview? Yes. I was going to tell him, him i was gonna tell you to tell him that i love him but okay um how about this let's compare against the next guy uh we've already given you what have we given you four prospects that have locked gigs here's a fifth one and i saw him today i'd love your take tristan costas versus josh young obviously different positions

but both corner infielder. Here's a fun fact. I've seen a bunch of different pitching sessions that have gone on, full-on hitter pitcher sessions. And Kumar Rocker, who I, you know, it's not good. It has not been good since AFL, and it wasn't good in the sessions. And he gets in a live BP session, and the only positive he had was he did get Josh Young going.

He had Josh Young on the ropes. He hit him with a double slider once he got one strike on him. And that's kind of been, that's the way Kumar really dominated whenever he did in the AFL was when he was in complete comfort of the slider. Very early on, he like didn't want to throw the slider early. He wanted to try to like establish the fastball. He couldn't. And then he learned it in his next start and the next inning,

he's just going to start going slider. And he really started to be a slider. He established a slider for him. And that's what ended up happening with Josh young, not to take anything away from it, but Josh young kind of regressed in his major league experience to who he was, but he just didn't have a whole lot of time.

Batting average is low to a four. His strikeout rate was absurd at 38%. regressed in his major league experience to who he was, but he just didn't have a whole lot of time. Batting average is low 204. His strikeout rate was absurd at 38%. That's never been who he was. He didn't walk at all. Really not who he was. He just missed significant amount of time. Texas Rangers, Josh Young starting third baseman versus Boston Red Sox.

First baseman, Tristan Casas. Where do you think you're going to make your investment? Casas because a 9% swing strike rate to the 13% for Young. So Casas has more feel for hitting. Their samples are so small that I wouldn't necessarily take Josh Young's 10% bail rate to the bank and be like, oh, that's better than Casas.

He has better raw power than Casas. Like maybe he does. Maybe he has better raw power, but is he going gonna have better game power if he's striking out a lot um and then there's this just this last bit that applied to corbin carroll too but i think he's further removed from the surgery but shoulder surgeries do scare me uh for hitters and yes you can explain away some of the troubles that jung, Jung, Jung, Jung, Jung. Yeah, it said like Jung. Yeah, well, that's that's sorry.

That's German. It would be Jung. Josh Jung, he had some struggles coming back from the shoulder surgery. Right. It was shoulder. Yeah, I believe. Yeah, because he was in the sling. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And and Carol is further removed. Right. So Carol is, has had that surgery further in his river mirror. So, you know, it is possible to overcome it.

He is young. The prognoses are better. Uh, and you could just say, Oh, he just struck out this that much this year because he just wasn't fully back. Uh,

which I do, but at the same time, um, for, for him, I'm a little bit nervous about if that changes his trajectory as a player. Maybe he's just becoming a more high-strikeout guy now because of it. Yeah.

We've got four more. Then we're going to break down as best we can. A couple might be able to break camps. We've got to be a little faster here. How about this is four more before we get into speculation? I'm going to pair these together. Yeah, I'm going to start pairing these together. Ezekiel Tovar, pros adp 237 estuary ruiz adp of 274 i can never get out of my head spending time with you in the afl when we both saw ezekiel tovar and immediately you're

just like i don't like him i gotta like just the body the approach but he was like the youngest guy there that's what i said turned it around yeah i know you were like, I remembered a hundred percent. I was just like, yeah, you know, he's a big prospect. He's kind of young here. And you're like,

I don't like it. I don't like it. But, but he also had one of the worst AFLs you could have. And then he had a fantastic season next year. So it wasn't out of character. Quick thoughts on Ezekiel Tovar. Who's got the Rocky shortstop position,

theoretically locked down. As long as the Rockies don't pull the Rockies and go and sign Andrelton Simmons. And Astori Ruiz, who I think is a crazy sneaky steal, over 80 stolen bases last year, which is even mind boggling to think about. This is why he's here. The team traded for him. Is there an investment you want in Tovar and Astori Ruiz? And do you think one is a better option than the other?

Yeah. and Estorri Ruiz, and do you think one is a better option than the other? Yeah, what's funny is I don't know how good either of them are as players, and so that part I'll leave out. People have heard me talk a lot about Estorri Ruiz because of his poor batted ball stats. But I would like to say something positive about both of them, which is I think they have primo primo opportunity and sometimes opportunity is more important even than quality and so in this case i would say these two are great in certain use cases for me tovar is one of the last acceptable or one of the last somewhat exciting backup short stops

in draft and hold um you know the short stops list can get empty pretty quick and the only guy that i like at all really behind him is jp crawford and i you know i don't really love jp crawford so it's like you know tovar there's a bit of a cliff there in draft and hold. So that is a use case for me. And then the story reese. Um, I think if you are just behind in steals, uh, we were talking about a floor projection for Corbin Carroll. The actual projection for a story reese is two 36 homers and a 20 to 30 steals steals and you have to think that that 30 steals could be light with a guy that's as fast as he is and going into such a premium situation i mean in in oakland they may they may go for it in terms of stolen bases they may go with him and uh loriano and either bladay

or or capel on the outfield all those guys can run tony kemp can run nick allen can run even jace peterson can run a little bit so like you know they have so many guys on this team they can run they may just run run run and uh i don't see why they would stop ruiz especially since he was the crown jewel of their of their big trade i mean that's the sean murphy trade they want to be right they want to be right about history reason shut up people like me the crown jewel of their big trade. I mean, that's the Sean Murphy trade. They want to be right. They want to be right about Asteroid Reads and shut up people like me that say

that Asteroid Reads swings a wet noodle and it makes it sound like a pancake hitting a bat when he hits it. They want to say, you know, Sarris, you shut up, this guy's a star. You know, you're like, I'm not going to say that this is what he does, but if I did, this is what he would do.

And they want that to shut up. Oh, by the way, if you want to look at that floor, like you were talking about, Steamer has 27 stolen base projection in 100 games. Bat X is 22 stolen bases and 114. So if it does work out on the whole season, it could go much higher. I'm not against drafting them, especially here. If they get more, if they get more helium than maybe right now, it's pretty good. Uh, the last two that we'll do real quick, cause we do want to hit a few of these other guys. Um, Logan will hoppy looks like he's got a gig, one of the gigs with the angels and he's pretty exciting, but I would say the most underrated in this entire list

of players that have gigs locked down right now is Miguel Vargas. Now, Miguel Vargas did just suffer. Uh, I believe it was a hairline fracture in his pinky. They do expect or hope that he's going to be back for the first spring training games, which are this weekend. And it's the end of his pinky. He's just taking a couple of days off. Yeah, it's not a big deal. I actually saw him just a couple of days ago.

I stopped over there. It was right before the fracture. I think he is the biggest smash deal of this entire thing. ADP on Fantasy Pro's consensus of 280 right now, starting second baseman for the Dodgers. Dave Roberts even came out and said he wants him and Gavin Lux to run more. He's a patient hitter. He

walks. He doesn't strike out. He can play multiple positions. I think he might have the potential to even lead all rookies in batting average, and the homers are real. I think Miguel Vargas, low-key, could be a 2020 guy this year, and I don't think it's absurd

to really, really, truly think about. And at 280, one of the lowest on this list, I think it's crazy. I don't know if you have thoughts on Miguel Vargas, but this is a target for me in every single draft. All these rookies, love Corman Carroll. I'll try to take him wherever I possibly can because I really do believe there's a floor that exists in this whole process. Costas is interesting. Yoshida, I'll probably get in points leagues, but Miguel

Vargas is my target everywhere. You know, what do you think about him? Yeah, I love it. I think that people are nervous. There are the way the depth charts work on, on websites and the way the projections work, like the BP projections are out, and they're going to show you that they think Miguel Vargas will play 30% of the time at second base because they're hedging their bets and they're saying, oh, we have all this personnel.

They're going to have days when Max Muncy plays second, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's smart to do it that way. I know I made the blah, blah, blah noise, but it's smart to do it that way. That's the way that you, blah, blah noise, but it's smart to do it that way. That's the way that you have to think if you're thinking like a machine and you want to put all these guys together. But there is just the total possibility he's the winner at the position.

And his manager just said he's probably going to be most of the time the starter at second base. So maybe we should just listen to his manager and say, this guy probably has the second base job unless he just has a poor spring. So I can see something. I'm a little bit more like 275-20-10, but that's still really good for where he goes. And he's going to do something that's really fun

that people don't always think about, which is add eligibility after the draft. So you can, I mean, the best case scenario is you draft him as a util. And then all of a sudden, you know, a couple of weeks into the season, you can play your corner infield or your middle infield. And I think, I think you're right. I think he's, he's the good one. Logan O'Hobby for me is a decent second catcher in,

in most two catcher leagues. Samesies. Yeah, samesies. If you had to pick two, pick two on this list for me real quick of the rookies that have a gig that you'd make your investment. Give me, it doesn't matter who,

you could say Gunnar and Corbin if you want. Gunnar and Miguel Vargas, I think. Okay, Gunnar and Miguel Vargas. Yeah, those are my two. Although Yoshida is just interesting because I love floor and like, there's a lot of floor. Who was the other one?

Yoshida, it's just a lot of floor, you know. Points leagues, I'm definitely going to target him. How about some guys that might or have a shot at breaking camp i targeted four players there might be a couple others that really hold this one is actually two two have kind of the gig on roster resource but i think there's not a definitiveness around it the other two do not i'm going to give you all four and we can get your take on these. They all have an ADP past 200. The first two are inside the top 300. The next are outside

of it. First, you have Jordan Walker, who is probably the most interesting of this and shares a lot of similarities and maybe skill set that could be a Julio Rodriguez. Ironically enough, about this time last year, Julio Rodriguez was going around 225 before he was announced he got the gig. You've got Oswalt

Peraza with the New York Yankees, who's got an ADP around 297. He kind of looks like he has a shortstop gig set for the New York Yankees. They really want him to win it. Speed, kind of power guy. Oscar Colas with the Chicago White Sox, who I actually might be with in a couple days hanging around him.

He looks like he has one of the outfield gigs with the Chicago White Sox set who I actually might be with in a couple days hanging around him. He looks like he has one of the outfield gigs with the Chicago White Sox set up. They've got Ben Intendi, they've got Robert, and it looks like Eloy would, if you're smart, are going to put him at DH, but they're leaving that opportunity open. And Matt Mervis, the darling of rookies

to draft in November and December. This was the guy, until they signed every first baseman that would look their way, has an ADP average right now of 425. And you actually spoke to Matt Mervis in the AFL. So I'm curious, I want to hear your take on Matt Mervis. If you had to guess who does break with the team of this crew, who would you bet on?

So we had Mervis, Colas, Peraza, and Walker. I think the most likely two to break camp with their teams are the two that I'm less interested in, unfortunately. I think Oswald Peraza is going to make that team because even if he's not the shortstop,

he's going to be a utility guy for them. And then Oscar Colas, I think the White Sox just need outfielders, and he just happens to arrive at the right time to be an outfielder for them. Some of his numbers come with really kind of poor contact rates in the minors that I think you saw that his strikeout rate ballooned in AAA, and I think you'll see that he's more of a 28% to 30% strikeout guy in the majors, and so not going to be that great of an offensive piece in fantasy

because of the low batting average. And he does not come with a good walk rate, so I'm a little skeptical of him as an above-average major leaguer. He is just dirt cheap though at 302 i mean it's past 300 with a gig and huge power i i just think i like you're speculating yeah i like him in places like where you don't have to depend on him so like as a bench piece and a 15 teamer that's pretty cool i'm getting out because you could you could have him on your bench and and wait two weeks and be like are they playing playing him every day, first of all?

Are they even playing him every day? And then second of all, what does the contact rate look like? And that's great because contact rate is something that you can actually get some signal out of early season. If you look at more of the swing and strike rate than the strikeout rate, you can actually start to, oh, this guy can't make contact, so I'm out. So I like Colas better than Peraza,

and I think those are the two that are going to make their team as players uh just full stop obviously i like walker the most but that is a really crowded outfield the walker case for me is that as my draft is coming i would like like to have a late march draft and i'd like to i'd like to have to see the same stuff that was happening with julio Rodriguez where he's playing with the starting group he's playing in the first five innings he's playing in the same place in the outfield over and over again that would suggest to me that they are like oh he's our left fielder you know can I ask you this every day left field third hitter in spring and he's killing it that seems like they're headed towards bringing him

north i think this is a little telling jordan walker in the afl predominantly worked in right field that was his main spot he then also worked in some center field is there anything in your mind because i've had a million questions because because i love large new bar so much everyone's like okay well how can you also like jordan walker all these outfielders is there anything to you when you hear that tyler o'neill is fighting with Dylan Carlson for that center field job that just speaks to you to say, all right, well, Lars gets, you know, whatever, right. If they want, and then you have another spot open on the other side that maybe they are lining that up for Jordan Walker. You know, Juan Ypez is the DH. Do you, do you see that at all

with this move of Tyler O'Neill versus Dylan Carlson for center that it seems like there's a better path for Jordan Walker? I mean, it's a little perplexing to me. I would just put Tyler O'Neal in my lineup card, I feel like. But maybe it has something to say about lack of progression from Dylan Carlson. I completely agree with that. Because Dylan Carlson did do some nice things with walks and strikeouts, but just had no batted ball power.

And that's not the type of player that most teams play, especially since he's not going to come with elite speed or whatever. So he could work as center field, but the profile, if it's not going to be that great defensively in center field, then the bat profile right now does not support corner outfield as well. So I do have a couple shares of Dylan Carlson early

because I thought he's the center fielder. I don't think so. I might be reading too much in. I think this is a tiny bit telling because also they gave it to O'Neal and they traded off Dylan Carlson. You still have flexibility. Juan Ypez can play corners or left. Wait, what are you talking about? Trading off. a tiny bit telling because also they gave it to o'neill and they traded off dylan carlson you still have flexibility juan yopez can play corners or left wait what are you talking about trading off if they trade off carlson if they traded off carlson yeah they would trade off

carlson and they also have options so like you could just be like hey we need you to hit the ball harder you know you can go back down for a little bit yeah and also just suggest that there's a winner and a loser between tyler o'ne and Dylan Carlson. That's what that is. And that's my, and that's like what I'm speculating on here is like, no one knows where Jordan Walker fits. Well, they just kind of threw it in our face. Like if you just wanted Carlson to be the center fielder and O'Neill to be the left fielder and you wanted them in the lineup. And if you didn't think Walker was coming up, then you would just put O'Neill in the left field crew. You would just keep them there, but they're not.

I think it's very telling. I think it's very, I think it's an early sign to maybe get your shares um matt mervis and then we're going to just throw out a couple speculative ads before we get out of here because you saved him for last he's a player that you talked to and he was literally not if you don't count gunner and corbin carroll he's the most popular player to draft his adp rose and rose and rose and nfbc drafts but the cubs have been telling us this story that there's something they don't believe in. They've got Hosmer, they've got Mancini, and then they even brought in Edwin Rios in there.

There's something about it. But what say you with Mervis with the Cubs? I'm still trying to read that as just hedging their bets. They're putting in more veteran guys that have higher floors. They want to compete from the beginning, and they don't want to depend. It's like our drafting strategy we're talking about here. They don't want to compete from the beginning and they don't want to depend. It's like our drafting strategy we're talking about here. They don't want to depend on the rookie. And so they bring in all these other guys. And if the rookie keeps playing well, I think he can beat them out. I mean, the names that you said are credible major leaguers, but none of them stops me from putting my star rookie out there. You know what I mean?

If they succeed. If he meets the qualifications of whatever that they're questioning, if it's defensively or making more contact, whatever it is, if he rises to the occasion in spring, you're right. Eric Hosmer is on like a super low deal that they could just get out of in an instant. Edwin Rios is nothing. Yeah, so he could be there. Was there anything when you talked to mervis that stood out to you well i talked

earlier about like having to be a positive if someone uh is really intelligent about their craft and matt mervis is that i mean uh he told me this great story about how he was one of the people remember the draft got uh shuttled down to five rounds um yeah and in the covid year in the covid year he was one of these one of these sort of sixth rounders you know someone who just got to decide where he wanted to sign they all had like a there was like a base bonus it was like 20 000 or 50 000 or something and that's all you could sign for and so basically you could just decide who you wanted to play for and he said that he made a spreadsheet uh of all the different organizations and on the spreadsheet was a um what was the first thing the first thing was uh who was at first base for them how many years they had left on

their contract and what their projected quality was that's their current first base he's one of us you know and then one of us below that he went to's their current first baseman. He's one of us, you know. He's just one of us. And then below that, he went to their minor league first baseman. No, he didn't. And was like, do they have quality other first basemen in the minor leagues? And then at the end, he was like, how many quality major leaguers in position prospects has this organization turned out recently? And so when he was doing that analysis, he was like, whoa, Brian Rizzo,

you know, like, you know, Contreras, like these guys turn out major leaguers. Rizzo is on his way out pretty obviously. We all saw that coming. We all knew Rizzo was on his way out. And he's like, and they got nobody else. So he's like Cubs number one. I just thought was uh kind of a brilliant way to think about just be very uh sort of uh you know aware of you know the best opportunity for you you know i love that story and so then you look at his strikeout rates and his contact rates improving as he went up in the major leagues and basically having holding a 300 iso all the way through. So statistically, he's somebody I like that has good walk rates and low strikeout rates. And I still think there's opportunity there. I don't know exactly where to terms of you want to see him penciled in at first base. You want to see him playing. You want to see fewer games of Eric Hosmer,

and you want to see more of Matt Mervis in the spring. And the more that worm turns, the more it's headed towards a Hosmer release, which they could totally do because they have no skin in the game. He's not like a lifetime player. If Hosmer had signed with the the Royals they may have had a harder time cutting him right because people remember all the things he did but nobody in Chicago if they just cut Hosmer they'd be like okay whatever and if you want to get excited about Mervis you can go to my Twitter I've got some fun

video from the AFL we're running long I'm just going to throw these out if there's anything else I want to keep everybody though I know no listener is going to complain about more rates and barrels and talk, but the speculative ads, if you will. Anthony Volpe, 355 ADP with the Yankees. He's my favorite. He's my favorite of their possible shortstops. He's their best offensive option at shortstop. And I know that there's some questioning of the defense,

but this is the organization that played Derek Jeter at shortstop for his entire career. So I think that they might be okay with someone who has great offense and pretty good defense. Ellie De La Cruz at 370, Brett Beatty at 385. Too early for De La Cruz. I think he's going to spend a year in the minors. And Beatty could push his way, but he has to push through a lot of,

there's a lot of headwind there. So I think he's actually pretty interesting. I'd like to see where Eduardo Escobar plays in the spring. I'd like to see what position they pencil next to that name, because the more they position, they put a position other than third base, the more likely it is that Brett Beatty breaks camp with team. Colt Keith is a guy I like. He is a guy that went and got the ball more and pulled

the ball, you know, a little bit more with authority in the air, showed some power that he hadn't showed before, is a natural bat to ball guy with good patience. If this power explosion is real and we talked about it and he talked about, you know, trying to go get that ball out in front, I think this is a guy who could explode. However, he topped out at high last year, and I think the prudent organization is going to send him back. But midseason call up, I might be pretty interested on dropping some coin on him because I actually part of the future there. I actually might even push back a little bit. He was injured a lot of the year and he went to the Arizona fall.

He really succeeded. I think he could go to double a after his AFL experience. Another video thing you could look at his last game in the AFL hit a nice opposite field homer that I have a Camelback ranch. I think he has power to all fields now. Yeah, he does. Good contact hitter.

This is a great call. You know, if it's fair to say your speculative ad is Anthony Volpe, your guy that you like the most who could break camp is Matt Mervis, and your favorite jobs are Miguel Vargas and Gunder Henderson prospects. I think that's fair to say, right, if we're looking at this crew. Yeah, yeah. I think those are the players I like. I mean, there's some other guys that'll play that I just don't like as much.

Ruiz, we'll see. There might be a team where I have Ruiz. Okay. We'll take a look at it. Hopefully we'll hear about it. Friends, that's going to do it for the episode. A little bit longer as we talked about the 2023 Rookies of Interest Hitters Edition.

Next week we're going to do the Pitchers of Interest. Over, under that it is more or less minutes than this episode. You guys can take the bets and we will talk about it. I talk way too much as is, and if it's pitching, I'm going over. I don't help it either. I don't help it either. I don't help it either, you know, so I'm not going to help it either, so I think you can take the over.

I do want to implore you guys, go over to theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Sign up today. $2 a month for the first year is going to get you in. A whole draft kit. You can get the draft kit, which is awesome. Eno's talking about the Pitching Plus projections. You want to see that.

I've got my Dynasty ranks up there. Go and check all of that out. You can find Eno on Twitter at Eno Saris. You can find me at IsItTheWelsh. And Al will be back with Eno later in the week. We'll be rocking next week as I'll be back on Monday and Tuesday. For Eno, I'm Welsh. Thank you guys for hanging out with us right here on Rates and Barrels.

And we'll talk to you next time. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening.