Rates & Barrels - Live from First Pitch Arizona & Catching Up with Kyle Manzardo

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Eno, DVR & The Welsh are LIVE from First Pitch Arizona discussing a few interesting ideas that bubbled up during the conference, how they are trying to build roster foundations in 2024, and potentially undervalued pitchers for the first leg of draft season. Plus, Kyle Manzardo of the Cleveland Guardians joins the show to discuss his approach, changes following his midseason trade to Cleveland, and his combination of contact and power as he's moved through the minors.  Finally, Eno, DVR & Welsh discuss the AFL Stuff+ Report and prospects that have stood out to Welsh in live looks this spring.  Rundown 5:28 Who Is the Best Pitcher in the World, Right Now? 9:32 Changes to Prioritizing Aces in 2024? 13:52 Looking at Total Pitches v. Innings Pitched 18:35 An Eno Board: Above Average Stuff, Below Average ERA in 2023 31:57 Kyle Manzardo Joins the Show! 56:37 Changing a Teams' Plans During the Spring 60:15 Arizona Fall League Stuff+ Report 66:57 Other Standout Prospects This Fall Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1.99/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It is Saturday, November 4th. We are live at First Pitch, Arizona. Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh here with you. Thank all of you who are live in the room for being here. This is my favorite trip of the year. I'm a very lucky person. We all get to really travel for drafts and things we enjoy, but this is

the best for a few reasons. I love presentations. I love panels. I love sitting on other people's podcasts because it's really the best chance I have to listen to a ton of people that I don't get to hear as much during the season because we're all so busy. Some highlights, though, so far. I was thinking about some of the things I've liked the most because these are things that we'll probably dig more into on the pod over the course of the winter or things we'll even discuss a little bit today just because they're so fascinating. Derek Carty talking about shaded shifts and the way teams had to adjust to the new rules. That was really interesting.

Jason Collette, who's here, predicting the magnitude of the stolen base rate increase based on spring training stolen base rates with precision. That was impressive. That was awesome. I thought that was great. Andy Andres also here studying the pitch clock impact on hitters, which I didn't spend any time thinking about. I thought only about pitchers with that, so I thought that was fascinating. And then something that came up today on a panel that Eno was a part of was deception fading over time.

This is a very, very small part of a pitching panel, but to me this is something that applies to relievers in a playoff series like Paul Seawald, even a guy like Joe Ryan over full seasons. Stuff holding up third time through the order because of familiarity and all these different angles with just what happens when hitters get to see a pitcher repeatedly. Does deception fade quickly? Does it fade slowly over time? So lots of different angles to really pull on. I'm just curious of the things that you guys have stumbled into in the case of you, maybe with some of the podcast rooms or panels that you

sought out and what's really caught your ear so far. I enjoyed Scott Shue had a thing about rolling graphs and really like the eye-catching one was Elida Cruz's change in decision value that's, I think, on the PLV site, on the Pitcher List site, that he was different at the end of the season than he was at the beginning of the season and how rolling graphs can kind of show you people who've kind of changed something, changed and adjusted somehow.

And it reminded me of a piece that I did a long time ago, which was stupid and silly, but it was called Seasons Are Arbitrary Endpoints. And I do think that there's some truth in it. Obviously, they're not arbitrary. They're seasons. It's very not arbitrary. Well defined.

But there's something to it where we think of these seasons in these chunks, and sometimes there's half seasons, and there's players that were really different at the end of the season than they were at the beginning of the season. And so something like a rolling graph can kind of give you a sense of like, oh, you know, like the simplest one is Velo, you know? Yep. Just look at a rolling graph of Velo and be like,

oh, that was not good at the end of the season. You know, and I have to remember that next year when I'm looking at the full season numbers. How about you, Welsh? Yeah, the Chew one is interesting because that was, I think, like a buzzy one. That was, a lot of people were talking about that. I think that really jumped up.

I was unfortunately podcasting while, going up literally against Eno and Nick Pollock. So that's the worst thing I could have had done. So my experience has been a little bit different. It's been podcasting and actually talking to a lot of players. Eno and I did a couple dual interviews together, chatted with James Triantos today. So my experience here specifically has been really fun

getting to see these guys talk and open up, but then also see a lot of the really smart minds here get to consume the players out here and get to get some of the – I talked with Blessing and Matt Thompson earlier, just kind of going through what some of the early quick eyes are looking like for some of these players. So mine's just been very hyper-focused on players themselves and what everybody else's thoughts are and what these guys are. But it's fun for the buzz. There's always buzz about a couple panels or a few things. And the hitting one was a really good one. Yeah. And I think the quality of the conversation in

the hallways, in the cars, and you could be in a car with people you've never met before, you land in these fascinating places. And there was actually a pretty straightforward and simple question from Phil, who's here for the first time. He's in the room right now. He's one of the listeners of the show. And I've had a chance to chat with him a little bit this weekend. And he asked, who do you think the best pitcher in the world is right now? And Bobby Miller. Stuff Plus says Bobby Miller. I thought about it for 30 seconds, and I said, you know, I'm not sure, but I don't think it's Spencer Strider. And he's number one in fantasy, at least in terms of ADP right now.

And my reasoning was he's so dependent upon two pitches that, in my mind, the best pitcher in the world can't be a guy that uses two pitches as often as Spencer Strider does. You know, I'll throw this to you first. Is my logic terrible? And who do you think is the best pitcher in the world right now? Well, it's a way to kind of bring in this slide that I was showing earlier and the idea of familiarity with shapes over time.

So this tweet that we're looking at from Cameron Grove, pitching bot, shows that stuff is fairly flat through times through the order, and location is fairly flat, and then actual run value is through the roof third times the order, suggesting that hitters have some familiarity with shapes over time. And I have struggled to make this actionable and put this in Stuff Plus and put this in a model. But it is, I think, intuitively and in terms of this research, like it's there in the numbers that people get used to shapes over time. So, yeah, if he's a two-pitch pitcher, then people are going to get used to his shapes over time. And if he loses a half mile on that fastball or a mile on that fastball, maybe it's a much bigger deal than if Zach Wheeler loses a half mile on a fastball

because he's got a broader arsenal to deal with. So my answer was Garrett Cole. with. So my answer was Garrett Cole. Just because we have, he leads the league in strikeouts over the last year, two years, three years, four years, five years. It's a really good delivery with good command. It's a broad delivery. It's velo, it's movement. He's always near the top and not always number one, but he's always near the top. And so I think there's a real high floor and a high ceiling. So that would be my answer, I think. I'm the wrong person to ask about that, by the way,

after following Eno with any of that. Garrett Cole was actually my answer. That's where I was kind of going through and I was speaking at this. Because I do get kind of reminded, I was thinking on the hitter side, some of the best hitters over the last couple years, whenever they struggle in one area, they'll be able to redefine in another.

So I always think of like Bryce Harper from years back when he wasn't hitting for good contact. He was getting on base and stealing more bases. Or when he was getting on, you would have the batting average come up. He was always just kind of redefining himself year to year. I feel like Cole is able to do this. Strikeouts went down this year, but his ERA got better. He's walking a little bit less than he was in years prior.

So that was my answer. But what I also felt was I immediately was like, there is no answer. I think we could do that with hitter. If you ask me that question, we're all like Ronald Acuna. Or if I want to annoy everybody, I'll be like, Corbin Carroll. Ronald Acuna. Well, I we're all like Ronald Acuna. Or if I want to annoy everybody, I'll be like Corbin Carroll. But like, you know, Ronald Acuna. Well, I'll say it's Ronald Acuna. But when I thought of the pitcher side, I was like,

there's a hundred different factors why I don't think I could give you the answer. I had the goofiest one. I was thinking like, I know he's not, but I was like George Kirby. I was thinking, God, it's elite, low walk rates. He gets pissed when he walks a guy. The strikeout rate's starting to go up. Like he's developing himself into maybe being one of those guys but he's not and there's so many players that are not and i look at wheeler and gossman and i'm like no no that these aren't the defined best pitchers in the world so my first response was there isn't and i think that's

telling and the second one was Garrett Cole. So people will probably wonder, why are you bringing up such a broad question? And I think the main reason is I'm trying to figure out how I want to handle starting pitching in 2024. The changes in the run environment, how much of a priority is it going to be to get an ace in the early rounds or to pay top dollar for an ace if it's an auction format? We had the XFL Keeper auction on Thursday night after we all got here. Of course, Keeper League with salaries, there's lots of inflation, and there weren't a lot of high quality pitchers available, and prices went through the roof. And I think we could see

a shift compared to what the early draft market is doing. It's going to look a lot different once we get to March. I think you're going to see some guys that are second and third rounders creep up a half round or a full round between now and then, which is always kind of interesting. I'm curious, Welsh, I'll start with you first on this one. Are you changing your prioritization of an ace in light of the changes to the run environment in 2023? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we're talking, I'm trying to remember, I think we were talking about like Michael King earlier on and everyone's like, well, you know,

Mike at cap, maybe you get 150. And it's like, well, 150 is the new 180 or 190. You know what I mean? So high capped innings look a lot different. I feel like I would prioritize like elite 120 innings and I would maybe just slightly less optimal 160 innings and stack them up so yeah I mean we saw some guys get away with less than I'm saying the El Contra kind of fell apart this year and that might have had a decent amount to do with the shift and other things of course

but yeah I think I'm less gonna even more if I can be less heavy top end investment even though I know there might be less aces. And then there's the overall glob that a lot of us will talk about in the middle rounds that I think I will probably stray away from early investment on pitching just because the environment is a little volatile right now. You know? Yeah, I think I do. I have this like bias towards, I love I do. I have this bias towards I love the 120, I love the Tyler Glass nows of the world.

Yeah, I want that. And so I think that I have to work against my own biases sometimes. And so I'm going to try and get two guys that I can maybe project for 180 innings, however I do that. Blake Snell and Bobby Miller. Yeah, do you want to talk about Blake Snell? No, so yeah, I did get, see, I got into it on Nick's podcast, Nick Pollock's podcast

about Blake Snell and wanting him higher than he had, and he had a 33 or something, and I was adamant it should be like 27. and he had a 33 or something, and I was adamant it should be like 27. But so, yeah, that's my bias. Like I love Blake Snell types because I'm like, oh, it's going to be great. There's going to be a ton of strikeouts, 120 innings, but I'll be fine with that too.

But I think that there's a little bit of like innings are becoming so scarce in the top end that I want two guys that I think can give me 180. And if Kirby ends up where Nick and I were talking about, like five or six, he might end up being a guy I have a lot of because I think he's going to throw a lot of innings. The walks are going to be great. I do think, I believe the strikeout is going to be getting better. The slider has been getting better. And so that might be somewhere where I could get someone that I feel is a top five, top six pitcher and then come back, you know, a round or two later with Gilbert

or just somebody that I think will have a lot of innings and be pretty good. Also, just to throw out this. Try to stay away from some injury risk really early on. And I think Kirby is also like a safe option. Like we're not going too crazy. He has this great floor. It's dangerous. I always say it a bunch.

It's probably stupid at this point, but you know, paying one year next year, you're paying this year for last year's production. But there's also something about like the Cole Reagans and the Michael Kings. And there's these guys that popped up at the end. You don't want to say like, oh, hey, I'm going to find SP-15s and SP-20s

halfway through the year and I'm going to be able to waiver wire some of these guys. But the way things are moving and the aggressiveness and the weight of 80 to 100 innings is on our fantasy team like it wasn't before.

There's like a little part of me that's like, there's going to be some of those guys out there. Maybe you have to pinpoint the right organizations. Cole Reagans is such a weird one. Nick pinpoint the right organizations cole raggins is such a weird one nick staring at me but it's such a weird one because it was like what he was with the rangers compared to who he became but those guys do exist so that's maybe like a tiny bit of the argument that i agree like one or two top

indish guys i just feel like i don't want to pay like second and fourth round costs for it get a couple workhorses get some back-end guys with a bunch of upside, like the Michael Kings, and then hope another Michael King pops up a little bit later in the season. And just maybe be more hyper-aggressive. Like in a fantasy football term, it'd be like Pukunukuwa was a guy

that popped up in the very first day, and first week, sorry, Nick. And then you made the investment, and you moved forward, and you got this top-end guy. Same thing in pitching. Just be more aggressive on on the wire with fab with pitchers that start to pop up uh whenever it starts to happen in you know April or May question you know could you sort by innings pitched on that board so we say oh I'm looking for a guy for 180 innings pitched there

were 25 of those right that's why Right. That's why I want two. Yeah. And then would it be – because this gets to the Kirby point, and I also love the Kirby pick because that's who I would have picked. But if you can scroll up, if we could look at pitches thrown because, you know, Eno, you made a good point there too as well as workload. And just not to forget that all innings are not created equal. George Kirby, 190.

I would bet you that he threw fewer pitches than Blake Snell did 180, probably by a couple of hundred. But, you know, all innings aren't created equal. And so that's why for me, if you were to take Garrett Cole off the board and make me choose somebody else, Kirby would be the guy. And that's how I treated Luis Castillo last year. That was the guy that I'm going to get from things. But that's why I look at this.

I was looking at that there. And it's just a reminder, there aren't a lot of workload guys anymore. And you may have to take a look for the next guy that's going to get there because some of those guys are like, yeah, I'm not doing that again. Look at that. Kirby, 2,800 pitches for 190 innings. Yeah. And, you know, right next to him, Zach Wheeler, 300 more pitches.

Just go down to Jordan Montgomery. He's at 3,100. Spencer Strider, 3,100 versus Jordan. Spencer Strider threw 200 more pitches than Kirby. 300 more pitches almost than Kirby. If you're doing fantasy points per pitch, that would be, it would be well in his favor. Kirby was counting them.

I mean, it's straight. Right? You gotta get the three strikes for every, yeah. But also, like, when we were talking about, and to keep belaboring this, but, you know, if, like, let's say 180 is the marker here of, like, I gotta get, like, two workhorses in 180. There's 24 or 25 of them.

So I guess maybe my point more is if I can find a few more of the values, and maybe Kirby would be more of my priority, and a lot of us are talking about that here. If you're like, hey, I need 190-plus guys, well, there's like eight or whatever it is behind me. But in 180, you can still get a couple innings eaters and then take some shots later in this big group of pitchers that you might want to invest in.

It's interesting because there's a lot of different skills in the leaderboard. If you just go to Van Graaff, sort by innings pitch, like Logan Webb, 216, Zach Gallen, Garrett Cole, Miles Pankless, Chris Bassett, five very different pitchers right there. So you get some guys that have these really good strikeout ceilings. But I think the thing about Kirby that keeps resonating with me is just the elite of the elite walk rate. And even his teammate, Logan Gilbert's not far off that.

I can see double stacking those two guys because they've got such similar approaches with their efficiency. Seattle's one of those teams that continues to get better if they pitch deep enough into games. They get wins in leagues where wins are still used. So if I'm missing on aces, I'm trying to get an ace. I'm not like Welsh. I'm not waiting on purpose.

But if I miss on the aces I want, I can pair up a couple of these guys in rounds four, five, six, and feel pretty good about that just because of the things they bring to the table. Yeah. And there might be always a guy or two, by the way. And mine sounds very blanket. I'm like the most gray area person. I'm just like somewhere in there. I say, I'm like, oh, I don't want any of these guys.

But like, if I got a little bit of a discount on Kirby, that would be a guy I'd feel just so good about. And I would feel the investment, my return, even if it doesn't have maybe the upside of like what Strider would provide, is just gonna set me up so well to take a couple shots a little bit later. So that might be the guy.

Garrett Cole, him, those might be the early investment guys. If I miss on them, I'm like, okay, I'm going to just start moving the tiers down just a tiny bit. Maybe Castillo will be there. Maybe Castillo and Kirby will be guys that aren't thought of as first two-round guys that you

can get in the third and fourth and be your ace and super, super high floor, I feel like. Danny Mariner pitcher, is what we're saying. The early NFBC, five drafts as we've talked about all weekend. Luis Castillo, ADP of 31. So that's right on the round two, round three turn if it's a 15-team league. Kirby at 45, the round three, round four turn.

And then you get a slight break before you find Logan Gilbert down at about pick 60. So four, five turns. You could double tap those guys. Yeah, you could get a combination of them depending on where you're at. So I do like the possibilities there. I think many people who are here want a list from Eno. That's like a thing they need to go home. Yeah, we're coming for you.

Enolist.com. Enolist, yeah. We're here to unveil Enolist. With my Eno coins. So what did you... I wouldn't go that route. What did you pull? What are you looking for right now that you put up on the screen here for the people that are present?

All right. So this whole list... And maybe I'll... Can I zoom in a little bit? Here. So this whole list, top to bottom, is people who had above average stuff and below average era So you'll see era minus it's above a hundred. That means it's bad And stuff plus if it's above a hundred that means it's good

So that's the whole list But you know, I didn't want to make this just about stuff plus and I'm and I'm not sure that I even think Graham Ashcraft is gonna be great next year. So I don't want to just blindly be like, okay, stuff plus done. So what I did was I looked at quick ERA and quick ERA is an ERA that's just based on K minus BB. So it's another way of like looking at somebody who has above average stuff, above average K minus BB and below average ERA. Now that's a group I can really believe in because they are doing it in peripherals. They're doing it in process, and they just didn't have great ERAs last year. Of course, you still have to think about Park, so Hunter Green being on here, the Park is always going to make it harder for him.

But this is a group of players that I will buy in. I don't even really see a name that I wouldn't buy, especially given their ADPs. I love these players I want I want a lot of these players because I see innings I see really good fastballs they're not all the same but there's they were all like have quality in some way and I think we'll have depressed prices next year yeah I think we should start with Hunter Brown 509 era 136 whip things started off a better than that. There was definitely a point, probably June or so, we talked about him on the pod, and there was a thought that maybe he was a top 25 starting pitcher at that

time. Things didn't quite play out that way over the final three months, but the future does look pretty bright. It was a 26.8% K rate for the season, 8.3% walk rate. I noticed the zone contact rate for Hunter Brown's a little high, 88.3%. I'm wondering why he gets hit in the zone as much as he does and if the reason behind that, if that's something that could be corrected possibly to bring that home run rate down a little bit because that's really something that's been biting him throughout his time in the big leagues. Yeah, I'm wondering if there was some fatigue for Hunter Brown.

What I have up on the screen right now is his September stuff plus. And this is a guy who had a plus fastball all the way through the minors and all the way through his rookie season and the beginning of this past season. And here it says he has an 83 stuff plus on the fastball in September. So there was some stuff that fell apart for him in terms of velo and shapes. And yet, when you look at the full year and you look at the arsenal, he is a guy who has added pitches. So we're talking, this is now on the sort of scouting level,

was talking to Kimball Crossley about, you know, what are the types of pitchers who can add pitches? And I heard recently that, like, if you haven't added a pitch in your first, like, two years in the big leagues, you're not going to. That this is something that we can spot pretty quickly, how good people are at sort of adding pitches. He's a guy who's already done it. Like, these pitches that he has right now,

almost all of them were added in the minor leagues. So I think there's a guy who has a better feel for locations. Like this is a guy who's supposed to have 40 command. And even when he was not doing well, he had a one-on-one location plus. So to me, I see a guy who people were wrong about his worst aspects. To me, I see a guy who people are wrong about his worst aspects. And, yes, the stuff fell off, but I still believe in him next year. And I think that that bad, the shape of his season, everyone's going to remember what created that five.

And I think a lot of people will be out and not see the good that he also brings to the table. Do you need to see him in spring where you can get some stuff numbers to make sure the fastball is back before you're in or because he's going around pick 200 are you comfortable at that price point saying I'll take a chance that the stuff just comes back before I have to actually see it? Well you know it does become a question of like when you're drafting I mean I'd love to have more information but we if we do these early drafts, at that price, I'm comfortable with it. It doesn't look like it was actually – well, it was some B, though.

He dropped down to 95 from 96. Yeah, just a slight drop. I see Taj Bradley on that list, too. I'm curious, Welsh, Bradley versus Hunter Brown, who are you more likely to draft with the prices being pretty similar right now? versus Hunter Brown, who are you more likely to draft with the prices being pretty similar right now? Ooh. The second half was pretty scary for Hunter Brown.

I wanted to, like, anoint him in the very beginning. I love Taj Bradley, though. I love the strikeout numbers. I love that the Rays were really active with him. What were we talking about in season where it was like they had him at the majors i want to say completely get rid of the cutter because he wasn't feeling it they sent him down he wasn't throwing it and then he kind of found that back like adversity in pitchers kind of gets me going he

can go deep into games he's a strikeout option um a quick answer to that for me is going to be Taj Bradley. But it also, I was almost going to pose this question of these like sub 115, 120 innings rookie-ish pitchers. Would you rather have the full season knowing you're going to be probably more susceptible to the Hunter Browns of the world? Or would you rather it be coddled a little bit and just get like 100 on the back end? Would you rather have less innings of the pedig bit and just get like a hundred on the back end you know like would you rather have less innings of the pedigree of a pitcher like a hundred brown and tosh bradley or go through the bumps and bruises that we saw with hunter brown which is all of these guys i

mean very little i can't i can't off the top of my head think of a guy that just did it the whole year without any i mean even bryce miller we were like oh my god what's going on and then it was just so we know it's going to happen but you know it's 150 of that better than 90 of another top pedigree pitcher for fantasy yeah is this like a paul skeens question in disguise yeah kind of yeah yeah kind of kind of i also there's a couple afl guys if i'm being honest like i know we'll probably talk about them but you guys don't you guys didn't get to see teeterman out here and i saw uh three of the four starts and he kind of sits in that world jackson job speaking of adding he worked he was out here working on a cutter so you know you got a couple of those guys that are working on this stuff that had minimal innings this year that can't be pushed so it's like would you take 80 jackson job or Paul Skeen's innings, or would you rather them be pressed the whole season long

and know you're going to have some really bad bumps? And maybe it backtracks them a little bit. You never know. Yeah, great point. Yeah, I think with Tiedemann, I see the possibility of things turning out a lot like Grayson Rodriguez's rookie season, just in terms of the shape of it. There could be some growing pains initially. There could be some time back in the minors.

You may have to drop him at some point in redraft leagues, and that would be extremely frustrating because he's probably not going to be cheap based on the expectations for him. Yeah, Taj Bradley, I just had a weird hot flash. You were getting to be that age. No, how about this? I don't think that's supposed to happen to you. I had a hot flash. You were getting to be that age. No, how about this? I don't think that's supposed to happen to you. Not a doctor, but.

Tyjuan Walker? You think Taj Bradley might be another Tyjuan Walker? Well, the thing I'm nervous about is that Tyjuan Walker has a great fastball. It's his best pitch, and he's never developed anything that great off of that. And he's never had a great slider. He's never had, you know, the splitter's okay. And I want to buy in this on Saj Bradley because I love the fastball so much. But right now on the screen you're seeing that he has a great fastball,

but Stuff Plus never liked any of his secondaries all that much and in September just really found them all to be kind of blah. And I'm fascinated if, like, this is a better package or if somebody who has, like, an elite secondary pitch, like an elite slider, if that's a package I'd rather buy into, especially in this league where it seems like having an elite breaking ball is super, super important. And we've seen Taj Bradley get in trouble where he has inconsistent command on that

fastball, and then he gets into counts where he feels like he has to go to the fastball, and he can't command it, and he gets blasted. And if he had a secondary that was elite, either by locations or by shapes, I would feel a little better about buying in. As it is, I'm probably going to have some shares because the fastball is so good that I feel like that's a foundation. And if he can just tweak. He was talking about, I need to throw the cutter more than 88.

And I went down to the minors, and it was like 84 for a while. And then I made some adjustments, and it was 88, and they brought me back up. So is there maybe one more benchmark you can reach with the curve or the change? Could you just tweak it? He threw four pitches, so he doesn't have to add it out of nowhere. He threw them. He just needs to tweak one of them.

So Bradley is somebody I'll buy. And of course, I have him ahead of Hunter Brown, I think. You do? Yeah, I'll have him ahead of Hunter Brown. That was a pretty disastrous ending. I mean, I can't ignore the 5 URA on the season either for Hunter Brown. I think the thing that's fun about this toss-up is I have organizational trust in both the Astros and the Rays, though, to work through it,

to find ways to game plan differently, to tweak the pitch mix. And I don't know. I think I'm more likely to have Brown, but they're two guys that could end up on a lot of my rosters, because I think there's plenty of ceiling with both of them at this point. Bryce Miller's getting a lot of ink.

By the way, I was about to pick on it, I was gonna be like, well, you know, the Astros, Christian Javier kind of went back, and then you look at the Rays and you're like, everybody had Tommy John, so it's like, both of them, yeah, with their issues. There were just so many times late in the year where I thought Bradley was going to get that opportunity,

and it didn't happen. So now I feel like I have no read on how much they want to push it at the beginning of the season especially. And I hate waiting through April with a player that I can't use in a redraft league. It kills you to not have that flexibility, especially in NFBC-type leagues. I was looking for one other young player here.

Brian Wu is on here along with Bryce Miller. We talk about Bryce Miller a lot, so we should talk about Brian Wu. I wanted to highlight Brian Wu because it's a possibility that Stuff Plus underrates him because he actually has two sliders, and they are, by stat cast, sort of mushed together into one slider. And so therefore, when we're looking at sort of movement profiles and stuff, it would be better if they were separate. So then you would be able to appraise both. He has a sweeper and a gyro slider.

And so if you just average that movement out, that's not actually what's happening. He has two different pitches. And I think it's really important for Brian Wu because you could look at the wrong site and think that Brian Wu has two pitches. And that would be wrong because he has a four-seam, a two-seam, a gyro slider, and a sweeper.

And I actually think that is a robust, full arsenal of pitches. Good command. I guess you have to wonder about how worried are you about innings pitch leaps. Yeah. It was a big jump. His was pretty big. What was the other one? Spencer Strider was big.

So is that something that you track, sort of 50 innings plus or whatever? Yeah, we talk about this every year. I know the Raducci effect has been debunked for years, and it still kind of guides the workload increases for so many teams. Some number close to that is always a little bit of a yellow flag for us. But ultimately, I don't think I'm that worried about it. I think pitchers are healthy until they're not. That's sort of the new philosophy I have.

If it worked, if he made it through the season healthy, he makes it back to the spring, everything's still good, then I'm not worried about last year's workload and maybe until the second half of the next season. Maybe fatigue carries over in the long run and that's where it starts to bite a pitcher, but generally not too worried about it. I love that Grayson Rodriguez is on this list too. What do you think the arc is going to be for Grayson Rodriguez? Tons of helium this spring? Yeah. He's already got an ADP inside the top 60 overall.

Yeah, it's just going to keep going. And we were talking about Kirby. I was like, oh, man, it's our fault. I don't just mean us. I mean all of us. We go to these concerts, and then we're all like, oh, George Kirby. I'm George Kirby. I'm George Kirby.

And then, like, we come back next year, and you're like, oh, damn, he's in the second round. Never mind. You've got to have, like, the guy you talk about and the guy who's kind of like George Kirby, but it goes a little bit later, and you don't talk about him. You speak about everybody as almost Kirby. This guy's Kirby-like.

We do too many pods. There's no way you could actually keep a player a secret at this point. Yeah, that's true. It's just not going to work. Yeah, it's a range where you've got Grayson Rodriguez. I think I'd love to have Grayson as a number two, though. Well, he's sitting there next to Aaron Nola and Freddy Peralta. Oh, man, Aaron Nola.

I would take Freddy Peralta over Grayson Rodriguez at the same price. Of course you would. Like, no doubt. Yeah, you're a homer. Just put it out there. Me? Never. I would take Freddy Peralta over Grayson Rodriguez Of course you would Like no doubt Yeah You're a homer Just put it out there Me? Never You would take Freddy Peralta over Grayson Rodriguez

I would not I would I would not So we've got a very special guest joining us today From the Cleveland Guardians organization It's Kyle Manzardo Kyle, thanks so much for joining us Thanks for having me

You didn't know what you were walking into organization it's Kyle Manzardo. Kyle thanks so much for joining us. You didn't know what you were walking into you didn't know what you were coming on into. Got a live audience going today this is fantastic so for a lot of people out here it's their first time here for others they've been coming out for ten years and they know that the Fall League is a kind of a finishing school it's one of the final steps before you get a chance to debut in the big leagues. And one thing I wanted to ask you about is... We got signs. Here, I'll do the picture.

I'll do the picture. Yeah, you gotta get a picture. We got some great signs. We got a, I want DVR to narrate my life. Eno shaves Bulgarism to get an extra inch of visual rise. And Kyle Manzardo is an 80-grade podcast guest. Great signs. Great signs. Scott, I wanted to start. I just Manzardo is an 80-grade podcast guest. Great science.

Great science. Scott, I wanted to start. I just wanted to ask you, how does the day-to-day preparation out here in Arizona compare to what happens in the upper levels of the minors? It's been really similar, honestly. I don't know. I've tried to kind of just roll from the season straight here just because I finished in AAA so I think I had like a week before this started so I tried to just kind of roll right into this do all the

same stuff but it's a little odd here because of the timing like you don't get the everyday reps you're you're clocked against other players the consistency of being on it or even against it you know if you're struggling or you're hitting really well it doesn't allow you necessarily the opportunity to kind of keep that rhythm going so they it feels like a different beast right right no it's definitely definitely a different beast especially like you got just like the day games sprinkled in with the night games I don't know this week we had like two day games when I came it was just kind of a weird schedule in that sense so you do kind of take it day I don't know, this week we had like two day games, one night games.

It's just kind of a weird schedule in that sense. So you do kind of take it day to day, make sure you get what you need before the games. Has that messed with the rhythm at all? I mean, you've been pretty locked in, we've seen some big power numbers, you're gonna be in the Derby tonight, we'll talk about, but have you noticed the rhythm maybe being off?

Are you trying to maybe catch it? I mean, I'd like to think that it's not disrupted too much, but I mean, maybe in some sense. Just when you're stacking all those day games in a row and then you go night game back to day game, that definitely could screw up some of the rhythm you have going. It's the strangest league for me. I love it, but it's like, you're still wearing the colors of your own team,

and these teams don't really mean anything. Like, this is a surprise, like, Rafters. Am I gonna be like, go, Rafters? I got a Scottsdale hat on, Kyle's like, all right, I can't do the podcast. I got a Scorpions hat on, so. But also, the coaching staff comes from different organizations. Was there like a list of goals or a list of to-do items for you

that came from the Guardians that supersedes anything the local guy is saying? Are you learning from the local guy, even though he's from a different org and maybe has a different philosophy? How is that going on? So, yeah, I mean the Guardians, me you know certain things to work on and stuff and be conscious of but one of the things that's been really I think unique and cool for me is that our manager Morgan Ensberg was my manager in double-a when I was with the Rays you know before I before I got traded so Go Biscuits.

So that's been a really, I don't know, unique, special thing is that I get to reconnect with the board. It was a little unique also because obviously the mid-season trade, you're still new to the Guardians. So there almost could be, I can almost see an element of them just being like, let's go out there. Let's see what this is all about. Like, how much are they going to really dig into, let's do this, this, this, this, because you're very new to the org and you really want to get at bats.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm here to, you know, work on hitting left-handed pitchers and, you know, catch up on some at bats that I missed while, you know, continuing to get better with the glove. So that is the goal, but it's been really cool. Just because, like, a lot of the Rays guys I know better than, you know, the Guardians guys. Yeah, and you're playing with Carson. Yeah, it's like I was drafted with Carson. I played with, you know, Shane, Workman, you know, all those guys.

Like, I played months with them, and then a lot of the Guardians guys, this is my first time playing with them. On the left-handed pitching are you the reason Tiedemann's gone? Did you run him out of town? No I don't think so. You guys didn't see this, I've been here for it. You took, Josh I don't know if you saw it, he took one in the shoulder by Tiedemann real hard about three weeks back I think. Oh, the evo shield. Yeah you took it strong. That was one of the, that was the protection there. He was one of the big lefties you were dealing with.

It seems like you've done a good job. That entire team by the way, the Peoria team, you guys, there's something uniquely special about how all of you lefties are hitting lefties here. Yeah. I mean, Grand Poly I've seen do it, Marcy. I'm pretty sure Grand Poly has reverse splits. Yeah.

I think, I could be wrong. No, I think you're right. And Marcy too. Yeah, it's crazy. One thing I love about your game is this combination of contact and power, right? And one thing that we did see in the jump to AAA was a little bit more strikeouts. And is that like a lefty thing? and is that like a lefty thing? Is that like just they have better command and they're like being able to like execute the game plan against you better?

It's just like they're better? You know, is that part of what you're working on? I mean, it's not a problem because you're still at like 20%. It's not like you're striking out a ton, but it's like it's a little bit higher than it used to be. Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably a mix of a few things. The pitchers obviously get better and, you know, have a better idea of how to get guys out.

But I think probably it could be, you know, a little bit approach based. So you're trying to get to that power. Yeah. I mean, I hit, I'm pretty sure I hit the ball harder on average this year, which I don't know. It's just hitting. There's so many gives and takes with hitting. Anytime you're getting something, you're usually giving something up somewhere. So I would imagine that's kind of what went on.

That's really interesting. That's how Corbin Carroll talks about hitting. He's talking about am I okay with, like, am I okay, I'm going to have to, if I want to get the ball out front and pull it for power. Like I'm gonna have to make that decision earlier. And am I okay with having a few more strikeouts because I started earlier, or do I wanna let it travel more?

And it's always a decision you're making. So yeah, I mean I feel like I'm conscious of it. Not necessarily worried about it, but yeah. Nobody likes striking out. That's not good. Kyle hit the longest homer I've ever seen in Peoria, and I've been here a lot for many, many years going to games, and you probably know that one.

I think it was like 471. If you're in Peoria, there's a grass, then there's a concourse, and there's garbage cans, and Kyle said, I don't need those garbage cans. I'm going further, and one bounced it out of the stadium. So the power, hitting the ball harder is under the simplification of what you've been doing here. But I talked to Carson about the pitchers here. And what's really interesting, too, is I asked him, and I asked, I think it was Reggie Crawford about this,

that I feel like I've noticed more hitters being in tune to iPads and talking with coaches than I've ever seen before. And that just obviously could also be a technology thing. But I've seen more players with their coaches looking at iPads and trying to study. But Carson said one of the difficult things is your, yes, those scouting reports are cool, but you don't know who's working on stuff. You don't know if they're going.

Like Jackson-Jobbs got a new cutter, and nobody knows about that. And that kind of makes the hitting and the strikeouts can sometimes get inflated, especially if you're here to launch some balls and then all of a sudden you don't have a report on a guy that's throwing a cutter. That's another unique thing about this league. Yeah, I mean, yeah, the scouting reports,

I'm thinking, are probably here to stay. I mean, you see it on TV and stuff too. But yeah, guys are working on things and it's also like, you kind of got to know, know yourself in some sense. Like if a pit, like I guess in Carson's case, like if a pitcher is throwing like 60% fastball, 40% slider, like if you're Carson, you're maybe getting a little bit more slider, you know, or in my case, like I'm probably, you know, I'm going to see, see a couple more change ups, stuff like that.

Yeah. Have you noticed, I feel like I've seen a higher degree of uh fastballs higher up in the zone like they're trying to get you they're not getting you but they're trying they're trying to get you yeah I mean that's so that's another interesting thing uh out here for me to like get adjusted to because in AAA we had the smaller zone, the ABS zone, which was really short up top. So it's like I kind of, in my head, was just eliminating anything up because the top of the zone was so short there.

And out here those pitches get called now. So you kind of got to be able to protect it. Did you like having the automated balls and strike system? I mean, I loved it. The pitchers probably didn't like it. I loved it, though. Yeah, didn't the walk rate really jump? I don't know if mine did.

I mean, I kind of went through it a little bit in the middle part of this year. But, I mean, for most people, I'm sure it did. What was going on for you then? I don't know. people, I'm sure it did. What was going on for you then? I don't know. Well, I know, but I just kind of got away from my approach. I was getting a little bit too poley, just pulling everything, looking to pull everything. I think that pitches on the outer half of the zone,

I was completely beat by because I was on time to the pitches like black in, which, another give and pull, if you're on time to that, you're probably not on time to the one away. That's so interesting. Come back to the AFL, something, and I have had a couple standard questions we've been asking guys,

and we had this really interesting dynamic of, obviously, there's some guys that are struggling from numbers. Carson, we kind of had that. And the topic also to him was, like, it doesn't really matter. I mean, it's AFL numbers. Like, what do the numbers matter? Well, I talked to James Triantos today, and I posed the same question, except, like, buddy, you're hitting, like, 400. And you're, like, MVP numbers. Does that matter? Like, it's hard to, like, buddy, you're hitting like 400 and you're like MVP numbers. Does that matter?

Like it's hard to like how much does that not matter? So we can obviously know where the question is going to go. But like when you look at like the physical numbers, even if it's strikeouts, if it's one of the doubles, whatever it is, walks, like does anything matter for you here? I mean, I don't want to be dismissive that it doesn't. Yeah. No, it always matters. I mean, to like to me, you know, I matters. I mean, to like, to me, you know, I don't know what other, how much other people use it,

but I mean, it's always going to matter to me, certainly. But it's like also like the batted ball numbers and stuff, making sure that that's all right is maybe just as important, right? You know, I'm trying to get myself to like buy into that, like those hits, you know, those hard hit balls will fall eventually if you keep hitting them. But it's like, yeah, nobody wants,

you don't want like a low batting average, you know? Everybody loves, I love that answer. Everybody loves that answer that you gave right there. You don't even know how good a good answer that was. You did, that was a great answer. Especially for all the nerds here, all of us. Like, that's a great answer. We had an interesting conversation with Victor Scott about sort of what the development process was like with the Cardinals. And, you know, one of the things he said was, like, they gave me a blast motion in an offseason one year,

and they told me three numbers that they wanted me to hit you know like it was about like maybe his attack angle like maybe changing the number on that maybe it was a like a bat speed number that they wanted higher whatever it was he didn't tell us what the numbers were so you have to tell us what the numbers were but just could you give us a sort of general sense of how different it's been from one organization to the next you know in terms of what they how they ask you to do things what sort of benchmarks they give you what they're looking for out of you I mean the so at least like hitting wise it's pretty similar or to org I don't know they're both pretty data driven and they're both you know smaller market teams that kind of need to

develop their young players. So in that sense, it's been a pretty easy flip. Is there a number you track? Is it just max EV, or is it barrels? Are you getting more process-oriented? You were talking about an attack angle?

I don't worry about the attack angle or anything. I like average exit V-low and barrel percentage. You want to hit it hard. I want to hit it pretty hard a lot. I don't really care about my max exit V-low or anything like that. I like barrels too. We all agree. If I can hit it 104 a ton of times i'd rather that than you know

hit it 111 three times you know oh that's interesting zach geloff was saying me something similar we can't prove that that's the definitely the best way like by the numbers we can't prove that but it's it sounds right you know what i mean zach is saying like if i try to get a 112 or something it's going to be like a more out 112 or something, it's going to be, like, a more out-of-control swing, and it's going to be – it's not probably my best swing. Right. Like, I'd rather have a bunch of 104s than 106s. Yeah.

I mean, that's the way I think of it. I don't know. To me, it's, like, the difference in the feeling between hitting one, like, 110 and 105 is, like, pretty much the same to me. It feels good. They both feel good. Yeah, they both feel good. They both feel equally as good. I don't know, I think the pitch location

is probably what is the difference. The 110 was down the middle. Yeah, or down and in to me. You hit 114 and you're like, I know that one. Yeah, that one I know. Right handed slider. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The other thing that I think is a I don't know if it's a modern thing it's something that seems to me as a modern

thing is you know sorry did you where did you were you drafted out of Washington State Washington State so do you stay in touch do you stay in touch with any of your coaches from there? Here and there. So my head coach, he took a job at Wichita State this past year, so I haven't talked much with him since then. But he's a great kid. How about is your father like a – or is there something in your family that's like a big influence in your mechanics?

Yeah, well. That you still talk to about? My dad is, he's kind of the one that coached me all the way up. And then so do you keep in touch with anybody from the Razor still? No. No, because you're a new one. Yeah. But even then, so in Cleveland you've got like the director of hitting, might have a roving hitting instructor.

You've got your level hitting instructor, right? So there's three voices there. You've got your dad in there. Do you go to a facility in the offseason? No, I just sit with my dad in my high school cages. So you actually probably have a skinnier set of voices. What I'm getting at is there's a ton of voices in your head. There's a ton of people telling you what to do and how to do it.

How do you sort through all that? How do you filter through? What happens if they say different things? How do you deal with that? Well, I don't know. At the end of the day, I feel like I know what it should feel like when everything's working the way it's supposed to.

So you've got to kind of find a balance of hearing any constructive criticism and you know using that but also like trusting that i i know what's going on you know with my with my swing and stuff like that did you see uh michael brantley at the world series i know at the alcs he was hitting and his father was in the... No, I didn't see that. His father was like, you're drifting. No. Like from the stands, it's like, you're drifting, turn. Yeah.

That's awesome. Is that going to be your dad? No, I don't think so. I mean, maybe like a few years ago that could have been him, but he's pretty laid back now. He thinks you're in good hands. Yeah, He thinks you're in good hands. Yeah, he thinks you're in good hands. Kind of final here, you're going to get to test your max EVs and your barrels

because Kyle's in the Home Run Derby tonight out here in the AFL, which is going to be pretty awesome. So how do you approach this? This is a weird thing that you're going to be doing. First off, how many are you going to hit when you win it? And then second off, how do you approach this? This is a weird thing that you're going to be doing. First off, how many are you going to hit when you win it? And then second off, how do you approach this? Because we're all counting on you. This whole room is going for me.

We all got you. I like that. Yeah, so I've never done a home run derby. I didn't make area codes. The last one maybe was like a Little League home run derby

all those fences are 200 feet the ones that we could do we could all do yeah right um so like i don't know i guess the gent like i like hitting low pitches so do you have it you have a specific person that's kind of i don't know if there's one for you and you've already told them like give it to me low yeah Yeah, yeah, like low middle. Kind of keep me there. Do you practice at all? You know, I mean, a little bit. You practice hitting the ball hard every day.

Well, no, I guess you're talking more the volume of just consistent pitching coming in and just trying to slam. Like, that seems exhausting. I know the rounds are like two minutes and 30 seconds. Oh, so it's going to be straight timed. Yeah, that's what I've heard. I mean, that's slam. Like that seems exhausting. I know the rounds are like two minutes and 30 seconds. Also, it's going to be straight timed. Yeah, that's what I've heard. I mean, that's going to be probably pretty exhausting. If it's not you, it's going to be you.

But if it wasn't you, who would you bet on tonight? I don't know. Maybe Sabato. It's really going to be about whoever falls into that rhythm. You know what I mean? Like whoever finds the right swing early and is able to just about whoever falls into that rhythm. You know what I mean? Like you find whoever finds the right swing early and is able to just repeat that over and over again. Because you're going to see somebody fall into the right rhythm.

Yeah, I don't know. Like I said, I've never done a home run derby. That's going to be amazing. Only last thing, I just had any – I know they can be simplistic, any goals for 2024. Statistically, we did get, who did we get? Trianta. I got Trianta to tell us he had a stolen base goal for this coming year,

which is pretty great. Not putting you on the spot or anything, but is there any goal? Obviously health. I don't think he has a stolen base goal. Yeah, he might have a stolen base goal. We'll go for more than one stolen base next year. And we'll all accept opening day starting first baseman as well, if you'd like to, with the Guardians.

But any goals for 2024? You know, I just want to be healthy all year. Yeah, I mean, I think if I'm healthy, everything will sort itself out. But, yeah, I guess it just – That's the main goal. Two stolen bases. Two stolen bases. All right, we got it.

We got it. We got it, absolutely. Thanks so much, man. Thanks so much. Kyle, thank you so much for the time. Good luck in the Derby tonight. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you, guys.

Nice to meet you, man. I love that there's a derby here now. That is new. Last time I was here, not a thing. Kimball Crossley does not love that there's a derby here. Why? Why is Kimball an old man about it? He says they're pointless.

They're not baseball. And I think also he's a scout, so he wants to learn something. He's not sure he's going to learn anything. Could just have fun for two hours. Everybody who went to the Derby last year said it was awesome. So I'm looking forward to it. And I thought actually, I think I said this last year at this cast, was there is actually something to learn because I learned a lot from watching Vlad in the home run derby, which I was surprised because

how much are you going to learn about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.? We know about him. But he was telling John Schneier, was that his name? John Schneier? Yeah. He was like, here. And you heard Cal Mazzaro do that where he's like, low middle. Low middle.

And it's like,, oh yeah, that's his A swing. So you get to see their A swing. You get to see where their power path is and where they can be a hitter. And so what we learned, actually I thought what we learned last year was that Eduardo Julian can take the high pitch and

he like screams it, you know, oppo. And I don't love opposite field hitters that much because, like, power doesn't play as well. But you can also get from that, it's like he's going to have power and he's going to be able to cover the plate. And he's not going to get beat by the high fastball, you know. So, you know, I think there is some stuff to learn.

You know, also dingers. Yeah, dingers are great. I also want to throw out, there's really good confirmation in there because I've been talking up Kyle a little bit, and I was really, really happy to hear him talk about the high fastball stuff with the ABS system kind of affecting that. But a lot of people brought up Matt Mervis to me when I would do this. They're like, oh, this is another Matt Mervis situation.

And one of the things I cited, and this is just one of those things, like I could never, intellectually, I could never compete with what Eno does. So sometimes you guys are just going to hear just my brain just unloading thoughts on everybody of just what I've seen. And sometimes I can't even contextualize it right. But I've been saying, I said, one of the things that you saw about Mervis last year was he was getting beat low like he was just getting beat low by off speed fastballs and when I would compare it against Mervis I had been telling everybody that's not happening with Manzardo here he destroys

low stuff that's those are the homers he's getting it's been the high fastball so not only did he say this is where I want it in the home run derby he also was like yeah i wasn't even worried about the high stuff because the system i wasn't getting those calls so it was just like two pieces of confirmation where there there's some negative stuff out there about commons art as far as a fantasy and an investment and that type of stuff and we just kind of got like two very interesting clear answers that kind of helped paint that story and i don't know. It does worry me actually a little bit that he's like, I'm a low ball hitter and I had some troubles with high ball

and I just had the strikeout rate increase. You're like, eh. But the one thing that's nice for me is that like, we had a strikeout rate increase to like 20%. So like he probably does have a B and C swing that can handle the high fastball. It's not maybe one that's going to hit for a ton of power, but I think it'd be hard to have a hole that obvious that everybody's exploiting

and you still have a 20% strikeout rate. Yeah. So I don't think it's going to be that bad. I just enjoy self-aware players, and it's nothing I can put on paper to any of you guys. It's an intangible thing that you talk to. I've talked to players, and guys are just like, I don't do this and that.

But then you talk to a guy who's just like, yeah, I understand this, and this is what I'm doing. We kind of had that. Reggie Crawford was like that, Victor Scott. The self-aware, it's an obviously blatantly obvious tool that we don't scout, that it's like, if this guy understands who he is, his faults, that's something we can work on because that's what they're doing.

They're prospects. They're developing and they're working and it's not done at AAA or AA or their first year. And there might be some warts, but I don't know. It's an interesting confirmation that you're looking for if you want to, like, be high on a guy like Kyle Manzardo but I mean he seems draftable and he seems like a guy that even in redraft leagues and NFPC and stuff like is somebody that might be worth taking a shot on yeah I couldn't get him to say he was going to start though I was like come on you're gonna be the first baseman come on let's

go but I mean they have an opening they do yeah went and got him they they're sending him here a lot of times you send guys here to get the innings so that you can feel like they can play a whole season in the major leagues next year. We've seen that before a lot. So I don't know if it's going to be opening day, but it's going to be an early one. Yeah, I think the organizational behavior maybe gives me a little bit of pause that they might give him two more months at AAA since he didn't get to spend a lot of time there this year,

and then we'll see him in June instead of on opening day whereas in other organizations maybe he would be a better bet to make the opening day roster or if they like picks maybe they just have him be on the opening day roster and go for some extra picks to build up that org I always wonder how much a team will change its course because of spring training like Jordan Walker I think maybe was an example where they just put it out there. Julio Rodriguez. Yeah. I mean he just blew through spring training. He was like, well this is gonna be really embarrassing

for us if we don't put him on the opening day roster. You could not send Julio Rodriguez down after the spring that he had in 22. And even Jordan Walker in 23. You just looked at that and you're like, how is this guy not one of the best hitters? Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's always like,

does spring training mean something yeah i think teams are to varying degrees making some sort of roster construction decision or adjusting timelines a little bit based on performance i think the door is open for kyle manzardo to do that but that was really interesting i think the other thing he said that kind of in my ears perk up a little bit was off season he hits with his dad in the high school cages right and i think we've talked about players having to do a lot to kind of take development into their own hands in the offseason and I'm going to be curious to know like as the years go by like how will that evolve for him well one day

will we have the Kyle Manzardo went to driveline high fastball problem went away I mean that could go away before then too but just knowing a little bit more about his off-season process gives you kind of some background information that we didn't previously have. Yeah, he had a much slimmer, like I've been asking that question to people. Like when I asked it to Victor Scott, he was like, yeah, I've got like, you know, a coach I stay in touch with from West Virginia,

and then I've got a running coach, you know, and then I've got the director of hitting for the Cardinals and the local hitting court. Like, he was like, yeah, there's a lot of voices. Carson was a little bit more like that because I asked a question to get an answer from Carson Williams, and it was actually very similar-ish. Like, I got some people, not a whole bunch.

There's maybe a guy here or there, but it was a lot more of his own approach, and he didn't. Maybe it was a race thing. I don't know. But, yeah, it was a lot more of his own approach and he didn't maybe it's a race it was a race thing i don't know but um yeah it was similar to that teams are identifying the player development as a place that might be underserved and like you know might be able to put resources in and what is resources it's people and so it's like what do the people do well they're all want to you know put their fingers on the player they all and how are these people going to advance within the ranks of player development they're going to be like i helped make that guy better and so everybody you know what you're

incentivizing is that everybody in the organization is just talking as much to all the players so then you're just like oh man i'm sorry player like all you got is like and then i saw the michael brantley father thing and i was like oh my god there's also dads and brothers and you know all sorts of people talking to them so you know you can't I think there is something

about being a modern ball player where it's almost like anti-analytics away because you have to be like shut up and then like there's too many of you I just need to go out

and play and then throw on a player like Reggie Crawford who's going to do it on both sides that's going to pitch in and hit and that was

what we kind of talked with him about. You could theoretically double it. People telling you how to pitch, telling you how to hit, orgs. It's wild. A long layoff for Reggie Crawford really since he's hit last too. And he was like, I just have to play. Literally, I know there's a lot of voices and there's a lot of stuff we want to do and we're making plans and we're going to have meetings and all meetings and all this stuff and I was like oh that sounds exhausting uh but

he was also like but I'm out here because I had you know I have to play I just haven't played I need to play so you have stuff plus numbers for some of the pitchers in this league and as people who've been here before know or if you're familiar with prospects and you've looked at some of the rosters pitching is thin out here which I think makes it pretty hard to make those leaps toward the big leagues if you've got some things you're trying to work on. But have you found any sleepers using Stuff Plus out here in the AFL? You know, Jackson, Job, and Ricky T, and we've got numbers on those guys, so we'll definitely bring them up.

But did you find anyone that just jumped off the page in terms of being filthy? I'm just trying to get it up. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Two minutes for phrasing. Jackson. Jackson Jobe is a guy that had, I think, the best stuff plus in high A.

Come on. HDMI 1? Yeah. in high A. Come on. So I just 3 by 1? Yeah. Jackson Jobe had the best stuff plus in in high A

and he has the second best stuff plus among guys with 100 plus pitches in the AFL and

it loves his new cutter that's the that he's modeling after Jake DeGrom. He has like a 92-mile-an-hour slider he's throwing, cutter slider thingy. And so I expected him to be on this list. I did not expect number one.

So number one, 100 pitches thrown, Alessandro Ercolani is number one. He also has a 121 stuff plus he has a 65 location plus well it's a garbage stat so it doesn't matter yeah well somehow like at that level i almost feel like it does matter because uh what we're also seeing out of him here is like a lot of walks and you were saying you've seen you put eyes on him no he's the one i he's i have like very very few players i've been targeting and wanting to see and i haven't seen but he i believe he's the youngest player here he's a teenager it's him carson williams are two of the youngest guys and he's coming off a really good season with a big fast ball which is obviously playing in the numbers but it has been a little disastrous here

but the the one of the reasons we have all that info as well is salt river was the only field to uh give us stat cast data and by the way now we can't use them they're they're shut down for the last three weeks so we literally have that's the end of the stack yeah we have three weeks of stat cast data that only when a player played there. So like I have a guy, I don't know if we'll even get to it. I can talk about it later, but a pitcher that I love that has 13 pitches of data that we get to tell you about. I don't need the data to talk about how exciting he is, but it just backs up how awesome his pitch, but that's all we got.

And it's done now. And that's what, I don't know why we don't have it at all the parks, but it's only salt river, but you get, luckily you get a extended sample size because he was on the Salt River team. And that's kind of an advantage for like a young guy that might be a sleeper and that your numbers pop on. Yeah, I think I'd be interested in Erholani. I mean, he's 19 and he's showing this big stuff.

And you just like, you know, throw, keep throwing, keep throwing, keep growing. And hopefully we'll see better locations in the future. So, you know, the other names that popped, Juan Mejia, also really poor location, Dylan Smith, and Carter Baumler. And that is the end of pitchers who have thrown 100 and had above average stuff plus. At Salt River. At Salt River, basically.

Yeah. Five pitchers. I know. But those location numbers are not surprising if you've watched pitching here before. That's pretty typical outside of a handful of top prospects. The command is really bad here. It just is. Yeah.

Well, you have a new catcher. You guys were really young. Yeah, and the catching prospects here, arguably kind of rough, and you're dealing with a completely new – you're dealing with different coaches. You're dealing with a catcher that maybe they're trying to hold the game or the pitcher's trying to i mean it is a weird environment for a pitcher so i'm never shocked when like command numbers are off a little bit you do get worried when you see the 70 uh location plus a little bit on a few guys 65 i've never seen that before before for a major leaguer.

Wow. You start getting into the minor league numbers, you start seeing stuff like this. You've got to get those at complex level. We'll test that theory. Yeah, you're not getting to the big leagues with 65 location plus. Carter Bumler's had, I think, Tommy John surgery and shoulder surgery. He's just finally getting innings out here. He sort of stands out as someone that could be a little bit of a deep sleeper.

Yeah. Brian Mata also, that's really 22 pitches, but I'd like to see that he's got some good locations and good stuff. This is really a rough place to shop. I don't know

how many pitching prospects we've seen out here that we're like, you know, excited about and do well. I'll tell you when I was in talk about on the AFL ones, I've already mentioned him Emiliano Teodo and people have listened to stuff. They've heard him. I pulled his numbers here cause there's not a lot. He's the guy that we have like 13 pitches on,

but he ended up having a one 13 stuff plus on a plus on you know system with a 70 location plus but he throws a hundred and two and he can hit a hundred and two consistently and he also has a nasty slider I talked to Triantos earlier and he was having a I asked him like oh hey you know who's a guy that's been really tough and he was kind of sitting and struggling a little bit and then I just randomly was like Teodo and he like went back into his seat and he kind of like got uncomfortable and he was like that's the guy because teodo out here 11 innings he's given up three hits walk two and he struck out 18 and he was a starter last year three hits he's given up

he's a starter who he's two pitch mixing it out here well he's got three but he's been nothing but slider and fastball there's only a couple pitches the slider, but it was a 136.8 stuff plus on the slider with the 117 location plus on the slider. And all that does is confirm what I put out on Twitter, that he just dropped a slider in on these guys after he hit 102. Nassim Nunez, if you go on my Twitter, at is it the Welsh, you'll see it. Nassim Nunez, if you go on my Twitter, at is it the Welsh, you'll see it. Nassim Nunez literally just backed up off of a 102 pitch. He just took a step back because he's like, nope. And then Teodo threw this slider right in there.

So this is a starter who's going to convert. The location numbers stink. But this is a guy that's going to be a future closer. So I know that's tough in like fantasy and dynasty and stuff like that. But every person that I've kind of like floated his name to raves about Teodo. Triantos, uncomfortable in his seat about him, and he throws 102. So I just hope he's in the Fall Stars game.

I don't know, and I hope we get one inning. Also, like a five walk rate is another reason to be uncomfortable. And he walks a lot, but that's why he was a starter last year. Might get beamed. And he was a starter last year, and that's why I think his future is in the bullpen. That's one of the probably bigger no-name guys that people aren't locked into that I would really start to pay attention to,

even though we'd have short data sample sizes. Welsh, I wanted to ask you, other standout prospects you've seen, just guys that have exceeded your expectations or shown really well out in this league so far? Yeah, I love Sterling Thompson. If anyone's paid attention to him, he's with the Rockies. He's playing on Salt River, can play multiple spots. He's super comfortable playing multiple spots. I wish I had the data on it because he hits the ball hard. He's missed a couple homers at the wall. He's got seven doubles. He's stolen six bases. He hits at the top of the order. Really good lefty, all fields contact, and it's a really easy stride.

I think he's super sneaky. I think he could be up soon, too. And he's been playing center field, right field, I think center field. He's definitely been in the outfield and second base. And he switched between, like, one week he was playing second, another week he was playing the outfield. Super flexible. Is this Chase your timeline?

No, this is Sterling Thompson. Sterling Thompson? Yeah, Sterling Thompson. Can he play center field? I think he was playing the outfield super flexible no this is sterling thompson sterling thompson yeah sterling can play centerfield he i think he was in centerfield he's definitely in the outfield is where he's playing and he's and he and i talked about it he's there but no no he played it in season two no i mean he's not good though no no he's good i mean not maybe like elite not victor scott i i i got a i got like a dh first base vibe i thought he hasn't even played first base here yet. I mean, just like future.

Like, this is a guy who's going the wrong direction. Like, it's not going to be a center fielder. I'm fine with wherever he goes. My point would be that he can play all those spots, and that's going to get you to the majors. The bat looks amazing. And if you can play four or five different spots, me personally, I'm not grading in real-life prospect stuff, so I don't care if he plays center field.

Give me him second base all day long. I'd him or first is be would be fine so i really like him he's uh i think he's top 10 in woba uh down here and um he there's a i can make a recommendation down on the farm is uh an interesting site with a newsletter and uh they send me uh you know daily updates from or maybe weekly from the AFL with exit velocity numbers on them. He has hit the ball like 111 already, I think. So hits the ball hard, makes contact, has a good sense of the zone. My only question mark was the defensive part.

If they're still running him out at center, then he at least probably can play left and right. I've definitely seen him play right, and I want to say at center, but you go to five or six games a week and everything just kind of molds in together. But just a couple other names to throw out. I love Chase DeLauder. I still think he is the most major league ready guy.

I think he looks like a major league player. He's got a weird swing. I probably don't have time for it. I would have loved to have kind of gotten into the oddities of his swing that people focus on, where it's a little trout-like and it doesn't have like full extension. It ends, but he has more walks and strikeouts. He was leading in RBI for a long time. He's just got some of the easiest power.

He steals bases. He's very, and the Peoria team is just great. And Jacob Marcy is another one of those guys that I talked about the other day, just all fields contact. He's got power. He can run. Peoria has got some really exciting guys. What do you spell?

DeLauder? Marcy. Oh, M-A-R-C-E-E. And Marcy got up to double A. He is, I think, tied for stolen base leader. I believe it's 17 or 19 is AFL record, and he's going to push that. He's going to probably push that marker. He has hit three homers off of lefties as a lefty.

We had some interesting stuff we talked about. I love walking strikeout numbers like this. Yeah, so I think there's a lot of conversation around Marcy. I think he's a big sleeper. DeLauder is someone I want to invest in, and Sterling Thompson. Those three are real good standouts I would pay attention to here. Outside of some obvious players. Kevin O'Connor, of course.

Sure. Kyle Manzardo, of course. James Triantos, of course. But Graham Pauly, behind the Graham Pauly hype? I did, but I love the power. I love the swing. But it's pretty messy on the contact. He went through like a two-week hitting 200 rut, a lot of strikeouts.

I think he looks like a good player, first base, third base in the outfield, but the first week I would have taken him over Marcy. I feel very confident Marcy over Pauly right now, if I were investing. James Triantos, driveline hitter. Oh. Well. I got a list. Jacob Berry, Jacob Hortibis. Hort. Well. I got a list. Jacob Berry,

Jacob Hortibis. Hortibis. Hortibis. Hortibis. Caleb Durbin and James Triantos, if you care about those things. All four.

I don't love giving, like, there's no tread. They went to tread. Okay, fine. Bad pitchers went to tread, too. Yeah. You don't really hear about them.

Yeah, right. So I'm not saying that's like a stamp of approval. But, I mean, driveline hitting is doing some things that are a little bit different than other places. They're really, really into bat speed more than a lot of other places. And I think it's an interesting conversation because bat speed is negatively correlated

with in-zone whiffs. There is maybe just a base level of bat speed that's enough, and maybe you don't need to keep pushing it. But you also look at the best power hitters in the league, and they all have the best bat speed. Who are the four again? It was Hurtubise, Jacob Berry, James Triantos, and Caleb Durbin. Three of those five are in the top 22 in batting average in this league. And Hurtubise, I think, was player of the week. Caleb Durbin, I'm obsessed with, even though he's 5'6".

He's awesome. Triantos is second. I know. Sorry, Boggs. Triantos is second and going to probably win the MVP out here. I mean, all of those. It's a pretty good list, right? Yeah, it's a pretty good list.

All of those guys have shined in different areas here, so there's that obvious correlation. Any closing thoughts here before we sign off? Com Manzardo was cool. You guys are cool. Everybody here watching is cool. Pretty sweet. Even you.

Collette's all right. I said you. He's all right. Collette's all right. Nah, Collette's a great friend of the pod. We appreciate all of you for being here. It's, again, probably the best trip of the year every single year. With that, we'll sign it off. We'll thank

Kyle Manzardo once again for stopping by. Thanks to Mr. James Gale for producing everything all weekend, which is a nice load off my shoulders. I love not having to produce the show, so that's wonderful. Thanks a lot for listening to us. We're back with you next week. Thanks for listening.

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