Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Midseason Movers

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh are looking at prospect promotions, Druw Jones vs Colt Keith, Dylan Crews/Paul Skenes fantasy value and more. Rundown Colt Keith - 1:20 Dustin Harris - 9:50 Noelvi Marte - 21:28 Jared Jones - 26:48 Druw Jones Injury - 31:33 Colt Keith or Druw Jones? - 38:56 Ronny Mauricio - 42:09 Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes fantasy rank - 48:07 Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Check out these offers from our ad partners.... Right now, Nuts.com is offering new customers a free gift with purchase and free shipping on orders of $29 or more at Nuts.com/rates Go to zbiotics.com/rates to get 15% off your first order when you use RATES at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. You live for experience and lead by example. You want the most out of life and realize what you're looking for is already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces. A message from the Government of Canada. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, June 27th. That means it is Project Prospect Day here on the show.

Derek Van Riper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh all here in the house this week. Lots to cover. I tried to make the rundown smaller to give us a chance of getting through it. We have a lot of promotions as we look for players who might debut in the big leagues in the second half of the season. It feels like that big wave of first half call-ups is finally coming to an end, but that means there's more players we could see possibly in July or August or September of this year. Some of those players are going to play in the Futures game on the Saturday of All-Star weekend, so we'll talk about those rosters because those were recently released. Welsh has been at the Complexes in Arizona, so we got some observations from him.

Got a few mailbag questions, time permitting, as well as there are a lot of questions about Dylan Cruz and Paul Skeens rolling in fresh off of LSU's College World Series win on a Monday night. So we begin today with some promotions, gentlemen. on a Monday night. So we begin today with some promotions, gentlemen. We've got several players getting bumps up that could make an impact in the big leagues. And I actually wanted to start with Colt Keith today. Colt Keith, because I think the Tigers are one of those teams that haven't really brought a lot of guys up. We've seen Reese Olsen debut on the pitching side. You've got Colt Keith and Justin Henry Malloyoy who's also going to be in the futures game as two

position players that should have a chance to make some kind of impact later on this year and i think the good news is if you spend a lot of fab already and you're thinking about future spending you may be able to add both of those guys at relatively low cost based on when they come up but the bigger question is are they good? Welsh, are we to be excited about Colt Keith and Justin Henry Malloy as players that might come up later on this season and actually take on some prominent spots in that rebuilding Tigers lineup? Both players good.

Got to see both of them last year in the Arizona Fall League. I mentioned it. Arizona Fall League. Got to see both these players. No shocker. A lot of these guys that come up. Colt Keith was one that actually stood out last year as well he was one of those I had

pinpointed as a player that I thought in the AFL could really dominate and he did especially on the back end and he's carried over into this year he spent most of his time at AA done a really good job hitting over 300 almost a 400 OBP the power has surged that was a big thing I was waiting for

actually it's like it lasted bat in the fall league last year. I've got on video if anyone wants to check it out. Beautiful homer. He crushed over left field. Plays, at least last year when I saw him in person, a kind of suspect third base. He can play any of the corner infield spots. Makes a lot of contact. Someone asked me about him

the other day, and I likened him to maybe it might be one for one one but I was thinking maybe a better power potential Ty France type of player can make a lot of contact barrels the ball not going to be an elite home run hitter I think there is more power for the potential to happen and this year I think he's kind of answered every single call I just don't know defensively how they're going to manage him and how I haven't paid attention to how, you know,

the positive reactions have been for his defensive side. If he could play third base for them, but I really like him. And I think he's the big offensive side. We're just in Henry Malloy. I saw play multiple positions, makes a ton of contact. I don't think he's exceptional as far as power or speed go.

I think this is a player that could hit down the road, like be like a number three hitter, almost like a Lourdes Gurriel, like Lourdes Gurriel is doing. He's having a little bit of power surge, but again, he's not a big power or speed guy, but makes a ton of contact where someone might want to put him three,

maybe even two. But if I was making a bet on one of these players this year, Colt McCoy, I think makes the bigger Colt McCoy, Colt Keith, Texas Colt McCoy, my head Colt Keith. Famous Colts for 300, please. Yeah, all the Colts. bet on one of these players this year colt mccoy i think makes the bigger uh colt colt keith texas colt mccoy my head colt famous colts for 300 please yeah all the colts makes the better offensive uh upside for fantasy would be colt keith over malloy at least in my my thoughts yeah i really i was there uh at that at that fall league talking to Colt Keith about how he seemed like a let it travel guy.

He didn't, he had, he had shorter pull rates in the lower, in the lower leagues and a ball about a 34% pull rate. So I was talking to him about being a let it travel guy and what he was doing at the AFL. talked to him about being a lead a travel guy and what he was doing at uh the afl and and cole key said that he was there to learn to get the ball out front and to kind of toggle that pull push uh ratio to kind of get more power while not striking out a lot more and i think what's so cool about the uh a ball uh that he sort of finished with last year. And then what he's done this year at AA is that the whiffs have gone down while the pull rate has gone up.

And so this year at AA, Colt Keith has a 45% pull rate and a 260 ISO. And this is kind of my favorite player, you know, profile sometimes in terms of like, could he put a good batting average together with good power? And I think guys that can both pull and push and can do so selectively while having a sub 10% swing strike rate, I think that's the kind of guy we talk all the time. How is this strikeout rate going to port it over i think it's

going to pour it over well i think he's going to strike out less than 20 to 24 25 percent of the time and um and i think he's going to have a 200 iso or better and put those two together with him you're talking about good players and also uh his ground ball rate on top of all of that you like adjusting to how you're hitting you're not striking out more you're successfully pulling and his ground ball rate is the lowest of his career it dropped down to 34 in double a where it was 45 or higher the last three stops in the minor league so i mean those are three successful changes for this guy who has some high upside potential that I think scream jumping on scream jumping on because I'm really glad you mentioned the the pull rate change because that's

the most significant but on top of not like you know while the adjustments happening hitting more ground balls or striking out more none of those things are happening he's a super super smart kid and he still has that ability that's in him of letting the ball travel a little bit and just you know working on your pitch recognition or um leaning back on your pitch recognition what he's doing and he's hitting 325 he's he's kind of a sneaky monster i think the amount of playing time the tigers were giving to nick maytom before they optioned him he's basically been the regular third baseman for a long stretch this season season. That's one spot that's open. They're playing Andy Abanez a lot right now, kind of at second and third.

That's another guy that you could probably play less, especially if you bump Jonathan Scope off the roster before the end of the season. That seems inevitable. So it's really easy to make room for both of these guys. Yeah, Cole Keith is playing second and third. He's played DH2, but it's basically two-thirds, third base, and then splitting the last one-third between second and DH for Colt Keith and the Miners.

So I think that's it. Scope is the name. He's going to go soon. And when that happens, Andy Ibanez can DH for them when Miguel Cabrera's not playing. Andy Ibanez can play the outfield. Andy Ibanez may or for them when Miguel Cabrera is not playing. Andy Ibanez can play the outfield. Andy Ibanez may or may not be part of the future. So maybe I think what they're trying to do is see how much is Andy Ibanez part of the future.

I did a quick query here to find some possible comps for Colt Keith in the majors. Kept the strikeout rate under 24%. The ISO over 200. And I'm looking at guys who don't have really big pull rates. You know, Paul Goldschmidt is on this list. This is the second show in a row where I'm comping somebody to Paul Goldschmidt. Let me just leave him off. All reynolds anybody else oh here's an interesting one spencer okay spencer steer seems like a kind of reasonable expectation for a comp i like that spencer steer

uh you know uh will smith doesn't strike out um even close to 20 so i don't think him but anthony santander there's a there's more pull there are there any bad names because this is a pretty good list of names you're throwing out here oh well there's a lot that pull more um christian walker rafael devers um you know those are those are on the high end if he starts accessing like 240 power but you know down by 200 there's a lot of guys around him that just have way bigger pull rates like lindor and paredes are right there and jose ramirez um but it's a lot of good players in that yeah but they i mean yeah if i tell you that the guy's going to strike out less than 24 percent time and have a ice over 200 i don't even have to tell you the pull part.

These are all good names. Yeah, that's a good combination of skills. Yeah, I mean, the worst name, Lourdes Gurriel is on here, but that was your Malloy. That was Justin Henry Malloy, yeah. I mean, what's the worst name on here? I mean, Marcel Azuna, I guess, but he's having a good year. So that, that didn't even count. Jorge Soler is on here,

but that's the higher end of the power. Yandy Diaz is on here. I mean, there's, it's a, the whole list is good. So if he can manage less than 24%, a strikeout rate and the over 200 ISO,

he's going to be a good player. All right. Well, we can move on to a couple other players who were recently promoted within their organizations. Dustin Harris in the Rangers organization promoted the AAA. And if I remember correctly, at some point, you know, Dustin Harris was someone you either featured as prospect of the week or mentioned as a prospect of the week years ago. He's a guy that I've really liked.

You know, again, he's got these really nice walk rates. The swift rate has been climbing. He's kept the strikeout rate under 23% or around 23% this year, but the whiff rate has climbed from kind of 7% to 8% to around 12% for Dustin Harris. So I'm cautiously optimistic about his strikeout rate. I do think he's got a good hit tool. The power has been up

and down. And so what I was really excited about him was after the end of 2022, he'd had an ISO over 200 and a strikeout rate under 20% at high A and double A, Dustin Harris had and with steals. This year, the ISO has gone down to 162. And so I think it's fair to wonder what his true talent power looks like. But he's also, surprisingly to me, I guess, I don't know if I just missed the boat on this, but he's 25 out of 27 on stolen base attempts. So I think I saw the fact that he was listed as a first baseman and thought, you know, uh, this guy,

you know, he's not gonna, he's, this guy's not gonna be fleet of foot, but, uh, I had that wrong. He's playing a lot more corner outfield,

Dustin Harris's. So I think I'm going to revise my expectations down to more of a, like a two 60 hitter with 20 hovers and 20 steals, uh, that plays left field. The problem that I have with him is that Ezekiel Duran is playing really well for the Rangers. And so I'm not sure that I see a real opening for Dustin Harris this year without injury.

Because Leotis Tavares has really taken it off. And as much as Robbie Grossman and Travis Giancousi are boring, Ezekiel Duran is playing and playing well. And with Mitch Garver on that team, Duran needs to play in the outfield and he has been playing the outfield. So, you know, this is a stacked team all of a sudden. And, uh, I don't think they'd bring up Dustin Harris to replace Robbie Grossman as the fourth outfielder.

Yeah, I don't think so. I think I see a little more of a speed over power contribution from Harris based on what we're getting from him in the upper levels of the minors, but I do think being in a situation where the Rangers are scoring a ton of runs, but they don't necessarily have a glaring hole in the lineup

at the moment, that makes it harder for him to break through than it is for those two Tigers prospects that we just talked about. Real quick on Leote Tavares Welsh. This is, to me, a good reminder of sometimes it just doesn't happen on our timetable. I mean, this is a guy that was on prospect list years ago, was a redraft darling after he debuted as a possible speed play,

an up-and-down guy for the better part of three seasons, and now it does seem like everything is kind of falling into place. He's doing a good job not chasing a ton of pitches outside the zone. The hard hit rate is up a bit this year. There's some speed and power. We knew there was going to be speed, but eight homers this year in just 64 games is a pleasant surprise. Do you believe in Leone Tavares as the prospect that finally put it all together just on a different timeline than we wanted?

Yeah, I mean, it's not a linear path this is we did the same thing with a story ruiz you know he had like three years of um being mediocre that no one cared about anymore it was swing and miss and couldn't hit for contact like there's so much that goes into this and it's sometimes if you go back to like day one to then present, it would look like, Hey, look, it was all happy, but then the waves and the ups and downs and the od is like you said, a total prime example of that.

Best hard hit numbers of his career so far in the majors expected, really expected stats kind of across the board are just in line with where he currently currently is max CV over over 90 which you like to see and barrel percentage is at least rising it's the highest of his career i think instead of being the high upside you know at the time we looked at him as like a 2020 guy that's kind of that marker of like the elite prospect i think he's putting himself into a really good position to be like a 15-15 guy. And a lot of these players, the amount of time it takes to learn to pull, not hit ground balls while hitting for power and maintaining pitch recognition

and kind of determining what player you are, sometimes it takes a year, sometimes it takes five years. And I think he's just settling into this solid 15-15 player, but maybe there's more change in there. Maybe he's going to hit for a little bit more power. Maybe he will run a little bit more either way. He's just been solid and he, and you know, he's overtaken Bubba Thompson.

Bubba Thompson was the guy last year that I think everybody would have started to clamor for because he was stealing bases at a really aggressive clip, but Leo Tavares has built a floor. So I think this is sustainable if your expectations are like 15-15. But funny enough, Ezekiel Duran is the most exciting of all of these guys.

And he looks like the best floor with fantasy upside. And I think that does put a little bit of a cap on not just Dustin Harris, but throw out Evan Carter. You know, you talk about

Dustin Harris coming up. Evan Carter was another one of those guys that might have been the player that came up soon. And he's a guy that is 100% in the plans. And then a third is Luis Angel Acuna has been playing.

I believe he played center field the other day. So the Rangers have also moved him into playing a little bit of outfield. So you've got Harris, Carter, and Acuna, maybe all vying for what? One outfield spot in the near future. So what fantasy value any of them brings this year? I think it's pretty minimal to what you guys just talked about, but Dustin Harris might be the best short term

of those players because of some position flexibility as well. He can play first base. He can play those corner outfield spots and some stolen bases. But yeah, I buy into Leote Tavares as the 15-15 capped player. Yeah, a lot of red lollipops on the StatCast page.

And in places that really matter as far as keeping the playing time steady, too. Defensively, grading out very well in center field. 93rd percentile in outs above average. 90th percentile in outfielder jump. 92nd percentile in arm strength. He's also 94th percentile in sprint speed. But putting most of the offensive characteristics we want on top of that. I almost wondered a few years ago, I think it was 2021 at AAA,

he started to get to more power. I wondered if that almost led to some bad habits. Sometimes you see guys that get into those hitter-friendly environments, especially in the PCL. The ball starts flying, and, oh, I'm a power hitter now. I can launch the ball more than I should, and you make different swing decisions maybe some of that was happening it's like what happens with pitchers and

people got to remember this all the time you know you get like a college pitcher that goes to low a or high a and can dominate with you know let's just say the fastball and you can just pump fastballs left and right sometimes you're going to see some growing pains when you get into uh when you get into double a or you know you see those 22 year old there's a couple of these guys 21 22 year old pitchers that are down in low a just absolutely dominating and you got to remember how much is that pitch mix really being taken advantage of because they can do one thing really really well and the same thing kind of happens for hitters like oh i know i can just sit on the fastball and i can pull the living crap out of it but getting into being able to hit opposite field or not try to get the ball on the ground,

there's just, there's so much adjustment period of time that like for people, for fantasy, you always have to decide who are you? You only care about now proximity and using prospects as assets to move through. Are you here in the longterm to take advantage of some of the best skill sets? Cause it might be a little bit more brutal, but the can be way way more um uh appetizing when these guys actually do work out if you can wait for them yeah i mean i i don't see a lot you know in terms of learning lessons for the future about taveras i don't necessarily see a lot before 2020 where i'm like oh i need to i need to track this player i need to have this

player on my minor league rosters though you know it's a sub 100 thought huh he was almost a complete afterthought to your point like we were like all right we're done we're done with him goodbye i don't even know if we talked about him on the outfield preview we did three different episodes digging through the entire outfield pool back in the winter. And I don't recall us even mentioning Tavares. I mean, that's how... Oh, you mean this year? For this year, yeah. Yeah.

I think the thing that... I'm trying to look pre-2020 because at least this year, we had a three-year track record of a guy who was basically nearly average with a stick and had speed. So, you know, I could totally see drafting him this year as a late you know draft and hold or even a bench piece in a 15 teamer where you're like i didn't draft enough speed and this guy might take the opening day role and you know what i'm saying like there's there's a draft case for him this year but i'm saying roll it back all the way to 2020 before he had ever played the major leagues you're looking at a minor leaguer there There's, I feel like there's a lot of minor,

minor leagues like this, right? Like a 7% walk rate, a 20% strikeout rate and a sub 100 ISO. That's not a, that's not a collection of players that I want to, you know, have a ton of shares of,

you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And then it all comes back to, you know, really hat tip to like the scouting people very very early on that you can see the skill sets they see what can be had you know they didn't they they had the lego instructions and they're like i know that this thing can be this really

awesome lego car and everyone's like well this is just a bunch of jumbled pieces but they have the right and luckily you're in the right place he's kind of an example of when we talk about oh if you put together the best pieces out of what he's done so far he's kind of done that which is why i don't think there's another level sure i think this might be close to his peak that's why i capped him like 15 15 i think it's kind of like the cap of who he is maybe there's something there but there's no like you're saying there's really nothing to tell us what is that going to be it's the only the only clue is like The only clue is the max EV is further away from his barrel rate than some other players. So maybe he could tap into that max EV a little bit more and barrel some more.

But given those sub 100 ISOs when he's coming up, I know he's bigger, he's stronger, he's 24 now. I don't see a 200 ISOo coming out of this guy i think dustin harris clearly has more power and uh and so a lot of this is tied to the those defensive stats so i'm glad you brought that up because i do think he's probably a steady performer for you know five six years but i don't know that he's going to have a peak season that's amazing and i don't know um that you know once the defense starts to fall apart I don't know that, you know, once the defense starts to fall apart, I don't know if he'll have a super long career. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze.

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comes from, it's because of outcomes like that. I think watching him yesterday and I still don't really like anything about him as a player, but you're right. I love this. This is so good for me. He's super young.

I need, I need, he looks like a kid out there. I need you to not like that. I couldn't believe it. I was like, who let the 16-year-old on the field? That's what I'm saying. He won't look like that forever, most likely. Most likely.

Let's move on to Noel V. Marte, another Reds prospect moving up. He's at AAA. We've talked a lot about the crowding that is already happening there, so we don't have to rehash all of that, but I think the question is, Welsh, I know you've had chances to see Noel V. Marte since he's been on two organizations that have spring facilities in Arizona. There's some

power, there's some speed. Is he putting it all together to the point where you see a guy that's an easy 2020 player that plays third base or in the outfield? Where does he fit even on a less crowded team because there's a possibility he gets traded again given the reds need for pitching i do think that's a possibility because like you said they're crowded across the board i don't know if anything

comes easy for noel v i got super critical of him uh there's this big thing like a year and a half ago or so about how big he got and i was like all, all right, let's wait for it. And then I get to see him again and he looks slower, played really bad defense more recently, contact skills down. He was swinging through everything lower in the zone, back into the AFL. He kind of picked it back up. The encouraging stuff is his strikeout percentage has dropped this year.

It's on, it's at 17% in AA prior to the promotion. But it's a little weird with all those whiff rates next to him. Yeah, well, and that's the thing. 17% with an 11% whiff rate? And I don't believe, like, I'm worried he's going to be a much bigger strikeout guy than what the minor league numbers are giving, especially with some of the pitch recognition stuff

with him. But you know what? He's also still adjusting. You want to talk to age to level, he's 21 years old, and he's going to AAA. Is he big? How does the power play? Because those power numbers are not great.

Yeah, he got big. Actually, it was like the play-in game for the AFL. He absolutely destroyed one at Peoria that went past the grass. I mean, he has got big, you know, four 50 plus type of power. It's just, can he tap into it? And you've got these numbers up on the board. You can actually see that maybe some of the lowering of the pole has been to make better contact because you have seen some of the contact numbers get

better this year. The two 81 batting average is the best he's had since his high A with the Reds. And that was only in his Reds period of time. Results contacts on these numbers that you're seeing on YouTube right now, like basically a 180 ISO for all that. So it's a little bit weird for me to see a guy, you know, 55, 56, 60% pull rates, not all on the ground. that produces 180 iso it's uh there's something weird about that for me bottom line for me with him with how the body really got

thicker and bigger i mean they list him at 216 i mean i've seen him probably closer to 230 i just don't think he's gonna run aggressively so. So, you know, cool. He's probably not going to be a shortstop, especially given the team contact, almost a hundred percent, not going to be a shortstop. Even if he's traded, I don't think he is. He worked a ton at third base. I think left field, right field, you know, he's got the arm. So there's a potential. He could definitely be a right fielder pending where the body goes. Just don't think he's going to steal. I think there's 25 plus power in there. I don't think there's elite contact in there. I don't think he's a high batting average player.

I think a guy like Colt Keith might be a better fantasy option than Noel V. Marte, but that might be me just kind of backtracking on. I just don't think because you watch develop guys develop and stuff. He has declined in a lot of areas, though. You go and look and you're like wow 17 like you said 17 k rate that looks good it just doesn't equate with the swinging strike rate and i just don't know i don't know how the bumps and bruises are going to look over the next couple years but hey listen he got promoted to triple a he might get a cup of coffee later this year one year old

still 20 better than the average and no doubt double, no doubt. He's still a great buy, but I'm kind of a sell on Noelvi if he's producing at a high level. I would be personally, in fantasy circles, trying to get out once the value has pushed back up. Especially if he gets traded out of Cincinnati, then he doesn't get the benefit of Cincinnati. And we're looking at, obviously, you've got McLean and Ellie. You've got Steer, who I think creates a problem, you know, a good problem,

but in the lower weird that Marte hasn't picked up an outfield glove yet. I think it is weird. And also at the lower levels, you've got cam Collier. Who's a big prospect, Carlos Jorge, another middle infield prospect. I mean, they have got three or four more really Leonardo Balsicar who got hurt. for more Leonardo Balzacar who got hurt. They have got a handful of low A, high A, shortstop, middle infield, core infield prospects that it's like, I don't want to call any guy expendable

because they can move these guys in positions, but this team can move him if they want to make a run. I think he's the prime player to move because they've got guys coming in the near future and they're just stacked. They don't have a spot for him right now, to make a run. I think he's the prime player to move because they've got guys coming in the near future and they're just stacked. They don't have a spot for him right now, even in the majors. Yeah.

And even playing him at third base, I think opens up more opportunities for teams that acquire him. You know, if you keep them on the infield dirt, maybe there's a little more long-term value there before of an eventual move to the outfield. It is interesting to see the body changing that much at 21 years old. But I'm with you guys.

I think this is a trade for sure. Noel Imarte, I think he's the easiest player to deal right now. And they can get current big league pitching back as part of that return. A couple of names that people have heard a little less about. Jared Jones, a pitcher in the Pirates organization, already getting up to AAA. And I don't think Jared Jones is on my radar at all prior to seeing the note about his promotion on Rotowire, but not a bad prospect.

A second rounder back in 2020, a high school kid that actually throws pretty hard from the left side, was getting really nice results at AA this year. Only 44 and a third innings, pitched 122 and two thirds innings last year. So he won't get shut down early if he's healthy he's going to pitch all the way through the end of the season and

this could be a very brief late season debut i don't know if i'm necessarily thinking about him as much for redraft purposes as i am for keeper in dynasty leagues where he might still be unrostered yeah i uh contacted someone who'd seen him live a couple of times and they saw that when they saw him a few weeks ago, it was 100, 100, and then 92 on the slider for a K. So Jones has the,

the fastball velocity looks like a good hard slider, I guess a gyro slider from that below. And then if you're looking at the erosion of his strikeout rate at AAA, a couple things going on here. You've got a guy who wants to be a starter, wants to turn the lineup over, doesn't want to max out the strikeout rate as much as be able to stay in games

longer so there's a little bit of an effort there uh and then lastly where he's pitching it's abs so uh that can do funky things i think to strikeout rates to walk rates uh i look at the 16.5 swing strike rate for jared jones and in triple a and the 14 in double a and think this is a guy i like you look at the other prospects that are kind of ahead of him maybe in the pecking order quinn priester has been at triple a all season long i would imagine if they need somebody some bad things about his fastball shape, though, so I'm not sure that he's necessarily going to get the chance for us. He's kind of a straight-line pitcher, like you said, with the fastball. In seeing him multiple times and actually sitting behind backstop and watching the separation between –

This is Quinn Priester? Yeah, this is Quinn Priester. The separation on his pitches, I think he's easier to see for hitters, and I've seen him get beat up um he likes to sit on the secondaries and i just don't think they're that good fastball it's all right i'm not i'm not a big quinn priester guy i i like jared jones i actually think there might be some like brian woo type of thought process you could have in a player like him um you know still working through the walk still trying to figure out how to be a complete pitcher the k numbers dropping with the walk rate still over three per nine it's you know

it's a it's a little bit worrisome on couldn't priester fastball forcing fastball stuff plus in triple a 72.9 yeah that's not a major league fastball no the sinker uh a little bit better 91 uh he could be a sinker first guy so then he'd be sinker curve or sinker curve slider that's all good and stuff but what is he going to do against lefties um and i see four cutters in here but i don't know if he's actually throwing a cutter and um if the fourth seam is really that bad, I think he's going to really struggle against lefties. That would be my prediction on Priester is a struggle against lefties. Yeah, I think the thing that I'm noticing is last outing at AAA

actually was his best of the season. Six scoreless, just two walks, 11 Ks, scattered three hits. So in June... If you do that, I guess you do get a chance first over jones yeah 29 to 12 over his last 29 innings for strikeout to walk that's probably enough to get him that look but jones might be the guy that's a little overlooked relatively speaking in the organization i mean to me i think there's a corollary almost with the oviedo um and and ortiz thing going on in the major leagues which is um you know obiato is a guy they they wanted they targeted they traded for him they got him he has certain things that

are nice like his secondary is his breaking balls are very hard but he also gets blasted a lot and i personally don't like him that much and i don't think his fastballs are any good ortiz is a guy who has really good fastballs before command that I'm more excited about that's behind him right and so I think I might I might just end up doing a very similar thing where Priester gets the first shot but I'm more excited about Jared Jones that's a totally viable way to go about it we got some other injury news to pass along. Drew Jones suffered a setback with his hamstring injury. Well, you actually saw it happen. Yeah, it was over at the complex, and it was a weird play,

and I'm still beating myself for stopping. Sometimes I'm filming things, and you're like, oh, okay, here's an easy out, and you just stop recording. So Drew's up for his third at bat, and bases are loaded, and he beats one into the ground. And there's a bigger conversation. I am a little bit worried about Drew. Just overall.

Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm very worried about what I'm saying. He cannot get the ball in the air. Uh, I don't, his swing still looks great, but his picture recognition is off. He's making really poor contact and I am worried a little bit long-term. So he beats his ground into the ball and to the, into the ground and it goes to the shortstop. And I'm like,

okay, I'll stop recording. Well, complex league dude throws it. It's this is the giants. It goes past the first baseman. Drew goes over to second, two guys score guys on third guy on third says,

I'm going to score comes in. They throw it goes past him. Oh no. He comes in and Drew's on third and they can gonna score comes in they throw it goes past him oh no he comes in and drew's on third and they can't get to the ball so drew runs from third you can see he is gassed and i and he's going slow and he dives in and he scores a little league grand slam because it's all errors and nothing counts in here but he got that would have been nice to have on on tape i'm so mad i stopped recording i'm so mad i stopped recording i'm so mad i stopped recording but he laid on the ground for a minute absolutely gas and exhausted which

was also a little concerning like you shouldn't be that gas and i mean i i would be i would be dead he got up and not like 19 year old yeah exactly 170 pounds yeah you didn't go second in the draft last year yeah not and not quite second, not quite there. But he gets up and he walks slowly over to the dugout and they took him out of that game. And I think it was on that turn to third, he pulled his hamstring. But the bigger problem, there's two things here.

This is third injury that he's had now. And this is something to really keep an eye on. I will tell you this, from my interview I did with him in spring training to now, it was weird because he is physically bigger. His neck was bigger. It was the thing that jumped out immediate to me. He obviously has gained weight, which you want to wait, but his neck was so much bigger

than it was before. Like, so you can start to see the muscle in the body. And I think there's a lot of body changes that are happening. And I think that at least what I've seen, I think some guys really struggle with the change from like that younger, you know, kid body to the adult major league rigorous training body. And I think that could be playing a role in this.

That's maybe me compensating a little bit for it, but I'm really worried about the gameplay because this happened in Visalia. It happened here. Everything is in the ground right now. So I got 75% ground ball rate for his career. Yeah. I'm not really sure what's happening with it. And it's, it's a rough look when you compare to what Jackson holiday is doing. I mean, Jackson holiday has almost become a unanimous number one overall prospect. The hard hit numbers are going crazy. Guy walks at a 400 OBP everywhere. I think

in the last 30 days in his league, he leads and walks again, which he's done. He's a monster. And the separation between those two are really big. So I'm second guessing as someone who is a big Drew Jones guy that, you know, between three injuries, really crazy high ground ball rates and not making great baseball on field baseball decisions that I just need to step back as far as where his value is right now. I think it does lead to maybe a goodbye opportunity because there's, you know,

negative thoughts on there and I'm going to bring him down, but I'm not going to destroy his value because he's still a super talented player. This might be a wash year, which really stinks. And we've, we're doing a little bit too much of that with diamondback prospects. But I also point out like,

even though you've had washed years with like Jordan Lawler and you had one with Quentin Carroll. There's a bunch of ones in the major leagues that are doing pretty good. They're working out. They're working out. So you still go on the side of talent.

I've seen major huge adjustments that he has made just physically, but that was the reason behind the injury. And he's not going to get back into games, which is going to be complex because he was supposed to go to Visalia this weekend and go back to A-ball. He's now staying and he's going to play in complex leagues again mid-July. So hopefully he's back in Visalia.

And I'm just hoping we're going to see some big baseball changes. But he's got enough to focus on just trying to get himself healthy. Then maybe that's curbing some of the developmental stuff he needs to do. Like, you know, hit the ball in the air once or twice. Sometimes. Yeah.

Disappointing so far, but I think you're right. Probably creates a pretty good opportunity. If you want to go try and make a move for Drew Jones, you see someone contending and Drew Jones is stashed away on their roster as a future minor league. The timetable gets stretched out. People get a little impatient.

Sometimes you just see results that are as poor as what Jones has shown in that very limited time. He's even been healthy. And that spooks you a little bit, probably more than there's going to be a lot of negative. That's my big point here is like, I also don't think like I'm not paying for a top 25 prospect with him right now.

I want the discounts, but there's going to be a lot of negative stuff about Drew Jones. I think in the next like three or four months, not, you know, it's just injuries, performance performance ground ball rate comparisons to jackson holiday i think it's going to be a storm of stuff over the next couple months which is going to deflate a lot of the value and that i might wait a little bit more for that so you can

take advantage of it and it is interesting that he's also like he's a number two pick in the draft okay so that's like a marker in his value. And that's like, okay, now we can compare him to other number two picks in the draft. However, he's also a 19-year-old in Complex League. And that's another marker of where he is in his career and how likely he is to succeed. And both of those markers are very different. Well, he's only there because of the injuries, though. those markers are very different well he's only there because of the injuries though like he technically we should view him as a as an a ball guy from how the d-backs well i just also mean

like how far away he is and how likely he is to be a major leaguer even if he was an a ball like high you know low a like it wouldn't matter that much it would still be you know like i still i still invoke the name of hedbert perez know, although that's very different because Hedbert Perez was like, what, like a $50,000, you know, in international signing and not a second pick in the draft. And that was, he also wasn't eligible to go in the draft. So we don't have the draft marker for a lot of these international guys. So I don't know. I'm, I'm digressing,

but what I'm saying is we have a couple of pieces of information on Jones, maybe three pieces, a very small piece of information on Jones, maybe three pieces, a very small piece of information on how he plays on the field, which we could almost ignore if the other two markers were great. But the other two markers are, you know, they're going in different directions. Yeah. And I would lean on the side of skills overall over like what's gone on this year, because

sometimes there is just throwaway years and it's just a disaster from so many standpoints surgery. And, but the worst part about this is to your point of how far off he is, this is going to come back to that. Like Corbin Carroll's in the majors and Marco Luciano's hitting it. A ball like Jackson holiday legit might be with the Orioles next year. And Drew Jones is going to be lucky to be out of high a next year. I mean,

those guys might be at least sort of, I was pointing to, I like, I don't know. He's not the number one player. If I'm selling, he's not the number one player in the, in the,

in the deal coming back. Probably. Yeah. I mean, most likely I don't want it to be. Yeah. I get that. Unless it's a small deal where I'm like,

I'll give you this like, you know, old pitcher. You trade Colt Keith to get Drew Jones. No. See, I think that's a, that's a dynasty,

like prospect the type of trade where someone's like, Ooh, I want this prospect. That's going to get production now. And someone who maybe is rebuilding is like, well, I can, I would trade Drew Jones to get Colt Keith.

I don't know which one you're asking me. I was saying, would you trade Colt Keith to get Drew Jones? But you're saying it both ways. You definitively. So that, that's a, that would be a fun one you're asking me. I was saying, would you trade Colt Keith to get Drew Jones? But you're saying it both ways definitively. So that would be a fun one. DVR, do you agree? I'm on Drew Jones. If that's my choice, I'm taking Drew Jones.

I'm the one trading Colt Keith in that situation. Yeah. I'll take a chance. Three years of production before Drew comes up. So I get that. But it's just the potential of the number one overall prospect. My problem is I'm worried how much that starts to fade. I haven't seen drew run a whole bunch in the games that I've seen like at

all. So how aggressive is he going to run and where is he going to start tapping in? But that's why I'll make, I'll make bigger decisions on him next year instead of being crazy reactive this year. But I do want to buy. This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

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All access membership separate. Terms apply. You know, speaking of players who have been dealing with injuries in big ways recently, Brennan Davis is out with core muscle surgery. Last year was a back injury. So he played 45 games this year at triple a last

year he played 43 before he got hurt the slash lines are almost the same just brutal um k-rate got better this year but this is a guy who unfortunately has just lost a ton of prospect value yeah just not the same guy physically right now because of this this combination of injuries that he's had i think that's a a fair question to ask, especially as the younger pieces of that Cubs core start to come through the system. You could see Brennan Davis getting passed by guys like Pete Crow Armstrong. Oh, that one's not even a question. I mean, that's already happened on prospect list, but I'm just saying. But like Kevin Alcantara.

Yeah, that might be the next one. Now, that has also happened, but I've been very like defending of Brendan Davis for a long time because of the like tools. I'm big, you know, like, hey, if you got great tools, I want to bet on that. I'm kind of done. Like this, I actually worry,

this might be an outline of Drew Jones into the near future, which I really worry about. This is a guy that went from crazy, crazy skinny. And then one off season just added all this big muscle. And it has been injury after injury. I think he is insanely talented, but I'm out because it is, I haven't seen it materialize really at any point.

He doesn't steal a whole bunch. He's not hitting. He also, when he's been there, the guy hasn't hit over two 50 since 2001. I mean, that's not good. So I'm out on a Brennan Davis and Pete. Even with some okay.

Strikeout rates. It's a weird, weird. Yeah. Another injury, by the way, I'm nervous about anybody who strikes out 30% in the minors anyway. So yeah,

it is. Most people are another injury to point out in big prospect. Zach Veen also had a surgery, I believe on his wrist and is out for the year so you want to talk about a couple prospects we've lost not having the best year to begin with no we saw no power developing uh with him as well which is something we wanted to see him take the next step so two guys that are moving down list uh veen i still bet on a little bit more, but I'm pretty out on Brendan Davis. I don't want any part of it. Well, fire up the Tecmo player is healthy

and is being pushed out of the hospital music because Ronnie Mauricio is healthy again at AAA. We need a palate cleanser. We need someone coming back from injuries. They made that trade. They sent Eduardo Escobar to the Angels over the weekend. So I wonder if there is a better path now for Mauricio to break through

on this underwhelming Mets team. And I'll throw this to you first. What type of player do you think Mauricio is going to be based on what we're seeing from him in the upper levels of the Mets system? It's a really strange combo. I can't peg this strikeout rate.

Right now in AAA, Ronnie Mauricio has a 16% strikeout rate, but he has an 11% whout rate. Right now, in AAA, Ronnie Mauricio has a 16% strikeout rate, but he has an 11% whiff rate. And last year in AA, he had a 15% whiff rate and a 23% strikeout rate. The way that he doesn't strike out as much as his whiff rate suggests he will is by not walking and being super aggressive. So, you know, in the major leagues,

we're looking for, you know, a low K rate, low walk rate slugger. And Solaire kind of has been that type of guy. Ozzy Alves. Okay. That's a good, I mean, if that's who he is, you'd be excited about that for sure. If the strikeout rate is more than that, then we could be looking at uh starling marty like more vintage yeah he's not gonna he doesn't steal bases though yeah he's not gonna run i don't think like marty um yeah last season mauricio 20 for 31 double a as a base dealer this season he's 12 for 17. There's some Leote Tavares there,

but I think he has more power than that. Yeah, he does. Oh, Hunter Renfro? Hunter Renfro with some speed? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, 200 plus ISO, three last four stops in the minor. And Hunter Renfro has this 305 OBP

that I kind of think Mauricio might be around. Okay, yeah, so the reduced obp but does enough damage to make it work and kind of be a number six type hitter in a good lineup super valuable while you have him on cost control i i just i do wonder like if he's ever going to get like a a huge free agent deal you know which may not matter if you know if he's ever going to get a huge free agent deal, which may not matter. If he comes up and he's hitting 260 with 25 to 30 homers and 10 to 15 steals, the 305 OBP doesn't bother you that much unless it reduces the runs in RBI,

puts him lower in the order, but it means he probably has a job. The 116 max EV says the power is real. He's not getting there with his legs. I think this is real power with a super aggressive approach and a decent hit tool, but definitely some flaws still there as exciting as he's been. I believe on his return, they started working him in left field. I think he's working on some outfield right now,

just more flexibility for the team, and that kind of helps us as well for knowing whether he's qualifying at multiple positions in fantasy or not. It's just more opportunities for him to be playing with the big league team. Yeah, and Brett Beatty's defense has been a problem. He's also not hitting as much as I thought he was going to hit right away. So third base could become an issue too. Relevant to this discussion of Ronnie Mauricio,

Brett Beatty, and the New York Metropolitans is a tweet that just happened on the Twitter machine. Oh. Steve Cohen is going to personally have a press conference before the game on Wednesday. Okay. And he said, you will get it from me straight. Okay. This sounds like it's either going to be like, man, we're underwhelming.

Aren't we guys? Yeah, I kind of think he's going to get out there and be like, yeah be like yeah they should be playing better and we're gonna do everything we can to get better accountability thanks for coming today yeah exactly like okay so he'll own it he'll say this is my fault i'm the owner i hired the wrong people unless he's announcing that he's firing buck tomorrow and or billy epler okay so that's bigger so that would be the effort no that never happens on June 27. I'm sorry. We looked at this.

You wait until after the trade deadline? You don't fire the GM in the middle of the season. Yeah, sometimes they go before the end of the year. Yeah, but that's usually a rebuilding squad. That's like after the trade deadline. Right. I think he'll let Billy Epler sell pieces. That's the other thing.

The Mets could end up being another team kind of like the White Sox, where they've got plenty of useful big league players that they could flip, and suddenly being a seller in a league with a lot of buyers, thanks to expanded playoffs, they can at least help their future by

tearing up their present a bit more. Didn't the White Sox say, they're like, we're only going to trade little pieces, we're going to trade little pieces. Like, they won't trade anything that's going to bring actual value. Yeah, I think that would be the same, because the Mets still want to be competitive next year. So if they trade anything, it would be

people who are free agents next year. Carlos Carrasco, Mark Canna has a club option, David Robertson is a free agent, Adovino has an option, Tommy Pham is a free agent. Those are the types of players that they could trade. There could be some actual desire for some of these players. Scherzer, Verlander? It's more of a 3-0 show topic, so we'll save it for future 3-0s.

I don't think you'd do that because the Mets still want to be competitive next year. Another year on this core. They're not competing right now, but we'll move on. We'll move on to the summer dynasty consideration. We had a mailbag question from Terry. Terry wanted to know where we stack Dylan Cruz and Paul Skeens if we were ranking them just as like dynasty players right now. So before they actually officially could be on the list. So Welsh cruise first, like where does he fall for you in terms of his present dynasty value is some midsummer dynasty

drafts might be just around the corner. So if we're talking like just prospects for a minute, uh, in one of my updates, I do on my Patreon, the in this league.com i put my top 25 draft prospects earlier in the month and i put relative range of where i think i'm going to end up putting them and dylan cruz is going to be a top 10 top 10 overall prospect as soon as he's drafted like that's the type of ability we're looking at skeins i put top 20 but like someone had asked me this a couple weeks back like where do you think skeins would be as far as, you know, compared to the rest of the prospects right now? And it's like, once you get Gavin and Yuri off the board,

I think skeins is probably near number one. Some people like, um, Hurston Waldrop, like his stuff a little bit better out of Florida. But I mean, I think skeins is like the most complete guy. So it's like skeins versus Andrew painter.

Who's got injuries versus Ricky Tiedemann, who as far as I can tell, might have some injuries as well. These three, I think, sit in that range. So I would have Cruz, no doubt, top 10, probably even above guys like Junior Caminero that are in there, Evan Carter, Pete Crow Armstrong. And I'd have Skeens in that same general, probably more like top 15 now. So from a dynasty perspective, I think Cruz is a no doubt top 100 dynasty asset. And I think schemes is right there as well.

Especially if whoever drafts him tells us a narrative of like, Hey, we're just skipping him. You know, we're just not going to bother with the minor leagues or he's going to make a couple of starts and he goes up. I would just say it's safe to say they're both right near top 100 dynasty prospects with the smart play betting on hitters over pitchers unless maybe you're in a points league. What's your top 10?

Because I think a lot of those names you didn't mention in the top 10. It seems like Holiday, number one. Yep. Caminero. Lawler. You've got Lawler. Lawler, some people might. Carter.

Jackson Churio. Churio's still up there. What's your your ordering on those or just what's your general ordering or let me pull i'll pull this up here because i've got well i've got ellie ellie still qualifies so ellie is number one i've got jackson holiday to cheerio three lawler for james wood is another one of those who's up at double a he's five yuri is six but you could justify yuri up at yuri and ellie could be off so then we're forward yeah so they're going and royce i have at seven he'll be off and gavin i have at 10 so i have four players in my top 10 that will be coming off here in the short term the other names uh colton kouser caminero and then 11 is manzardo listen dylan

cruz i think now that i'm looking at this, Dylan Cruz is going to be top five. He'll be top five for me. And Skeens is probably, he would be the number one pitch. He'll probably be 10. So yeah, so they'll probably both be top 10 for me. Dylan Cruz at five. I've seen some lists out there. I can get with that. I think personally, though, I'm keeping Caminero over him. Over Cruz? I think so. It's not quite great. It doesn't port over.

There's a lot of people saying that Dylan Cruz is one of the best college players of all time. I was looking at his college stats, and they're kind of amazing. I think this year he has a 20% walk rate and a 13% strikeout rate. And I don't even want to report the slash line because it's college, but 426, 567, 713. Okay, so anyway, he's performed really well. almost double walks and strikeouts too by the way 46 strikeouts uh so he's really great drew gilbert uh as a player in tennessee was not necessarily uh as good but he you know he had a nice tournament run uh he was a first round pick by uh arizona uh you know

real flashy like you know high energy guy that uh a lot of people were like okay the astros got their shortstop their center fielder of the future hit the ground running really killed it in 2022 and 23 um you know in high a and then this year was promoted to double a and i think you you mentioned something about altuve saying this kid's ready um and so then i did a rehab stop and said this guy is ready for the majors now when he played with drew gilbert which you know they're gonna say but that's a pretty it's a it's a it's a pretty good comp for a player to throw out there yeah so then g then Gilbert was promoted to AA sometime shortly after that and then hit the biggest lump of his career.

And there's a great piece by Chandler Rome up on our site about this. Sounds like he had an elbow injury that was putting him on DH. Now, when you DH, you already have a sort of penalty versus when you play in the field but apparently with his kind of attitude his energy he really struggled to have an outlet for his negative energy when he did something bad on the plate and so he couldn't go out and make a dive and catch or whatever you know in center and and and kind of you know right ship. It's kind of the opposite of bringing your troubles out to the field

with you. He kind of used the field to dissipate some of those. So Drew Gilbert has hit this roadblock and he's 22 and he's probably still a good prospect. I don't think he belongs in the top

10 of your in the top 10 in this top 10 that we're talking about. But this is just an example of the things that can happen along the way. And as can't miss as Dylan Cruz looks, they also had a list up during the game of guys who'd won Golden Spikes, which is like, that's mvp of college right

yeah won the golden spikes and won it overall and won the won the championship the other names were tito francona who was the other one i was i was i was like what is this is the list oh man i wish i could remember the other one. One, Golden, Spikes, and National Champion. But Tito being on there, I was like, okay, not everyone who does this turns in an amazing... Ben McDonald was the other one, maybe? What a list. What a list, too.

Anyway, it was a short list, but it wasn't the best list the world and it's sort of all i'm saying is long-winded way of saying there's a lot of time between now and and dylan crew's making the major leagues and we haven't even seen him hit other pros we're just looking at college numbers and every year there are people who put up nasty, nasty, nasty college numbers that start with a four and start with a five and start with a seven. So, like, I just, I would rather have some guys that have suffered these things, like Drew Gilbert. And I'm not putting Drew Gilbert ahead of Dylan Cruz,

but I will put Junior Caminero, who's been through a lot of development time and is getting closer and closer. I would personally put Junior Caminero ahead of Dylan Cruz through a lot of development time and is getting closer and closer, I would personally put Junior Caminero ahead of Dylan Cruz. And I'd have them close. The one thing I wanted to bring up, because you looked this up before we started the show, I was really enamored in, if anyone watched that last game, the championship game for LSU, that Cruz, I think there's just a lot more power to be developed in him.

I think Tommy White has provided him the ability to be a little bit more patient. He's walked more. He's striking out less. He has protection behind him, but you saw he hit this oppo field ball one Oh seven. And I was like, man,

hitting it opposite field. One Oh seven is really something. And we went and took a look before the show and we were looking at Evie averages from hard pull to opposite field. And I don't want to take it from you. Do you want to mention what you saw? Just if not that it's a crazy correlative thing, but when you look at guys have big opposite field EVs, we noticed that there was a pretty big average difference between opposite field and pull power exit velocities. Yeah. And I should have known that,

but I also knew that just like given the same exit velocity, balls that are pulled perform better than balls that go the opposite way. So, you know, that was where I was coming at it. But then when we looked, it turns out that even hitting it hard the opposite way is harder. So the average ball the opposite way with no launch angle consideration, just the average ball hit the opposite way, 85 miles an hour. You know, up a little, down a little, 85 miles an hour.

The average pulled ball, up a little, down a little, 90 miles an hour. So you've got a five-mile-an-hour difference there, and I don't know if it's fair to say that 107 is a 112, but, you know, compared't know if it's fair to say that one Oh seven is a one 12, but you know, compared to average it's it's more. So, you know, seeing a one 12 like that and seeing the ability to go the,

the opposite way with it like that is pretty intense. The opposite field exit velocity leaders, again, no marker for exit for no marker marker for um launch angle but just you know who has 50 balls in play this year with opposite field uh you know uh exit velocity goodness aaron judge of course i mean he hits the ball hard everywhere bobby dalbeck second uh ronald lacuna jr yandy diaz, Corey Seager, Tommy Pham, Mark Vientos, Vladimir Guerrero, Matt Olson, Giancarlo Stanton, Darren Ruff.

You know, okay, so it's one of those lists where, you know, eight out of every ten are amazing players. Dylan Cruz. Yeah. Yeah, I was looking at guys that go the opposite way and hit it 100-plus how often that happens. Bo Bichette leads the league this year. 37 opposite field balls hit at 100 miles an hour or harder which is just head and shoulders better than anybody else julio rodriguez is second with

26 by the way but lots of good players in that list too yoshida goldschmidt nathaniel low so i was telling you too i actually think boba shett might be like categorically kind of an interesting comp for crews if you're looking at just stats you know from stolen bases to power to overall hit numbers like that could be he could be like a boba shet in the outfield that's some approach that seems similar you know the i guess one big difference is you know boba shet with a better plate approach that would be pretty exciting dude yeah you gave me you gave me boba shet with a better plate approach. I think he's definitely in my top 10. So both Cruz and Skeens rank very highly. These are legitimately great prospects that shouldn't take long.

I think the concern with Skeens would just be the number of innings he's thrown already. He threw 85 and two-thirds last year. He's at 120-plus. High below innings and high- high like high in these count high pitch count games i mean we were talking about quinn uh matthews the stanford starter being at 150 pitches you know i don't think his 93 mile an hour fastball is as stressful on his arm as skeens is 99 100 plus that he's throwing you know into the 110th and 120th pitch of his appearance. So definitely some concern there. Though he only has around a little over 100 innings total pitch

in his two previous years combined. So just throwing that out. The weight of a lot of it is this year and also just the amount of pitches he's going per performance. I mean, if you were to take the pitch count, he probably added in another three or four starts just on top of the amount of extra pitches that were put on top of it if he did that.

But it'll be an interesting case because I think there's something to be said. When I think of Paul Skeens, I also think of what Uri Perez is doing with the Marlins and this whole innings cap and how much of the science, you know, how much of the science are they leaning back into when it's like,

he's also amazing. Is he really going to fall apart? And it's like, if skeins falls apart, the amount of articles that are going to come out about the pitch count at the lower levels, destroying pitchers will come back up. But if he doesn't

i just i mean no one will probably talk about it but i just think about that and the correlated to like what yuri prez is doing and just the sadness of shutting these pitchers down because of um understandably but some of these arbitrary like you can only do this amount of innings over or the same thing in college or like this is the recommended amount of pitches a guy can go on, this amount of rest, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like sometimes let it eat. Let Uri Perez eat, please. Yeah, and just one last thought on Skeens, too. He was a closer his first year in college when he pitched at Air Force.

So maybe if a team wanted to throw him as a reliever a little bit this year, they could. But, I mean, you're talking about something you think is going to be at the front of your rotation. You're not going to gamble with the long-term health. To the Angels. He's going too high

for them to pick. Yeah, he won't end up there. We'll save the futures game talk for next week. The game will actually be played like 10 days from now, so we'll still have time to kind of preview the rosters.

We'll have some complex observations from Welsh. I had one mailbag question, just quick out the door sort of question many mo on the known a keeper league andrew abbott or gavin williams who would you take for me it's an easy williams but is there any case for andrew abbott that either of you want to make not me this is easy gavin williams for me but i don't know like maybe make the case that like the breaking ball is better for andrew abbott so you're kind of got maybe a breaking ball feel guy versus a you know fastball guy but like a bieber versus a you know garrett cole type of thing yeah maybe something

like that if you want to push it to the to yeah yeah but uh uh as tempted as i am to kind of go for bank ball guys i looked at the year-to-year correlation of all the different pitch types from my last article and the the tightest year-to-year correlation by and stuff plus year-to-year is the fastball that makes sense it's i think it's hard to change the shape of a pitcher's fastball. I think you can change shapes around it to make them fit, but they are what they are given their fastball. Gavin Williams has a good fastball. Andrew Abbott is okay. So I'm taking Gavin Williams' fastball.

Yeah, I think Andrew Abbott's going to be a solid or even good big league starter for a long time, but I think Williams has a better floor and even a higher ceiling based on what they can do right now. The park also works against Abbott quite a bit. Some of the strikeout numbers we saw, as we learned, were juiced by the pre-tacked ball at AA this year. There's a lot of stuff

going on, if you're number scouting especially, that might deceive you a little bit with Abbott's long-term value. It's part of why I think there's a big gap between where Abbott was ranked at the beginning of the season and where he ended up prior to his debut. So a lot to think about on our way out the door, a reminder,

you can get a subscription to the athletic for a dollar a month for the first year at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. You can find well, Sean Twitter at, is it the Welsh you'd find, you know, you know, Sarah's find me at Derek van Riper.

That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.