Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Minor League Bumps and Midseason Checks

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

DVR is back with Eno and Welsh for a new Project Prospect! Jacob Misiorowski to double-A, and maybe the majors in the near future. Jasson Dominguez to trade or hold, interesting pitching prospects and more. Rundown Jacob Misiorowski - 1:29 Jackson Merrill - 7:19 Age to level Jasson Dominguez - 11:42 James Wood vs Junior Caminero - 20:09 Top of the list prospects - 25:55 Future prospect traps - 29:55 Jack Leiter - 33:20 Ben Brown - 40:24 Bryce Jarvis - 42:10 Chase Dollander and Rockies - 48:20 Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to The Athletic for just $2/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Get 25% off your order when you go to jamesallen.com and use code: RATES Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Try Tim's new Sweet Chili Chicken Loaded Wraps and Bowls today. Take your taste buds on an exciting new adventure for lunch or dinner with our delicious new Sweet Chili Sauce. It's time for Sweet Chili Chicken. It's time for Tim's. At participating restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Tuesday, July 18th. Derek Van Ryper here with Edo Saris, Chris Welsh.

It is Project Prospect on this Tuesday. If you're watching us on YouTube, yes, my background is empty. No, I am not in harm's way. I am fine. I am fine. I am well. This wall is supposed to be bare. My things are on a truck. They're somewhere west of St. Paul, Minnesota right now.

So Thursday, I will have things back. Hopefully by Friday, I'll even have some things behind me on this nice blank canvas I have. It'll be more exciting than my California backgrounds too. I promise everyone that. I don't know what it's going to be, but it's going to be at least half as good as what well should Eno have in their respective backgrounds. But we figure

we're going to do a lot on this show, including some project or some prospect promotions between levels and a few more adjustments coming out of the futures game. So we'll talk about a few players who've moved up. I want to do a mid-season check-in on a few prospects that we haven't talked a lot about on this show over the course of the season we've got some trade tips since we're really at that point now where if you haven't been making

trades already you're certainly thinking about it now and keeper dynasty and even redraft leagues and we've got at least one mailbag question we're going to squeeze into this episode as well but we begin with a prospect promotion jacob Misarowski I missed him by just a couple of weeks he is no longer in Wisconsin he has been bumped up to double a lot of people got to see him pump some gas during that futures game a couple of weeks ago and look I think as far as your pitching prospects in the minors go he's one of the biggest risers so far this season and now the hype is probably all the way behind him because as Welsh and I discussed prior to the futures game, there was a lot to like here and now he's done it on an elevated stage. So Welsh,

where do we go from here with Mizorowski? Do you think he's probably on the radar for a call-up maybe by this time next year based on his current trajectory no doubt about that i think there's even i mean i don't think this is going to happen though this would be very aj smith shawver like there's some people that are just kind of floating around like maybe they even try to push a little squeeze in this season you know maybe he's just moving i mean the the move he's had from high a to double a is wild they gave him him six starts at high A, and he's now moving up to double A. There could be elements of maybe he can help in the bullpen now. Maybe we'll want to get him some of those looks early on

that you can bring him up and have a rotation spot. But maybe take all that aside, I 100% think this is a guy that we're looking at next year. Age-wise makes sense. He's going to move at least three levels. I think he's going to be one of those players we might see in the Arizona Fall League so they can push those innings up a little bit. Probably nothing crazy.

He had, you know, like two innings, I think, in 2022. He's up around close to 50 this year. Maybe they want to push him into the 70, 80, something like that. But I think this is one of those guys that can move four or five levels and is on the radar for next season because, you know, as Eno cited from the Futures game, what was it? What was it? You know, 200 stuff plus.

I mean, the fastball is absolutely electric and that fastball makes a secondary so dominating. I mean, that slider that I don't know how I still don't know how Colt Keith hit that slider that came inside. And it's one of those things, it's hard to imagine how anybody hits anything for this guy. He's his own worst enemy as far as command goes. That's the only thing that needs to be worked on. And probably why you don't see him

at the back half of this year. But it's not unrealistic to think that, you know, a September call-up would be on their minds or just an early season next year appearance if that command starts to go in the right direction. Yeah, I think I'm looking at his college stats. He went to Crowder College, I believe, and he struck out 136 batters in 76 innings.

Of course, he was facing Delgado Community College Central Arizona. Wabash. Wabash Valley College. Good old Wabash. So I don't know about the competition, but here's an interesting thing. I think he had 76 innings

in college in 2022. So 76 plus the two that he threw in the pros. 78. That means he could have another 50 innings in him this year. Just by innings, he could contribute to the Major League team. I don't know if they'd want to come bring him up and finish this. And he's off in the pen or long guy.

But the fact that they're being so aggressive with them is, is a little bit of a sign that there could be, he could be a faster riser. So I definitely, I'll say a definite yes on next year. And I think, you know, like a 10% chance we see him in the major leagues this year.

Yeah. One of the things too, he he's only gone over five innings twice this whole season so it's been shorter stints so i actually think he he would be a prime type of player to play like a multi-inning role if if they really deemed it you know they're competing uh you know they're trying to win games a multi-inning role would make sense for a guy like this put him in two innings you can cap kind of what his performance is going to look like and he's not quite stretched out enough that you're setting him back or anything like that and then if they wanted if you and this is all hypothetical but if you had some of these shorter innings and let's say it was at the majors you could then

have him go over into the fall league and i remember uh some years back spencer howard did something similar where when he came to the fall league he he told everybody he's like i'm here for five starts he was here for five starts get innings and then he was out the team could do something like that where they don't want to push his innings they could cap him in that space so let's say he got 30 or four more innings here he could have three four longer starts stretch out in the fall league and then really push those innings so in 2023 or 2024 you could see something closer to 120 130 innings either way like the it's a huge bright spot for him whether he's competing this year or next year and his dynasty value he's been top 100

since the beginning of the year for me but it is exponentially risen up to what I think with graduations and stuff, he's an easy top 10, uh, starting pitching prospect in the prospect dynasty land. He's a guy that you want to target and maybe the futures game kind of screwed it up a little bit, but he might not quite be up as far as what his value should be to what people will sell him out. You might be able to get him a little bit cheaper than really him being one of the more premier, especially strikeout options for pitchers in the prospect land. Yeah, I think the concern

with the walks is one thing that will at least keep the value somewhat in check. But if that walk rate gets a lot better at double A, it's lights out in terms of where that prospect value is going to go.

Crowder College, by the way, same place the Brewers found Aaron Ashby a few years back. There you go. Brewers are always finding pitchers in unexpected places. Crowder College pitching factory. They got a line. They got the line going.

Let's move on to another promotion. Jackson Merrill also bumped up to AA. Merrill is one of those guys I have not had a chance to watch him play yet. I am very curious to see just how good he looks in person. I hope he's a fall league guy. Maybe this year seems possible given that he's up. He was last year right now. Could they do two years in a row with him?

I think that's reasonable. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, Merrill was the youngest player. I believe the youngest, he was one of it.

It was either the youngest or the second youngest player in the fall league last year with a major, major push. And he was solid. And I think the thing that you saw out of him, not only just the big body. That's the thing I keep going back to. It's so funny when you think of Jackson Merrill and then you see him in person. I had multiple people during that first pitch conference go like, Jackson Merrill's a lot bigger than I thought. And he's like, yeah, he's actually a big dude.

And one of the big changes he started to work on while he was there was lifting the ball, was trying to hit for more power. I mean, he's a really solid contact hitter, makes really smart moves, veteran moves, not afraid to go across the plate, punch at opposite field. That's been in his game.

I think he's a very mature hitter. This year, it's been about developing more power. And we've actually seen that. At high A, he had 10 homers, which is four more than he had across two years in the minor leagues with the Padres. At 10-solo bases, 10 homers, 50 runs with the lowest K rate in non-complex ball, 12.3.

He's not walking enough, which that's probably going to be part of his game, but right now, just in what I've heard and talked with him in spring training there's a lot more launch angle lift in his game to try to tap into that power that is part of the development and we haven't seen an insane amount of um backtracking on his batting average so those are things that you're going to want to look for when you do see him double a is a good aggressive punch and it is interesting you know the rumors and the trades if the Padres were to make something Merrill is the big piece and you know there's a showcase element to all of it maybe seeing what

you really have out of him but Jackson Merrill I think is one of the more low-key premium prospects in the land because the the stats don't quite match up to, I think, what the finished product is going to look like. Yeah, just as an aside, I mean, I think it'd be hard. Even AJ Preller having that worm in Peter Seidler's ear, he obviously does, whatever it is, that magic that he's got on him. I don't think that he can convince ownership to buy with a 44 and 50 record in a similar situation. I think in 2019 they sold small pieces. I doubt Merrill

leaves town in an Otani deal or something like that. I just don't think that's happening for the Padres this year. More likely they trade Hader and Snell maybe and try to add, I would say, close arms, you know, because their pitching staff is going to be decimated by free agency to some extent. You don't think Soto, they don't think they have to consider trading Soto at this point? I mean, I don't know how financially they're able to bring him back. It's true. I don't think they'll sign him.

I do think that they think that, you know, they re-rack this year, next year, they can have better results. Um, and I think that's not a crazy idea, but you do, they would get a lot more for Soto with a year plus than they will on rentals and hater and snow, unless they maybe package hater and snow.

Even then, uh, I think you're just hoping for a guy that might be good. Isn't Soto a free agent after this year? Because didn't they buy Soto? Or is there one more year on it? I can't remember. I thought they bought Soto with a year and a half left last season.

They got him with two and a half left. He's got one more left after this season before free agency. Okay, yeah. So that would mean why you wouldn't trade it. And also why you trade C.J.s dvr cj abrams and james wood and hassle cjm's has been on a tear ever since you talked him up screw you come on man i had to spend 30 hours in the car like yeah and cj was raking for all 30 hours was he player of the player of the week this last by that week while you're moving i was

cursing your name on this show i didn't even gonna be a 15 25 guy at the end of the year quietly i know dvr is gonna celebrate egg on my damn face 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. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one.

Just start moving with the Peloton Bike, Bike Plus, Tread, Row, Guide, or App. There are thousands of classes and over 50 Peloton instructors ready to support you from the beginning. Remember, doing something is everything. Rent the Peloton bike or bike plus today at onepeloton.ca slash bike slash rentals. All access membership separate. Terms apply. I know you guys got to talk about CES on Monday, so we're not going to revisit that. But I think there's an important lesson here as we kind of go into our mid-season check-ins where age to level can be so tricky in some ways the aggressive promotions like we're seeing with jackson merrill getting this taste of double a already it's great on the one

hand because it gives us a lot of confidence that this is a big leaguer this is a good big leaguer and this is a potential star but then you see it with a player like jason dominguez and when it doesn't go well right away you start asking yourself a lot of with a player like jason dominguez and when it doesn't go well right away you start asking yourself a lot of questions i've got jason dominguez in a keeper league yeah i'm looking at dominguez right now i've got a contending team and i'm trying to play that game like do i wait because he doesn't seem like he's that far away and the ceiling's really good or is it a little bit misleading is he going to need a full season at AAA? Is his ETA actually further away than we think despite how aggressive they've been? Not even just from a talent evaluation perspective, but from a timeline perspective.

Yeah, because it's a deep enough league where even if he comes up and he's not great immediately, he still has value in a lot of keeper and dynasty leagues. It is crazy because Tyler Sostrom, I was pointing this out on the show, had an 86 WRC plus in AAA. So he was below average, but he's 21. So, you know, he had those 25 points or 50 points or whatever. He looks a lot better.

They, they weren't worried that he had a sub optimal line in AAA and they just brought him up to the big leagues and they could have left him down there and not started his clock, you know? So you look at Jason Dominguez, 217 batting average, yuck, 105 WRC plus at 20 years old. Is that much, is that, how much of a struggle actually is that? Right. I don't think it's a problem.

I just wonder if, do we have the ceiling still appropriately placed relative to where it was back when he signed? I mean, well, when you look back at prospects that have entered the player pool in the time that you've done this work, Jason Dominguez, the hype on him is probably about as high as any international free agent ever. Is that a fair statement to make? Yeah, I mean, before him was like the great disaster of Kevin Maiton. You know, that was the big, crazy one.

But yeah, there's been... I'm trying to think. Wander was pretty big, but Wander came on a little bit later. Yeah, no, I mean, Jason was the biggest before he even became a stat. Solace is a pretty nice hype right now. Yeah, I mean, he's on there, but I think there's also this temperedness to it. You know, Dominguez is a weird one because there were a lot of, like, he might be up mid this year he had a poor AFL though he hit the ball really hard I counted multiple

times he had just missed the very first night actually he missed a homer because the wind had brought it back and he absolutely tattooed a ball I've got on my Twitter um but the contact rates have been consistently bad through the AFL into this year that, you know, like it's going to be, I don't even know if it's going to be impossible for him to live up to the hype because something I've been saying for dynasty people for a long time, there was a point about a year and a half ago where a lot of like prominent, like, you know, fantasy prospect people were just like, dish to me gets his done outside the top 100. Don't worry about him.

You know, Tim Robinson, I'm not worried about it. Get out of here. Get him out. The problem is when he does start to click at any point, the hype is immediately back. That's what makes him extra valuable. Last year was really good, though. Between A and

high A to have basically a 40% better than league average at 19 years old. At high A. But the minute he's gotten to double A, he had 306 high a to have a basically a 40 better than league average at 19 years old at high yeah at high but the minute he's gotten to double a it's i mean he had 306 at high a last year but from the afl on i don't know if there's been a point where he's hit like over 250 um the strikeouts got worse the ground ball rate i think went yeah went up a bit from his double a time the little tiny stint he got last year. He's getting the ball in the air, but I think he's just still maturing into it.

But to your point, what's interesting about him is I also think he's going to be a guy that is going to take some time to adjust at the major leagues as well. So when you're looking at what do I potentially have out of him, even if his clock is like six months away, it might be like a year and a half until things really start to click. But I do think he's showing signs of that elite prospect of that prospect that everybody got crazy about and hyped up. When you start to look at like, even in the struggles, you're seeing some of those counting

stats. You're still seeing, you're seeing him run a crazy amount. He ran early on in the year and you're seeing him still tap into some of that power. Levin Homer's 25 stolen bases while hitting 217. Well, start to dream on, okay, this is a guy that has, you know, maybe 20 points higher of a career BABIP. If he starts to really click, could this be another one of these Elie de la Cruz type of players?

Because he is exceptionally fast for his size. And this is a different Elie. Like Elie's like a Ellie's like a gazelle, the six foot five guy that runs faster than anybody. Jason Dominguez is more of like this bowling ball type of player, shorter, stockier, huge muscles, yet he also can put up crazy run times and he's got huge raw power that if he starts to click, Ellie had a decent amount of time that there were some struggles in his development. Jason Dominguez could be

another one of those players that when he gets ground running, he is going to recapture that hype he had in the prospect world. And that's why I keep him so high, even though he's hitting 217, at least on my prospect list.

Yeah, that's the problem I've been running into is just wondering if, you know, again, short term versus long term is a little bit askew. You can still get to that ceiling that everybody was hoping for. We're just seeing it's going to take some time.

Because of the swing and miss right now, 27.4% K rate at AA. That's going to keep the average down. Yes, he's drawing walks. I think the thing I would want to know, this is the hard thing about not being able to watch guys in the minors very often. You can get on MILB TV. You can watch the horse racing grade TV feeds, as I like to call them. When you go to the sports book and you see the really grainy footage of the tracks from all different corners of America where the horse races are happening, that's what a lot of the MILB feeds look like to me.

Sometimes it's like, why is the volume off? You turn it all the way up and then there's nothing. Then all of a sudden, it's like you're like you're like why is the volume off and you turn it all the way up and then it there's nothing and then all of a sudden it's like it is like it's a wild experience watching milv.tv that is exactly what it's like you replicated that perfectly sorry to everybody i did in your ear so the thing i would wonder about with dominguez is is he striking out that much becauseinguez is is he striking out that much because of holes or is he striking out that much because he's running counts too deep when i see a walk rate as high as his walk rate i assume that he's working counts longer than he

should he's probably not swinging at pitches that he could drive or waiting for a better pitch and may not getting it in some cases i think that would be the most likely explanation for how he'd walk that much, but also strike out that much alongside of it. You know, I just want to add that that is what I've seen from him when I have watched him in person and in the video. He definitely will get those counts up. And I think there is an element of pitch selection in what to drive. That has been a bit probably why I would point out they may have sent him at such a young age to the AFL multiple players you know very young players that were

sent out to the AFL last year this is a guy that had barely touched double a and got sent to the Arizona Fall League and I always bring it up the AFL but you know it's a finishing school as they call it it's that step usually there's a developmental thing it might be missed time but there also might be missed time, but there also might be a big developmental push that they want players to get more reps in because they're getting closer. But guys like Jackson Merrill, I think was purely about learning to tap in

and try to get more of a launch on your swing and get more power, where I think Dominguez might've been, let's see some higher, more advanced pitching for pitch selection, because there's a clear hole of him driving the count up and then picking the right pitch to attack on. And I kind of think that's what this year has been about with him. And that's why the skill set is very talented.

And you can stat watch him just like you did. And you were astute to it. You see really high walk rates in there that are telling you he's probably seeing a whole lot of pitches and he's maximizing when he is getting what he wants whether he's on base or you know with the power numbers 11 homers when only hitting 200 it's still pretty impressive when you think it's over you know like just under 300 plate appearances so i think it's just the next level that needs to be moved up for him. Yeah, this is also relevant to a discussion that's happening on Twitter right now about James Wood versus Junior Caminero for basically number one prospect.

I mean, we're getting close to that. Yeah, I mean, they're in that. I mean, I think Jackson Holiday to me is like the guy, but 100% Caminero and Wood are like top three or some might consider. And how you would sort them. That's the conversation that we some might consider. And how you would sort them. That's the conversation that we're having right now is how you would sort those two. And they're very different in terms of how they're appearing at the plate

because Wood has spent this year striking out 27% to 30% of the time with a swinging strike rate combined. I'm eyeballing here, but combined swing strike rate around 12%, while Caminero has spent this year striking out closer to 22% of the time with a swing strike rate over 14%. And the way that Caminero does it is by swinging. By sort of getting ahead of that strikeout and finding his pitch before he gets to the two strike counts and being more aggressive.

Apparently, Wood has seen one more pitch per plate appearance. Now, I think that's good for maybe Wood's OBP and maybe for his real-life value. Maybe in a real-life ranking, you might put Wood ahead, depending on what you thought of the defense for both of them. But in fantasy, a strikeout is a strikeout no matter how you got there. And so if it's not OBP, you might prefer, as I think I do, prefer Caminero's approach in a weird way. You know what I mean? Because it's just more likely to produce a better batting average.

Yeah, I think it comes back to how correctable is that problem for someone like Dominguez and then how long does it take to correct it? Like, yes, you can fix it. Yeah, what's more likely? Actually, you know, in terms of aging curves, it's more likely that Caminero improves

in the ways you need him to than would and here's my reasoning uh pitch hitters as they age see more pitches and swing at balls outside the zone less that's a part of the aging curve so the swing okay so you're saying that 14 so you're taking caminero who like you know who has shown a better strikeout rate and you're saying that 14% on the curve is coming down. So you're taking Caminero, who has shown a better strikeout rate, and you're saying that he's more likely to swing less and swing less at pitches outside the zone. Now, will that expose that swing strike rate more? That's a good question.

I think with Wood, I mean, you see the raw power being off the charts. There's speed right now to go with it. I wonder how well does he run in the long run? Yeah, it doesn't look to, I don't think he'll be like a 30 or 20 homer, a stealer guy in the majors. I struggle with him because I've seen him a lot when he was with the Padres and he's one of those guys. And this just happens. He's huge. How's he going to steal that much? He's not, is he like Mike Trout? Is he like a linebacker?er well he does look like a linebacker first time i saw him he was way he was i looked overweight the first time i saw him and then he really thinned

down there's an i remember somebody asked me this question like you know who's the next ellie and it's like well if you want like a physical performance based one like that might be the guy like he's big he can run he really can run he can steal bases he's got pure raw power but this just happens sometimes he has been awful every time i've seen him in person i mean we're talking like seven eight different games i've seen him and part of it i've i've said this a whole bunch he i think i've seen him a lot in complex when he was rehabbing i just like i think he plays down to his competition like he doesn't want to be there and he would swing through really bad pitches and breaking stuff would really screw with him. And I just, he, I've always struggled with him because I think the raw talent is there,

but I have seen the worst of the worst out of wood and, you know, Caminero, I think the tool sets might be safer because I really do worry that wood is going to, if the pitch recognition doesn't keep moving in a correct direction, like he's on a bad stretch right now in double a. sets might be safer because I really do worry that Wood is going to, if the pitch recognition doesn't keep moving in a correct direction, like he's on a bad stretch right now in double A, if it doesn't keep going in the right direction, that is a guy that will strike out 30 plus percent of the time. And the body, I think, could go either way where I love Cameron Arrow's swing. I love his approach.

It's very Wander-esque. He's got the kind of... Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... ... ... ... ...

... ... Life's a trip. make the most of it at best western windmill that comes back so there's full extension in it and i just think he's like an all fields power guy so i kind of lean caminero over wood but wood has the tools and has shown a lot of success at some of the early levels to be good. He's just one of those weird cases where it's like every time I see him, it's just like it stinks. It stinks. Yeah, and I think already you see the results in stolen bases, wood runs.

Catman Arrow doesn't. That matters in our game, so that kind of keeps it closer, right? And even if you're worried about that speed fading over time it's going to take a few years yeah it's not going to happen overnight unless he adds 30 pounds but he's probably not going to do that steel guy he might be a 10 steel guy and that's probably you know eight more than caminero i think it just comes down to what you're looking for when you're trying to bet on a hit tool like how much do you trust each of those players to continue making the adjustments i'm i'm trained in my mind to be so much more confident in Junior Caminero, and I shouldn't be that much more confident in them.

I think that's the argument I'm running into with myself. I'm saying, hey, these guys that strike out 25%, 27% of the time when they're this young at these levels, it doesn't mean they're always going to strike out like this. I think I used to believe that, but I'm moving away from that the more I play. And figuring out who's going to improve and who's going to improve the most, that might lead us to some buying opportunities. In this case, we're talking about guys that everybody tends to like, at least like enough to rank very high. But, but, let me say something.

In terms of statistics, in terms of value, in terms of what you can see from drafts, ordering at the top of a list is more important than ordering at the bottom. So deciding who you think is the second best prospect in baseball is more important than deciding who you think is 50th versus 70th. It's true. And it's true when you get into trade season too. I remember this Keeper League that I was talking about where I've got Jason Dominguez. Two summers ago, I had a choice

on my roster. I was trying to trade away a prospect. I had Hedbert Perez and the Brewers organization and Noel V. Marte. And the person I was trading with wanted Hedbert Perez. And they were ranked next to each other, I think. At least on James Anderson's list at the time, they were like A versus B. Who do you like better? And it's hard when guys are at low A, especially, to make that call on someone who's inside the top 50. I think it's one of the most difficult decisions you have to make if you're playing in a long-term league. Yeah, I agree with that. And I tend to be the type of person, kind of back to what Eno said, I tend to, as a prospect person, of back to what he was. I tend to say as a prospect person, I tend to sell prospects way more than anything else, but I am a pain in the ass

when it comes to the tippy top. And I think that's what, like, you know, saying, I think it is incredibly important to have a really good gauge on what the high end is, is because you will find for me, it is exponentially harder to trade with me for the top 10 prospects than it is me giving up more of a 20, a 30, and a 40. I've been fleeced in some trades before on prospects. I remember last year I bought Spencer Strider in a league and I had to give up. I had to give up James Wood, and at that time I didn't have him top 10. I had to give up a couple other pieces in it but i'm just more likely to move out of that range than i am those guys that are at the very tippy top that exemplify

that really high-end talent and in this case like my own experience i would probably still trade james wood even though he's a top i know because at the time he was an a-ball guy yeah and but i mean he was at least like a top 50 with higher upside. And then, you know, some of the production really... I mean, he was destroying Abel. Yeah, and then he just, you know, pushed through like to a crazy degree. If you're betting on the tools, and that's the other thing, because there's like, there's hit tool, which I tend to really focus on. And then there's just tool tools.

That's where Caminero and James Wood almost like meet these different paths. You know, like the actual K percentage lower for Caminero. He's moved up. Hit tool looks better. James Wood is dreamy tools across the board. And we have comps to these players now. We see more stolen bases. Ellie is kind of like this world for us.

When you see these big raw power, big dudes that are able to steal bases, you can now look at a guy like Ellie and be like, well, maybe James Wood is the next guy. And it creates this, you know, kind of like much larger expectation, though there's flaws in the game, but that, that, that differential between like the top end guys and then deciphering the, the really low A players this year, that would have been like Ethan Silas, Oswey De La Paula. You know, those are these guys that are just so far away but have just crazy value. Being able to figure out where you sit on those and at least maximizing the trade value is important.

Even if you had traded DVR, Noelvi, in that trade, what did you get in that trade? That particular trade was, you know, like a frontline starting pitcher was the main thing I got back, which it wouldn't have mattered. Like trading away noel v martin in that league to this point hasn't helped the other person because that's what i was gonna say like it wouldn't even matter if you had sold noel v i suppose at that time but you know you definitely got lucky in the draw there of getting rid of edward perez because if he's on anyone's top 400 right now you're lucky so that guy probably

doesn't trade with you anymore either. Yeah, I wasn't trying to fleece anybody. It just sort of happened in that case. Yeah, I mean, you give choices, and sometimes I liked both players equally too. I didn't have this got to get rid of Hedbert Perez thing. I thought he was going to be great, and he stuck an A ball. You got me thinking now. This is not on the rundown.

Do you think we're in danger of falling into future traps with certain types of prospects because of LA and the cruise? Like this, this seems like a, a window of the next year or two where a lot of people are going to see someone who hits the ball really hard when he hits it has contact issues, but has every other tool you're looking for. And then falls in love with players that have a flaw that either takes a long time to fix or one that can't be fixed at all. So I'm

wondering how many future traps we're all going to slide into simply because we're trying to find the next Ellie. And Ellie's kind of a unicorn of sorts, right? He's just his own guy. He's special. right he's he's just his own guy he's he's he's special i 100 believe that i also throw on top of it the aggressiveness that teams are pushing with prospects and the amount of prospects we've seen we are in for a huge huge value point for prospects right now now it's going to stink when you do when you trade the corbin car to, even if you get a big maximized, you know, profit, you're still going to like be pissed about it. But I think the valuation of prospects is all rising right now. And the expectation of the success we've seen brings that pool up even more, you know, Gunner, I think has really kind of saved some of this

argument because the, before the year it was like Corbin and Gunner, Those were the big main guys. And Gunner has really turned it around and looks like he would have been a fantastic buying point. But you're going to, we're just in for it. We are going to have unfair expectations for a lot of prospects. And the key to me comes back to what you were saying before, where like, I think the top end, especially if you can find a consensus nature to the top end, there's safety in that. Even though Gunnar kind of stunk for a bit, he's come back. Corbin, been amazing the whole time.

Put that into the top end of prospect list. I think Jackson Holiday is going to be a pretty safe guy. Then there's going to be those guys, those fringy guys that are sitting around seven, eight, you know, and they have high, like you said, high strikeouts, but they're putting up video game numbers. Those are going to be the guys that are going to oversell. I'll give you an example. Jonathan Classe.

Classe just stole his 50th base in the minors. He's got double-digit homers with the Mariners. He's nutty. He's putting up video game numbers in the minors, but he also has an incredibly worrisome strikeout rate. The guy strikes out and swings through on a lot of stuff. That's going to be a guy where you're going to look at the total outcome and i wouldn't be surprised if people put him in the top 10 just because of his stats but you know i have a smaller player in devil's reason

i've owned jonathan class a twice and don't have him anymore i mean and i think that's part of the story too right is like it might the matters. That's how we started this conversation. The timeline matters because like, you know, I was like, oh yeah, Colossae, he runs like, like, like the tools. Oh man, I really need a closer right now. Or, you know, I really need to start a pitcher right now. Or like, I can't, I can't waste a roster spot on this 18 year old and a ball or complex ball. I get it. I, you know, and now somebody else has class and I'm like,

I had him. Yeah. I think he's another good example of a player like Jason Dominguez in terms of the tools and the current flaws and the age to level. It's like, it all looks really good and it might be amazing someday, but how long are you gonna have to wait to actually get that payoff? Let's get to a couple of their mid-season check-ins. I have reached the point, guys,

where I think I'm pretty much ready to give up on Jack Leiter. I think he's one of the more disappointing pitching prospects we've seen in the last decade, so far anyway. It's still time for him to turn it around in theory, but he's back on the development list. He had a couple starts recently at AA. He's not hurt. And it's just been spinning the tires at that level for him. This is a guy who was supposed to be pretty quick to the big leagues out of Vanderbilt. Second overall pick two years ago. I think most of us at that time were operating under the assumption that if we went two years into the future, to this point of this season, Jack Leiter would probably be in the big leagues for the

Rangers by now. What the heck is going wrong? And am I wrong to dismiss the possibility of him putting it back together and getting all the way back to the ceiling we thought he had back when he was drafted two years ago? I mean, you know, I've made excuses for him where it's like, well, he's changing his pitching style and, you know, he's going more north-south now instead of east-west. And so he's got to get used to that. Which is what the team wanted him to do, by the way. Right. But it looks like he has poor command in both directions. It doesn't matter what he's doing.

he's doing. I wonder, you know, there's still always a place in my heart for someone who can strike out more than 25% of the batters he sees in the minor leagues. And he's got to 29.5 this year that will always play at least as a reliever. But of course, that's not why people have them on their minor league rosters. That's not what people wanted for him. And so that's, that would be upsetting. You know, I think one of the questions can be, is there a pitch that he can't command right now that he could just throw less of?

And you know, that probably is low hanging fruit that they've already discussed or implemented, or they haven't done it yet because that would break him down to two pitches you know like maybe he can't he can only command the slider and he can't command anything else so that also is what is happening i think right now the developmental list is at a point where these teams want to grab these players uh here's an example. Davis and De Los Santos with the Diamondbacks. This guy was like top. Oh, he was the guy that

someone said doesn't know how to play baseball. Yeah, yeah. I don't think James might have cited someone saying that he doesn't know how to play baseball. He also was like

top 10 in hits in the minor leagues last year and hit 300. And didn't he? He had some real plus exit velocities at huge. I have a video from the previous spring training where he was sitting there and I've got Corbin Carroll and Alec Thomas watching him and he hit the

light pole on the back practice. And I asked Ryan Nelson about it. And he's like, he does that all the time. Like it's great. So he knows how to play baseball, but he is tapered back. AFL was the worst. Again, one of the youngest guys there couldn't hit anything this year. Bad.

They put them on the developmental list. He was on there for like two weeks, came back immediately. First three games had five hits. They worked on something. So that is what's happening right now. The, the moment of the developmental list,

the pressure off of them. No, they're taking them out of games and they're doing, I think what you are saying, I think they're taking a time and it might be here, by the way. I need to go out to the Rangers complex because he might be here doing this. Is there going to opt there? They're here to do something.

And it could be, you know, this is the pitch that's causing this throw this less. Let's work on this pitch. Let's not build put the confidence down because I had a source that had told me that they thought he might be a bullpen option this year. And I think he's at a really weird run of it. You mentioned the pitching North and South. I believe his father and him had worked through pitching East and West and the team wanted him to work North and South. So you've got that. You got more, you got more zone to work with. You go North and South. If you don't have great natural command, you're trying to go East and West. You're trying to be way too fine with that thing so you've got this or you got this organization

that has kind of tinkered with him also they didn't even let him like pitch you know at the beginning when he was drafted there's been so much tinkering going on with him over the last year and a half put him on the developmental list hopefully optimize something so the key to your point here and why i also like refuse to give up on him because of that fastball is what does this look like off of the developmental list do we see a new pitch do we see the usage change and what will the results reap it's lost this year I kind of tend to think because his value is at an all-time low he's a buy for me in dynasty and I wouldn't be shocked if we see him in the AFL if they're taking away his innings this year to push him there to work on some stuff and he's one of the big big names that's out here

yeah there's still three things that they can do which i don't think they've done yet which is you know tag a pitch because you can't command it right uh the other is um you can do things with intended zones where you say you track and you say where do you want to throw this you know and then you track how where he's missing you put that on a chart and you start to say oh he can't throw inside outside or he can't do this we can't it's kind of the one target thing is it's related to the one target thing where it's like okay all we can do is give him a high target and he's just going to throw fastballs and breaking balls off of that target, you know, and that's it. We're just simplify everything down to that, that worked for glass now.

So the Kikuchi is the one I think of that improved his command the most by, by getting rid of pitches. He can't command a college for Don did to cause for Don can't command his change up. He tried to throw his change up. His walk rates really high. He stopped throwing the change up and his walk rates went down. you know there's that there's proven guys at each of these for each of these buckets and i don't know exactly what they've tried on each level but you could i would say assume now they're going to try everything in this moment because they've already tried sort of pitching philosophy now there's pitch mix uh pitch intent, and then target.

So it sounds like you guys are kind of on the same page. This is a low point in value, and there's enough here to work with where you can get them in a throw-in. Yes, exactly. I think getting the throw-in is always important because when no one like Jason Dominguez, that's how I got him in that keeper league. He was an extra guy I got back in a trade. I was trading for stuff to help me, and the person I was trading with I think was full-on prospects because they were getting prospects for me.

I was like, I'll take Jason Dominguez back. I'll take that lottery ticket, and it's worked out fine. So Jack Leiter, at least in theory, makes sense as a lottery ticket as part of a trade at this point to both of you guys because they can tweak a few things and see how that goes. Innings-wise, he's got plenty of runway to keep pitching off the development list. I think he threw 110 innings his final season at Vandy. It was like 92 and two-thirds last year, his first year at AA, and he's at 65 and a third right now.

So time's on his side. They have a lot of options with how they want to handle the rest of this 2023 season for him. Now, it's interesting that he's now ranked pretty close to Ben Brown. If people remember early this year, we talked about Ben Brown in the Cubs system because he was tearing up AA. He only made four starts at that level this year.

30 strikeouts, six walks, and 20 innings. How about a.45 ERA and a.95 whip? Everybody was excited about Ben Brown. Got the bump up to Iowa. Things have not gone quite as well there. Some pretty big control issues. Bit of a home run issue there as well. It's a 70-29 K to BB in 46 innings. ERA in the mid fives. Whip over one and a half. So do you look at guys that are kind of outside the top 100 among pitching prospects who are double A and higher? They're struggling with something.

And do you see clear buying opportunities? I mean, if you go back to April, I would have thought Ben Brown had a chance to debut for the Cubs this year. And it's still possible. If he reels off a stretch in the next few weeks, maybe we'd see a couple starts by the end of the season. But they probably have to trade a bunch of guys away at the deadline to actually make room for him at this point. But that's on the, that's on the table.

That's been on the tape. I mean, there's Marcus Stroman rumors. I do think Jordan Wicks actually might be one of those guys. It's over past him. High pick, I believe two years ago. And he's in AAA right now.

But I think if they do move off of these, you're going to see both of these guys. I think the command is the biggest worry with him, big strikeouts, but six walks per nine kind of make him less of an option. If I'm looking to invest in later this year, not to turn it into this, but I teased on yesterday's episode of a picture that I was looking at that I'm pretty intrigued with and off air, you know, and I were talking about it and you're kind of with me, but you know, where I might've been on Ben Brown earlier in the year, a guy that I'm actually looking at right now is Bryce Jarvis with the Arizona Diamondbacks. And one of the reasons his last start was so fascinating to me, and this is, and I'm trying to tie this a little bit to Ben Brown

because I'm completely changing the narrative here, DVR, so I apologize. But it's gotten worse for Ben Brown. So how are things going to get better? Bryce Jarvis has had a really weird kind of season and a half. But his last start, he had really good results. And we're seeing those big pitch mix changes so his previous two starts 629 37 fastball 35 slider fastball not doing much 71 swing and miss on his slider results not great 7-4 bryce jarvis went six but gave up five earned runs uh six Ks, only walked one, which was good. 36% fastball, only 15% slider, 25% changeup.

Three pitches here. His last start on 7-9, Bryce Jarvis went seven, gave up one earned run, six hits, walked one, struck out six again, but he switched. So remember, last start, 15% slider. He went primary slider, 42% slider, slider over 30 i just went away from it 37 fastball so he's primary slider and in that primary slider 50 swing and miss it was 31 fastball and his fastball became better 40 swing and miss on this and this is just one of those guys where you see the change happen

at a really hitter friendly environment that i'm kind of intrigued because fastball around 95 average 95 96 he also added over 100 rpm on so spin on the slider in his last start so it was hitting up to 28 averaging 26 and i think the velo was up a little bit so you've got all those positive changes and then after the show eno confirms to me that bryce jarvis is also kind of a stat head and this might be things he's paying attention to so those are sometimes those little like things that you're looking for for if you're looking for production on the back half of the year as cool as a guy like ben brown has been that you might have more of a diamond in the rough and a guy like bryce jarvis yeah it is interesting i've talked to him right when he was

drafted and he was all about his ivb and his spin efficiency and this and that and um i was worried then that you know he didn't he was maxed out and what would the d-backs do with him um i don't know that they've uh found the best way forward for him? Um, I don't know that they've, uh, found the best way forward for him because I'm looking right now and his stuff plus on his fastball is 78. Um, and yes, he, he benefits from throwing the slider more often. Um, and that's his definitely his best pitch, but that just makes me think that he might be slated for the bullpen in the long run. So possibility, you know, when you start to those 40% and 50% slider rates, that's what every reliever in the Giants system is doing.

So it kind of seems to me like a preparation for an Arizona team that does need help in the bullpen. So if he comes up and he can push that fastball velo even further in short stints, I would definitely take notice. One last thing. I still have Ben Brown over. And one of that last thing that I have on Brown is just the there's a little bit of a Hunter Brown thing going on here for me where I'm seeing enough location plus in the minors to suggest that the walk rate isn't telling the whole story. And we just talked about the sort of three or four different things you can do with a pitcher to affect their command.

It's not actually changing their natural command. It's just sort of mitigating it. And I see some evidence of doing this. So his location plus in his last start was 75. That's awful. That is just, that is straight. That's relieving. That's like a terrible, that's a role as Chapman, right?

And then the start before that, 123 location plus in 20 pitches. Okay, well, what's going on there? 93, the one before in 39 pitches. 88 pitches on June 20th and 86 pitches on june 14th for ben brown with a 110 location plus combined 109 so it's up and down and i think that the walk rate doesn't quite tell the whole story i think that there is a combination of pitches a an approach a uh whatever it is that can work for ben brown and i'm gonna'm going to bet on that profile a little bit more. Yeah. And just for what it's worth, of course, being in Iowa,

doesn't see the extreme environments of the PCL, sees St. Paul, Omaha, Memphis, Indianapolis, Nashville, places like that. So it's not having to deal with the altitude adjustments quite the same way as other prospects. Yes, but I think that turned off at the all-star break is that right is that what they did this year there's so many differences in levels and the rules and pre-tact balls and strikes fun zone i think there was a change mid-season i need to verify that but it's so many details to keep straight unreal yeah still a lot to like though with ben brown, but it's so many details to keep straight. Unreal. Yeah. Still a lot to like, though, with Ben Brown, even though it's been a bit of a bumpy adjustment for him at AAA so far.

Last player to talk about today. We're getting more trade tips in. Wait, it's game to game. It's game to game. Game to game. Well, I knew the rules at the beginning of the week versus end of the week were different to start the season, but I didn't know if they changed something for the rest of the season.

The ABS systems will be used in AAA and low-A Florida. Some games will be full ABS, which means ball strikes are solely determined. Others will be ABS challenge games. Yep. Challenges, I think, for the weekends, and it was non-challenge for the week. The first three games of each series

will be played using full ABS. The latter three will be without. Wow. But is that all season? they i mean the reason they're doing that it makes sense actually because they're testing it right so they want to get a lot of people to pitch in abs and a lot of people to pitch in non-abs and see what you know it makes sense that way but just imagine just imagine living through that i wonder i wonder if all those bad starts ben brown is just freaking out about the AVS or something.

You never know. But one more player to get to before we sign off. This is a question we got in our mailbag from Andrew. Andrew wanted to know, did the Rockies take on extra risk by drafting Chase Dollander? Now, if you know a little bit about Dollander, he was a prospect out of the University of Tennessee. Really lost his slider during his final season there. And that sort of enabled him to fall a bit down in the first round still a I think 10th overall is where the Rockies took him numbers are correct again numbers a little wonky for me right now the question was basically this

because of Coors Field and the impact Coors Field has on pitch movement was it extra risky for the Rockies to draft Dollander knowing that he had an important pitch that he had to get back so did the rockies make another rocky like mistake here you know or do they actually do something kind of smart and take advantage of getting a possible top end talent at a spot where previously if when mox for this draft first came out he probably wouldn't have been available i do believe there was somewhere in that uh email was something about the rockies being allergic to smart um i think in this case though they might have made a good decision i looked at uh the uh effect it's by baseball cloud blog uh coors field impact on pitch movement and the foreseam fastball changeup and knuckle curve

lose the most aggregated movement. So it's murder on foreseam fastballs. You lose three inches of vertical movement pitching in Coors. And in fact, we've covered this on the show before because Joe Musgrove, it looked like his ride was down on his fastball, but it was all Mexico City. This is definitely a thing that it kills four-seamers, but the pitches least affected by altitude are cutter and

slider. I believe that's because there's a Magnus movement. Four-seam fastball is a Magnus movement. It's trying to counteract the effects of gravity uh and it's spinning like this or like this so the curve and the foreseam are both using magnus uh movement whereas uh cutters and sliders some of it sometimes they're they benefit from not having movement if you think of what a gyro slider is you know, and so they're not affected as much. Maybe sweepers are affected. This is pre-sweeper, this research.

Maybe sweepers are affected, but there are at least types of cutters and sliders that work there. Sinkers don't lose much sink, but they do lose three inches of horizontal movement. So theoretically, you could get someone whose sinker depends more on sink than sweep, you know, of horizontal movement. So theoretically, you could get someone whose sinker depends more on sink than sweep, you know, than sideways movement. And you could get somebody with a sinker and a gyro slider and they would be least affected by Coors. So there's at least a chance that Dallander is not affected by Coors in this way. So Rockies didn't necessarily Rocky in this case,

maybe took advantage of an opportunity to get extra pitching talent in their draft position. We are going to wrap things up for this episode of rates and barrels. If you don't have a subscription to the athletic, you can get one for $2 a month for the first year at the athletic.com slash rates and barrels on Twitter. You can find Welsh at, is it the Welsh you can find,

you know, at, you know, Sarah, so you can find me at Derek van Riper. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels on Twitter. You can find Welsh at, is it the Welsh? You can find, you know, at, you know, Sarah, so you can find me at Derek van Riper. That's going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday.

Thanks for listening.