Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Preparing for Final Call-ups

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh discuss how difficult pitching prospects have become to project, Curtis Mead's debut and the call-ups that could be coming soon. Rundown Curtis Mead - :53 Marcelo Mayer - 8:21 Masyn Winn - 14:50 Brooks Lee - 21:04 Tyler Black - 29:11 Everson Pereira - 35:18 Sept call-ups - 39:04 Prospect Pitchers tougher to value - 44:16 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 20% OFF with our code RATES at calderalab.com/rates to unlock your youthful glow with Caldera + Lab! #teamcaldera Give ZBiotics a try for yourself. 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

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday, August 8th, and Derek Van Ryper, Ina Saris, Chris Welsh, all here with you for a Project Prospect episode. Lots of news and notes. We have a ton of players who have been bumped up levels in the minors. We'll dig into that. We'll talk about a few challenges with evaluating pitching prospects because that is somehow getting more difficult. I thought the collective we were supposed to get smarter over time,

and it seems like that job, despite the presence of more information than ever, is actually becoming more difficult. But maybe there's some things working against this that we haven't thought enough about. Let's begin today with Curtis Mead. We talked about him on the Friday pod because the news broke that he was going to be promoted by the Rays. We've seen usage over a weekend series, and more important than the short-term value for the purposes of our conversation is the important than the short-term value for the purposes of our conversation

is the question about his long-term value. We're in that sweet spot right now, late in the year, where teams that are going all-in might be willing to trade major league-ready guys that were near the top of prospect list. That describes Curtis Meade. Given the crowding we have right now, he might not be a great win now player, but Welsh, what do you see for Curtis Meade long-term? What type of player do you think he's going to be? Is he a smart trade-away sort of player right now if you're making an all-in push in a keeper league?

That's a good question. I think his value has definitely dropped a pretty significant amount to where it was preseason. I think there were a lot. I think the expectation has sat with him for quite some time that, you know, the power rises a little bit with a high contact hitter, that he was statistically going to be just a much better player than I'm going to tell you that I personally think he is. Like, I love contact hitters, and this is a guy that makes a ton of contact, also doesn't strike out a whole bunch.

Done a really good job over the span of like the last three years coming off of the australian league uh keeping low ground ball rates but he's an all fields hitter who makes tons of contact doesn't have crazy crazy big power doesn't steal crazy crazy amounts it's kind of like a new breed of we're seeing these guys kind of like how south relicelick is. So Sal Freelick has obviously been succeeding and just hit his third homer the other day. I've always worried about Meade is what is the total counting stat line going to look like? And I don't know if he's more than a 15-15 type of guy.

I think he's like a prototypical number two hitter. I think he would be great in this system down the line hitting two because, again, low strikeouts, 14% at AAA this year with a 12, almost 13% walk rate. And I think it's a points league guy. I think he's going to probably be a better real life player. He's super likable. But I just don't know. I'm torn between like, is this the guy you want to buy right now?

Because you've got the low end of his injuries and stuff bringing him down, but you have him called up, which gets people excited. At the end of the day, just categorically, this isn't like the type of prospect that I throw up as like a top 10 or 15. And I know he sat there for some people for some time, because also look at Jonathan Aranda. I think people made big cases for Jonathan Aranda with arguably more power, made lots of contact, and he hasn't found a spot. He's much worse defensively, but Meade can move all around.

All of this is to say that you definitely could probably get him lower than the preseason value, but I'm not sure I'm breaking the house to try to do it because I just don't know categorically what that's going to look like for him. And I think it's going to be a little bit disappointing. Yeah, it's a, it's a really interesting, there's obviously a scouting report on him. Um, uh, he has seen 50% sliders since he's hit the big, there's a book, there's a book out on him. Yeah. Uh, Only 29% foreseeing fastballs. So that's why he's striking out a bunch. I did look through Keith Laws and Eric Langenhagen's most recent scouting reports.

There's an interesting little bit here about Meade adjusting a swing from Eric Langenhagen. adjusting a swing from Eric Longenhagen. He says that he made an adjusted swing. The upright nature of this adjusted swing has impacted Meade's plate coverage a bit, and he swung through lots of high fastballs and sliders that finished on the outer third of the zone in 2022. When he can get the barrel out there though he's a threat to do extra base damage because of his bat speed total doubles guy i completely agree

with that like good barrel doubles guy for sure it's just where does that like he obviously is going through that and again that's what he told me in the afl was like the rays had done nothing with him you know i was like oh great. And there was nothing new that they were adjusting with. So this might be the first time he's going through like real massive adjustments in his swing to, again, maybe tap into power, maybe be more power or something like that. Because he's got really great defined skill sets

of low ground ball rates, all fields. He doesn't pull the ball extreme. He's an all fieldsfields hitter. So maybe they're trying to tap into something. But as we know, that can set these guys back a little bit when that does happen. What's the problem that the Rays are trying to solve, though? We were looking through the usage here,

and it looks like he started against the lefty. That one's easy because you don't start Brandon Lau. And so Paredes plays second. But he did start against righty Matt Manning on Sunday. And Harold Ramirez is out of the lineup. But I don't feel like you need... This is more short-term, I guess. I'm switching back to short-term.

But you don't need um you don't need to to sit harold ramirez so uh i tend to think that me to someone you wait and and and see on a little bit in terms of now like if you need them to play for you now uh but if you're trying to get them for the future i might buy low What I like is I see a tremendous feel for hit. I think there's a good deal of that. It's just what does that look like long term? Is that 15 homers? Do we get to 20?

Does he steal more bases? It's like he might be a 300 hitter, but it might be 15-15, which is still good, and you can still do that. I don't even know that second 15, maybe. He might be a 300 hitter, but it might be 15-15, which is still good. You can still do that. I don't even know that second 15, maybe. And there you go. If you go fifth. Seven last. You live in the positive world, and you go 20-10.

He's 20-10 with a high batting average. Maybe he's putting together the peak third or fourth round, maybe fourth round value, something like that. That's like peak, peak. I'm just not sure that that's where that is. But he has the skill sets of like, he has some of the construction pieces that you want in a great guy.

Like he walks, he makes a lot of contact and he doesn't strike out. Those are really great pieces. So what else can we continue to develop? He's always shined. He's always shined at minor league levels. And, you know, he was one of the few guys during COVID when everything was happening,

he was playing professional baseball in Australia. You know, so he got to kind of continue that path, which has been good for him. He's less disrupted than a lot of other players. It's just, it's okay to also realize maybe we're looking at a guy, at least in the now time, I mean, we're going to talk later about the long-term stretch of pitching prospects.

Not every guy is going to instantly come out, but it might take some time for Curtis Mead. But he's got the great pieces that you would want to buy in on a prospect if you were starting to build them. So a possible player to target if you are, in fact, looking a little more to the future. A little bit more in deep leagues, though. Because I do think, very likely, he could end up being a 275-15-5 guy.

And you're like, well, good big leaguer, but is he in my 12-teamer? Yeah. Right. 10-team, 12-team league where keeping 8 or keeping 10 players is what you do. That's probably not going to get the job done. Let's talk about Marcelo Mayer. He's on the IL right now. The case of left shoulder inflammation. Nice promotion up

to AA. The results have not been there through the first 43 games. We've seen this for shortstops that are very young for the level. Jordan Lawler, just earlier this season, didn't look good at the level initially. Turned it around. I imagine the Marcelo Mayer

optimism is still there despite this hiccup over the last 43 games with the promotion to AA. Now an injury kind of gives you a reason to think, maybe this has been a little more of a lingering problem that's sapped some of the power because the start to the season at high A

was fantastic. It was a step up from what he did when he finished at the same level a year ago. What are your expectations in terms of a timetable for Marcelo Mayer, Welsh? I think we're looking at Mayer as a mid-next-year guy. I think if he had done a lot better, if he had just dominated at every single level,

I think this team, there's holes, there's positions to be filled. They could have considered more early in camp this year and again i'm not going to say that they won't or anything like that i expect like he could have not repeated high a or something or he could have yeah like like had he been successful you know in double a that maybe this month you know we see this sometimes they might have pushed him to AAA. And we might have gotten a little taste of AAA because what I'm leading to is I think he's going to be in the Arizona Fall League. I think that makes sense.

There's been a little injury stuff. You want to start prepping. So you would go AA, AAA to the Arizona Fall League. Once you go to the Fall League and you've hit AA, anything could happen. You know, we're seeing that. But at the same time, we've seen a guy we're going to talk about a little bit,

like a guy like Mason Nguyen, who we're seeing that but at the same time we've seen a guy we're going to talk about a little bit like a guy like mason when who we're still waiting on i think the expectation of playing time pending whatever check marks that he gets is going to be sometime between a fighting for a job in camp to a mid-season prospect we could see probably pre i would say pre all-star game futures game next year. Cause I think, you know, the, the hit tool is there. He's he struggles comes out of it. And the strikeout rate,

I think is a little bit too high for him. Again, I think this is kind of actually like a better real life player than where fantasy is going to go. But I would say the clock starts sometime mid to later next year for mayor with possibility that it could have been earlier if things went better. Yeah, I mean, one thing, one difference between Mason Wynn and Marcelo Meyer is Tommy Edmund. And I don't think Tommy Edmund is, you know, a star, but

he can play shortstop. And Boston doesn't really have a guy who can play shortstop that well defensively and has any sort of offensive upside. Yeah, and that's why they could push that envelope with him. I'm not trying to be mean to Pablo Reyes, but, you know. No, no. I think with Trevor Story coming back from an elbow surgery, no less, getting Trevor Story to second base is the plan, right? That's where they,

even if story plays there a little bit this year, I feel like, you know, the longterm plan was like, they signed him mostly for second. So I do think that if mayor can get it going, uh, here,

if he has a great fall league, uh, I, you know, I doubt that there, there's a priority that he has to touch down and in AAA next year, but I think if he plays well in the Fall League, right now he's only at 350 plate appearances so depending on how long this injury gets him

with the Arizona Fall League, if he gets to 450 gets another 100 plate appearances, 450, 500 and he does well in the fall league, then I think it'll be one of the things where maybe they don't start the season with him in the big leagues, but whatever that date is, there's always these dates that matter.

Yeah, like late April. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's the kind of thing where he might get another 100 plate appearances in the minors next year and then be over the big leagues. But what will really be interesting is what the initiative is as well for his bat. I would say the high A was good this year. The ISO was over 200.

Batting average 290. That's like the perfect piece of Marcel LeMayer that you want. Seven homer, five stolen bases in 35 games. All of those things were trending to be an upper tier type of offensive player. And then they just tapered back. So what is that about? Is it about the injuries? Is it about something in his approach?

How AA is attacking him? Pitching in general has kind of been depleted a little bit in the minors, but we've really seen like a hone in on AA. That is probably the biggest jump so far of any level. Pitching in general has kind of been depleted a little bit in the minors, but we've really seen a hone in on AA. That is probably the biggest jump so far of any level. I used to kind of think maybe low A to high A, but that high A to AA is just a completely different look, I think, this year, maybe even the last couple years.

He's got to overcome whatever this thing is that caused the power numbers to deplete, walks less, strikes out more more but the clock will tick and it'll be interesting to talk to him in the uh in the if he plays by the way i'm just speculating and i start to my brain when it turns to august i start to speculate about the fall league on the players that i'm selfishly going to get to see soon i'm assuming he's going to be out here and it'll be really interesting to see what those changes we see because sometimes these guys will you know they'll they'll try something offensively different sometimes teams will bring a coach over and that coach gets to kind of hone in on those players they'll have multiple team coaches on each afl team that maybe there's going to be something new that they're working on

with mayor and those will be tidbits will pick up in the offseason but i actually think you're talking about um curtis mead i think marcello is a really good buy right now i think offensively from the category standpoint he's like a number three type of hitter um that could steal a little bit more has a little bit more pop maybe a little bit less average that has not had like the best year and is also injured right now so this is a guy i would love to try to go acquire right now looking into next year even more than mead yeah i'm still very confident that it's going to work out for marcella mayor so i would be with you there welsh i think he's a great target and i think you can be a little more aggressive with him we talked about some of the leagues in which you know mead might not end up being a long-term keeper i think mayor has a ceiling that would put him into some of those groups you'd start talking about the keep seven, keep 10 type leagues. That's more in line with Mayer's

ceiling. Let's talk about Mason Wynn for a moment because he's dealing with a mild glute strain, which makes me think he'll be back soon enough to continue playing at AAA and probably get a late season call up if he doesn't come back. Maybe we'd see him in the fall league, but I think we're still looking more at a late season opportunity because of the trade of Paul DeYoung last week. Once Paul DeYoung was moved to the Blue Jays, it seemed like the late season call up for Mason Wynn, where they still preserve his rookie of the year eligibility for next year to have that shot at some draft pick compensation, that seemed like the path he was on. Now from a numbers perspective, compensation. That seemed like the path he was on. Now, from a numbers perspective, there's power,

there's speed. The strikeout rate is down with the bump up to AAA. This is a guy that's been 21 years old all season long at AAA, so he's young for the level, having a lot of success. In the context of AAA, it's more like a league average offensive performance but mason win also has a rocket arm as we saw in the futures game last year i believe that was last year my sense of time is a little warped given what's happened over the last year or so but i still look at win as someone that has probably one more level that he will likely unlock before he reaches his true talent peak and this this is like the reverse Curtis Meade. Curtis Meade might be a better real-life player than fantasy player. Mason Wynn might be a better fantasy player than real-life player at the plate

because of his ability to steal bases on top of that power that we're seeing. Yeah, that's interesting how you said that because I was about to be like, I don't know about this because Mason Wynn might be the best defender of anybody that we're going to talk about. He's got the best arm. He's major league ready, and I don't think that this because Mason Wynn might be the best defender of anybody that we're going to talk about he's got the best aren't he's major league ready and I don't think that's been a question it's been about his bat being consistent um you know cutting down strikeouts and stuff like that and they've just been too positionally stacked at the top that but yeah from an offensive standpoint he might be a little bit slow going I feel like he's had some of the same thing happened

in the AFL is a little bit slow going. Then he starts to roll. I think he's put up a very quiet, solid season, 17, 17. He almost has 100 runs. Just think about that. 92 runs and 100 games played this year. He's lightning fast. Absolutely can barrel up the ball, even for that body size. And, you know, making the adjustment from two hitting 258 and double a to 284 and triple a

while that might not be like super exciting for people because triple a is kind of eh but you've also cut by around five percent the strikeout rate iso went up a little bit not a ton of ground balls does a good job of barreling it's just going to be about learning and you know whatever whatever the major league adjustment happens like we said said, Curtis Meade is seeing 50% sliders. We're going to see something similar with Wynn. And I think it's actually going to be the high fastball. I think he's going to get attacked high fastball stuff. So it'll be how he adjusts.

But his offensive upside is one of those guys where he could hit like 240, but he could have a grip of homers in stolen bases where we see a guy like Curtis Meade who could be hitting 300 and he could have half of each of those. So even the batting average struggles, he's definitely more of a counting stats guy. I really like Mason when I think he's a great bet for next season, because I think even if the power struggles, there'll be a lot of stolen bases in there. It's kind of a Tommy Ed-like, but I think there's more upside.

I liked him a lot less before he got to AAA, and that's maybe funny to say because he's only got a 103 WRC+, at AAA right now. But Mason went in at 21 in AAA with a 103 WRC+, A, that's good. B, a 110 max EV. I finally got a max EV number for him. And that changes how I feel about his power because you could look through and see

180 ISO in AAA for Mason Wynn, 174 in AA, 127, 095 in high A know you could see a lot of these places and say is he creating those isos with his legs is he turning singles into doubles and you know another nice thing is 17 homers at triple a this year so between the 17 homers and the 110 iso and the 21 uh years old uh i like masonynn a lot more than I did before. I thought maybe this was a guy that wasn't going to hit many homers going into this season. And now that I think maybe he can manage,

even if he can only manage 110 ISO, 110 max EV does not mean that he's going to be a power hitter, but it does mean that he has good raw power. So I think he can manage at least 15 homers. If he can manage 15 homers, then we've got Tommy Edmund again. Yeah, from a roto profile, Tommy Edmund, but then with that cannon arm that makes him a really good defensive shortstop, which there's plenty of real-life value.

I wasn't trying to imply that there wasn't. And maybe even a little bit more thump than Edmund. Does Edmund have a 1.5? Yeah, see, that's what I was saying. I think be even a little bit more thump than edmund does edmund have it yeah see that's what i was saying i think there's a little bit more thump in there but like oh no yeah edmund has a 111 max ev so it'll matter his barrel rates will matter a little bit mason wins but like you were implying dvr with the defense that's one of those fantasy things you stop you don't look at sometimes but you're like he's so good defensively that it's hard to not have him in the lineup you know that's a guy that you want to make sure you are finding a spot for

no matter what and just probably keep him at shortstop. Edmund's doing weird things like being in the bottom lineup against righties, sometimes even sitting against righties. He's been moved around positionally a little bit, and I don't think that'll happen for Mason Wynn. The only thing I don't like is he could just hit nine forever, though. That's what I hope changes. I'm worried about him hitting nine for that happen for Mason Wynn. Yeah, the only thing I don't like is he could just hit nine forever, though. That's what I hope changes. I'm worried about him hitting nine for that team for a long time.

Good offensive pieces on the back end that he could still score a lot of runs, but this might be a low arc. It's actually kind of like almost C.J. Abrams-esque is where you might start to get to as well. When Abrams was hitting eight and stuff like that. It could just take a little time, I guess, too. But if it's a 250-260 average with a 310 OBP initially, hitting like you know eight and stuff like that could just take a little time i guess too but if it's a 250 260 average with a 310 obp initially that will stay low in the lineup that will hurt

the counting stats even though he's a great runner but where he'll be a good fantasy player is having the ability to pop those homers and then when he does get on run and steal lots of bases so i think there's a lot there to like with mason win. How about this? Brooks Lee bumped up to AAA by the Twins. Not a big surprise. This is someone who was supposed to move quickly when the Twins took him 8th overall in the draft last summer. He's got a strange profile for a guy at short, right? I mean, this is unusual. The summary that the Fangraphs crew has on him.

Lee is a skilled switch hitting shortstop with power from both sides of the plate. His creativity and acrobatics on defense make up for a lack of explosion and range. It's like, oh, okay. So it works, but it works for unusual reasons. Wait, is that Carlos Correa? Well, maybe? I mean...

Isn't that kind of similar to Carlos Correa? I think he's shorter by a few inches, so he's physically a little bit different. And the switch hitting thing is pretty cool. So the AA test, 87 games this year before the promotion. 292, 365, 476, all good. 11 homers, solid. 10% walk rate.

Kept the K rate nice and low, 15.8%. 11 homers for a guy that is age-appropriate for AA. That's a little bit underwhelming. 6 for 10 as a base stealer. What is the real ceiling here for Brooks Lee? I look at this profile and think, in the big leagues quickly, nice floor. But is the ceiling something we should be really excited about in keeper and dynasty leagues? He's got a big bat

he has a pretty big bat and it's kind of been i mean i guess the homer totals haven't been there but i mean it's been on display and he's it hasn't hit under 289 at any level uh hitting over 300 a couple times he's got um it gets a little bit i don't know if you want to call it like stiff like the way he can turn on a pitch. It, you can see like high generating power that I think is like 25 plus power. I'll tell you though. I also think this is a guy that, and I think this has been speculated on before.

I think this is a third baseman. I don't think this is a shortstop longterm. I mean, maybe you, you hear right in the profile right there. They're like, well, he can make up for his lack of range. Well,

what would that do better for when you are you do have carlos correa you have royce lewis third base and who are they starting a third base right now on roster resource willie castro so you've got a how long can you keep correa short i mean that but see that's where i think royce could step in and royce now the bigger question maybe what you're alluding to is if they were to put Royce there, where does Korea go? Does Korea have to move over to third? I think Brooks,

I wouldn't be surprised if Brooks ended up becoming almost like a Spencer steer ish type of player. If they tried to start experimenting in some other spots, just because, you know, a shortstop could end up moving around. I think the bat plays enough to play a corner infield spot. I don't think he's obviously going to be a runner. I think it's probably a 260, 270 profile that unfortunately

is a lot like a lot of those guys. It's almost Kirilov-esque. I think there are some interesting questions with it, but I'm still a Brooks League guy. I love the low K rates. Walk, I don't think the walk rate's going to be something exceptional in the majors, but I think there is 25 plus future power. I think it could go in the corner, and he has been a pretty successful hitter with low K rates throughout the minor leagues, so I kind of want to

continue with that, but you just got to monitor, make sure he's not hitting. He's some bad, he's got some worrisome ground ball rates. In AA, he really fixed it this year. But prior to that, he had never had a ground ball rate under 53% coming into AA last year. So he's still learning. But I'm kind of a Brooksley guy.

Look at this depth chart for the Twins. There could be a few spots that are open because you've got Joey Gallo's there on a one-year deal. He's not coming back, right? That's pretty safe to assume. It's a club option on Max Kepler at $10 million. They could let that go. They could just let him walk.

Michael A. Taylor was there on a one-year deal. Byron Buxton doesn't seem to play the outfield anymore. That's wide open for playing time opportunities. Yeah, but you know, there's something. Someone's going out there. Something a little weird about how you fit this depth chart together as well, which is it reminds me a little bit of the Giants where like, you know, they're not great true talent defenders in a lot of places.

No, they're trying to play Jorge Polanco. Like everyone's out of position. Yeah, everyone's like lot of places. They're trying to play Jorge. Like everyone's out of position. Yeah. Everyone's like out of position. Like, like I saw on twins, Twitter, people being excited that Eduardo Julian was being played at DH. And so that was his,

his natural position. And I was like, Oh boy, it's a second base. Cause I mean, he's a young guy and you're pushing Polanco to third and Polanco. Wasn't the deal with Polanco at short that he wasn't accurate with the arm. That's what twins Twitter has,

has been suggesting. Yeah. So you're going to put him at a, at third where there's more pressure on his arm. Royce Lewis, you know, I'm surprised to hear you say shortstop. Maybe you're right.

Uh, I just feel like with these injuries, like there's definitely research on like running backs and you know like you know nfl position the players where their athleticism takes a real hit after acl surgery we're talking about two now for lewis so i just can't imagine he's going to come back and have the range he used to have at short. But is that range already still better than Brooks Lee? I don't know. Maybe we're undervaluing Brooks Lee.

Maybe all of this is to say, oh, they'll just find a spot, and then there is a Correa move off, and Correa goes to third, and Brooks Lee goes there. Because the other thing I'd point out, DVR, you mentioned all those players. Every single one of them is outfield.

So the problem is they have a glut of guys on the infield. Can Julian play the outfield? I think he could probably play left. Royce has played, like, Royce was a shortstop. Royce played shortstop for multiple years. Royce played the outfield a little bit when they were full. Well, the interesting thing that happened, too, was in his AFL year, they didn't allow him to.

They actually said, they're like, sorry, buddy, we're all full. If you want to come here and play other positions, you can, because that was when they had, that team had Geraldo Perdomo and Vidal Brujan. They actually said, they're like, sorry, buddy, we're all full. If you want to come here and play other positions, you can, because that was when they had, that team had Geraldo Perdomo and Vidal Brujan on the infield. So Royce came and played third. He played left. He played center.

And I think he might have even played second. He never got to play short, but he was still like, I'm going to be a shortstop, but he's become so valuable. All this is to say is like, you could have Royce in the outfield in center. You could put Kierlof in the outfield to cure this. And maybe you could throw in a Julian or something like that, but you're kind of back to what you were talking about. You're back to out of position stuff. That's a, that's a garbage outfield. That's a garbage defensive outfield. If you do that.

So you still have a glut of all of these players on where they're going to fit. I just think Royce is the only guy. Royce is the top guy to fill that shortstop spot, in my mind, if something were to go on with Correa. And they've got just three or four different players that could play on the corners. I think Julian could be a first baseman if they wanted to go that route as well.

But Brooksley is kind of at the center of this, being close to the majors with all these guys that are playing out of position. Oh, man. There's more recent Kurolov injury news, and it's not even his wrist anymore. Cortisone shot for a strained right shoulder. I think they said they were feeling good about that, that he was going to come back soon, though.

But it's more stuff. And he still hasn't hit a ball 109 that's that's that's the biggest shock to me of all of them like i'll just you take an l on that because i just that guy is such a smart hitter you know his dad's a hitting coach like that guy is just very very in tune to the bat and the bat has just it has these moments it is he's like it's like three weeks and then he gets injured or it's just you would love i would love a full healthy season out of kirilov because i really think there's a 30 homer season in there um but you do worry about i guess the the high-end power of does he really not have a one over 109 not at any level at oh i was gonna say this year but i mean

not at not at any level they track it. We've got AAA this year and then the majors three other years. I don't know. A couple more players with recent promotions. How about Tyler Black getting that bump up to AAA? I think it was just last week. Maybe it was two weeks ago. We talked about him as someone that could move.

The issue is going to be where he fits in defensively, but I wasn't anticipating Luis Urias getting traded. There's one fewer infielder who, when healthy, was getting a lot more playing time. The question is, where exactly does Tyler Black play? He's mostly played third base this year at Biloxi. I imagine they're going to use him at the same spot, keep him at third base at Nashville and see how it goes. Offensive profile, like we talked about before, it's enticing.

I think there's a case for the Brewers to give him a look this year. If he has a couple of nice weeks at AAA, they could squeeze one more bat onto that roster. I think they might have been one player too light as far as adding at the trade deadline, so they're probably relying on Rowdy Tellez coming back or Jesse Winker coming back. And if those guys don't show something soon after their IL stints, shaking it up with promotions from the minors probably is the only other move left in the bag for a Brewers offense.

It's been pretty inconsistent. But are we buying Tyler Black as just a guy that will hit through his defensive shortcomings? Similar to Edward Julien, who came up earlier with the Twins. I mean, this is another guy where maybe the defensive limitations aren't as extreme, but there are legit questions about where Black will fit defensively. And this is an outfield that's really crowded, so you can't just say, put him out in left field, he hits enough,

because that's not really an option based on the way that team is built right now. There's a second baseman. He also played base so i mean they're promoting him dude i mean they're promoting him they're not saying you need to stay here and work on your defense and they are thirsty for offense dude i don't need to tell you this about your own team especially a team named the brewers uh being thirsty. But, dude, they could – Touring is a disappointment for me. I'm not saying that I thought there would be much more, but 75 WRC plus, it's being floated just by the glove.

I mean, maybe you keep him on the roster for the glove and you have a Tyler Black offensive defensive type platoon I don't think that Monasterio has done enough to impress me to say that I need to keep him up and just in terms of his batted ball quality 106 in 300 plate appearances 106.3 max 4.7% barrel rate for

Andrew Monasterio. I know it's like okay everywhere, good walk rate, okay strikeout rate, good whiff rate, okay enough. But if you think that Tyler Black is more of a standout, then you bring up Tyler Black, you do Black and Turing. And if you need to keep Monasterio up is there a way to build a bench oh no you're making me build a bench with this roster that

frustrates me on a daily basis who else but you so starters Christian, Joey Sal Brian Anderson, Willie Adamas we're going to put Tourang as a starter.

Santana. DH Tellez. Oh, so Kanha is bench. Contreras Caratini. Contreras Caratini, Kanha. You have two more people you can put on this bench. Did I do that right? Two catchers.

I'm staring right through it right now. Nine, that's 11, with Kanha's 12. No, you have one more player. Right now, it's Caratini, Anderson, Perkins, and Taylor, more or less, because they're starting Monasterio. But you could say Anderson's the starting lineup, and Monasterio's a backup. I don't really care how you want to describe them at the moment.

Once Rowdy comes back, Blake Perkins has options. Other guys can play center field defensively. Perkins is probably the first guy down. Monasterio might be the second guy down unless they're willing to demote Terang. Terang's glove is fantastic. He's an outstanding... Is it a question of only one

of Tyler Black, Bryce Turing, and Andrew Monasterio? Probably in the short term. The good news is they all have options left, so you can juggle them around. I think that's a problem because you don't have a backup shortstop if you bring up Tyler Black.

If you send down Terang, you don't. They started Terang at shortstop, giving Willie Adamas a day off on Monday. That's right. That's why I think Terang's not going down. Terang's not going down. One of those guys, one of Monasterio or Terang has to stay to be the backup shortstop. By the way, with Tyler

Black, I was playing with this while you guys were doing this. I was using Rotowire's batted ball data and just making a few little tweaks here of batters with at least 300 at bats in the minors, an under 22k

percentage, and are at least 23 or younger tyler black has the fourth best hard hit percentage of any minor leaguer the only guys above him jacob melton with the houston astros who has the best so again this is you gotta have an under 22 percent strikeout rate gotta be younger than, and have to at least 300 bats. Jacob Milton was number one. Gabriel Gonzalez, who is the only teenager out of this, had number two. Laiover Paguero, who's been to the majors at number three. The other two guys, by the way, have been at high A.

Tyler Black, number four, at AAA, 33.8. So fourth on that list, and probably outside of Pueblo, the most advanced of either of those guys. And there's only a few others that sit in the really solid range of like 30. There's actually only five more players that meet that qualification that have a 30 or higher hard hit percentage after Tyler Black. So nine total players. Is there an Everson Pereira on there?

Pereira, I'm going to guess. K-rate might be too high? K-rate is too high, yeah, because I kept a low K-rate on this. You did a K-rate. Sorry, I missed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kept a K-rate on that one. I did want to go off the rundown real quick to mention that Andy Martino is reporting that the Yankees are likely to promote Everson Pereira this season to play left field as soon as September hits that makes sense this is a guy with a 114.5 max EV their Ryan Garcia ESM is reporting that he has a 16% barrel rate in the minors.

But then there's also from Thomas Nestico, TJ, at TJ Stats, Z Contact, 13th percentile. O Swing, 35th percentile. Whiff, 7th percentile. O swing, 35th percentile. Whiff, 7th percentile. So this is, if you are looking for power and you don't care about batting average, OBP or whatever, Everson Pereira is your guy.

Welsh, when did the Diamondbacks promote Corbin Carroll last year? They promoted him September. So him, gunner and and corbin were on the same manipulative path where we bring them up in september just so that just enough so they can't exhaust their eligibility which by the way huge win to that because the diamondbacks are going to get that compensatory pick for Corbin Carroll. And you could argue that the Orioles are still in that for Gunnar Henderson.

So unfortunately, there's a pretty good path that kind of plays to that, that why this works. But yeah, both of those guys were in September. That's why I think any of the- 150 is the number of at-bats, and your average number of at-bats in a full month is 100. So you can easily bring them up September 1st and keep them rookie eligible. Yeah, the first week in September.

Like, top guy, like Pete Crow Armstrong is someone I pretty adamantly believe is a player that... But they may want to sneak him in for the playoffs. So they may want to bring him in in August, but sit him some days to keep him under 150 yeah well and you got to get into the 40 games too so you can't have 40 games there so there's a little bit of manipulation in here but like pete crarmstrong's one of those guys i don't think the cubs would want to exhaust but they want him to come up that's my that would be hilarious they'll bring him up the weekend before the first because you have to be don't you have to be on the roster for the first for postseason so that so any postseason stuff yeah i think you got to be, don't you have to be on the roster for the first or postseason? So any postseason stuff, yeah, I think you've got to be on. So they would bring him up like the 28th or something.

Or he replaces injury and does the K-Rod thing. So they just wait for an injury after September 1st, and they replace him with Pete Crow Armstrong, and then they're like, he can be on the postseason roster. There are people in front offices that are like modeling this stuff out and they're like, okay, on September 2nd, we're going to whoever's injured. And if Drew Spine is not injured, we'll call call him injured that's why i feel like any guy that because dvr is about to go on a great rant here because i don't want to take that away but like any guy that has full season

potential for 2024 i just don't see a team making any move in the next three weeks it is going to be calculated toward the back half of the year so they're setting themselves up at least to be put in a good position for pick compensation. If they want the guy to have a little bit of a run, cause they can also not bring up the guy, but if they want the guy to get, you know, maybe the jitters,

I think it's ideal. Have them like, have them eat some, you know, eat some turds and in September and then, you know, come up next year and be ready to go. Don't feed your prospects.

Turds. I feel like we have to say that because there are some really cheap organizations out there that might actually do it i think they were already doing that before they came to the minor league pay agreement so that was the problem yeah so you could see some guys debut the last week of august right because the debut date for gunner was 8 31 it was 8 29 for carol you can you can hold if i I remember correctly, Carroll had a minor hamstring injury or they were giving him days off against lefties or both. They were really trying to be careful with the at-bats last year.

But late August is kind of the realistic window for a lot of these players. We had a mailbag question from Andrew. Andrew in New Haven. I like when people say where they're from. I like the first name and location like old school radio style. Other names that were thrown out there as possible promotions. PCA. Pete Crow Armstrong was

in the email. Jackson Churio. This was in the email. I didn't add Jackson Churio. I didn't editorialize that. Heston Kerstad. Seems a little aggressive for me. It's a little dicey, but sure. Churio, yeah, maybe. More likely not, but not impossible.

Heston Kerstad, another Orioles prospect. Stupid Orioles. So many prospects. But the depth chart is full there. Fully laden. It's kind of more like if they have guys get hurt or if anyone between now and then really falls on their face and there's a spot that they want to fill, sure it's that's possible i wouldn't i wouldn't expect it but the the gist

of the question is like who would you try and and stash away in a first come first serve league hoping you know maybe a week or two before the end of the month you pick one of these guys up see what happens the pca case makes a lot of sense the cubs yeah i think that run defensively. He's probably been ready to play center field in the big leagues since high school, the end of high school. As much as Tauchman's a fun story, I feel like he could pump in and Suzuki is often injured and there's definitely a chance there in that outfield. He's been my number one. I think that's probably your,

your sneaky, like get them now in a first come first serve league, maybe even a week from now, but if you get the spot, you might, if you could buy it now, I'd also throw out like Colt Keith. I think we've been waiting on that one.

Colt Keith. Um, it's another one of those that he's gotten. It looks like 28 games in at triple a he's over a hundred at bats. Uh, he's not doing quite as good as he was in AA, but, I mean, we're still solid. It's 29th. Yeah, exactly.

Well, no, I think, literally, I think Colt Keith, that last week in August, that's where that starts. So if you want to be preemptive, Pete Krohn-Armstrong, Colt Keith. There's some other guys I want to speculate on, but I just don't know. Evan Carter always jumps out to me, but I just don't know. Evan Carter always jumps out to me, but I just don't think they'll do that big push at this point. And then Pereira, I think that would be another one.

Those would be three solid names as I'm just kind of perusing the list here. Those would probably be the three biggest names now that I'm looking at my own personal list of players that would be shot up. Could you bring up Carter and just make him like he'd be better than jankowski and maybe he's better than grossman and well i think that i think they could do that man the rich get richer you know what i mean like just try to try to push it like like you know do you think carter worst case scenario can just do what jankowski does yes i think without question he can i think without without question. I think they will give him a shot next year.

He pushes Grossman to the bench. Yeah. Plus with Jonah Heimhurt, you kind of have something to play with at DH a little bit. I think he's vying for an outfield spot next year. I don't even think that's in question. I think they're going to give him every opportunity to win one, even if he's just gotten to AA.

If he doesn't do a majors run, I think he's going to the AFL. I've convinced myself he's an August 29 guy. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, go get him. It's a day to be excited about. If you didn't have any other reason in your life to be excited about August 29th, be really excited about that. It could be Kyle Manzardo day, too, since, you know,

Cleveland is capital C cheap. I still don't believe he's going to come up this year. He's also injured right now. Yeah, that's not helping. But anything's possible. To be a Guardians fan after this deadline. I don't know. Is it worse?

Angels? I think it's worse than the Angels because the Angels went all in. Yeah, it hasn't worked out so well since. But the Guardians basically sold, and they didn't even take the guy that they got in their big trade and put him in the big leagues. And since that day, the Twins have won a bunch of games, the Guardians have lost a bunch of games,

and they're five and a half out. Yeah. Bit of brawl. They didn't mortgage their future, though. I mean, they traded Savali and Josh Bell, so. No, I'm just saying they sold like you know it'd just be upsetting i i think there was some some whispers that and this happens any time if you trade players away it sends a message in the clubhouse your current team like hey we don't

think this team's good enough you could internalize that a different way. You could say, we got enough guys. We're fine. We're good enough anyway. Like that's, it's just thinking glass half full instead of glass half empty, but it seems like it's often. Does it take like a coach saying that, like a manager like explicitly saying that or? I think it would help.

It would probably be really helpful if someone who made the decision to trade the player away came down and spoke to you about it, but I don't if that's really uh the custom in major league baseball doesn't seem like that's the way they got no center guard guys remember they got no center guard so anything's possible still i mean they somehow make something work there that's uh pretty impressive so we're going to talk today a little bit about pitching prospects being somehow harder to evaluate in a time when we have more information, right? We have pitch modeling, we have stuff plus, we have all sorts of great stuff from guys as they're being brought into

the player pool. And if you look back at recent prospect lists, it's a very mixed bag. And often it historically has been. This is a very tough thing to do. Find pitchers who will stay healthy and be immediately effective in the big leagues and rank them in the correct order against the vast pool of everyone. Really hard to do. Is it actually getting more difficult for reasons that we can't control? And the example, the thread that sort of pushed us in this direction, D.L. Hall. I mean, this is a guy that I thought would be at least getting another chance as a starter this year.

Instead, he's working in the bullpen at AAA, and he might be fantastic as a reliever. His command might have made him a reliever anyway. What the heck is going on with pitching prospects this year in particular? We've seen so many promotions, but we've seen a wide, wide range of results so far. What's your best explanation for why this is so difficult? Yeah, I think it is tough. I mean, even a guy like Emmett Sheehan, who does well in the models and was zooming up prospect lists, what do we get for that, you know? And, you know, I think first of all, the number one thing is it's just, you know, being a starter is harder than being a reliever. That's very obvious.

But, like, you know, have to put together all your pitches and, you know, figure out how, like, what we're talking about with Clark Schmidt in my interview about, like, you have to have pitchability. It can't just be a stuff plus machine like you have to you kind of have to you know pitch a suboptimal pitch in order to set up another pitch and you know that sort of thing i think just comes with time but i also think that there's a confluence of the trauma of 2020 with changes in how people are attacking the minor leagues that are coming together to give us really inconsistent playing fields. And the way that I think of this is, some players, some pitchers, did not miss 2020,

and they were at the alternate site. So they pitched through that. Bobby Miller is a perfect example. What's that? Bobby Miller was just the prime example of that, by the way, who's actually pitched on a televised thing at that level. Right.

Yeah, I think Shane McClanahan, too. He actually got hurt pitching at the alternate site. Right. But so those people stayed on track. And then you have other pitchers that use the time off to get better. And it's a little bit easier to do that than as a hitter because you're just like, I'm going to shape this pitch. I'm going to add this velo. I'm going to do exactly what I need to do to add velo or whatever.

Like you can just have a whole offseason plan for an extra season, you know. So some pitchers got better that way. But you also had inconsistent monitoring of injury while they were away. I mean, there were some teams that were just like, hey, good luck, you know? And other teams were like sending them, you know, elbow, you know, monitors, you know, pulse sleeves and catapults and being like,

give us every piece of data you're willing to give us while you're working out, you know, because we can't see you right now, you know? So there's a big disparity there between organizations and what they did with that. And then coming out of that, we started talking about if we have these major league pitch grades, we have these stuff models, right? And if you say, if my minor league pitcher has a major league pitch grades on his pitches,

why is he in the minor leagues? So you had some organizations who responded to that by pushing their pitchers pretty fast through the system i think you had a great example uh derrick you're talking about aj smith shauver it's just like what yeah that was that was one of those promotions where you're like okay we knew they were quick to move position players they needed but atlanta is going to have a 20-year-old, a young 20-year-old debut. And Pitchers is a World Series caliber team. This is very surprising because it wasn't like A.J. Smith-Shavar had the Uri Perez level of hype behind him either. That was the other part of it that was surprising. You can once in a while see it with the extreme outlier, highly advanced, everyone loves him sort of prospect.

But that came out of, for me, it came out of nowhere. But also it came out of like everything changed too. Just want to point out. Necessity maybe? Yeah, injuries. Two pretty big injuries in the rotation early in the year. But like coming off of like whatever was happening with COVID where some teams wash their hands, some teams were hyper aggressive. Development was stunted.

We kind of had to even be like, I can't really focus on age to level in 2021 because of everything that was missed. Another the other thing that happened, what we're seeing this year, because I think we should definitely do this if we can. But we were looking back at the last couple of years of the ranks over on fan graphs for the starting pitchers the one thing you see this year over the prior years which has changed over this three-year window is the teams made that decision where they're just like we are going to take those major league grade pitches especially if a guy throws two major league grade pitches and we're not screwing around and we're bringing them up. We see more guys as far as the ranks go compared to making major league debuts this year than I think in any other year, you know, teams were kind of babying it.

The, again, the coming off of COVID, you had everything maybe stunted a little bit. Teams are just not messing around, whether it's about pick compensation or the timelines are changing, or you have a wild cards and more teams in the playoffs. People are just not babying those bullets they have with these pitchers. And then the clear one is the injuries. Injuries are prevalent. Every freaking pitcher is getting hurt in some capacity. It feels like in the next the first some point of the first four years of their career, the teams have finally just had enough and we're getting pitching prospects

that are pushed up to the majors, which also might be bringing back the production level of why they don't look as good because they are being pushed, it seems, not every team, but it seems like they're being pushed harder. And like I said, this year seems to be at a head where we also had guys jumping from AA,

more guys jumping from double a, it seemed like than most years from a pitching perspective, Bryce Miller didn't pitch at a double at triple a whatsoever. And he just moved up. So it definitely seems like there has been a calculated change to as much as we've always talked about. Don't waste them. There's no pitching prospect. They said,

we're not doing this anymore and And we are throwing them back up. But we've had mixed results. Yeah. I think the Brian Wu, a teammate of Bryce Miller, also skipped over AAA. You said, well, she saw him at the Complex last year. I haven't been able to get over that. The opening day of the Complex League last year, which was July, by the way, I watched him pitch.

And I have a video of it. And then a year later, he's pitching in almost a year to the day. He's pitching in the majors, that type of movements. It's not unheard of whatsoever, but it's a pretty big movement. It goes by the philosophy. If my guys have major league pitch grades, let's put them in the major leagues. Yeah. Unless your name is Emerson Hancock.

So maybe he doesn't, maybe that is a telling thing also, by the way. Maybe he doesn't have those major league grades. Teams might also tell us if we gone through some injuries, but like you said, it might be kind of telling unfortunately about where he is. Prelander Baroa, you know, I know they moved him to relief, but he made the majors and we still haven't seen Hancock. So yeah, but we were, we were all kind of stunned. Oh, look at this. Breaking news. The Seattle Mariners are calling up top pitching prospect Emerson Hancock, according to sources familiar with the situation, says Mr. Robert Murray.

That is pretty amazing. Is that real? I wasn't talking about him. That just happened one minute. Oh, I thought you were kind of like joking there for me. That actually, oh, wow. Okay, that's incredible timing. I assume that, I don't know what the corresponding move is right now,

but it might be Wu. I don't know, just because Wu's innings. He's got to be out of innings, man. Yeah. Brian Wu, how many innings are you going to let this guy throw? He's thrown 99 in games this year, and he threw counting that time that Welsh stopped at the complex. Was it 30 or something last year?

Under 60. He was in the AFL, too. He pitched in the AFL for a bit. 57 plus AFL. He might have a little more left, but yeah. The Brian Wu shutdown I would assume is coming before the end of August if they're going to keep using him like a starter. They could. Could piggyback those two. Is somebody hurt?

I haven't seen the corresponding move yet. We're just guessing. Well, that is magical timing. Guess what? All the grades are great on his pitches, apparently because he's coming up to the majors. We did this. I thought it was fairly instructive. We were looking through the 2021 report,

and this is not to pick on fan graphs. I think this exercise would be about the same with anybody. But we looked through the top 50 pitching prospects, prospects and we found uh one guy who has established himself as a top 30 pitcher right logan gilbert yes yeah we're looking through that the two two years ago the 2021 report and i will echo what you said this is not at all throwing any shade at fan graphs we love the work that eric long and hagan the team over there do. It's just finding a list that we could look at from two years ago. It was very easy to access.

Also, I want to clarify top 50 of the top 100. So not the top 50 pitching prospects. If people heard that right. These are overall board. There's 17 pitching prospects that were in the top 50 overall. Logan Gilbert was the only one who has established himself already.

And some of this has to do with timelines and stuff. And some of these are wild because Ian Anderson was the third top pitching prospect and ranked 12th overall. And he looked like he had established himself as the top 30 pitching prospect at one point and now hasn't. So there's a lot of up and downs in these people's lives but uh you know other pitchers that made it and have established themselves as starters at least are mackenzie gore um grayson rodriguez i'm going to

give him that one josiah gray gray and terry sco. Those are the only ones I would say are established and good where they are. Maybe Michael Kopech. That's it. So now we've got sort of five or six established pitchers out of 17. So just wanted to give people a sense of how difficult it is. We talk about 50-50 bust rates on top prospects, but those bust rates sometimes are did they come to the major leagues and contribute and yes if you look at these 15 17

prospects or whatever it's about there's like seven of them that made it to the big leagues but some of them are nate pearson matt manning um you know casey mize you know where you're just like that's dl hall it's still a huge question mark uh of what their role is in the future if they're big leaguers even maybe matt manning at least could be a reliever but like you know and one thing i wanted to point out starters or not you know was if i know there's some people sitting here thinking this, but we also acknowledge, because I joked with both these guys, I said, guys, guess what? We just uncovered that there's no such thing

as a pitching prospect. So, fin stab. We uncovered that while we were talking about that. But to the point, it was more a bigger question about the production of pitching prospects seems different because the guys that are advanced are getting out of systems and out of the minor leagues quicker. The guys that are sticking around might have bigger question marks more than

anything else. And just the overall development is looking, we're trying to pinpoint what it is. And my top 50 dynasty prospects that I do, I have two pitchers. I put two and that's, I'm sorry, top 35.

I have two pitchers. I put two, and that's, I'm sorry, top 35. I have two pitchers. I have only six total pitching prospects in my top 50 overall dynasty prospects. And that's probably the least that it's ever been because the pool is being depleted and the best guys are coming out. And it brings into these bigger, more philosophical questions of like,

if you have overall pitching worse in the minors, what do you need to really pay attention to with even hitters and looking at what hitters are doing at certain levels, maybe the higher levels. I mean, triple a seems to be pretty devoid of pitching talent, double a, they're starting to, you know, be pulled out complex as trash, you know? So like being able to decipher offensive production, maybe some gaudy offensive production numbers

versus what is happening against the pitching is something to really think about. A guy that jumps out to me is Jonathan Classe. Classe has put up video game numbers this year but has insanely worrisome strikeout rates. What's that level of pitching competition that he's been going up against versus what might normally be there?

So I don't even know if we totally came up with all of the answers to all these things outside of bringing bigger questions about what does the depletion of pitching prospect, advanced pitching prospect do to minor league production? I have examples that by Stuff Plus, even limiting it just to starters, in the top 10 of Stuff Plus in AAA, only two of them are still in AAA. Everyone else is either hurt or in the major leagues. So that's a place where people are just kind of cycling through. I also had the example that there are only 14 pitchers this year

with above average Stuff Plus and more than a thousand pitches at AAA. So, you know, that's just a place that people are, you know, kind of combing through. And I think it's, you know, you're a pitching team. Randy Vasquez is one of these pitchers. His command is pretty terrible. But if you're the Yankees at some point, you just need him. I'm surprised I haven't reached for Will Warren yet, but if you're the Yankees at some point, you just need him. I'm surprised I haven't reached for Will Warren yet, but he's one of the other guys that's closing in on 1,000, and he's one of the guys in the top 10 that's still in AAA. But it's a combination of needs at the major league level, being able to rush people. And then you have the hitters who I think the hitter side of the 2020 thing is the trauma in 2020 of the last season was way worse for hitters.

And we saw that coming back in 2021. They were way behind pitchers for like the first two months of the season even. So, you know, the hitter trauma I think goes back further. And so then you had teams that reacted to that being like, well, we're just going to treat like we're going to say like 2020 happened and we're just going to put guys that would have been in in a in low a in 2020 we're going to put them in high a in 2021 other teams were like no 2020 never happened we're going to put all the guys were supposed to be in low a last

year in low a this year and so you have a very sort of you have teams advancing at different levels. So you have very uneven competition where you have some teams rushing their pitchers through because they have major league pitch grades. And why spend any innings in the minors? Other teams being more conservative or maybe having healthier major league squads and not needing it as bad. And then you have these hitters that are at different levels. So I think we've shared the age at agent level research and we think it's important but uh it is interesting to think that it's probably not especially now something you can just sort of blanket and by the way here's a pitch clock attacked ball as well yeah and abs

abs monday through wednesday but not thursday through friday have fun and you have two less levels in your minor league system, so you've got to clump in specific players, and you don't have as much wiggle room anymore, so have fun, guys. Yeah. Right. You're going to get cut any day. It's multifaceted. These are all reasons why this

has been such a difficult window to figure it all out in, evaluations in general. The contraction of the minor leagues going down to 120 teams a lot of guys have to be fast track because there's nowhere else to play them that changes things if you have hitters that were fast track going up against pitchers that are more advanced those pitchers are going to have some amazing numbers so they're going to get promoted faster right there's all all these things sort of working in concert with each other and then out of concert too

in some ways where it's just madness right now. So, I don't know. The takeaways? It's just very hard to evaluate minor league players. Don't look at this year's rookie crop. I was just looking at them. Don't look at this year's rookie

crop and just be like, oh yeah, what are you talking about hunter brown tanner bybee bobby miller logan allen andrew abbott bryce miller you know jp france like gavin williams like they're you know rookie pitchers are a great deal uh remember that we just pointed out there's ian anderson types you know there's you know you know casey mines matt manning so there's people who can shine bright at the beginning and then don't have that staying power. And so, you know, of these top 10 pitchers

that have made it as rookies, you know, what, maybe five of them will actually be top pitchers in two or three years. And focusing on like floor-based things, like with pitchers finding guys you know with just like solid command numbers that can go deeper into games hitters i'm you know focusing on lower strikeout rates higher contact rates like those are floor things that can help when you're like bombarded by either like really good performances or really bad performances i guess it kind of also

goes back to like, you know, the paying attention to the really, the smart people, you know, like, you know, keep on long and hanging.

Those are, you know, there's a great guy, you know, find the people that are giving you the whole package of tools and not just focusing on numbers because numbers are, they're a little bit odd. They're a little bit odd.

And I don't, we don't think we're in a space where we can fully understand, you know, what the magnitude of like, it's going to do versus how we're valuing players. Yeah, well stated. So many moving parts right now in the minor leagues. We'll keep working at it, though. We'll see if we can break it down a little bit, crack the code, find some sort of grounding elements in all of these chaotic, with all these chaotic

variables. We are going to sign off on our way out the door. A quick reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. On Twitter, you can find Eno at Eno Saris. You can find Welsh at IsItTheWelsh. You can find me at

Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Wednesday. Thanks for listening.