Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Prospects on the Move

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh discuss the prospects on the move via the MLB Trade Deadline. Rundown Kyle Manzardo - 1:58 Aaron Civale - 8:37 Taj Bradley optioned - 12:34 Bliss/Canzone trade - 17:48 Over valuing years of control - 21:30 Drop A. Thomas for Canzone? - 24:37 How to project power - 29:02 Robert Hassell - 32:06 1 in 4 prospects at deadline become a thing - 36:43 Tekoah Roby - 38:44 Deeper traded sleepers - 43:00 Rich Hill trade - 47:00 Hype of FYPD vs older breakouts - 53:08 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

Welcome to Raids and Barrels, it's Tuesday, August 1st, happy trade deadline day, Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh all here with you with a project prospect. Looking at some of the players that have been on the move so far. Hopefully we'll get some breaking news along the way. And not the low-grade breaking news that has given Eno Saris the ass on this fine, fine day. That AJ Pollock trade was just a waiver claim. Don't announce that as a trade. Keep that to yourself.

They could get a player to be named later or cash back in the return sometime down the road. We don't know how much money or which player, but there will be something going back the other way eventually. So it won't be a waiver claim in the long run. You think? I wonder if it would be like a Visa card, too. They'd just be like, listen, we got like a $200 visa card we got from from fries or safeway and here you go this is i hate those too because you can never spend the every every dime off it and you try to keep using and they're like that's been declined you're like oh gosh i guess it only

has like five dollars on it yeah and then what are you going to reload it pay another five dollars to reload those things no just bring them to target they always work at target they always take whatever's left on there all your spare gift cards like that. Oh, thank you. Thank you. That's a good tip. Yeah. I was so happy to find that out.

I feel like nothing else we say will be as valuable as that tip that I just gave. So hopefully with the bar set appropriately low, we can exceed some expectations. Let's start today with the one forfor-one trade that went down on Monday. Perhaps the, depending on the list you look at, highest-ranked prospect that will get moved at this deadline. Results may vary. Kyle Manzardo gets flipped to the Guardians in the Aaron Savalle trade. Now, Welsh Kyle Manzardo has put up great numbers everywhere he's played in the minor leagues up until this season at AAA Durham. This seems like a pretty smart buy low for a Guardians team

that has plenty of pitching and could use someone that can come in and mash on the corner potentially for the next half decade. Yeah, as soon as this trade went down, I kind of just was like, what? All I did for a little bit this is the biggest what of the trade deadline yeah this might be the shocker one that we didn't expect so the whole time was just like wait a minute hold on what's going on here because i think there's like three things at play first off there is the actual performance of manzardo which to your point it's down his strikeout rate is up his batting average is way down. This is the first level he has ever hit, not only under 300,

but he is almost like 100 points lower than last year. He's only hitting 238. Not good. The power numbers down compared to 2022. Guy had 63 games and just high eight. He had 17 homers. He's got 11 and 73 games here. So you see that underlying stuff excuse me

underlying stuff still in play for him hard hit he's pulling the ball he's not hitting ground balls line drives are still there so that's in place so there's the performance the second is is Aaron Savali this good like is this the value on a pitcher with two more years of service time understandably thinking like okay the Rays have been decimated with injuries springs out next year this gives them control maybe they you know they can figure out the stuff okay the third and this is the one I've been sitting on is what do do the Rays know? And that's what I can't get out because we've said it a whole bunch. When the Rays get rid of somebody, what's the deal? Because they tend to hold tighter than most organizations on their top prospects.

Well, you could also look at that the other way and say, what do the Rays know about Zavalli? Like, do they think they can unlock another level? Because Zavalli has this year been good at suppressing barrels and homers but his home run rate is like a half of what it was been for the other 350 innings of his career so you could just say it's all been luck you know and that's part of like number two to me like that's kind of part of the like is so volley better than and and so that could be the point but i just think all and again this is me this isn't with organization but like with manzardo in in what we

have a maybe a perception of savalle i was like could this trade have not been done with like jonathan aranda and another piece and then you keep one of what is valued as a top prospect so i keep coming back to what is the thing that has changed of concern with the team back in spring there was already concerns about where they would play. If you guys remember, I was with Manzardo in February or March or whatever. Maybe it was November at this point. I got to spend some time with him. And he had told me that the Rays at that time asked him to pick up a third base glove

because they were going to maybe try to find that Rays flexibility. And even joked about how when he was getting drafted, there was talk of him being drafted as a second baseman. So they were already exploring what are other spots we can put him in. I think that's a big part of it. Because if you look at Aranda, his glove is terrible, and he might end up at first base, but he's still playing second. Yeah, and there's flexibility there.

So I think, ultimately, I agree. Kyle Manzardo, this is a great buy low for Dynasty because the Rays got rid of him, and we're all kind of like, oh, okay, the stats look bad. The surface-level stats look bad. I think the underlying stats look great. I mean, a 112 max AD and a 49% hard hit, that doesn't tell me his power is gone.

Highest line drive rate of his career. Lowest ground ball rate this year. Fly ball rate is in it. And it's, it's well, I mean, I guess it's getting a little bit well known now that some people are tweeting about it.

I personally not into doing it, but comments are, has been dealing with some stuff all year that I think could really weigh somebody down mentally. So you just take all those things into consideration and go, this is a buy of a prospect right now but i just can't there's there's for really until like he gets the hits the ground running i have this little thing in the back of my head of like what was the raise what was the raise like what are they not like what was the thing that didn't

fit the organization have you watched them a fair amount because uh the one thing that worries me is that the you know like the fly ball rate last year in double a for manzardo was 55 percent like could he be a guy that has a hole at the top of the zone that my league pitchers can't exploit that when he gets the big leagues his his strikeout rate is going to balloon i think so he also has a come down like he has kind of like a come down approach where he can hit under a little bit. I would probably have to guess what? I'm probably going to get a whole lot more now that he's going to be in Arizona because he was an East coast guy and he's hurt right now. So he actually might come out here to complex level to kind of get settled, maybe rehab and then go up.

But I kind of speculate with where you're going is I think he does attack the zone lower, the lower zone really well that maybe there's going to be that you know nick gonzalez uh esque thing we see with a lot of these swinging strike rate like he has a good bat to ball like it can't be that bad yeah i don't i don't think any of it's that bad that's why i if you look at his career this is the anomaly this is the anomaly year yes it is at the highest level but this is not even just like kind of an anomaly it's aggressively we're talking 320 310 and then now down to 240 to me that's not i know

some people will look at that and they'll be like oh this guy just was washed out or something i look at that and i go oh this is the learning opportunity this is the first struggle that he's had so i'm not ready to give up that that's why these are guys that i would target um you know we'll see what the guardians do organizationally i think he's probably primed to go to the afl now with the mistime he's had moving organizations they have they can see him here so um you know he's not a guy this year if that's the other thing he's not an an option, I think, in any circumstance. Obviously, they've got Bell and Naylor, but I think he will take it slow, probably hang at Complex, go at AFL. We'll see if he works at any spots

like the Rays had talked to him about. Josh Bell, I believe, is a free agent, and then he'll probably be an early option next year, especially if whatever mysterious concerns we might have are gone. They've got to get rid of Bell somehow. Well, I think he's a free agent after this year. No, he's got an option.

And he'll probably pick it up. He's got a player option. Ooh, it's his option? Ooh, dreaded. Bell's probably going to pick that up. But, you know, maybe they can trade him and eat some of that money to get Monsanto up. But on the Savali side, I would say this.

Savali's stuff plus on the curveball is the best in baseball. And second is Tata Glass now. So they already have some experience, like, buying on the curveball is the best in baseball, and second is Tattered Glass now. So they already have some experience buying a big curveball. The other thing that I've noticed is Savali's had a slider that Stuff Plus likes, but he doesn't use it. And I think the reason is it looks a lot like his curveball. So he's had a hard time differentiating something that's between the cutter and the curveball. and i would say that if there's any organization that could teach

him like a gyro slider like another type of slider it would be the rays they've got they've they've they taught drew rasmussen like all of his breaking balls he has like three breaking balls you know i mean so like they they've had real success taking guys who have one good, really good breaking ball and adding multiple breaking balls to it. Do you think that's an extra change though? I don't know. I mean, maybe, yeah.

Savali has thrown the slider before, so it might just be as much as like, hey, try this grip. This is Drew Rasmussen's gyro slider. Try that because that would be great because if he was cutter gyro slider. Try that because that would be great. Because if he was cutter gyro slider curve, I think he would have a little bit more to offer and maybe get those strikeouts up.

I saw a lot of people wondering if they were going to unlock him like Zac Eflin. I mean, that's kind of what the Rays do and kind of what you're alluding to. And that was the big assumption in the people that were defending. Why would they trade Manzardo? they taught some pretty good split fingers too and zavalli has a split finger that doesn't rate that well so maybe they maybe they'll just find a different alteration to a split finger but i mean this like take a guy with an elite pitch elite single pitch that that also has command and has some other pitches i think that's what teams love to acquire that's

why i was like saying michael lorenzen is interesting pickup because it's like he's got all these pitches what if you could tweak one of those pitches and he's even a little bit better you know i think there's a lot here i think civali having multiple years of control left that was a big part of why the return was so good 100 yeah i think is it overvalued though because the sam mall trade i think it was overvalued years of control i don't know i think that was just here are two players that are probably not long-term big leaguers let's just trade them they're very different in terms of why they we need one now and you might need one later yeah yeah exactly so i think that's a consideration i do think it's interesting that at least for now with few hours, six-ish hours before the deadline,

Jonathan Aranda is still in the organization because I thought he was the most likely player to get moved. If he stays with the Rays through the deadline, this is a good thing for him in Tampa Bay. Although it's still kind of crowded, even without Manzardo, because they extended Yandy Diaz. That was the big surprise a few months back when they decided to make that commitment. They've still got Curtis Meade. Meade can move around a little bit. There's more potential defensive value with him than there is with Aranda, who seems to be just all bat, not much glove.

But they still have Isak Paredes there, too, who's kind of, for me, in that Aranda mold of you just hide him somewhere on the infield and hope for the best. I wonder how all these pieces fit for the Rays long term, even with Manzardo out of the picture. I like this move for Cleveland. The player option for Josh Bell, that's not going to block Manzardo. I think when he's ready early next year, he's up one way or another. It's interesting, too, the Guardians, they're not playing Josh Naylor in the outfield anymore.

I don't think they're going back to that to make room for Manzardo. And the last thing on Manzardo, the Rays told him to get that third baseman's glove. They didn't have him use it. Not in games anyway. It was entirely at first base at AAA. That factors in, I think. They have two or three guys who can

play first now. It's a bit of a logjam there. What do they do with Nate Lowe? Nate Lowe is a totally credible first baseman for a major league team, one of the best major league teams right now. And I don't think they're crying in their soup about it. Yeah, that's a good point.

Don't cry in your soup. It'll water it down. The Rays option Taj Bradley to AAA in this flurry of moves too. And it's been a disappointing rookie season overall. I still like him a lot long-term. The underlying numbers are still good. A 30% K rate, a sub-8% walk rate. Yeah, there's a home run problem that's been there

since he arrived at AAA last year. So yes, there are some things he still needs to work on, but there could be a good buy low opportunity in keeper in Dynasty Leagues right now given these initial struggles with Bradley. So, you know, what is it that gives you confidence that Bradley will make the adjustments

and eventually unlock it all. Just a really good fastball. I like starting with a really good fastball. I think then you can, you can put things around it and you can figure things out. I mean, yes, I just talked about how Aaron Savali has a really good curve ball,

but I would say, I would suggest to you that it took a while for him to figure out how to use that really good curveball. And if you look at Kyle Braddish, there's a guy who has an elite curveball and is putting the pieces around that. That took a while, too. And what do you think?

Would you rather have the Kyle Braddish ceiling going forward or Taj Bradley? And I would put in front of you that I'd rather have the Taj Bradley thing because he starts with a good fastball. What happened to him? I remember when we were talking about the send down and then in the minors, every minor league game, Cutter was gone. They had scrapped the Cutter.

It was like, oh, this isn't working. And then it just came back. Yeah, he told me that he'd lost Velo on the Cutter, and so it wasn't so much that the cutter wasn't working. It's that he had to get the Velo back. And, in fact, if you look at his velocity on the cutter, as soon as he got the velocity back on his cutter, they brought him back to the big leagues.

Okay, that's what it was. Yeah, just, I mean, obviously you've got to have something he can throw to right-handers, but, you know, just re-looking at it, that's the pitch that has gotten smacked around the most. It's a.292 expected batting average and um hitters are hitting over 300 against that pitch you know he was like in high school he said he was in high school you know in 2018 and they changed everything about him yeah so you know and he started only pitching in high school so i i could see him still adding another pitch you pitch in this offseason or this season

and being even better later. He's a huge dynasty buy. I think that's the point. We're just done this year. Even if he were to come back up, maybe we just don't. We need to wash our hands of all that. Before going into the offseason, this is someone I would target. What's the Rays rotation right now?

Glass now. Savalle. Eflin McClanahan. I'm not sure about that. What's the Rays rotation right now? Glasnow, Savalle. Eflin, McClanahan. Eflin, McClanahan. So you got your four. Who are we missing on if I could look at depth charts here? I feel like we're missing somebody. Are they going to play like an opener group? They got to chuck Adrian Sampson out there as a starter

after getting him in a small trade. I mean, Criswell, Fleming. Yeah, Fleming. That's who I was thinking of is Fleming. starter after getting him in a small trade i mean chris did they trade fleming yeah yeah fleming that's who i was thinking of is fleming they could they got like a guy mason montgomery is a kid they have in the minors that they could they're just gonna manage bradley's innings and bring him back up again yeah maybe shane bot where's shane shane boz has been i mean that's a guy that's a fake passing account that had shane boz traded for Lance Lynn and I No, come on. You didn't get tricked by that, did you?

No, but I was so mad for a second and I was like, no, that's obviously Jeff Passon with like four ends. I guess Bradley could come back. I just don't know what the worth would be rest of season and we don't know what other move is going to happen, but bottom line would be next year.

I don't know how long to hold on to him in non-keepers. I would give it another week because there's an off day coming up for the Rays on Thursday, and there's an off day coming up after that on Monday. So they didn't necessarily need Bradley. This was a way to have someone else on the roster for a stretch and then possibly bring him back up at some point after the deadline. Clean up the active roster during the trade deadline in case there's a trade that you don't have to do anything weird with Bradley. You don't have to demote him during the trade deadline. You demote him ahead of after the deadline. During the trade deadline, in case there's a trade that you don't have to do anything weird with Bradley.

You don't have to demote him during the trade deadline. You demote him ahead of the trade deadline. You know who you're going to release if you do a trade. It's not going to be Bradley. I think it's just clearing the decks. I think he might be back soon. He's better than Josh Fleming, I have to say.

The recent stretch, though, the last seven starts, the reason I use that, he's given up a homer in every one of those starts, including four against the Diamondbacks back on June 27th. Taj Bradley has a 7.67 ERA over his last seven starts. There's reason to be cautious when he comes back, even if you do want to roster

him and take chances on him, stream him in certain matchups. I get all that. But this could be a relatively short-term demotion depending on a bunch of things that are out of his good starts in there too i mean at texas nine strikeouts two earned runs and five innings oh yeah it's just a problem it's volatility every single month this year he has uh added to his era and whip his whip and era has gotten worse every single month he is and. And every single month he's had

at least one start that you're like, damn that's a good start. Yeah, but that's the inconsistencies. And it's like in August in fantasy, is that what you want? Is it worth it? I don't know. I don't know. It depends on your league. Or to have for if you're out of it

for ratios and neat strikeouts. Yeah, if he's up against the A's then you're just like give me three Taj Bradleys. Not surprisingly, the Mariners have been active at this deadline. They made that huge trade with the Giants that Eno was upset about earlier. But they also made a deal with the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks get a closer in Paul Seawald. Three players go back to Seattle in this one.

Dominic Canzone, Ryan Bliss, and Josh Rojas. He's a parenthetical mention if you're watching us on YouTube. Not because he's bad necessarily, but because he's not a prospect. Welsh, I got to go to you first on this one. You didn't seem thrilled that both Canzone and Bliss were in this package because Seawald is one more year of control. He'll be a free agent after 2024, a little older than some of the other relievers that could be moved at this

deadline. But this really opens up a path to playing time for Ken zone who looked like an extra guy with the D backs. Yeah. And I had a lot of people that were surprised, you know, that were like, wait a minute,

why aren't you happy about it? And I don't want to be, I try not to be like super like, Oh my gosh, every prospect, why would you do this? But like this one I just didn't love because it also, this felt like the cost for a David Bednar. And David Bednar, more control, better closer, I think. But like getting both Bliss and Canzone in this trade,

that was too much for me. And this felt like too much of an oversell on these players to buy Paul Seawald. Because here's the other thing. The Diamondbacks were not a closer away. They're a sinking ship right now. They need two more relievers. They need two more relievers. They need, at minimum, another piece in the rotation.

And they need probably one more power impact bat. So to trade both of these guys, I didn't like Dominic Canzone. I have been preaching since the offseason. He's had a stellar year in the minors and only 13% K percentage, 16 homers. He was in the lead for a decent amount of time, hitting.354. He's come up to the majors. You've seen a little bit of some of the struggles, but he just has a really good bat path.

He's had some clutch hits. He's got a homer under 20% K percentage. You can see where the average is going to grow. This is a major league outfielder, I think. And Ryan Bliss, I've seen you guys off air. My friend Dennis Siddler did a signing with him at the Futures game and was like, who's the toughest hitter you've? And without hesitation, he was like Ryan Bliss. And he was like, Ryan Bliss was one of the toughest outs I've ever had to deal with because his bat is always on the ball, right? When you think you have him, you don't. at double A before going to the Futures game.

Stole 30 bases with 12 homers. And then he got brought up to triple A. He struggled a little bit. This is another guy, sub 20K percentage. He's smaller, but he's explosive. I think there's five tools in there. So you traded like two five toolish players and then Josh Rojas, whatever, for Paul Seawald, who's got one more year of control.

I think it's a great guy to have, but it felt like an overpay. And I just wish one of those guys was in there, because I think both of these players can be productive for this team. I think Ryan Bliss can move over and play second for this team. I mean, Colton Wong hasn't worked. And like you said, with Kelnick out and them potentially moving to Oscar Hernandez, Canzone's going to be able to go the rest of the year. So I think both of these guys are great.

Add buys, however you want to consider it, for the rest of the year. I think Canzone is going to be sneaky. I would be looking to pick him up in deeper formats, and Ryan Bliss will probably get some run next year. So I thought it was a little bit of a fleece job, but I think it had to do with the market price, and the market price was trading you know two solid close to the major prospects for one extra year of seawall see i i think it's possible the market is overvaluing years of control at this point like i'm trying to make

this case i know the mole uh sam mole data point is not a very strong one, but, uh, uh, but in terms of the Aaron Savali one, like that's a pretty good prospect for, for Aaron Savali. And we're talking about two years. And then in this one, I think Ken zone alone, uh, makes this deal worth it for the Mariners.

Um, you know, in terms of one extra year of control and two months of Paul Seawald, like it's not, we're not talking two years, not talking three years, just one extra year of control and two months of Paul Seawald. Like, it's not, we're not talking two years, not talking three years, just one extra year of control and you get Dominic in zone. The one thing I would say is it seems to me like the Mariners have a type

and that you could maybe take advantage of that type in conversations with them. And if you've got a player who controls the zone and walks, right, but does not hit the ball hard, then go shopping. Go talk to Jerry DiPoto because he has now made some mistakes. I think Rojas is not an addition to this trade. To prove this almost, they replaced Rojas with Jace Peterson a second later, and I don't think they took a step back in that role or whatever it is.

And then secondly, Bliss gives me a little bit of that same feeling. He's hit a ball. The hardest he's hit a ball is 108 in AAA, 20% hard hit rate. And outside of this year at AA, Bliss has had poor ISOs. And the other mistake they've made that I think is in this mold is the Abraham Toro. So I feel like there's a little bit of a trend emerging there where it's like, oh, does he have a 10% walk rate, an 18% strikeout rate, and a league average ISO? You don't talk to Jerry DiPoto.

But the one that stands out for me that keeps me from saying i don't like this trade is ken's own man yeah uh i mean he had a ball 113 in the minors uh he's hit in the majors he's hit balls hard good hard hit rates and uh those are those are better than 18 strikeout rates he's got 13 and a 10 and double A. So I think Canzone is the guy I'd be most excited about in this deal. And what do the Mariners need? They need to lengthen their lineup, and they can use it anywhere, and they need a replacement for Teoscar Hernandez.

And, man, if Canzone gets playing time the rest of the year too, I think he's just a sneaky pickup. He's just a sneaky pickup. I mean, maybe they're going to bat him seven or eight, but I i don't know depending on how they bust out this roster at the trade deadline they're not only just opportunities but like maybe even moving up in the order type opportunities could be out there so he's just he's someone to really keep an eye on and how well help me manage my team here i've got a a 12 team uh a dynasty where we've got a minor league list. I've got some minor league stashes,

but, um, I've got, uh, I need to rebuild a little bit. Uh, I'm in sixth place. I'm in the playoffs,

but, uh, not doing that great. I have Austin Hayes, uh, LFRF and Alec Thomas CF. Um, and Jorge Polanco.

I just picked up after, up after I made a trade. Would you drop any of those guys for Kenzo? I would drop, I would drop Thomas for Kenzo. I actually kind of thought that the diamond bags might consider moving. Thomas would have been, which would have been one piece to help to help Kenzo and get more playing time with the diamond backs,

because there was a rumor that Thomas was someone that tigers really liked. And the diamond backs clearly needed to look at pitching and Eduardo or Michael Lorenzen. And I thought Thomas would be going there, but I, though there, there, there's some similarities like Alec Thomas,

we've seen how bad that game has gotten, even though he can put up some big hard hit stuff. I would rather have Ken zone, especially now in Seattle. Last month, 273, 784 OPS, three homers, and a stolen base for Alec Thomas. Yeah, but I mean, also up and down in the minors, they let Dominic Fletcher. They let Canzone have time. Alec Thomas' calling card is the defense.

He definitely can put some offensive numbers up, but I would bet, I think Canzone's offense is already above alec thomas's thomas will just always have playing time because he's like a gold glove type of defender but um how about you that's just me i see i think i think the thomas drop would be justified i think this is this speaks to the the stark contrast between fantasy value and real life value yeah i think if you if you consider something like the welsh was saying where you'd say oh let's um let's trade out thomas in a big league deal that he's probably much more valuable from a big league perspective in the eyes of

all gms most gms i i think i think we get caught up in that sometimes but it's keeper and dynasty like that's the other difference is Canzone gets a shorter window to prove he's a good big league hitter than Alec Thomas does because of his defense. That's where the defensive context matters so much. So Canzone's realistic runway to be a regular is probably these two months plus next season and maybe some of 2025 is that a fair statement to make given his age and sometimes corner outfield limitations a short runway because you're just like okay then i can drop him you know yeah it's like get off the potty dude it's the streaming thing whether it's like for pitchers or you're playing fantasy football like having a guy that you can just kind of interchange like if once you sometimes you'd freeing yourself of having players that you're more comfortable interchanging in it can help you

find those diamond in the roughs than being like man i just can't get rid of this guy and i can't get rid of that guy like i just don't think alec at this point is someone that's like a must surprise neither of you said austin hayes i think hayes has shown skills underlying skills this year similar to what he did two years ago, right? Barrel rates close to 10% again. Orioles lineup's a good lineup, but there's a lot to still like there. So if there's a drop there for me, it is Thomas for all of these reasons. Thomas kind of points me back to a question that we've kicked around on a few different occasions on this show,

and it relates to what we talked about yesterday with Luis Angel Acuna going to the Mets how much power should we project for young age to level players in the upper levels of the minors who aren't showing it in games yet yeah you know like it's supposed to be there it's there in the scouting reports it's there because of BP it's there because of max EVs all the reasons it can be future power. Sure, that's fine. But how much should you realistically expect? And then timing, of course, everything to players. They don't they don't develop all in the same timetable. So you have that as a complicating factor.

But I don't know. I keep going back to something you said yesterday, you know, with Ozzy Albies. You didn't show a ton of power coming through the system, but I'm going to continue to assume the underlying numbers of contact quality weren't off the charts good for Albies, given body type, given that he's a switch hitter, given all that stuff. And what he did in the big leagues, right? Yeah.

We wouldn't have looked at his minor league hard hit data if we had it back then and said, no, no, no, it's going to come. Here's the proof. Here's why you should believe in Ozzie Albies. So whether it's Acuna or other prospects who are supposed to have power and don't, what should we be doing and projecting for players like this? And Alec Thomas is part of this conversation too, where maybe the glove carries the playing time for the next three years. And we've done this with Kim Ryan Hayes for a while. Hey, great glove. There should be power there.

It hasn't happened yet. What do you do when these guys are in double A and you're trying to make trades in your fantasy league or trying to assess the moves your team is making and trying to understand what they're really getting back in the return? I think it's hard, man. I look at ground ball rates. If it's consistently 60%, then I think that's a big ding into future power.

And with Acuna, yeah, he started out at 55% of rookie ball, but he's already got it to 48, 49 in the last two years in AA. So I think Acuna can add some power. But it is funny. His brother said, Ronald Acuna Jr. said, he's more refined than i was at 21 um no he wasn't no he isn't dude do you not remember ronald lacuna jr you went 40 40 basically in 21 in the big leagues i don't know what you mean by more refined yeah i think he knows on it

like that's a really tough question because there's also the not numbers part of my brain. Like their bodies, maybe? Yeah, I go out and I watch these guys, and sometimes it'll be the swing. You can see where a certain type of body that doesn't look like it would be power could generate just barreling. You know, like the Lars Newpark conversation we have. There are guys that have these swings. sometimes it's just to bat speed and if you get carol carol doesn't look like like you wouldn't look at carol and say that guy's gonna have he's optimized that that's also something like in the minors if you were around him and you just learned like the competitive

nature um something i always likened to as far as his hit tool was that I want to say he took players under his wing. But like when he was recovering every offseason and not just recovering, but like the multiple springs, I would hear about how a player worked with Carol and Carol was helping Christian Robinson refine his swing. It was definitely that vibe. Just watching him on the field. Yeah, he's a leader. He is. And he is a leader. And he did that with lots of players. So that's an intangible that I can't put on there.

So I have some of those things in my head. That doesn't help anybody. But things I would look for, I also look for that high A to double A batting average dip where you start to see maybe more pull, and that shows, oh, maybe this guy is now going through the I'm trying to utilize my contact for power i do pay attention to doubles as well as stupid as it is like you know there's

a lot of missed homers in especially like complex baseball that uh high doubles numbers with really good contact might be uh something you can look for uh future power when you pair that with like whenever you can get hard to hit whenever you can get low ground ball rates those are some of the things but I do unfortunately think they're just intangibles that we can't just look at on like fan graphs that are going to be like oh this is how you determine

there are definitely trends that'll get us there but there are just some guys and some things that you got to hope you know there are people with eyes on the players that are going to try to preach to you. You know, it doesn't always work. Like Robert Hassel was a guy that was billed as the top contact. I'm looking at C.J. Abrams minor league numbers, you know,

and, you know, at some point this year I thought, this guy's never going to hit for power. Yeah. And. See, I've seen him hit for power, even in complex levels. I've seen the contact. I saw easy power. His very first pro at

bat i was there peoria and he smashed a homer over the bullpen and it was like from day one that skinny kid i saw the easy power so i could never get his power out of my head but he also has never uh hit 50 ground balls except for his rookie season in the big yeah and that's where you can start to put some of those trends together it'd be awesome if there was a perfect formula for it but there are definitely some awesome tools like i was talking about that you can pay attention to whether it's ground ball rates sometimes hassle has it has not worked out for us no but my point was like hassle was a guy that was billed as like a high high end contact player he had some real like bat speed aggression in his bat like kind of like an upper stance he would really

attack the ball he'd hit some doubles that was a guy that was like oh well if he builds on that body if he continues to mature in that body and this bat keeps going he's going to turn this into power his body has never matured he's been nothing but injured and then he also was traded uh you know between organizations into an organization that i don't know what their track record i don't know if it's a positive track record of like developing hitters so everything is ground balls yeah yeah yeah it's interesting when you think about the nationals it's like well bryce harper was one one bryce harper was bryce harper out of the box they didn't fix him juan soto like how much

player development credit do you give the gnats they found him but did they make juan so it was so good at the lower levels like from day one too yeah so like anthony rendon you know super polished college bat he was great for them for a long time so you you don't necessarily have young players that they've they bought all their pictures they've come through with the hitting side where you're like, oh, yeah, they develop hitters well. I think it's a very fair question to ask. I mean, given some of the context, the trade, the injuries, the need for further development physically, that's a lot of things with Robert Hassel that could still change.

I mean, you're talking about actual keeper in dynasty buy lows. It seems like this is a fantastic time to buy if you believe in those core skills being good enough and if you believe in the org but i think if you're number scouting especially the concern you'd have is that the k's have gone up and the ground ball rate still there right you're not seeing some underlying tweaks that are like well he's he's swinging and missing more but he's hitting the ball in the air more you can't even find a real trade-off that you like in the adjustments he's made since reaching AA.

The best thing about Robert Hassel is that he's really young for the level. That's it. Yeah, and to your point, you would also love for them to be in an org that can get really hands-on because this is not working. I'm with you. This is a guy I defended for a long time. It's just getting worse, it feels like, so there's not much to buy. And then the nationals

the nationals their scouting department is essentially buying what other teams have done like that's what they do like their their department is like who's doing good at other with other teams okay let's buy that player it's not necessarily their own development so i don't trust and that's not maybe that's an overarching thing but like i just don't trust that there is something implemented into fixing him. A further question, which we don't probably have time for was something we all had off air was how much are any of these organizations in the minor leagues really hyper

focused on the players to, to get plans of action when there's only maybe a handful, if not less than a handful of players that are really hyper focused on the development of prospects. When you see a guy that you've invested in like that with Robert Hassel, there should be a plan of action to fix. Let's do something. You know, Eno's one-point location spot with a pitcher.

Let's fix some stuff. And I don't know what that looks like with Robert Hassel. They haven't done it. I don't know what that looks like with Robert Hassel. They haven't done it. So that doesn't lead me to have a whole lot of trust that someone like that is going to rebuild it. This has turned into a different thing from power, but it's unfortunate, but it's getting messier.

And those are some of the stats you can look at for trends as Ks are going up, ground ball rates. Those are things that are telling us a really bad story that has continued over year and year and level and level. I got a question for you. I just tried to read this really quickly, but since last Wednesday, it looks like 16. Let's just call it 15. I don't know if I counted right.

15 prospects have been traded. Okay. Kyle Glazer has a piece today on Baseball America saying that one in four prospects in about the last five to seven years, one in four prospects traded to Deadline makes the major leagues and puts up a positive war over at least two seasons. So that's a pretty low bar.

So who are your four prospects that you would like to have out of this deadline? Out of everyone who's been traded so far. Yeah, so we got Canzone, Bliss, Manzardo. Who are... I mean, Acuna. Acuna, okay. Is there any hard choices beyond that?

Is that the obvious four? I think it's Acuna, Manzardo, Bliss, and Canzone is immediately what jumps out to me. Am I missing another? I don't remember the other prospects besides like Segese, Roby. Who else do we have? Sam Rabersa.

Nope. Adam Kloffenstein. Nelson Velasquez. Marco Vargas. People were a little excited about Marco Vargas. Justin Jarvis. When that David Robertson thing happened. I mean, I think, right, the difference between getting to the big leagues

but then staying up for two years and having a positive impact is pretty significant. Nelson Velasquez. There's some tools there. Justin Jarvis. I mean, there are some interesting names, but if the idea of this is we only get

four names that will Nick Nastrini could be one of those but if you have to bet that only four based on this work is going to go I don't think it's remotely close that it's those four it's not to say that Nastrini also that it could this could be a trade deadline by the way that breaks

that trend oh Edgar Carrero is a catcher. I'm putting him in over Ryan Bliss. Edgar Carrero, yeah. Because catchers get chances. Top 100 prospect that's in there. I think my picks would be Manzardo Acuna, Canzone, and Takoa Roby. Ooh, you like Roby, huh? Roby, I didn't

know much about him until he was traded, but reading some of the stuff Eric Langenhagen has about him on Fangraphs, I mean, this is a guy with lots of pitches and command who if you're number scouting on the ratios, you're probably not on him yet, but if you read the scouting reports, you're going to be really excited

about what he might be able to do. I think there's a really good chance he's a quality big league starter based on what everyone's starting to see from him in the upper levels of that system. He's gained some muscle, physical muscle, too. I've seen him for a couple years, and I told you guys off air, I was at the Rangers facility at the deadline, and Roby was there. He wasn't at AA or anything. He was there throwing a session, probably for scouts

in some capacity, and he was there throwing and he looks like he's added probably like 15 pounds of muscle from where he was in the last year, just weight in general. He's just a bigger ish guy with a big fastball and some good secondaries. I was a little shocked by the grades.

Those are some intensely good grades that even I wasn't locked into, nor had I saw. But a 70-grade curveball is huge. 60 fastball, 70 curveball, 55 slider, 55 changeup, 55 command on the futures for Roby. Yeah, and what I really like is that swinging strike rate. That has stayed high, and I like it. I mean, good control, too.

Good control numbers. Not a gross home run rate so far. His first taste of AA. I'm wondering with the innings he's thrown this year if the Cardinals might send him to the Fall League. Yeah, I think that's very likely. Because he threw 104 last year, so he wants to get over that this year.

Yeah, very, very likely. This is the time of year I know a lot of people don't care, but you should care to pay attention to the players that get sent to the Fall League. Not just because I'm here and I talk about them but uh and nina will be here and dvr maybe maybe yeah i don't know okay okay yes yes okay sweet i'm back but like you you want to pay attention this time of year because guys that have missed significant playing time those are the players that are going to pop up and that is one of the reasons these

guys get sent but also that main reason is to build up the finishing school and you know i think you could start to like i've already speculated a guy like ricky teedeman seems like a lock for the time he's missed and tako roby would be another one of those because if you really want to build back up and if he's going to be close for this organization to start pushing up um for the cardinals then you know you gotta you gotta build off or get back to that 100 innings so maybe he is like an aggressive starter in the afl and then you could get him and build him back up to 80 or 90 of the innings that um you know still a little bit less than the year before but yeah prime i think and this will be great for all of us to hyper focus that's. That's actually a sneaky one, too, if we can get eyes

on him more in a setting like that because the service stats look so stinky. You know, they're great reports, but the service stats are not good, so we've got to really see what this guy is all about for, you know, for multiple starts. I'll send this to the Google Doc, but I think, you know,

our conversation is convincing me pretty easily that I have Roby over Justin Jarvis, who went to the Mets in the Mark Canna deal. And that makes sense. I mean, just given the relative quality of the players that were changing hands, the major league players that they were traded for, you can almost target, you almost tag them to that. But Mark Canna's, what, almost a platoon short side platoon maybe a little bit bigger you know uh rental outfielder so um i would say that um the swing strike rates on roby

have been consistently better than jarvis jarvis had a little pop-up uh year this year in double a where he finally he kind of pushed the swing strike rate into a better territory and and did strike out 28.6 percent of the batters he saw Jarvis did I don't know if the stuff has receded at all in triple-A but you know despite people being pretty excited about his stuff the stuff plus says he's got a 102 stuff plus fastball, and then the slider is about average, and the curve is below average. So that's just what the model says. It's not gospel or anything,

but you also look at Jarvis everywhere other than 23 AA this year, and he does not impress. Do you guys have any deeper sleepers that you see in the other deals that have been done? I think Jose Cuas came up on the Friday episode last week. We were talking about possible Royals closers if they made a few moves at the deadline. One of those was a possible Scott Barlow deal, which could still happen.

But looking up and down that list, whether it's guys that are far away or maybe or guys that got pushed out in one of these deals. whether it's guys that are far away or maybe or guys that got pushed out in one of these deals. So anybody else you're keeping your eye on, even though we didn't pick them for our very likely to be impact big league players group. I mean, I'd say someone that I liked who was out here was Johnny Severino. I mean,

this is not going to qualify to anybody trying to get production now to any of those players, but Johnny Severino was a complex of a guy with the Brewers who got traded to the Pirates, hitting 250, five homers, seven stolen bases so far. He's hitting 250 with the complex Pirates and he hit 250 with the ACL Brewers. So that has continued. He's already hit his first homer. Really good contact.

That is actually a pretty talented Brewers team that is out here right now. Baez, I think Juan Baez has been kind of a monster out here. And they've got their rookies that are out here. And Severino ended up getting moved in that Carlos Santana trade. Just from seeing him, that was someone that jumped out to me immediately as like, oh, this was actually a really good get. Outside of Marco Vargas, who's another one of those. I'm not as high as some of the other people who've talked about him.

But like, there's a huge ceiling. There's a huge ceiling with him. Makes a ton of contact. There's a good offensive profile that's sitting in there, and I thought that was a sneaky pick that the Mets got. But both of these players are complex-level players that are probably four years away. They're like 18, right?

Yeah, so in Atenaagues that we're playing in, they're not guys I'm probably prioritizing to pick up, but like open world dynasties where you've got big minor league systems, those are players that I'm definitely keeping an eye on right now. I, lover of old dudes and post-hype and non-prospects, will give you an old dude non-prospect. And the comp for me is Tay Oscar Hernandez.

Oh, okay. Nelson Velasquez, baby. I was going to say, are you going to go with Nelson Velasquez? Nelson Velasquez is a right-hander who strikes out too much. He's aggressive, but he does have a sense of the zone. He's going to a team that I think has to give him a shot, dude. I mean, what are you really getting out of Drew Waters and Kyle Isbell, you know? Give Nelson Velasquez a shot against righties.

Let him play, and, you know, the quality of contact is really, really good. And I think he can be one of those guys who hits his way to like a 330 babbitt to push his batting average into like 240 and get his obp over 300 and pair that with good slugging and he could be a guy that hits you know 240 with 25 homers and 5 to 10 stolen bases i think if they give him all the time. He might not be the greatest real-life player because his OBP is never going to be plus, but his defense isn't bad.

I think they could get a four-year run out of him with some good numbers. I think the problem for the Royals is deciding how long you wait on someone like Waters or even Isbell. And I think in the case of Waters, they've only seen a half season's worth of plate appearances.

I think they're going to give him more chances to whittle away at that K rate and turn those tools into more production. Just do that in center. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Kyle Isbell, I mean, we've seen basically a full season's worth of plate appearances from him. Not really a good barreler.

Does have a nice hard hit rate, so maybe there's still a little something there but i don't know i i've lost a little bit of faith there especially because he's 26 already so you're starting to get to that point where if it hasn't happened yet when is it really going to happen looks like there's another trade in the works right now padre is adding rich hill and g-man choi in a deal with the Pirates. Haven't seen a return on that yet, but I believe it was Jeff Passon on that first. Oh, is this A.J. Pollock level?

Is this A.J. Pollock level enough? Is this a waiver claim? Is this not a trade, Rich Hill? You know that meme with the butterfly? Is this a waiver claim? Well, if Rich Hill is not in that rotation in Pittsburgh, that means someone younger probably is. Jared Jones?

Could it be Jared Jones? It'd be exciting if it was Jared Jones. And I don't hate Luis Ortiz. Maybe there's room for him. Probably Luis Ortiz for the seventh time. Osvaldo Bito is still in that rotation right now too. Opportunities. What can you do?

I wonder what that return is going to be. It's going to be light, but you never know. It could be some kind of young player. It could be like another Johnny Severino type where you just get somebody who's far, far away. Complex level. Actually, the complex level guys, there's a couple of really interesting ones out here.

I haven't mentioned this guy yet. I wouldn't be shocked if he was in this trade. But Romeo Sanabria, he's too old to be here. He was a college guy, but he's absolutely mashing here in complex. He puts up big, big hard hit numbers. He's near the top of power. It's a little too high age to level, but I've just watched him a ton. They have, I mean, we could speculate and people will be listening to this

and already know what it is, but they got quite a few players at the complex that weren't even just drafted from Sanabria to Alain Camus to Yendri Rojas. There's quite a few players that, even though they're not top heavy anymore, they're not even close to top heavy, the Padres, the lower levels, they've got guys that I think teams would want to speculate on. And the Pirates are not going to get a, this isn't going to be a big, if anything, return for Rich Hill and G.B. Troy. Well, wouldn't the Pirates maybe want something closer?

Like, what if it was betting on super short sample stuff plus numbers on Jackson Wolfe? I was just about to say, like, Jackson Wolfe is where you were going to go with that. Yeah. Well, just, you know, somebody who, like Jackson Wolfe is where you were going to go with that. Yeah. Well, just, you know, somebody who like, you know,

they need, they need pitching. They're trying to push a timeline that has to come in the next two, two, three, three years, I feel like. So I don't know if they necessarily want,

you know, like a 17 year old, 18 year old. Yeah, that might be the case. It probably is the case. If we're being honest, I know this player does not meet,

you know, his criteria of a pitcher with a good foundation, but Sem Rebursa, another player acquired by the Cardinals, he was part of the Jordan Hicks deal. They got him from the Blue Jays. Just 21. He's got a couple of good pitches by scouting report, the curveball and the changeup, lots of swinging strikes. 40, 45 fastball?

Yeah, the problem is both the fastball and the cutter are the the low grade pitches but it looks like he's got the ability to miss some bats good swing strike rate numbers very young for the level so far i'm curious to see if the cardinals can find a way to help fix that fastball or if they'll just tuck him into the back of that rotation a year or two from now yeah maybe maybe there's something uh the toronto hasn't tried although i will take toronto pitching development over st lou Louis pitching development 100%. Yeah. Is that a hot take?

I feel like that might... Is that a hot take-ish? Or is that well-known? I don't know. I feel like the Cardinals have... I guess recent history on the pitching development has been a little bit eh. But their overall development has just gotten extra credit,

I feel like, for... Well, I mean, their general manager just came out and said that we have to rethink how we acquire and develop pitchers and think more about swinging strike rate or getting whiffs. So I think Toronto has already made that decision. This is true. Oh, it looks like the Jays could be getting Paul DeYoung too. Yeah, there's a trade rumor out there right now.

Yeah, well, that actually also might speak much worse news to how bad that injury is but uh yeah the it looks like they're in advanced talks uh blue jays and cardinals right now yeah that is some implications on a possible auto new trade that welsh and i were going to make too so that's the other much less important than the shit i forgot Bichette. I forgot about that. Bichette. I think that DeJong was somebody that I ticketed for the Giants, but I think with how much they're playing Marco Luciano, he's mostly played every game, I think, since he's been out. I think so.

And he got batting average up too. I mean, I'm such a, like, I've been such a hater about all of it, but doing some business right now. And, you know, this is a team that is in contention and they are playing him every day it does speak it does speak very well to him uh but yeah it doesn't look like that's going to be the market there and i i don't remember if you said i felt like the giants and tim anderson would have just made sense i think it's a good idea i mean because tim anderson is not at all like the rest of the giants and i And I know that's weird. It's like, well, wouldn't the Giants have a type and go for that type? Yes, but they have a lot of those types.

In terms of guys who control the zone and hit the ball decently hard. You know what I mean? Tim Anderson is not that right now. He hit his first homer of the year. But what about a guy who's super fast and has swagger and could just get super hot and just be a totally different player than anybody else on the team like is that not useful yeah i and also uh kyle uh harrison just a random thing pitch last night here in complex happened to be

lots of scouts out here in complex uh just saying there might be i think that's a justin ver like if they get justin verlander kyle Harrison is going. By the way, just reported Jackson Wolfe is the main prospect going to the podcast. There you go. They just reported. Nailed it. Nice. We talked about Jackson Wolfe a couple weeks ago after that

debut. It's a different profile. The stuff numbers pop, but you watch it and you're like, I don't know. Is this really going to work? Yeah. And yeah, my kids were even like, he doesn't throw the ball hard. I'm like, no, no, he doesn't. The Little League kids are talking crap about Jackson Walsh's velo.

Yeah, he's in the show. So good for him. One mailbag question we can squeeze in unless another trade breaks here in the next couple of minutes. But this is a question from captain solo fantastic name captain solo wants to know what's the best way to parse through hype of new draft picks versus older prospects when drafting for a 10 round 16 team contracts dynasty league if i'm looking at argent de mala or nizan zantella how do i compare 15 plus overall pick success development to an older 24, 25-year-old in the early rounds? I'm looking at the Dodgers system with River Ryan or Kyle Hurt, whose insane canine in Tulsa is very exciting,

but his fancraft's future value is still around 40. So I'm not sure whether to bite into potential development success stories or to go after higher ceilings out of this year's draft or when to switch over from one to the other. So what's the move here, Welsh? What's your preferred way to go when you're looking at the young guys who are really far away that have just entered the pool versus some of the guys that have taken a step in the later stages of the minor leagues at an advanced age?

Well, I mean, first thing I just want to point out, he was like, should I take the young hitters or should I take the old pitchers? So you kind of threw out two completely different type of draft. So need you could obviously go need. But I'm going to probably always tell you, like, I want the upside in the prospect game. Like, I think you can have a really bad hit rate of long term production when you just try to trace chase proximity only. I'm not saying it doesn't work plenty of times when you go for more proximity guys over long term you can get some short-term

returns but the amount of like sustainability i think gets put into question so like the other thing is first year player i think no one understands how to value them right now i actually just did a for a a total mid season prospect mock. We're going 20 rounds with Eric cross and his crew at the tool shed. And I hate doing these sometimes because I get a lot of these first year player, because I think there's too good of values. I got Nolan Chanel with the angels in the sixth round and there's 14 teams.

So think about that. And he's already a double a, so that was almost a proximity thing, but I playing for talent i got dylan head uh who's first round pick of the padres in like the 14th round uh i took you know quite a few of these players chase davis i took in the fifth or sixth round who went to the cardinals because i think the upside is immense and i don't think people quite understand some of the valuations of it. So turn that back. The two players he said, I'm not like enamored with. Arjun Namala is pretty raw, huge power. But I think I would still go with the upside over those pitchers.

I just might personally have some different names on first-year player. I've already ranked a whole bunch of them. But like I love Gino Grover, who the Diamondbacks took, who put up huge hard-hit numbers in college this past year. Like average EVs of 95. Just big numbers he's a big hard hit guy i like him more than other people um george lombard who went to the yankees so i'm just bringing it back to say that like these guys these these high-end first round talents and stuff in first year player are much more my priority than guys like um hurt or i'm trying to remember who

the other guy that river ryan river ryan like river ryan's fine but you know i think people did the same chase with like uh grove and my and stone this year and that's kind of blown up i want the i want to play the upside i i will say that if uh if the the other names were hitters i might be uh a little bit more into it. Maybe. Yeah, me too. And, and just to put my number nerd hat on right now, I'm just looking at a piece from the journal of sports analytics from 2022. So it's pretty recent. And it's looking at,

you know, how teams did in the first round. And there's a really big drop off after the 15th pick. So in terms of career war per pick, you know, picks one through five in the draft, it's like over 10. So yummy. You know, anybody who went, you know went one through five in the draft this year should be immediately a top prospect.

Walker Jenkins, Wyatt Langford, Max Clark. Yes, right? Those guys are immediate top prospects. Pick six to 10, that gets down below 10 career war. So, that's already a bit of a drop off. 11 to 15, you get down to sort of 5-6 by the time you get to pick 16

you're already close to 0 so I think you know Arjun Namala I know it seems like sort of a random number or whatever but when you're at 20 I just I think those are shots in the dark.

And if you like Welsh's shot in the dark better than Arjun Nirmala, then do that. Because I think at this point, you could take Dylan Head. He looked good the other day. Or Lombard, yeah. So take a shot if you want, but I would take, if I was looking at a top 100 prospect list

that came out before the draft, I would take most people in the top 100, especially bats, over like a 22nd pick in the draft this year. Walsh, you feeling me on that? Yeah, I think, I i can't i'm not quite with like the exact pick because like where's lombard for you among yeah so lombard in my first year player ranks i have him at was it 67 in 19 i have met 19 yeah but if you had to mush that together with your like top 100 yeah so that's what i was going to say is the only

thing i wanted to point out is like jacob wil six. I'm not taking Wilson in the top 10. No, because he's slow. I love him. I love nicest kid I've ever met. Um, great contact numbers, but he's slow and he doesn't have any power.

So that's, that's why like, I just am like the number thing I'm pushing back on. But to your point, how many players in, do I have in the actual top 100? I've got 11 of the first-year players inside my top 100. And I have a couple pitchers that other people might not have.

Rhett Lauder with the Reds. I love Noble Meyer. And I might not take Chase Dallander. Even though he was the ninth pick in the draft, I might not take him over 100 picks. Yeah, and I don't have a margin of error until 20. It's not a hard and fast rule. But if you're talking about a top 10 bat, then I'm super rule but if you're talking about a top you know top 10 bat

then i'm super excited if you're talking about a top 15 bat i'm less kind of excited if you're talking about a you know after 15 like 15 to 30 first round bat i'm probably looking you know somewhere else on a top 100 list you know you know that sort of sorting yeah yeah i get what you're saying i think for me there's one characteristic that i'm a little more hesitant to draft in a first year player draft and it's legitimate questions about the hit tool and that seems to be part of the package right now with namala he's so young that he could get a lot better but he's got it have you seen it he's got a cricket swing yeah he was a cricket player. Yeah, he grew up playing cricket.

It's this weird two-handed high finish that looks just like a cricket swing. It's amazing. And he's physically impressive, and he's got huge power. But I'm with you. I tend to lock into players with really high contact numbers, even if maybe some of the other tools are still in question, because I just feel like that floor. That's why Nolan Chennault was someone I kind of slept on pre-draft and then i moved way up and this was way before yeah dvr you're showing me a video of him he's got he's got a pretty wild

setup he does yeah hands are up high and yeah it's pretty i mean there's there's multiple guys with some interesting swings jacob gonzalez and all these guys I've seen recently too. But yeah, Chanel is an interesting swing for sure, but he gets the bat in the path every single time and not getting beat. And he's already at fricking double a. So that would be a guy. Olson has a weird setup. So yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Weird doesn't bother me as much as just the clear swing and miss bat to ball problems. And I wonder with the mala too, if because it's an unusual setup, if that weighs into the analysis, if he gets dinged for having that different sort of look. I don't know. Well, his is more about the finish. It's about the cricket finish type of thing.

He's just raw. High finish. So the players he specifically brought up here, just interesting because it's like you're talking about a Dodgers system who does great with pitchers that these guys are getting closer. But not every single one of them had great numbers in the minors for the Dodgers has come out and done great. So you've got that, and then you've got one of the most raw players

that has huge upside. So the very particular players he brought up make this an interesting question. I think you could just interchange some pieces to where I'm just going to answer it's first year high upside all the time if the right players are in mind. Like if he'd asked about George Lombard instead. I just said yes. Or you could have Colin Houck who the Mets took. Who's a pop-up bat right now that's a player development bat Cole Carrick is a pop-up

bat you want to talk about I got him hitting his first pro homer the other day this is that that Rangers game before the trade he was a catcher in at San Diego State I think San Diego State and he's the guy that at the draft combine he threw a hundred from the infield and they're playing him in the outfield. No, I mean more of like a closer guy, like a player, like a River Ryan. What's a River Ryan-esque bat? Oh, well, there's Cole Carrick to you.

Everyone can have Cole Carrick there. Closer, but like an older-ish guy? Yeah, who's like, you know, who's a pop-up, you know, double A. Okay, how about Zach DeCenzo? Actually, I'll give you, there's two that just jumped to my mind here as I'm looking at my list. Zach DeCenzo with the Astros. There's a good organization that builds players.

Zach DeCenzo is double A, 23 years old, hitting.332, seven homers, 15 stolen bases with the Astros. How do you spell that? D-E-Z-E-N-Z-O. Oh, wow, there he is. So you want to talk about pop-up-ish prospects. That's a guy. Huge, huge numbers.

Another one was Joey Luperfito. He's the second baseman. He's 24 years old, double-A, hitting 295 with 17 homers 21 stolen bases those are probably more realistically the older more pop-up probably need to move up a level not on a lot of radar type of guys now you're putting those two hitters versus like arjun namala i think it's i mean i think i might have both of those guys over namala it's right in the same range those are guys that might be better bets, especially like DeCenzo with the Astros seems like a really good spot.

Luper Fito has put up some, you know, he's going to have a 2020 season. So those would be probably more prime bat guys in this conversation. Yeah, and I think the other part of this question was included here. It was, if I go with the strategy of reading the draft room, is it best to count out the first round as everyone goes after their favorite new draft picks? I don't know. I think it depends on how sharp your room is. Some dynasty rooms are not just going to follow the first round picks.

Some are going to be really good about zigging away from some of the later first rounders who are, as Eno pointed out, much less of a sure thing to be impact big leaguers or much further away from the big leagues. That's been my experience in the few leagues I've played in. Well, you want more dissent. Yeah, and the biggest gap for prospect people that do any of this stuff is first-year player stuff all over the board. Everybody's different. Everyone's got different.

I mean, you might not have different top, but you even have different top ones right now. Some people have Skeen. Some have Cruz, some have Langford. From top to bottom, the value differential is so huge. And where you slot those into your existing list. Yeah, it's so different. There's going to be someone that's like, well, Jacob Wilson went six overall, has one of the better hit tools. I'm going to take him in the top 10. And I want to

like him but i i don't i don't i don't from a fantasy perspective i think it'd be a great real life player but from a fantasy perspective i don't want him and he went six overall that's going to be tempting so i wouldn't discount anything just maybe understand the player pool because you don't know i think crazy things could i think this first year player could be kind of wild with some of the pitchers that are available, some college pitching, and the hitters. There's some great, great college hitters. And don't forget Japan. We might have Shota Imanaga coming over,

and he might be my number two pitcher in a first-year player draft. Ooh, Paul Skeens or him? I mean, I'd take Paul Skeens. Okay, I'm just joking. I agree, I agree. But I love Imanaga. Well, we're. I agree. I agree. But I love it, Monica. Yeah. Well, we're going to go.

The deadline is a few hours away. So if you don't have a subscription to The Athletic, you should get one now. $2 a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can find us on Twitter. Eno's at Eno Saris. Welsh is at IsItTheWelsh. I am 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.