Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Spring Prospect Stat Standouts

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Welsh and Eno are discussing Grayson's option to the minors and discussing prospects with stand out stats from spring training. Rundown Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh e-mail: [e-mail] Subscribe to The Athletic at $2/month for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Treat yourself to Tim's new Fudge Brownie Lattes, made with freshly ground espresso beans, frothy steamed or ice-chilled milk, and topped with marble chocolate curls. Now that's music to our ears. Available hot or iced, only at Tim's. Well, hello, friends, and welcome back. It is Rates and Barrels right here on The Athletic. I am Chris Welsh. You can find me on Twitter at IsItTheWelsh. That is Eno Saris. You can find on Twitter at Eno Saris. It's very easy.

You can do that. You can also find us over at The Athletic, theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Get yourself signed up for $1 per month. It's ridiculous for you to not sign up. Dynasty ranks, mine are up there. Probably an update coming in here soon. I actually also just recently released a fun first year player draft article. If you're looking at prospects and how you put that together, you can check out there. And, of course, all of Eno's stuff.

DraftKid, if you've got a last, last-minute draft. So go and check it out today at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. Hello, Mr. Eno Saris. How about baseball coming in days? How about that? I'm excited. I'm excited.

Flying to New York tomorrow. Going to have that event at Other Half on Thursday. And going to attend a Yankees game over the weekend before my kids show up. Then I'm also going to traipse around New York and find the best beer places. Because I'm allowed to write about beer still. So I think I'm going to do something like the best beer spots in New York. You know, what were we just talking about off air? We just talking about off air. We just can't escape it. More beer. You know, that's a bucket list. It's so ridiculous too.

I've never been to New York. I want to go to New York. I'm a man less traveled around the country. I don't have many routes around the country, and that's where I want to go. Well, we used to live there for 10 years. So, you know, it's exciting to see some friends and also just see the city. It's been so long that I'm sure it's changed and it'd be fun to to see how it's changed but yeah i was very happy uh when i was at my my physical with my doctor to to report you know most weeks i do keep it uh under sort of 14 you know more like 12 uh i don't tell her that they were you know ipas and uh big cans not the little cans and whatever so already doing some funky math

to get to 12 to 14 and she's like oh that's too much you gotta get down to seven what are we gonna do where does new york rank in the uh in the beer land as far as like homegrown beers. It used to be bad when I was there in the early 2000s and there was stuff going on in San Diego and Portland and Seattle were out in front back then. But it's really caught up. And I think other half, I'm really happy to be partnered with them

because I think they're a big part of why beer is great in New York now. But there's all sorts of other places, KBBC, Upstate, there's Suarez Family, there's Finback, there's all sorts of really cool breweries now, you know, a lot of them in Brooklyn and Queens. So I'm going to figure out a way to tie these to the baseball stadiums. The harder one is actually probably the Yankee Stadium because there's not, I don't think, that much great beer up in the Bronx and upper Manhattan.

Manhattan has high property values and it's expensive, so it's kind of hard to start up a brewery in it. But I do know some good beer bars that are along some, uh, trains that get to Yankee stadium. So I think I'll focus on those. Uh, but then Queens is super easy as a destination. There's a lot of good beer out in Queens and you can do that on the way to, yeah, I need to do a tour with you on that. Cause I'm a bourbon guy. If people know, I, uh, I, I, we should, you and I should trade out. We should trade out.

You show me a beer. I'll show you a bourbon. And then, you know, I used to have a really, my favorite bourbon bar was in Williamsburg. And I bet you it's still there right across from the, the Williamsburg L stop.

There was a bourbon bar. You just, I would always like, it'd always be the weekend. Cause I didn't live in Brooklyn. So I'd get out of the williamsburg i'm here and i'd be like well that's where we're gonna start the weekend yeah i i struggle with like hard high-end yeah exactly stuff like that i'm more definitely more of a crap taste in beer but i I have a advanced palate in bourbon,

but you and I share in the different sides of it. Well, they, you know, in New York, they had a, they almost often had the sort of a Jack and PBR specials, you know,

where like they'd have, they'd have like a shot of something. That sounds good. And a cheap beer. That was something a little too early right now for that to sound so good. By the way, your New York, your New York stop.

Give one more plug on that. What's happening again? That's on Friday, I believe. Oh, yeah. Other Half brewing on Thursday. We're doing a watch party. If you've missed out on RSVPing for the panel that's afterwards, that's fine. You can still hang out with me, have my beer staring into the shift a collaboration with other half and my sandwich called the knuckle

ball which they'll be doing just on Thursday so we'll be there starting at 4 o'clock when the Mets game starts I don't think the Mets game will be the only game on TV I can't promise but I have some tricks up my sleeve and

we'll figure out how to get what was the name of the place again? Different TVs, but definitely just opening day watch party other half. And the one that's in Brooklyn, the one that's in other half that's in it's called a red hook and it's on center street. So that's awesome on center street in Brooklyn.

Yeah. If you have the ability, you guys should go out and definitely do that. It is project Prospect today. We're talking prospects. And there's a lot of prospect stuff. Actually, Eno and I spent quite a bit of time beforehand just digging into nerd things and having fun that we'll kind of intertwine in this. There are some interesting prospect pieces of news I'm going to throw out with some assignments.

Because we are in, as I've explained to, you know, and really everybody right now, we're just in this limbo period because it's like the spring training has just ended. There's a little bit more minor league spring training, but like AAA hasn't gone quite. So we're like two weeks out from having like really good, solid prospect stuff,

but we are getting assignments. We've got a little bit of news in that. And I've pieced together some of the most interesting prospect stats from spring training. As far as like maybe someone leading in a certain area, we are also going to tie it into potentially some hard hit data that we were able to find on spring training for prospects. We're going to be doing all of that. I might have to eat. We'll see. We'll see. I have a certain guy that might have hit a homer yesterday and look quite good who steals a lot of bases. We'll see. I have a certain guy that might have hit a homer yesterday and looked quite good who steals a lot of bases.

We'll see if there's crow being eaten here. But this is going to be an interesting one. And I'm going to let you really tag into this. It just so happened I had this as my first piece of news here was I think we might have curtailed it yesterday because I don't even think I realized the severity of it was Grayson Rodriguez was sent down by the Orioles. And my first the minute I saw it, I kind of excused it as like, oh, they probably just didn't need like the fifth starter or whatever.

And they sent him down, but that wasn't the case. And not the case at all. There were actually some really big words said by the Orioles about Grayson Rodriguez. They didn't really mince words, if you will, in sending him down. So it's, this isn't just about him being sent down. You know, this actually also tied in. You just happened to also drop a tweet which got you into the fray of baseball about Grayson

where you were talking about his stuff. We saw Brandon McCartney, former pitcher in there and a lot of other people. So why don't you relay what you said in the tweet? You can also relay the words that they put out there about Grayson, which was really just, again, aggressive might be the word in how they sent him down. I mean, the biggest thing was that his GM

is out here talking about, we expected a better version of him. And I thought that was a little bit harsh because, and my tweet was about sort of a reaction to that being like, you know, he had the same stuff plus as Sandy Alcantara this spring and it was

better than hunter green so like i was pushing back on the sort of negativity he's we were hoping he would show up as a better version of himself that sounds like your dad's saying i'm not mad but i'm disappointed like that's a deep cut yeah yeah and i think if i had been the gm my my approach would have been more like hey he had he had the same stuff plus as Sandy Alcantara this spring. We're just asking him to refine it and to put the finishing touches on it and come back up here on a roll. Bam. That's what I would have said.

I would have said, get him in the right mindset, get him on a roll, bring him back up. And Brandon McCarthy's reaction was on that level where he was saying, yeah, it sucks to debut when you're not pitching well. And other than stuff, plus Grayson Rodriguez's results have not been great. He has walked, I think, nine in 17 innings. He's given up hits. He hasn't gotten through the fourth, which is something that Mike Elias brought up. So there are some performance issues here, probably.

What I got embroiled in was the whole discussion about, is it service time manipulation? And I kind of knew that was happening, but I wanted to, my tweet was more an affirmation that I still 100% believe in Grayson Rodriguez. You know,

if you have a 119 stuff plus, like, remember Hunter Green last year came up and did struggle a little bit first. He did throw the ball right down the middle a couple too many times and he did have some issues. But I'm super excited about Hunter Green this year and I'm super excited about Grayson Rodriguez this year.

And so that's why I thought I would pair them and push back on the idea that because Grayson Rodriguez had this poor spring that we should think any differently about him. And, and you know, the, even in the service time conversation,

there were some good points being made. Craig Goldstein from baseball prospectus was saying, well, if this is a meritocracy and there's actually spring battles. And so you're actually like, you care about spring numbers. Then why is Franchi cordero not on this team because franchi cordero beat the crap out of the ball and and hit like 500 this spring

and is not on the roster but grayson rodriguez over here who you know who you grayson rodriguez is you know how good he is and you've known it for a long time. But, oh, you know, three or four spring starts, that's enough to send them back down. So I will say that I don't want to take sides in the service time battle because I've done this before where I was wrong. I thought the Rangers were manipulating service time on Willie Calhoun. And it just turns out that Willie Calhoun is not very good at defense and maybe not even a major leaguer. So I was wrong about that. And so sometimes the team does know better. I don't want to always be like, oh, the team knows better.

I hate that sort of appeal to authority. But at the same time, they know a little bit more about what the player's mindset is. So maybe even Mike Elias knows more about Grayson Rodriguez. Maybe he knows that Grayson Rodriguez needs some fire under his ass. And so he needed to say these things publicly. So I just wanted to say, basically, that I still believe in Grayson Rodriguez. And I think he'll be up in three to four weeks if you're wondering about what to do and whatever. I think he'll be up in three to four weeks, and I think he'll dominate.

So, you know, all these people being like, oh, he couldn't get out of the fourth, and stuff, you know, all these people telling me, you don't know ball, and, you know, stuff gets you noticed, but command gets, I'm sorry, man, command in a four-game stint is just not useful. Don't talk to me about command in a four-game stint. I don't care.

Like, it's not. I thought, I kind of echoed those statements um not the command issue but when you and i were talking off air that if spring doesn't matter so much and you know this guy better than anybody he's also got his catcher that he you know came up with in the minor leagues you have that guy to for the tutelage if you know all of this and spring doesn't matter then why did spring matter so much you know why why did three or four starts have such an impact on on it also tying in those words tying in the kind of aggressiveness of how they approached sending him back down i thought that was odd and it does reek of uh service manipulation simply because you've got they've got gunner henderson so if you think about it, Gunnar Henderson is their ticket

for that extra pick chase that they do. You know, it's a top 100 prospect that breaks camp with the team. He's their rookie of the year guy. So they can manipulate every other person if they want. And it kind of would make sense of getting back to where a team would do that. I mean, I don't think they should, of course,

but it makes sense that you could pair some of the results in with some of the manipulation. But at the end of the day, I thought it was silly because I thought there's a pretty nonchalant, just like, hey, he's still got great stuff just because he's getting sent down. It didn't seem like a big thing. And it seemed like it turned into just as big old, but I think it's because you tweeted it. I think it was, you know know i think if i tweeted it everyone just like bye-bye you know but you tweeted it and it's kind of like a big piece of a conversation you get a lot more people jumping into the uh into the fray there you know yeah and i i could have added one more line being like i still believe it in 1000 and then i would have stayed out of the service time battle. So it's on me that I didn't edit that to be clearer about that.

But I also thought it would be willing. I also thought it would be interesting to put that piece of information into the discussion about service time because there's too many. I thought there's too many people being like, you know, looking at the actual results and saying he wasn't ready. And I'm like, you know, Ross Stripling just gave up nine runs yesterday. Yeah. Dylan Cease gave up 11, uh, early in the spring and didn't get out of the, you know, yeah.

The second, the second best. I don't know. It's a, it's a wild thing. The thing that's going to be a bad look though, and is going to create a bigger conversation. Let's say I can never follow the dates anymore of, you know, whatever it is, Super 2 and stuff. If it's April 24th, if he comes up the 25th. Yeah. Yeah.

He's going to dominate for. Yeah. He's going to dominate for three weeks. Then he's going to be like, yeah, he did. And maybe that's maybe that's right. Maybe he needed to dominate, get in a better mindset and come back up. But still, it's going to be like, oh, so he's ready five days after. Very interesting.

All right. Some other prospect news that's floating out there. We kind of had some questions about Christian Encarnacion-Strand, or at least I did, and why he didn't make it. I'm not sure this is exactly tied. But we found out a couple days ago that both Elie de la Cruz and Christian Encarnacion-Strand with the Reds are staying back. And they're not going to be reporting early on because they're both struggling with a few different injuries ellie looks like he might be back about a week or so after the full season starts in and christian and carnosian strand looks like late april so that kind of stinks with ces because i think that does alter that timeline a little bit because he wouldn't be an option we

know vato's going on the aisle because he could have maybe he could have made the yeah they had some early struggles or something like that with the vato not in but now you have or also just like your vato and now you have a month ish where he's not even around and then he's gonna have to get set back in the minor league so that kind of sets him back and ellie is going to be set back just a tiny bit but i thought those were important pieces um so i guess i guess like steer his playing i think they gave him the third base full time right now yeah and and then myers plays some first or yeah i don't know what they point that's a good question on the first spot because i think steer is locked into third but if steer struggles they don't really have an outlet for ces uh, at least for a month.

So Stier's going to be – I mean, you're pretty good for Stier through May. He's going to get runway. Yeah, he's going to get runway. And I don't think guys like Friedel, Fairchild, Benson, Senzel play first. So I think it's either Myers or Vossler. Maybe Myers plays first to begin the season, and that gives Fraley and Friedel. It gives Benson maybe specifically.

And Benson more time. And I guess Senzel is hurt too. So it might be Friedel, Fraley, and Benson for three, four weeks. Yeah, and watch the stolen base numbers too with those guys. Actually, all three of those outfielders are sneaky stolen base guys, but Benson might be free off the wire for a little bit uh for some cheap early saves in season if he's going to get two or three weeks yeah yeah yes yeah i said saves told me i don't know why i do that i catcher closer is my mix and then saves and yeah yeah i just do it all the time deals and saves are the worst uh semi-prospect piece of news was it looked like logan ohoppy was going to get sent

down weirdly another stupid thing but then max stassi suffered an injury and it looks like logan ohoppy is back and he's back in there and i've got him on two different two catching roster teams which is huge for me because i put a lot of stock into him but he had a again this is another one of those weird things where it's like a poor spring didn't give him the gig. I don't know. I don't know how invested or how much you care about Logan will hoppy, you know, but it looks like he should be good early on, which might be able to help carry him through the season. Cause he's got some real power. Yeah. I like him. He makes more contact and combines it with power. You know, so many times with catch catchers you've just got the large

strikeout rate and and the occasional pop and they become these sort of 225 18 homer guys you know because i feel like there's you know 10 of those so he has a chance to be more of a 250 260 guy could hit 20 20 homers his bad ball stats were bad with his 16 plate appearances last year, so I'm willing to pay attention here as he gets going. I've always liked Stassi a little bit, but Stassi's getting older and older as it goes on. Matt Tice is a deep league pickup. He's going to be a backup catcher probably, but he has all sorts of eligibilities.

And if he plays well enough, he could, you know, sort of stay on the team as a third catcher slash utility guy. So there's a, that's to watch for deeper leagues, but Ohapi could be relevant in 12. I completely agree. He has that. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Forget the pressure to be crushing your workout on day one.

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Oh yeah, Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. I put this together. This is also a shout-out to MLB Pipeline that put out a big thing

about this. And I just curated a few, what I thought were really interesting assignments. So that's kind of been a big thing. It's funny. I was over at the, what was it, Monday? I can't even keep my day straight. Monday over at the Padres and was still asking Ethan Salas, the, you know, phenom catcher, 16-year-old phenom catcher, if he really is going to start

at a ball. And that's been kind of a big piece of conversation. Will the 16 year old really push a ball? And he still doesn't know. And he's just like, I'm not sure yet. Whatever they tell me is what I'm going to do. You know, that type of stuff, but he doesn't know, but we do have assignments on some players. And I put these together because I thought these were all really fascinating. I'm going to burn through them real quick. And then if we want to piece one or two together, we can. These assignments jumped out to me for prospects. Yuri Perez with the Marlins going to AAA.

Jackson Churio, who Eno and I talked about early on in the year, going to AA. Jackson Merrill, who was the youngest in the AFL, had a great spring. High. A is what pipeline was announcing. You also had a Harry Ford who was one of the stars of the WBC going only to high a and the pirates have Henry Davis,

who was in the AFL going to double a and they're putting Indy Rodriguez at triple a, which makes him be one step above. So a couple of these, you know, are about guys that are closer than maybe we expected. And a couple are further, obviously the furthers are Jackson Merrill and Harry Ford, but like Uri Perez at AAA really is a small injury away. And what might've been a guy that most people aren't counting on, everyone's drafting Andrew Painter and Ricky Tiedemann and stuff like that. With Perez at AAA, you know,

there's a real possibility that he could be a guy that beats Ricky Tiedemann to the majors because it is an injury away and the Marlins suffer them all the time. Maybe they have a little bit more depth than we expect. And it's like, you know, Braxton Garrett and stuff would go to it. But I don't know. It's a few struggles and an injury away from yuri perez being up sometime in may and putting up some real fantasy value yeah i think he's knocking on the doorstep i guess he's gone past braxton garrett uh i would guess that because especially if it's a long-term replacement, then I think you just go to Uri Perez.

Maybe if it's a 15-day or just a missed start, maybe Garrett comes up. Maybe they use Garrett. You know how you have those three options before you get in trouble in a year now? Maybe they use up all of Garrett's options on short-term stuff, and then if it's a long-term one, Uri Perez comes up. Or maybe they alternate

them because that way you have six options. But in any case, I think that with Jesus Lizardo's injury history, with Trevor Rogers sporting a five-year reign in the spring, my stuff numbers like him, the strikeouts are there 17 and 18 innings. But at some point, if he continues to struggle, you know, his, his, his, his spot could be in peril. Edward Cabrera has had some, some injuries in the past.

And I don't think Braxton Garrett's spring, although he did 13 strikeouts in 15 innings, five walks in 15 innings is a little bit much. And he just didn't, he doesn't have the top end stuff. So if there is a long-term solution, a long-term need, I think Uri Perez is the one that steps in. And it's virtually guaranteed that there will be because that's just how injuries work it's hard to say to like stash if you have an in a spot i

think yuri perez actually might be a really good stash if we if and when yuri perez hits the wire what type of aggressiveness do you think you're gonna have because we've talked about fought we've talked about t i think the rank order would at this this point, is like Grayson, Tiedemann, Fott. I'm just assuming. I'm also projecting. You can tell me differently. Is Uri Perez four? I think I might go Grayson-Uri.

Oh, Uri would be two on that list as far as aggressiveness. I think so. I mean, I like Tiedemann. I think the numbers are there. But they also have Mitch White as paper, and Braxton Garrett is paper in Florida. But the Blue Jays may be more concerned with floor than ceiling, at least in the short term.

If you think about it, the Blue Jays want to win every game. They don't want to rush a prospect to fit a need. Also, Tiedemann had some injury concerns. Yeah, he was dealing with the injuries on the back half of spring, by the way. Slightly. It doesn't seem like it's a major one, but that's enough for me to put him back. And Fott, I know you love him, and I don't hate him. I have a 105 stuff plus for him that's pretty good.

But I've liked Nelson. Nelson got the job. Dre Jameson's on that roster and probably has more length than your typical reliever. So Dre Jameson could end up being the closer or a swing guy that steps in. Maybe just a little bit more of an obstacle. So that's my ranking.

Those are my five favorite. It goes Grayson, Uri, Tiedemann, Fott. Yeah, and don't be surprised when Uri beats Tiedemann to the majors. I just thought that was a good aggressive. And it's not that he shouldn't have been there or anything like that. He got to AA and he had 17 starts in AA,

but he's 19 years old. I just wasn't sure maybe the Marlins would go to AA then push AAA. He's going to be 20, though, on the 15th of April. Yeah, I think they're saying something with that. That's an aggressive placement. I think all these guys, their teams are saying something about them. You know, Trujillo is someone that, you know,

you could look at his line and be like, oh, here's another sort of pop-up prospect from a ball that dominated there. And, you know, let's wait and see, see if he can make the jump to double a, the jump from high eight or double a is as big as the one from double a to major leagues, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's a sort of conventional wisdom out there. I think the team is saying with this, we believe in him 100 and we're moving him along the only thing working against him like so i think you could look at him being a double a and people could be like holy crap could this happen now i don't think so because they're just

flush with outfielders you also got to remember like sal freelick didn't make the roster joey weimer got option those are two guys they are going to see to the fullest that goes along with garrett mitchell they've still got yellish i mean there are guys there i think it's going to be really hard i think they're going to press a full half season of double a and a full half season of triple a and then i think he goes to the afl and he's on the radar for next year and i think that's what's interesting about fantasy people where Cheerio might've felt a lot farther away. I think he's a real, like his clock starts next season of it might be time.

I don't think it's this year. It's a bit, a little bit aggressive this year, just the age. And yeah, I think also they kind of want to sort through their other outfielders, as you mentioned, including their major league outfielders.

I think there's going to be some pressure on Tyrod Taylor and Garrett Mitchell this year to establish themselves as major league regulars because if they don't, the door is open. Exactly. There's guys behind them. One of the ones. They need to produce a little bit. One of the other positive ones, just want to throw out for,

especially a lot of people that are playing in two catcher leagues of whatever capacity it is. Andy Rodriguez has to be on your radar especially at this point too and not to say that he wasn't always going to be the next guy up but you know henry davis just went to the afl um he's got his struggles and stuff like that but i don't know henry davis was a much bigger name andy rodriguez doesn't have the body of a traditional catcher, the 5'9", maybe a buck 80, but last year had 25 homers, hit.323 with a.400 OBP, and he's now at AAA on a Pirates team that's the Pirates. It's the Pirates.

I mean, the Pirates are just like the A's are the A's, then there's the Pirates, and then there's other baseball teams that do big roster stuff. So what I'm getting at is any time, any Rodriguez can be up because what are they holding back from? And if that is the case, this is a really good solid hitter with big power that does stuff that does fantasy stuff.

He is not the two 25, 18 Homer guy that you were talking about. And he would be one of those top catching radar guys, maybe the top guy. You know, if you're really thinking about all the catchers that could come up this year i think he's the number one catcher to pay attention to i don't foresee it's going to be anytime soon but he is first man up i don't know if you have any andy rodriguez thoughts yeah i mean we were talking service time and relationship manipulation. You wonder what the deal is here because I guess the person making the roster over Indy is Jason DeLay, non-roster 28-year-old.

Maybe there's something they want to see, see if there's something there, or maybe they just want to try to get him into the organization and then send him down and bring Endy up in season when it's harder for other teams to make room on their 40-man. Maybe there's some sort of games being played there. With Endy, though, I've talked to a few scouts about this, and it's interesting. There's people who say that Tamar Johnson is the Pirates' best prospect,

and is he a weird fit as a best prospect because he's undersized and he's a second baseman, and, you know, that's your best prospect? I've heard other scouts say, no, no, no, their best prospect is Andy Rodriguez. And I think that's an interesting sort of flip to switch because... Switch to flip. Because i think then you you

realize that this is uh this is a really interesting prospect that uh makes contact has patience has power has speed has his lettuceism may not end up at catcher but is still a catcher for now and i didn't hear a bad word about his catching yeah so this is someone that is going to be up soon i don't know if it's worth stashing but even look at his projections they're all for you know 315 to 320 obp with league average power or better like how many catchers did that last year not a lot they're probably here don't do you can't you have to take the qualified filter off because there's like three qualified catchers but uh uh this is how many catchers had league average power

and a 315 obp or better seven seven what is league average are you going about like 250 150 150 iso oh one year oh wait okay i see what you're saying so you got travis darno sean murphy that's two three four five six seven yeah rutschman the contraris brothers will smith real mudo murphy and darno that's it so you might have theoretical um top catch you might have theoretical catcher one when he comes up. So keep an eye on him. The AAA assignment above Henry Davis I definitely think says a lot. The only other one I just want to throw out, the Orioles' AAA team is going to be a monster.

And they have all these guys that are ready, whether they're manipulating or not. On top of Grayson Rodriguez, they've got Jordan Westberg, Colton Couser, and Connor Norby. It is a monster of a team, maybe one of the better minor league teams out there, of future star power. All guys that can end the year with the Orioles

and all guys you should pay attention to have very, very fantasy relevant. Jordan Westberg might be the most underrated. You and I talked a decent amount about him in spring. He was having a really good spring, but he might be the most underrated of all of those guys as well. So watch out. Yeah, he's the one I'm actually probably the most excited about. And I think he's going to be maybe the first one up because not only did he have a good spring, but let's see here. I mean, get his his strikeout rate strikeout rate is one of the few things i care about in spring uh that's a little high 28 i would but it is against uh largely major

league players um and uh that would be good news because i don't want him to cross over into the 30 i do think that over time he could whittle that strikeout rate down, number down, but I think he's going to have good patience and I think he's going to have good power and he's also going to steal some bags. And I also think the team's a little weak where he plays. I think that there's a big opportunity if Jorge Mateo stumbles at all or if Adam Frazier doesn't take advantage of the new shift rules and play his way into a regular role there Urias, it was a waiver claim

Ramon Urias so those three people are not unsurmountable yeah and once service time is over everybody's game for the orioles it's open season once uh the service clock has uh officially uh started or stopped you know what i'm saying yeah i mean among these hitters the the only one that i think uh could be relevant in three weeks is westberg among these ones that we said oh interesting okay you think it could

happen early i mean i kind of agree with you on that. I think it would be best said. Oh, and Andy Rodriguez. Oh, okay, so of all of these, not just those Orioles, all of these prospects. Of the prospects that we just named that had interesting assignments, I think Andy Rodriguez and Jordan Westbrook are the closest to the major leagues.

Okay, so pay attention and maybe keep your FAB and your waiver claims ready. Do that. We're talking about some spring stats. These were some outliers I put together and Eno and I had some fun off air about this. I went and looked over. It's kind of on like, you know, when you look at spring stats, they kind of do the qualifications. I think it's usually like 40 plus at bats or whatever. So it eliminates some players and stuff like that. But I put together some of the prospect outliers that stood out that put up, you know, one individual or in some

cases, they popped up on a couple spots that really stood out in one area. And wouldn't you know it? We've got three Colorado Rockies that stand out. Now, one of the reasons behind this, we have to give you a caveat for a couple of the stats we're going to add, is the only ballpark in Arizona, stupidly, by the way, of all the spring training teams that has data that has advanced, that has track man and baseball savant stuff, is Salt River Fields. That's the only one that you can get advanced analytics and data on because for whatever reason none of the others will put it in it's really stupid and it's frustrating during the afl so arizona diamondbacks and colorado rockies are going to show up because

this is their home place or if a player was playing there you'll get it so that's one of them because the three stats we have you know i'm going to just throw them out here not to take any thunder away and you can break through one One of them was an actual category. Michael Tolia, who we've talked some about. Michael Tolia actually was tied in runs at first all spring, 15 runs that was tied for first among all hitters during spring. But his other two prospect battery mates showed up. We were looking at EVs in spring. Zach Veen, who you have been, you and I have gone back and forth about, had a top 10 exit velocity of all players, not just prospects. He was the number one, actually, he was the number two prospect after Jordan Walker with a 115.3 max EV. And El Horace Montero had the 26 best max EV.

I think I wrote this down wrong because I said 116.1. That would be higher than Zach Veen, but he had the top 26 biggest EV. So El Horace Montero, Zach Veen, and Michael Tolia all showed up big in spring. Yeah. Montero had a 113. 113. Okay. So I wrote that down wrong. Just a little bit of context on those. A top quartile max EV in the big leagues is over 112.5. If you just want to remember one number as being elite or top of the league or an 80 raw power,

I think 113 is the easy number to remember. So if you see a 113 or higher max ev you go oh that is an elite raw power guy that's yeah that's like a 70 80 raw power i mean it should be by uh by you know the 20 to 80 scale you're breaking it up into 20 percentiles right if you if you wanted to really really make a difference between 70 and 80, then 113 could be 70 and 80 might be 120. I mean, 120 has only been crossed by Judge, Cruz, and Stanton. Is that an 80?

If you start talking about 118, Ryan McMahon had a 117.7 this spring. So maybe 117 is 80 and 113 is 70. Anyway, either of those is good. That's good raw power. I'm really surprised on Veen. I saw the minor league

strikeout rates and liked them to some extent, but I didn't like the ISOs because I thought a 170 ISO from Veen with 50 stolen bases that could be all legs i know he had 11 homers but i was worried that this is an all legs guy but this is good raw power from him and with a guy that makes contact he's much more likely to access that raw power and figure it out there are other guys on this uh top list that uh you know hyling ortiz uh from the phillies uh you know also had a uh what is it that he had he had a one yeah i'm looking here i just had it too. 114.6, right? So close to 70 raw power.

Well, look at his strikeout rates up and down, the minor leagues, 30%. And because we've been thinking about talking about our biases and prospecting, to me, a large strikeout rate is something that I usually don't get with. I'm making an exception for El now, but the bust rates on the high strikeout rates are a thing. And I also just wanted to point this out. If I look at the major leagues and I just take the population of players that strike out more than 25% of the time in the major leagues with 250 plate appearances, with 250 plate appearances, the average, the median number is 96 WRC+. It's not 100.

So the guys who strike out a lot in the major leagues, and these are guys who succeeded. They've stayed in the major leagues. They have enough power. They're not prospects. They don't even average out to 100. They average out to 96. So your ceiling is a little bit lower by definition if you strike out a lot and so

hyland ortiz i know that he's not a big prospect he's got a 40 future value over at uh at fangraphs and um he didn't make that anybody's top 100 i don't believe but also just generally if i was looking for a pickup even though he has that nice max EV, I'd much rather have somebody like Zach Bean. I know that's obvious because Bean is higher on lists and people like him better and so on. But I'm just saying, even if you took the names off of these stat lists, I'd be much more likely to take Zach Bean because of that strikeout rate paired with that. Well, this gets into a bigger conversation. We're probably not going to fully, fully dive into is actually something we were originally kind of going to do in this episode was talking about the advent of,

I'm actually going to use Dylan White's just term, shout out to him, the robo scout. You know, that's kind of the idea of there. There's a huge uptick for better, for worse. I'm a little bit pushbacky on it being the be all end all

of where people will take an algorithm, you know, or projection or whatever, and they'll just take the stats and they'll spit out. And this is the rank. This is, this is the new prospect rank based on stats. And I don't like that. I think it's a perfect marriage with the other things that come with ranking and stuff like that. But that's where, that with the other things that come with ranking and stuff like that but that's where that's one of the things you're kind of alluding to and you and i were talking about that it's like you can get it can get messy you've used the abraham toro thing in there it can get messy when you're simply just looking at some of the categorical stuff in here and you were saying your bias is to move away from high strikeout guys mine is to give

i give way too much credit to like high contact base players that might have like robert hassle was an example of someone in high school he was like one of the best high school hitters coming out jared kelnick was actually kind of the same way that with or paired with insane athleticism of talent. And Khalil Watson is a prime example of that. He is an insane strikeout. He had almost a 40% strikeout rate last year. He was a mess last year.

Completely redefined. Looks like he's redefined who he is this year. I was just talking to Jeff Ponce from Baseball America. His swing has become more simplified. He's not striking out the same level. He's making better decisions. And he has all the talent in the world. So my biases tend to go to contact base players that they can overcome zach veen he can overcome his inability to consistently tap into power and i'll overlook crazy strikeout numbers

for insane prior talent of athleticism like khalil watson those are like two very stark but it's interesting they're kind of in different directions. They totally are. But I like that. I like that because it allows you to not overlook some people. You know, like you're basically saying if they have good contact, I'll probably like them. There'll be more caveats.

You know, I don't like everybody who has a low strikeout rate. Or if they are super athletic, I can overlook some of that. I think that's a really good way of doing it because I'm a little bit more like, oh, I really want to have a low strikeout rate and good batted ball stats. I'm going to avoid the Abraham Toro problem by asking to at least hit a ball 113

or at least hit a ball 110 and pair that with an 18% strikeout, right? And then I will love you, you know? And that's, that's, I'm trying to learn from Toro and, and, and add something to it, but I'd like your sort of, if then sort of like separate, like paths in the wood because you know, I probably would, I'm trying to learn, like I know, I probably would. I'm trying to learn.

Like I said, I'm making room for Elida Cruz on rosters. I missed jazz Chisholm. Insane talent, too. He's he's the prime example. He's actually the example of like Michael Watson. He's a guy that he was also so insanely pull heavy in the minors. He had strikeout issues issues but he also was talent through the roof you know he had huge huge he's like an athleticism yeah he's my athleticism you'd be like athleticism plus a bad strikeout rate i can handle it and when i say athleticism also the talent it's like the

talent that cures with athleticism it doesn't always work out and he was the example of but yeah go on well uh there's a a name that comes to mind is Javi Baez now I would not don't think about Javi Baez now think about all the value would have gotten out of Javi Baez before you know and I would I looked at his minor league stats and he's striking out 28 of the time in minor leagues I would have been like no thanks you know and I love this guy's you know but then Javi Baez was really great for a long time I'm not I'm not you have to kind of remember what he was when he was younger and another player that comes to mind is Austin Riley. Cause I was looking at his minor league stats. He is actually Austin Riley is striking out less in

the major leagues than he did in the minor leagues. I mean, he was running 28s out there in the minor leagues and now he's got, you know, 24s in the major leagues. So and i remember we were at a batting practice together and it was austin riley michael chavis and uh maybe acuna they were yeah they were all actually on the same team out here in the afl yeah and they took a batting practice and it was like rifle shot after rifle shot after rifle shot and it is interesting to think about that about that grouping because chavis and riley at the time i think were fairly well thought of both of them chavis might have been more well thought of at that time than austin rather but they were both like high guys and then they were by high strikeout rate guys not insane athleticism but really good batted ball stats you know like i bet you if we had

their exit velocities would have been like oh yeah these guys i'm sure we would have seen that they hit the ball you know 115 in the minor leagues yeah so that's i mean that's what we were hearing you know we could hear it with our ears when you there's a video of o'neill cruz uh hitting the ball 122.4 you should play it with the sound on because it's the loudest thing ever. Yeah. And so, you know, I feel like, you know, I think that you've got different pathways. I think I like your sort of approach better because if you're just trying to have one

rubric for prospect analysis, you're going to miss people. Yeah yeah and and mine definitely and this is by the way because i use it as an example it's not to say that um the robo scout is that or anything like that but i have seen lots of different things where sometimes it is just here is what this spit out and obviously you can filter out and set an algorithm to be like all right well now i don't want guys that strike out more than this and this. But at the same time, it misses, I think the marriage of lots of different approaches putting in, and it just takes time. Like that's how I approach into the scouting. I can't just look at a stat and be like, that's it. Or they meet these qualifications. That's it. Boom. He's the top guy, whatever. It's all of these different pieces that kind of play in a role. And lots of

people do it, um, a really, really great ways. And there's insanely smart people across the board. It is just not one simple way, but that, but that was a bigger conversation of, you know, and I were kind of talking about our biases and how the strikeouts were in there and Veen and Veen is kind of,

and yeah, and our biases play out right here. This is, this is an amazing thing we found. So we're, I'm all excited now. I'm, I'm all in a right here. This is an amazing thing we found. So I'm all excited now. I'm all in a tizzy. Oh, Zach Veen is much better than I thought. I can't believe he hit a ball 113.

Now I'm excited about him. I'm super excited about him. Next on the list, we have... Your buddy. Yeah, your buddy, Estre Ruiz. So we got a date on him. You know, finally he hit a home run 109.7. So we got a date on him. Finally, he had a home run, 109.7.

Well, I'm out on him, and I wish I eat crow. I don't know. 109.7 is not elite. It would have been like a bottom 25th percentile, actually, last year. I had the leaderboard open oh yeah i don't remember if you said that because you did the top 25 which was 112.5 i don't remember what the bottom was yeah i felt like the bottom had been a little bit lower i feel like it would be like 107 and lower but um here we go so maxi v uh 109.7 would have been 178th out of 252. Oh, whoops.

So it's below average. It's below average. And so I get, because of my biases, I get to continually, I get to still poop on Asteroid Reese, even though he has two homers this spring and one went 109.7. And the stat that I added,

he had the second most rbi of all players in spring which i just wanted that was the unique stat that brought him well i did want to point out that the rbi and runs things um you know some of these teams just played some of their guys way more than others i was looking at the the rockies and michael tolya had 73 no he had 82 plate appearances. That's a lot for spring. So, you know, part of that's playing time. But Estrella Ruiz, they're releasing Christian Pache.

He's going to have the full-time stings. He hit a ball 109-7. Should Eno eat crow? Should he shut up finally about Estrella Ruiz? And I'm not going to. I'm going to continue being biased because I opened up his entirety of his batted ball stats this spring, which of course are all when he's visiting Colorado. But he's got a 68 mile an hour foul ball, an 86 mile an hour sacrifice fly, a 70 mile an hour foul ball, you know a 64 mile an hour ground into double play he's average exit velocity for the ones that are tracked is 83.7 who was the other player that we wanted to look at well do you want to look at the positive the the inverse one yeah yeah so this

is this is where this is the funniest this this we laughed out loud when we got to this one. This is how dumb Eno Saris is. So I'm going to stop talking. This is my bias. I'm against history. It's 109.7. It's not actually that great. I'm going to continue poo-pooing him.

And Corbin Carroll steps to the plate, and he's having a great spring. Give us his regular stats that he let in. Yeah, he was tied for first in triples in spring he was tied for third in doubles with six he was also fifth in walks and had the fourth best average so those were his like outlier stats in spring and i love corbin carroll corbin carroll's the best his max ev this spring is 109.7 but but i'm jing but the first thing i asked you know after that was what is the average look like and this might blow your mind too because if you're looking at like if you're looking at like plus i mean it's better to look at max ev but if you're looking at like plus, I mean, it's better to look at max EV, but if you're looking at average EVs, 90 plus is a good place you want to be.

And 83 was a story. We's Corbin Carroll, though, was much higher. You know, you saw that number. Yes, I've got 92.9. So he's getting to even if the raw power might be similar, he's getting to his raw power much more often. Much more often. And so,

taken as a single number, Max EV has some power to it. It's better if you have 95th percentile. If you do like 95th percentile EV, it does have predictive power. It does describe your raw power. It doesn't describe

everything about you as a hitter. Asteroid Reeves is obviously exciting because of his elite skills with his feet. And even when I'm looking at this, I will see he's got some singles on some really uh on some really poorly hit uh balls here where he's got a uh he's got a double no that's the foul he's got a single on a 61 mile an hour ball and he's got a single on a 59 mile an hour ball so this dude can run and he's gonna make the best out of any contact he does make what i what i am worried about is it's not elite contact making. So I'm not sure how this is all going to fit together. I'm still not sure about it. Corbin Carroll gets to us.

And if you just look at average EV, it's not that super powerful as a stat. But it can help you tell the story about why, or just feed your biases, about why I think Corbin Carroll is going to have a better season than a story reason is a better player. Yeah, I mean, and a lot of people have had that little power they've wanted to use, like, where is he stealing bases or da-da-da. You could look at 109, and that could be the story of why people want to sell you against Corbin Carroll,

but then you look at the average EV, and that's like, I don't know, that's like borderlining elite average EV if you're looking on a season total, right? And the sample is small because he doesn't play in colorado so those are just all away games in colorado yeah well no arizona and colorado share that's actually uh they share the ballpark so that those are okay all but his away his away stats in there so yeah corbin carroll interesting in there um and i love that one i love that we were still it's still together. But still, it's still half the sample, right? Yeah. It's still, it's just his home game.

Yeah, only his home games. You don't get any of the other games. And that was a great one, especially for us to be able to pair Esther Ruiz and Corbin Carroll together was just like, it was magnificent. It was our opus. A couple other ones we can end with.

Two giants, Blake Sable, third in OPS with a 11.05. He also was fourth in walks. And Bryce Johnson led all of spring training in stolen bases with 12. And I believe both made the roster. Any thoughts on either one of these giants prospects? Yeah. Sable is a rule five guy. He was with the Pirates last year in the AFL, actually. Yeah. and he's got really up and down contact numbers it looks like the power should be there he's not projected to have good power but if he's going to access that power and strike out you know not an alarming rate is there at all a chance he unseats one of the veteran catchers but But here's the other unique thing.

He doesn't need to. I mean, I'm not calling Bart a veteran, but you know what I mean. He also plays other positions. He played left field in the AFL. He played first base in the AFL. His flexibility is what makes him fascinating because he can be a super utility player that he doesn't need to just break one of those catchers,

which he clearly can do. He is versatile across the board, which is why this is a guy that could stay all season long, but maybe in more of a super-util role. Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's a chance he unseats because he's got a 22% strikeout rate this spring with a 20% walk rate. So this is absolutely Farhan Zaidi's favorite type of player.

And he's got, yes, you're right, he could be util and slot all around, but in terms of playing him the most often, the worst projected players are obviously Joey Bart with basically a mid-80s WRC Plus projection, and then Roberto Perez, who's in camp on a one year deal, 34 years old, projected for a 79 to 80 WRC plus. So there's some meat on the bone there where, you know, he could unseat one of those guys. I am the worst at the sort of soft scouting stuff.

But if you wanted to watch some Blake Sable behind the plate and you thought he was actually decent at catching, I think there's a non-zero chance that he could even become the primary catcher. This is not, it's not on a set. Like, like I said earlier,

these are not obstacles he can't overcome. And he was a rule five guy. So they'd have to return him if they did so it's even more so they're going to keep him on the roster as long as possible but it's just a question for me is how often he plays a catcher is going to determine how often how how close he is to a a starting gig absolutely uh one other hitter and then just two quick pitching ones james outman uh stood out to. He's a guy that made the Dodgers roster eighth best ISO in spring at 294.

Again, we have very limited advanced stats, so you have to take it with a grain of salt of what I'm giving you, but a very high ISO number for a guy that was able to make the roster and really could be a force on this team. He's a good source of power and stolen bases. Could easily see him be a 15-15

guy if he were to give the amount of time. And he put up pretty good ISO numbers, at least when it was being tracked out here. So, James Altman. Yes, also 28% strikeout rate, a few too many strikeouts. I would generally say the batting average won't be good, but

in OBP leagues, and daily leagues, deep daily daily leagues where you can slot him in only against righties i think he'll be useful in weekly leagues chris taylor is going to take at bats away from him against against lefties and maybe just randomly jason hayward will take some at bats away from him so um i don't think he's going to be a good bulk guy. But daily leagues, he definitely has some usage there. Two pitchers, Jared Schuster had the best spring whip that was tracked at.59, the best batting average against at.115,

and the second best ERA at.145. Imperfect science because of what is tracked, but these are not those advanced stats that need to be. This is not imperfect, actually. This is perfect. This is what they can give you in spring. Best average against and second-best ERA for Jared Schuster. And I'll just throw out the other one.

Hayden Wisniewski, who we've talked a decent amount about, tied for fifth-most strikeouts at 22. Those were two prospect pitch, prospect pitchers, that stood out as far as spring dominance. Well, I've been fully in on Hayden from the beginning and absolutely an exciting young arm that I want on every single one of my teams. So that one's an easy one.

The Schuster one's not as easy. I have an interesting situation here where I have 79 pitches tracked this spring with a 71 stuff plus. And then in the minor leagues last year, I have 74 pitches tracked in one start with a 114 stuff plus. Now, the minor league numbers need to be adjusted to make it to the major leagues. But even if you adjust it to a major league stuff plus, you're talking about a person who will have at least a 105 stuff plus or better versus a 71 this spring. I'm going to put a big IDK on this one. The prospect grades aren't there.

It's not someone that I've watched a ton of. It's not someone I'm super familiar with. If you believe in Jared Schuster, go for it. I would rein in the enthusiasm a little bit based on the prospect grades, based on the poor spring stuff numbers, but there is this asterisk of good minor league stuff plus numbers just last year, plus the idea that he hides the ball really well. So I know I'm supposed to be definitive and give you answers and that's my my job i'm not going to do it on this one i'm just going to take a pass and if you like jared schuster continue liking him you can talk about that uh those minor league numbers how often have

you ever seen a guy it's a small sample size but like the that dominant inshore sample size with that horrific of a stuff plus. Grayson Rodriguez, I have 250 pitches tracked. And it's basically like 125 in the minors last year and 125 in spring. He has 119.5 stuff plus in both samples. What a weird. Like that's the same. You know, Schuster is one of the biggest. And usually even start to start, you don't see big variations like that's the same you know schuster is one of the biggest and usually even start to start you don't see uh big variations like that that's wild uh all right that is going to do it uh you

guys can let us know what do you think on all those interesting stats from the prospect guys maybe some stuff you can pick and choose and somehow we were able we were able to compare ester ruiz and corbin car, and not everybody can do that. We could somehow find a Kevin Bacon's six degrees of connection between Esther and Corbin Carroll, so we'll track all that. Derek Van Ryper is back tomorrow, as I'm told. So that is awesome. That's exciting. That is very, very exciting.

Quick over-under. Quick over-under. Real quick. Yes. Over-under Esther Ruiz-Holmers, 12. Ooh, under. Over-under Esther Ruiz-Iso, 180. under real quick yes over under history's homers 12 under over under history's iso 180 under it's got to be under if it's yeah i'm thinking i'm thinking but i think still okay uh stolen bases 29 and a half over under over okay so we've created his value i'm just a little afraid

that there's a mile straw situation here without the mile straw OBP or without the mile straw defense. Oh, I got the best one. We be me and a Bogman. We play this game. It's like chicken, but this is versus who has more stolen bases. Astoria Ruiz or Corbin Carroll this year. Ah, oh man.

This is really important for fantasy. This is. I'm going to go with Corbin Carroll. I think Corbin Carroll could lead the league. I think he could lead the league. Oh, all right. All right. That's exciting.

And you? You can't get out of this. I think Reeves could lead the league. You can't get out of this. What is your answer? But he's not going to. I said Reeves. Oh, you did say Reeves.

Okay, Reeves. All right. But I don't like it. I'm not happy about it. I can tell. I can tell by your face. I'm not happy about this at all. All right. There you go. That's what we're going to do. That's a can tell by your face. You're like, I'm not happy about this at all. All right, there you go.

That's what we're going to do. That's a tough one. All right, DVR is back, so that's going to be awesome. Make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast. I will be back with you next week on Tuesday for Project Prospect. I did it again. I can't ever do it. It's ridiculous.

That's Eno. I'm Welsh. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us, and we'll talk to you again next time. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening