Rates & Barrels - Project Prospect - Time to Adjust to Faster Tracks?

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

DVR, Eno and Welsh discuss the rapid development of prospects and how they are moving levels. Do we need to re--think the process for prospects as a whole, or is it case by case? The guys also take look at Paul Skenes stuff+ numbers and the ever debating fastball shape. Rundown Nolan Schanuel - 1:07 Is there much of a gap between levels anymore? - 3:43 Do we buy into age to level anymore? - 8:22 Hitters adjusting to Stuff+ - 9:54 Paul Skenes usage - 19:07 Skenes Stuff+ in MiLB - 21:02 Strasburg vs Skenes - 27:57 Team KPI - 31:20 Eno's Paul Skenes worry? - 35:01 A-ball Stuff+ pitchers - 36:45 Dylan Crews - 37:41 Fantasy approach to rookies moving forward - 40:30 Prospect Top-5 for 2024 fantasy - 46:12 Pete Crow-Armstrong - 56:29 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Rates and Barrels, it's Tuesday, August 22nd, Project Prospect, Derek Van Ryper, Eno Saris, Chris Welsh, and we are digging into a bigger topic on this week's show because it seems like things are changing in baseball. We're seeing promotions that are very aggressive across all of professional baseball. We're seeing decisions that really sort of break the mold of traditional logic, and that's probably a good thing, but there's also going to be a lot of impact on us as fantasy players be that for redraft leagues or of course in keeper and dynasty leagues as well so we're going to dig into a whole bunch of these recent adjustments and try and figure out what they

might mean for us going forward so we begin today with the recent news and that i think is pointing toward bigger changes in philosophy around baseball. Nolan Shaniel got the call up prior to the weekend. Al and I talked about him a bit. He just got drafted this summer, I mean, debuting a month after he was drafted. The Angels were very aggressive with Zach Netto as well. We've seen Ethan Salas already get bumped up to double-A two months after his 17th birthday. We've seen a few prospects that were just drafted this summer get bumped up to double-A,

one of which, Paul Skeens, I don't think we necessarily expected to see pitching at all in the second half of the season because of his workloads in college. We're seeing Dylan Cruz fly up to double-A already for the Nationals. It's possible, I guess, we could see him in the big leagues before the end of the season. All of this is making me kind of rethink ETAs in general. But what does it mean when you see someone like Shanuel especially? Nolan Shanuel wasn't talked about the way Dylan Cruz was talked about. That to me is the surprising part.

The org that did it makes it somewhat less surprising. But Welsh, did you expect to see Nolan Shaniel playing in Anaheim in 2023? The easy answer is no. You don't expect any guy to get drafted to then go and play like two months later or a month later, kind of in his case. But because like you said, the org, if there was a team that was going to do it it was going to be him to your point where you're saying like he's not being talked about in the same light as cruz i think that's more about the total package like dylan cruz a theoretical five tool

middle of the order hitter big impactful power bat uh nolan chanel is not that but he was one of the more highly touted contact college bats. So, you know, from that standpoint, that's a guy I think they feel comfortable with defensively getting out there and that his bat was already ready. You know, that pitch recognition was there and they needed just a little bit of looks, but yeah, I mean, it speaks to the bigger issue that's going on around how prospects are being treated, which is great in a, in a, in a big way. You know, the other thing I was thinking about to throw into the mix of what you were talking about with the aggressive assignments is I wonder now if maybe the gaps in levels have

changed in teams' minds where high A is really no different than triple A, or you're also seeing teams not just skip levels because of performance, but skipping levels because of what's going on in a league. We saw Dylan Cruz just completely move up a level. We saw the Rays do this with Carson Williams going from high A to AAA and completely skipping AA. So we're now seeing not just one level, but we're seeing AA and high A be levels that teams are comfortable moving. And I've been thinking about, I wonder,

is that about maybe clumps where no longer are each one of these, these big steps. Oh, you get to low A and then you move to high A. Or maybe it's once you've mastered low A, high A and double A are really not that far off from each other. And teams are really willing to just move these players through like it's nothing, like

it isn't an organizational developmental step. It is just you get there, you do your work, you check off these boxes, and maybe it is literally just some analytical checks of, OK, pitch recognition is here. They've got EVs that are here. Defensively, They can do this. And then you're just free to go. Those might be some of the things that we're not quite understanding that has changed because like,

you know, Ethan solace is a 17 year old is nuts. But to me, what that clearly says is he checks the boxes defensively. You're going to put a 17 year old in double a managing those pictures. That means that kid has to be a plus defender and has checked off the defense box because his bat isn't going nuts, but that also must be checking off good EVs, making good decisions, not striking out a bunch.

So it probably just doesn't matter at age anymore or old school. They've got to go here and have 250 at bats at this level. That just doesn't matter anymore it is um finishing off a couple things that these organizations need to see and then the sky is the limit but it's a it's so much to process between the aggressive pushes and why teams are skipping levels and why you know double a is almost like a burden for some teams with the ABS system and stuff. The minor leagues have really changed

over the last couple of years. It's odd. Yeah, I think there's a lot there. I mean, so one aspect of this is procedural, like where do we have a need? Like where do we have a place? Like let's say I have a first baseman who's pretty close to the big leagues. Do I have a spot at AA?

Do I have a spot at AAA? Do I have a spot in the majors? You know, like, where do I need to put this body as a person who can play baseball? You know, I think in that case, you can kind of see the Nolan Shaniel thing through the lens of, well, you know, actually, I don't think his EVs are where they need to be. His max EV, uh, in college was like a one Oh four or something. And that's with metal bats. Uh, his max CV in the minors is one Oh three five. I think before they moved them up, I saw somewhere. So those numbers aren't where they need to be. Those are, those are bottom, bottom shelf. Those aren't even like, Oh, you know, kind of average-ish. No, those are those are bottom bottom shelf those aren't even like oh you know kind of average-ish no those are those are terrible and uh Kyle Bode was was talking on Twitter about how

uh they're so terrible that you start to wonder if he can hit for average because you actually do have to hit the ball hard even to hit for average and and so uh there is a question about a lot of Nolan Shamuel's game but procedurally this is a team that needed a first baseman you know and like could he take a walk yes you know we're gonna they're gonna put him at the top of the lineup it looks like to take those walks get on base in front of guys and anything he does other than the walks is just gravy this is a team that's desperate wants to make the playoffs they're willing to take play there's even a rumor going around that they're taking players that don't need any player development because they don't trust their player development so

they're just trying to take sort of completely ready to go guys nito or netto and and chanel are kind of like that where it's like college guys who knows what their ceiling is but their floor is high and we can play in the big leagues like tomorrow and they did so you know that's a that's one thing that i think there's abs was an interesting thing to bring up i do think that like you know i remember when um the blue jays had vegas as their double a i think or triple a or something like that i think it's triple a they skipped vegas all the time with their pitching prospects. And when they sent pitching prospects down, they sent them

back down to AA. And they were just like, we don't really want our pitchers pitching in Las Vegas. If you're like a Blue Jays pitcher that's pitching in Vegas in AAA, you've got to be like, oh man, they don't really care about me. But isn't that weird? That's what I haven't come to terms with

is like why we have levels, why we have leagues that don't speak to player development. And that's why I feel like that gap maybe has really changed that we, you know, we spent a lot of time earlier in the year and, you know, you had that really great article talking about age to level.

I hate to say it, age to level might be just a thing of the past and and i get very honed in and like this is a mess with right now yeah like oh it's just a 23 year old at high a should we do this should we do that and it's like you know what the because you've got less teams now you know they went from having six full to half season teams plus rookie league to cutting down to four plus rookie level ball there's less spots there's more honing in that that gap might just not be there anymore between all of this because to that same point just why do you have levels that you wouldn't want to send guys to to develop and then on top of

it it's like well here's an automated strike system and here's a tacked ball and they just do they're just doing weird stuff in my mind that has to believe that some organizations are like, you know what, once you've checked these boxes, high A to triple A, there is such minimal difference. We are comfortable making big moves now that these levels just don't matter. And that's just me. Maybe half the teams are still in a traditional set,

but we're just seeing such untraditional things happening with prospects. It's got to speak to something bigger. The other moving parts, too, are the prospects, the pitching prospects that had to go up to the big leagues sooner than expected because of injuries this year, though, too. Right, that's sort of like the Shanual thing. That kind of waters down the quality of the pitching at all the levels

so you can pass those tests faster because AA pitching right now is probably worse than it's been in recent years because so many guys who ordinarily would have been at Double-A or at Triple-A or in the big leagues are hurt. Yeah, that makes appraisal pretty tough. There are teams that can now correct for the stuff plus of the opposing pitcher. I just saw on Twitter today, and i retweeted it um is an analysis

of what's more important bat speed bat to ball or uh or swing decisions and uh in in the outcome of an of an at bat and um bat speed is more important than the other two in almost every situation except at the upper reaches of stuff. So, you know, you could have a guy who has great bat speed, um, and, uh,

is not facing a lot of, uh, of high stuff plus guys, because, you know, I've gotten out low a stuff plus, and I'm looking at it. And of the 120 pitchers that I have that have that have thrown more than 45 pitches per appearance i only

actually have 20 that are above average by stuff plus and i think that actually makes sense at first i was like well i can't be right but i think that actually makes sense because you're talking about low a you know like how many how many like plus stuff plus guys you're gonna have in low a you know so you know i do think you, maybe some teams, the smarter teams, are like, hey, well, Salas did this against high stuff plus guys. So, you know, we need to get him in front of more high stuff plus guys. You know? And he's just demolishing everybody else with bat speed.

So why do we have him down there if he's only going to see one guy out of every seven starting pitchers or every six starting pitchers he sees is going to have above average stuff plus? We're not learning anything. He's just going to demolish all those low stuff guys, and we need to push him up to get him in front of high stuff guys.

The weirdest thing about Salah to me is 37 plate appearances in A ball, in high A? What was the thinking there? and it's not like he blew the doors off a high a and then now he's in double a so there's also a thing that happens which is ownership pressure media pressure politics win cycle chanual's there too, right? The win cycle is we need to win now. You need to be up here now. Padres win cycle.

We need to win now. Can Salas either, can we either trade him? Will he be even more tradable if he's a 17-year-old in AA? Can we trade him for a bigger prospect package or a bigger player package in this off season or next year if we get him to double a now?

So I do think that teams think about that because there's this whole like guardians shortstop factory where they just make shortstop after shortstop after shortstop and then trade shortstops away. And like, you know, it seems to be very intentional. I think the other thing I wanted to add into that too, I said this somewhere recently, but like you might have a NBA type roster construction going on where, you know, what

do we know about the NBA and the winning teams? It's usually two or three guys that take up 80% of the roster as far as financials go. And then what do you need to do? You need to get, you know, like really good veterans to take low deals to win rings. Well, in baseball, it's tougher. But how can you get by when you pay, you know, two or three players 80% of the salary? Have young, controllable players that are helping you now that take up little to nothing.

So a guy like Ethan Salas, if you're going to go and pay, you know, a billion dollars to Yu Darvish and Fernando Tatis and Manny Machado, you know, how are you going to fill out the roster construction? Well, get those highly talented players that you can have four or five years before arbitration and you can control those players to be helping you now. You know, that might be part of the push as well in player development is like you kind of said, the pressure of ownership of just saying, hey, listen, the guys that are ready, we need them to be ready. Guys are more ready than maybe ever before. You know, there's draft combines, the circuit ball, max EVs are being thrown in these guys face. When I was at the MLB draft combine, I mentioned how the big scoreboard at the top had EVs and it had it had vertical and horizontal movement for pitchers that were throwing. had EVs and it had vertical and horizontal movement for pitchers that were throwing.

I mean, more data is available at younger levels and ages and being taught that when these guys come in, there's so much that stuff is already there with these players that maybe, I don't want to say you're having dumbed down minor league development because you're probably not. It's just probably altering in a different way and it might be becoming a lot more data-driven.

And the data-driven stuff is pretty easy. This, this, this. And then guys can just move and then they can just successfully go. Yeah, I think I just had an epiphany listening to you talk. You know, like if you've got these procedural benchmarks, you're talking about minor leagues. You're not usually about winning.

Now, some organizations care more about winning games in the minor leagues, but it's a developmental league, right? You know, like nobody's breathlessly reporting those, you know, how many, the scores of minor league games. Like, I don't think the last time I heard, they're like, oh, the Biscuits won eight to six? No way.

But like, so they're caring about developmental things. So we, I've had that thing that I've said a bunch of times here, which is a farm director told me, if I have major league pitch grades on all my pitches for a minor leaguer, why is he in the minor leagues? He's got major league pitch grades. If he's got major league stuff plus, let's get him at the majors. The other part is

there might be something lost there a little bit because you do learn how to win games along the way in the minors. You know what I mean? You do learn how to prep for games how to do a good game prep like with the catcher how to get together with the catcher how to look at different scouting reports you learn how to to you know win games on the field like there's a lot of practice in terms of winning games that does happen even if you don't care about winning the game and so if we do have this thing where it's like okay did he get to 20 ivb and you

know is he sitting 95 you know check if does he have two secondaries with high stuff plus check major leagues then you might end up you know getting to the major leagues and not knowing how to win games yeah i remember adding to your i remember talking with uh it was a long time ago this is george valera and george valera was in complex and he had hurt his hammock bone and he was trying to come back and this is like towards the end of the complex season which by the way ends this week today as we're recording this is the final day of the complex regular season for rookie ball and then the championship championship game is on friday and i remember talking to him and he was like i want to win this like they were the guardians

were you know vying for it and he's like i want to win this like they were the guardians were you know vying for it and he's like i want to win and get because i get like rings and stuff and like the value of winning for this kid who was playing in complex was hurt who wanted to come back from his handmaid injury because he wanted to help his team he wanted to win he's like i want to win this championship in complex ball that you know that does breed uh success and that breeds the process of wanting to win. And to your point, when everything is procedural, it's more just about like, OK, did I do good? Awesome. And, you know, you don't want guys to devalue winning and stuff.

That's more of a bigger philosophical arching question. But like to your point, you know, you want to make sure that you're still instilling the baseball values of a lot of these players in this developmental process. And which teams have teams and now instead of players which teams have overperformed maybe what people thought of them and have won more than maybe people thought of their talent level i i would say that i would venture that a fair amount of those teams had players that all came up through the minor league system together they had this core that knew each other really well knew how to win with each other could could make weird defensive plays or like i know where that guy is you know he's always right there i can just i can throw it to him without even looking at him you know like that sort of stuff like the the i'm thinking of the

royals core when they when they you know won and it was a little bit surprising you know given that how bad they've been since, you know? Like, you know, there's... And then think of, like, the opposite is the Padres right now where, you know, none of those guys came up together. And there's, you know, all these rumors of terrible clubhouse and this and that and tension and stress, which is like, you know, well, duh, none of these guys were in, like, Spokane together, you know?

Yeah, so that would make me wonder, just to that point real quick, the Rangers, this Rangers team is built more like the Padres. It's not a group of prospects that all graduated and played together level to level. Are they going to be cohesive compared to, say, the Orioles, which we know. They did the big rebuild like the Astros did. It's paying off a bit sooner than expected. And the Rays are a little more in that camp as well. Just guys that have played together for a long time with a few adjustments made along

the way. I don't know. I don't know if winning along the way, how much it could matter if everyone knows that the levels of competition are so variable and that your place on the roster, if you play well, your place on the roster is gone because you're gone. I just feel like that's sort of a known part of minor league baseball. You want to win every game regardless of what's going on, but your ultimate goal is to just move up. And that matters more than team success along the way. I wonder, too, looking at some of this, you know, Paul Skeens,

this is pretty unusual because we've talked so much about pitcher injuries on this podcast and trying to ballpark workloads. We did a lot on last week's episode. Many of us looked at the workload in terms of innings, pitches thrown at LSU, 122 and two-thirds innings, struck out over 200 batters. And we thought, okay, we're probably not going to see Paul Skeens in the Pirates system in 2023. They could very reasonably say, based on past workloads, increase, everything you were doing, long season, let's shut you down. We're going to get you ready to go full bore for 2024 he's not pitching a

ton but they did just bump him to double a and they're probably going to keep working him in shorter stints because they're not going to go bananas with the innings but what do you think it is that the pirates would be trying to learn about paul skeens by having him to continue to pitch on the back of a very heavy final season at LSU? Is there anything you can think of, Eno, that they wouldn't already know about him, that they can learn about him in these final weeks of the season? There is some controversy about Paul Skeens. There are people in different camps on Paul Skeens.

Lance Brodzowski has a really good piece about Paul Skeens' extension. It's poor. It's 10th percentile. You know, that's amazing, considering how big Paul Skeens is, that he has, you know, he really kind of short-arms the ball. You know, then you're talking about pitch shapes,

and Lance goes into some detail about how maybe it's not ideal pitch shapes. And then you can even see that he is a guy that kind of has a natural two-seamer, but has been trying to throw a four-seamer. And there are lots of pitchers that we've seen that are sort of stuck in between the four-seam and the two-seam, and maybe in bad ways. So I do have stuff Plus on Paul Skeens in high A, and it's bad.

It doesn't like it. Now, there's a lot of caveats here. For one, I have 44 pitches in two appearances in low A that registered. So it's a tiny sample. So even

for Stuff Plus, that's really tiny. It's probably too much to say anything. On top of that, Paul Skeens loves to change his position on the rubber side to side dramatically. Especially against left-handers, he has an outlier release point when it comes to horizontal. And outlier release points like that, you know, we may be,

the model may be reading them wrong. But lastly, I think this points to just what you want to do as an organization with someone this high up that seems this polished is get them in front of all your coaches, get them in front of your machines, get them like, you get clean data that you believe in and then work with them to see what it's going get them like you get clean data that you believe in

and then work with them to see what it's going to be like to work with them and maybe have an off-season plan that's yours. Because I love who he's worked with. Paul Skeens works with Eugene Bleeker. And I believe Bleeker is with, let me see if I can find this quickly, 508, I think is the name of his organization. But he's, you know, Eugene Bleeker was the guy with the handlebar mustache. Yeah, 108 performance. He was the guy with the handlebar mustache behind Skeens when he got signed. You know, I text him, you know, congratulations. And he says, oh, yeah, it was a big day for us.

He said, we had picks one and 12 and picks 13 and 15 do most of our training at our facility. So he had four first round picks. So I doubt that there's no one that knows about stuff plus and knows about good movement patterns that's working with him. But there's also like, oh, he worked with these other guys. Let's give him our offseason plan. And if you just say draft him and then see you next year,

then you don't have any opportunity to be like, what are his movements? What are his patterns? What do we want him to do this offseason? As opposed to what Eugene Bleeker wants him to do, which I love Bleeker, but you kind of want to be like, we want you to do our plan, please. That's always a tension in every organization. But I think with a pick this high, they're saying to him, hey, you can make the big leagues next year. You're in AA now, you can make the big leagues this year if you do what we asked you to do in the offseason. I'm torn with Skeens on a lot of stuff here.

To your point of them wanting to see him, the only thing is that they can also do this in more closed settings similar to the developmental list. You cannot subject him to in-game action. Just throw in front of our machines at the complex. Well, check this out. Chase Dolander and Rhett Lauder. Those are two highly touted college pitchers.

They're here locally and they're doing nothing. Rhett Lauder actually went home and he's coming back for instructs. Chase Dolander has been here. He's on the roster. He's not pitching. Complex is about to end. But he could be throwing in front of the machines in front of their coaches. But he could be. He's on the roster. He's not pitching. Complex is about to end. But he could be throwing in front of the machines in front of their coaches.

But he could be throwing in front of the machines. That's 100%. You also have, take Jack Leiter. Jack Leiter had an interesting path, by the way, of what the Rangers did with him. He had pitched so many innings at Vanderbilt. They said, we don't want you to throw at all. And he actually trained at Vanderbilt during the season after he was drafted and then came over and spent instructional time with the Rangers.

And they worked through all that stuff. And then what did they do? They just threw him out at like double A right after that. And now he's on a developmental list, which isn't great. And they're working through the thing. So that you would take the most highly touted used pitcher in college baseball and throw him more innings at different levels. I think in my mind speaks to checking off maybe some management boxes.

I don't know if management would be comfortable with a player that has not even seen any levels and going to the major. So I think you could be right about this. I think Paul Skeens could be vying for a rotation spot in spring training and could break camp. So they're just saying it's almost like the media and management being like, well, he pitched in AA last year. Yeah, he got there and he had some checkboxes.

But at the same time, there's a little part of me, I always think back to what we said about Max Scherzer a long time ago, where how he was throwing, he was a type of arm that you wanted to get up to the majors. Now, if there was ever going to be injury issues, you don't want to waste those bullets. So we've talked about in the minors and you want to get them to the

majors. And I wonder how much worry is out there about Paul schemes. If there is any, because there's a big argument about this shape and the lance has a great breakdown everyone should check out the extension talk is how he's very upright and the movement is very similar to like let's say a bruised our gratter all and how bruised our gratter all approaches pitches and everybody talks about this bad shape of fastball but the thing that we were doing behind the scenes i kept saying well find me another guy that has really bad stuff. Plus that

throws a hundred plus, you know, he he's got multiple secondaries. He pounds the zone. This is also a guy that hits the strike zone. You know, this isn't, he doesn't throw off strikes. I mean, he is hitting the zone, pounding the zone left and right, and he's throwing one Oh one, one Oh two. So, okay. Maybe the stuff plus Stuff Plus is going to be less than optimal from a data-driven standpoint, but find me sub-90 Stuff Plus fastballs that are out there that really tell this story of him. Because I think there's a lot of people that think he is not only overrated, but is not remotely close to being a high-end starter. And I have a hard time taking all of that crew versus how aggressive the pirates are being.

And knowing that if you want all this stuff that you talked about, you want data, you want to see how he reacts. You don't have to put them in games. You can do this all behind the scenes. You've got instructs. They could send them to the AFL if they wanted where, you know,

salt river fields has all that data driven stuff. And I think Pittsburgh is part of the Salt River team. So I'm all three of these are conflicting with me on how to feel about Paul schemes. But I do feel like he is a high, high end pitcher, regardless of what the fastball shape looks like. And we weren't able to find a good player on the stuff plus list from a major league standpoint. That's a starter that had suboptimal stuff. Plus throws 100 plus we found you know bruce dar was 85 which

was kind of representative but paul skeens also throws a lot of strikes so i think it's a different type of an out i wondered with skeens also if the development arc is going to be very similar to what the nationals did with Steven Strasburg back in the day, right? In 09, Strasburg threw 19 innings in the Fall League. Would have been more. He slept on his neck funny or something. I remember when we were out there, we missed him. That was one of my first years in the Fall League. He couldn't go because he should have known already. Well, it turned out okay for a long time 2010 before he debuted 55 and third innings between double a harrisburg and triple a syracuse and then he was in the big leagues for 68 innings

and he was handled about as carefully as any college pitching prospect that didn't have previous major blowouts with his elbow or shoulder right it? It's not like a Mason Miller situation. This was just like, how do we protect this guy while using him as part of our rotation? I don't feel like they're protecting schemes at all, though. That's the weird thing. That's the whole thing with this, and I know you're probably alluding to that. The Pirates are not known as an aggressive minor league team,

necessarily, with what they've done. And they are being, in my mind, the most aggressive, and I can't come to terms with why that is with all of the pitchers that could have been taken. Why is it skeins the most used 120 plus pitches every single game? Why is that the guy that is moving multiple levels in the minor leagues a year he's drafted? And the only other one is Hurston Waldrop who the Braves took and the Braves

move guys really quick. You know, that is part of their system. It's not the Pirates. And is it worry? Probably we saw that with AJ Smith-Shawber this year. Yeah. Or what level of worry is this coming from? You know, do the Pirates not, are the Pirates not running in instructs?

Maybe this is why. Maybe just go back to the procedural thing. Maybe they just see that their window is going to open up soon, and they don't want to have Paul Skeens in four years or three years they want to have Paul Skeens in the next two years and they think that you know they did have a really good start this year and part of what's happened since is the pitching has kind of not been as good right so maybe they just saw the beginning of this year and they say what if we had Paul Skeens all year this year what would would the story be different to me in the ever

growing story of us talking about what is changing in development, what is changing in the minor leagues that we're maybe trying to catch up to. And maybe, by the way, organizations may not even know how to articulate how things are changing. Because I'm looking at it like, give me the steps of what has all changed. And they may not even understand fully. Oh, yeah, they might be like, oh, it's still kind of the same except we're doing this and this. This is another one of those pieces because, except we're doing this and this. This is another one of those pieces, because in my mind, this is completely atypical.

This is not how teams, especially the pirates would work. The usage of a college pitcher, the year they were drafted, they would use a guy like this. This, this is hyper aggressive. And this again,

just probably speaks to a lot of what these teams are approaching with minor leaguers and just saying, screw it. You know, we're going to get them up in double a, he's going to pitch 15 more innings. Maybe hell, maybe we'll throw them to the fall league.

And then he's going to be vying for a spot. That's extraordinary. Even for Paul schemes, but I don't think like Strasburg and guys like that had this much public outcry of data against him, like skeins does with this extension and fastball shape. So it's just like,

there's so much information. There's more information that we've known about a prospect before on the underlying stuff. While this team is also being hyper aggressive. Those are those two things seem like they would counteract each other a little bit. I do know that some teams are all about their KPIs, key performance indicators.

You know, you have these metrics. If they meet those metrics, you move them along, right? So maybe the Pirates are a little bit more like that than we thought, you know, and Skeens is just checking those procedural boxes and their other guys haven't as much. I mean, that's totally possible. We're talking about a guy who's, you know it seems like he's a dominant college pitcher, ready to go. And they're like, no, by our stuff plus, he's great. And by every means that we look at, he's great. So let's just keep moving along, and he'll be in the big leagues next year or the year after.

Yeah, old school pitching guys would be like, listen, don't talk to me about shape because he throws strikes. He probably throws the most strikes of any pitcher in our system right now, and it's big velos. I don't need to hear about the shape not being good you could have that old school baseball approach also that there's good people being like listen i'm not what are your key performance indicators are they stuff plus or are they you know we were just talking on drapes and barrels yesterday is it swinging strikes in the zone is it chases you know they're you know what your key performance indicators are

will determine how how people move great with skeins too if his fastball plays more like hunter green's fastball than it does like spencer strider's fastball we're gonna get the answer really fast right if he's more like hunter green with that fastball big league hitters are gonna tee off on it if he's more like Strider, he can throw it even in the heart of the zone sometimes and get away with it. Right. So, and that's what he did in college a lot.

If you go back and look, that is definitely something like he wasn't afraid to throw it up in it, you know, up in middle. Like he, he's gonna, he's gonna challenge you with that fastball. He's a,

it's not cocky, but it's a confidence level that i'll throw it where i want to throw it and you try to beat me with it and college hitters did not beat him with it so maybe you know greater to the point is like all right let's get some you know high challenge let's get the evan carters let's get the junior camineros i got no idea who he's facing but i'm just throwing out you know there's great hitters in double a right now see what happens when he challenges them with it exactly yeah. Yeah. And then, you know,

last thing I want to say is that it bruised our Gatterall as a, a bad outcome, quote unquote for him. I think we're focusing on the role. So not so much the stuff, you know, and not so much how good of a pitcher he is. Gatterall had some injury issues and that was part of why he was

traded. You know, they were, I think they already saw that he was going to be a reliever. You know, there was that, don't you remember when he was traded, there was still like, will he be a starter? Will he stretch him out? And, you know, and, you know, another guy who's stuff plus on his fastball is not great

despite his velo is Duran in Minnesota. So they had two guys who's, you know, fastball stuff plus may not have played as well if they dropped down to starter level velos, right? Like if Duren's stuff plus on his fourth inning fastball is 107 right now and he's throwing 101.7 and he becomes a starter and throws 97, then that might be below 100. I would assume it would be.

And Gratterall's the same way. He's throwing 98-plus. His sinker has good stuff-plus. Maybe Skeens is going to look a little bit more like Gratterall, who short-arms the ball, you know, who has a better sinker than a four-seam, does have a good breaking ball. But if you had bruised our Gratterall, I could go six.

I'm sorry. That's a good pitcher, you know. So if that's their comp, then I don't think they're worried're worried but yes uh i think that generally there's something funky on this data because when we did look at everybody over 98 nobody averaged over 98 and had a poor stuff plus other than gratterall and he had a great one on the sinker so you know and that's not what skeens does has right now so like are you worried about that? Because I know initially when we were talking off air, you had been like, this data's not good. But when you conceptualize Paul Skeens and what he's done

and what he's accomplished and who he is as a pitcher, and then you hear bad shit. I am still a little worried because you can dominate in college and not necessarily dominate in the pros. Jack Leiter is an example. Yeah, that happens. So I am a little worried but i do want i would rather have more data i'd rather know you know we're i'm talking to my modeler about what we

can do about extreme outlier release points it's the same idea as what we should do about extreme outlier movement data and we have ideas on how to add some sort of bayesian element to our model to to to to account for this. But, you know, I thought it might be fun real quick just to throw out the, because I have this in front of me, the low A Stuff Plus leaders. And as I said, there's not a ton of them that are above 100. But Saul Garcia is number one. He has an 87.5 location plus. So cool your horses on Saul Garcia is number one. He has an 87.5 location plus. So cool your horses on Saul Garcia.

That's the problem, right? I would venture that many of the high stuff guys that are still at that level are going to be light in terms of command right now. Yeah, Owen Kellington is sixth and he has a 107 stuff plus. That's great. He's pitching 60 pitches per appearance

that's good that's on the high end for low a he has an 87 location plus the best overall pitcher that I like that's high and stuff plus that has some name recognition number two on the list Thomas Harrington has a 113 stuff plus 99 location

plus that looks fairly good to go but I'll throw some i'll throw this list in the google doc for for subscribers uh you know carson milbrandt is a name leonard pestana douglas oriana uh troy melton john klein that's about the top 10 there's some other interesting names ricky teatom shows up on this list and blows everybody away in Pitching Plus. Pretty easily the best starter in Pitching Plus in low A.

And that makes sense. That's a guy who should be in low A. That's the way that should be. So good error check there. So yeah, check the doc for that full list. You've got to be in a pretty deep league to have those guys on the radar right now. But least harrington has barely won a low a bat sounds like half of the names will get in the fall league you know you're gonna get like

some great names and then you're just then it's like and saul garcia and you're just gonna get these guys who were like who are these players again so dylan cruz also got moved up to double a and it's much less surprising because you're not worried about the wear and tear on a position player the same way you were worried about the wear and tear on a pitcher like skeins and given all the things Dylan Cruz did in college this seems like a more appropriate assignment based on the things we knew about him so I'm not really surprised that he's here but I'm leaving the door open to the possibility that we actually see him probably in the

fall league if we don't see him by the end of the season in the big leagues. I think that'd be a very reasonable assignment. Do you think so? A fun assignment too. I think we could. I think they're going to move him really fast. 27% of the time in A ball. I mean, I just I don't know if I'm old school or something. Some part of me is like, really? There's nothing wrong here? Alright, fine. That's why

you would want to do it. That's why. I think, yeah, you want to see what he keeps doing. It's more advanced competition. But what do you think the key performance indicators are for hitters? Is it having major league bat speed? Is it having major league swing decisions, right? You have the pitching plus model to look at the underlying numbers,

pitch characteristics. We don't have that for hitters what do teams have what are they putting into their systems trying to determine quality of bats like what actually matters as you try to make those decisions well i i wouldn't assume that the nationals have it either way oh yeah that was this was this is a broader question not a national specific question uh i do know that teams have bad path grades and that they they work on those and we've seen that publicly already like that's that's stuff that's out there uh i mentioned uh dk willardson and swing graphs you can find swing graphs at swing graphs on twitter he has his own version uh you know i i know people in the game that think that his version isn't that great.

But that just means that there are versions, there is a public version of a Bat Path grade. And so that means that, you know, once there's a public version, I would assume that at least 10 teams privately have one, you know, and that the other 20 teams are like, whoa, what's a bad path grade and are trying to work on one themselves. So I would assume I would actually assume probably more than half major league teams have a bad path grade. So you could I still think that leaves the Nationals on the outside looking in and they probably are just like, no, man, he's dominant college.

He was dominant in in a ball. Let's not worry about the strikeout rate. Yeah, I mean, the strikeout rate, as you mentioned, was high, but it was still good results in the 14 games that he was there. There was power. There was speed. 423 OBP, 645 slug. To me, it wasn't a good enough test.

Double A will be a good test. If he's punching out 30-plus percent of the time at double A, that will give us some indicators that maybe we want to pump the brakes a little bit as far as our 2024 expectations go but if teams are going to keep taking this more aggressive approach do we have to take a more aggressive approach even in redraft leagues for the last few seasons you know and i have been kind of stuck in this this window where if player, if a rookie is going kind of in the first four or five rounds, we're generally out on those players, right? So two years ago, I think that was Bobby Witt Jr. This past season, Gunnar Henderson was a little more borderline because of what was going on at third base.

But you find those guys that get that extra bump. Corbin Carroll, I think, was tough in redraft leagues. It's paid off in a big way. Even Witt last year paid off, right? If you passed on Witt like I did, you were wrong. Witt was good enough to return value and then some where he was going. But if teams start to believe in players faster, are we going to have guys that hit the ground running more often?

Or are we going to have just a greater sample and then a greater range of outcomes where some of or are we going to have just a greater sample and then a greater range of outcomes where some of these guys are going to fall flat on their face because teams are copying each other and and trying to move guys up faster than maybe they should right i mean every team's got a different path here so what's actionable about this for us in the fantasy community what do you think welsh um couple of things. You know, one thing I wanted to say on the cruise side too, which is interesting when I have a, I have an episode I'm dropping on my prospect show prospect one, where I predict the AFL, I predict the players that are going to come and I is dropping tomorrow. And Dylan Cruz is a part of that. I do leave it open that it

might not, but this is, I could see why they would make this movement. But speaking on maybe like, you know, they don't have those proper grades. You say, what are they checking? And I was like, it's probably not them. Well, you might have teams that also, when they don't have those proper checks and balances might just want these guys to be in front of everybody as possible. People that other systems that do have a lot of analytically driven things. A lot of people talking about these players in public space and just getting them reps. If they're not judging it by any set of standards. Copycatting. Oh, the braids. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Cruz, go.

Doing that type of stuff. You make more mistakes doing that because you're not following an actual process. You're just doing what someone else did. So I turn that back around to kind of answer your question where you're saying like, should we more be more aggressive? I still think it's selective. Like I'm not as much as I'm a prospect person. I'm not a big prospect person in redraft leagues because I think there's a huge amount of failure that's in play, even to the point of how great Ellie was at the start. And he was a great example because you could pick him up

in season. We've seen where the failure goes. Corbin Carroll has stunk in the second half yet. It'll be impossible for him to still not return his value, but those streaks are out there. So I don't think it is a one for one. I don't trust Nolan Chanel in angels development. And it's great that he's at the major league level, but like that doesn't make me want,

if the angels take guys to push those guys up, it doesn't make me want the nationals guys to push up. It's going to be probably more about teams that are intertwined. We know the diamondbacks have been pretty heavy and how they're, they've been with their approach on players. They're much more analytical, analytically driven and the type of player that Corbin Carroll was had a whole lot of floor in it.

So yes, in redraft, we will have more rookies. We are probably going to be at the face of people drafting in best balls very early on Dylan Cruz and Paul Skeens much higher than we want. They will be given opportunities. Will they succeed? I don't think we know enough yet on the players that are going to be pushed heavier that they're going to succeed. I will say from a dynasty perspective perspective this actually works a little bit

more in my favor because i've always been a guy that values younger players higher looking at their the totality of their value you know trying to project this guy who's in complex who could then get up faster than you think and could be a really successful player when everything works out. And the more traditional sense of dynasty over the last three or four years has been just give me proximity. I, this gets great that this guy is 17 years old, but he's not going to be up for the majors for four years.

It doesn't help me now. I don't want him. Well, guess what? There's a 17 year old that could make the majors this year. It feels like an Ethan Salas. So that process is changing and throw on top of it now the guys once they hit high a high a literally is the new double a where it's like anything can happen when these guys get to high a so i think the marker the the

line has changed on younger players that you can't just dismiss them that they're four years away because they're in complex it could be two It could be a year and a half. So I think the higher value younger players are guys you should pay more attention to. And that just pushes up those values in dynasty a little bit more than only focusing on double A 23 year olds. Yeah. So it's going to deflate some of the players who fit that latter description. Right. So if you're thinking of current examples, Michael Bush for the Dodgers, Jonathan Aranda for the Rays, Mark Vientos for the Mets, some of those guys that get a little older, that go level to level, that don't fly through the system. I think some of those players could become undervalued.

It just depends on the player, of course. Look at Michael Bush. Michael Bush feels like he's been playing in the Dodgers system since 1994. He's been there forever. That's a guy that he's just not given it. I really like Sedana Rafaela. Yeah. And the Red Sox

outfield is the worst in baseball by outs above average. Jaron Duren looks like he's no longer a center fielder, so there's an opening for him. Is he old at 23 years old? But I did want to turn this around i mean one of here's a here's a real actionable question for you guys this i think this feels like a more robust top five than usual so because normally i think what was going on with wit and um with cordon carroll

is the number the consensus number one is treated differently. The consensus number one that's ready to play in the big leagues is treated differently than the rest, right? So those guys were like, hey, Bobby Witt, consensus number one. Corbin Carroll, consensus number one, going to play, has speed. I'm going to take him in the fourth or fifth or whatever, right? That sort of seems to be the action. What I would say is that I don't know that the consensus is there

for the number one. And instead we have a top five. And everybody likes one differently. So I'm just going to name the Fangraphs top five, but I think this is everyone's top five. They're just ordered differently for everybody. Jackson Holiday, James Wood, Jackson Merrill, Jackson Churio, and Dylan Cruz.

All five of those guys are going to have double A experience. All five of those guys could easily play in the major leagues next year. Is there one of those or two of those or three of those that A, you would say is consensus number one for redraft purposes, and B, is there sort of a Robin to that batman that might be three four rounds later that might be the better choice so the only thing i would add is i think the the one consensus guy that didn't get thrown in there maybe i just misheard it because you said merrill i don't think merrill is quite in there but uh junior caminero i don't know if he had junior caminero in that list yeah

i've got junior caminero and i've've got Jordan Lawler in there as well. So I think Holiday is the consensus number one. I completely agree that the top end feels more robust. So I think there's some people that think the top 100 is the least talented that it's been in a long time. You can invert it to say like the top five is maybe as talented as it's been in a long time. I could make an argument, I think, for any of those five to be number one.

Yeah, I think you easily can. I would say that Jackson Holiday is the consensus guy. If I'm going in and we get any type of commitment that they're going to let him get a spot early on, Jackson Holiday is the one that has proven 400 plus OBP everywhere he goes, not crazy worrisome strikeout numbers, big, hard to hit every single test. He,

and question he has answered. So that's the type of guy that you bet on when he becomes a fourth or fifth round. He seems like guy in redraft. If you have any inkling that he's going to play in the big leagues next year, he seems like, like he might be worth it.

I completely agree though, is when you take them in the fifth round is like, you can't wait as long as you wait on L.Az yeah well there's less when yeah they have to start going that's why you need that confirmation that these guys are going to play early the funny thing in my mind for redraft i think like all the rest have like worrisome concerns and i mean if they were given the go like junior kim and arrow is going to be the shortstop because of all the things we know what's going on with the Rays. He will be the guy that'll make me feel more comfortable. But I think like Churio's got some swing and miss in his game.

Jordan Lawler has huge swing and miss in his game. James Wood can play up and down inconsistently as well. That seems like a young 22. So here's Merrill's thing. Jackson Merrill. he's actually 20. He's only 20 years old. Jackson Merrill is the least fantasy relevant guy, I think, of this list as far as the big numbers,

but he's probably the biggest floor player. So if he were to hit at the top of a lineup, I think that's awesome because he can hit for contact. He doesn't strike out. He's still developing his power, and he doesn't steal bases in crazy clips. So could he get to 2020? Maybe.

But I think if you're talking about offensive upside, Caminero clearly. I'd say Jordan Lawler clearly, but the floor exists with Merrill. So answering your question, Jackson Holiday's the commitment. If I'm getting a guy at a lower cost, it's actually Dylan Cruz in my mind. And if you want to even go further, I think like James Wood at a much lower cost than

Cheerio is where I would go with the redraft. But I think all those guys are riskier next year. And I probably want to play the Ellie Daly Cruz, like give me them in July than having to draft them right now. So I think the play might be to let someone else drop one of those guys, drop him. ellie de la cruz like give me them in july than having to draft them right now like you might the play might be to let someone else drop one of those guys drop him and then you know he's in the player pool or whatever like you know keep your eye on them yeah you know in in leagues like the nfbc where you have to have them on the roster someone's roster to be picked up before they get

called up later in the season i think you're gonna see more people throw a round 29 round 30 dart on players cut them with the intention of picking them back up later just to have a shot that is such a good point that happened in my nfbc with ellie because i think you know you were like how the hell was ellie in the waiver wire and it was because someone had drafted him cut him and then i was able to pick him up on waivers like three weeks before he ended up getting the call up and i had him all you need to do that to do that is know the the different times that people get called up so there's like the the uh sort of like three weeks into the season you know where you know that's just about like not giving them the full season you know yeah that's like the super two stuff that that

would be like maybe the churro maybe the the Caminero, like maybe Dylan Cruz. Like maybe they just want a little bit extra. Isn't that like the beginning of May? Yeah, it's usually like the last week in April or the somewhere, yeah. It's in that three week window somewhere. And I think it moves. There's another call up session around June.

And then there's the last one in September. Those, I would say, you know, if you took, give me those three dates, those three date ranges, I would say that that's like, you know, I would say that's more than 50% of prospect call-ups are in those three date ranges. But we'll also learn so much more from the end of this offseason, what we see from the AFL, and how spring training is set up. We're going to learn more because we are also in this newer space. I don't think any of us were ready for how prospects were going to be treated this year. So we're speculating here, but there may be so much less speculation come spring. You know, we're like maybe Cam and arrow, there might be definitives like, yep. Cam and arrow is vying for a job. Jackson Churio, it's his job to lose. And all of a sudden it's Dylan Cruz and Paul skin. You know, we might get flooded with prospects that are not just in contention,

but it's their job to lose a spot. And that's, what's going to change the game for fantasy. All of those guys we mentioned, if every single one of them, these guys, well, dude,

if every single one of them were given, like Cameron, I was going to start the Walker, um, or a Lawler and, um, James Wood and Cruz and Dada, if they were all given the spot at a camp, every single one of them would be top 100 without a question.

They would all be top 100 and it would make a lot of older season fantasy owners really kind of that they have to invest that high in this many prospects if they wanted to take that shot. You know what else is pretty interesting about the way teams are handling the late season? We talked about Corbin Carroll making his debut late August last year. He started 26 out of a possible 36 games because once you get past the service time days threshold, it goes down to at-bats like we talked about last week. I think the semi-regular

roles, they're not necessarily indicative of a player's true talent level, right? Like Noel V. Marte comes up, debuts as a pinch runner on Saturday, starts on Sunday. We know the Reds have a crowded infield. If he plays or starts 75% of the Reds' remaining games, just mixing and matching, it doesn't mean he's not a potential everyday player for them next year because the roadblocks could be gone or he could be in a different organization if he's the one that gets traded. So I think you have to think about slightly crowded depth charts

in this window a little differently than you used to. It's almost a good thing because it leaves the door open for some of the guys like Churio, even like Jackson Holiday. For a while, I thought, oh, there's no way we'll see Jackson Holiday this year. Why not? The Orioles could bring him up. They could play him two-thirds of the time. They're not burning off a year of service time.

He's not going to hit the, you're not going to see the rookie of the year eligibility thresholds. And he gets the experience. And then we have more information for next year. And the team has more information for next year. I think organizations generally value that. So maybe we haven't seen that last wave of call-ups yet. Maybe there's still one more week or so where we're going to get a few more names that get jumped up into the big leagues.

I just hope it's not holiday because I want holiday to go to the AFL. I'm very selfish. So these guys also could be AFL guys if they, or they won't be AFL guys that they get called up most likely. And one of the things that's just tough is that in weekly leagues, play appearances and innings pitcher King, you know, and so you're going to be want to chase this upside in terms of talent level.

But then you're going to have all this oatmeal that can win you championships. And it literally can, because, you know, you've got somebody like Lance Thomas, you know, next year, I feel like he's just

going to be boring as heck for everybody, but he's probably going to play every day. Even if Dylan Cruz comes up, you know, I think it would probably take a couple of guys coming up before he loses it. I mean, they're right now at the top of their, it's Blake Rutherford, Stone Garrett, Victor Robles, and Alex call of the other outfielders and Joey Manessas. Like Lance Thomas is going to have a job all year next year. Joan Garrett, Victor Robles, and Alex Call are the other outfielders, and Joey Manessas. Lance Thomas is going to have a job all year next year, and he's going to be so boring compared to the other guys.

How many plate appearances do you think Lance Thomas will have next year versus how many plate appearances Noemi Marte will have? In weekly leagues, you really have this thing where the format itself is pushing you away, I i think from a lot of these players yeah and i think it does late in the year but i think lane thomas versus noel v martin next year comes out closer than you think based on i think even it's closer than you think um i'm not worried about lane thomas losing time i think he's that's what i'm saying but i'm saying you you book that time and you know that's a boring guy without much upside that you can book this playing time.

And then Noel Bimarte is the guy that may have higher upside, but you can't book the playing time. You know, one thing I wanted to add, you asked that question. That's going to be a tough decision next year, especially if there's five, six, seven prospects that everyone's like, maybe I'll just have a bench spot and just be like, hey, there's a lot

of guys here. I'll just put Jordan Lawlerla on my bench nobody else is talking about him i think that's actually a great idea i was contemplating you were asking all those guys who's the later one i actually think i have the name for you of the guy that isn't in that top five of all those big sexy names that are out there and it's pete crowe armstrong pete crowe is most likely the guy if you start seeing all five of those guys going ahead. They don't sign Bellinger especially, right? Even if they do sign, Pete Crowe, we're ready. We're at AAA.

He's hitting 299 at AAA. He hit 289 this year at AA. We've got the at-bats. He's lowered his strikeout rate. He's upped his walk rate since going to AAA. He's posted a 200-plus ISO at every single level with the Cubs that he has been. Defensively, he's there, makes a lot of contact. Pete Crowe is the guy.

Give me the discount because I think Pete Crowe, we're in that little window. You said like the next wave. We're still in that little window where Gunnar and Corbin came up last year, and then they were given that run. Pete Crowe, in my mind, is in that window that could get called up in the next week, even if he didn't. I think that's a guy that breaks camp, is not viewed in the top five. I'll take a big discount on Pete Crowe Armstrong in early best balls, breaking that roster

and being a part of that outfield than I would maybe spending double the value on trying to chase after Jordan Lawler or something like that. Pete Crowe is probably the cheaper, safer option that I'm going to chase outside of Jackson Holiday. If I want the high and I want the better value, that would be the guy. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what I would do if Holiday, Churio, Cruz, Lawler, if they're all being treated reasonably the same, right? You're going to get one out of that bunch. The interesting thing about Jack Centurio, he's lowered the K rate going back to about

June. He's under 20% now for the season. That swing and miss we were seeing earlier in the year has faded. He's made the adjustments over a 50 plus game sample. The bags are going to be there. Our game versus real life floor and real life value, it's always a little shift towards the guys that run. I know bags are easier to get there like our game versus real life floor and real life value it's always

a little shift towards the guys that run no bags are easier to get but it gives you another category to be an immediate above average contributor so i'm tempted to say i actually want jackson churio of that group because i think he's going to immediately steal a ton of bases like that's there from day one he had some ridiculous home runs too. Just absurd. Top of the zone, opposite field off 99 mile an hour fastball type home runs. I think the power is going to play. Maybe you're giving up. Maybe initially you have some of the same problems that we've had with Bobby Witt Jr., where it's a okay average, low OBP, pretty good slug, and then he steals a ton of bases, and you're just happy because it all works,

and he plays nearly every day. I think that's probably the short-term outcome for Chorio, and the question is, can he unlock that peak ceiling that gets him up into the early part of round one someday? That's the great unknown, but in round five, I think I'd be pretty interested in taking that shot so long as we have clear indications that he's a part of their opening day plans. Yeah. And we might see him in the AFL. That might be one of those guys or Dominican

Winter League. I think it would be really key for where he's at developmentally to get more at-bats, push the at-bats, push the at-bats to bigger competition. That might be Dominican Winter League. I think the presence of where you play is a lot more intense and puts that kind of pressure on you, where the AFL is going to have some of the best talent out there but pretty poor pitching, but the team gets to really get their eyes every single day and see the adjustments that he's making here amongst his peers.

So I just think it'll be key for him to play a lot of at-bats competitively in one of those leagues for him to be able to make that next big move. Because sometimes, you know, I make a big deal about it because I live here, but that fall league is that indicator of like, oh yeah, we want this guy soon, and we want to make sure he's getting more than the regular minor league season at-bats to see how he's tested. Is he worn out? How can he push?

And how much can we dive into this guy for a full season of baseball next year? So that would probably be a little indicator for me as far as a guy like Churio or Caminero is how much run do they get in this offseason of more plate appearances? Yeah, we need that fall League opportunity for both of those guys. I'm selfish. Being back in Arizona this year for Fall League, send everybody. Send everybody at the top of the list. Make the predictions that you made on that episode of

Prospect 1. Make them all come true. We want to be dreamers. We are going to go on our way out the door. Just a reminder, you can get a subscription to The Athletic for $2 a month for the first year at theathletic.com slash ratesandbarrels. You can find us on Twitter at Eno Saris, at Is It The Welsh, and at Derek Van Ryper. That's going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We are back with you on Wednesday.

Thanks for listening.