Rates & Barrels - Prospect Talk with Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Eno and DVR are joined by Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs to discuss a thinning of the minor league cupboard in recent years, minor league data that is moving the needle, a few rapidly rising prospects -- Zyhir Hope and Jesus Made -- and some of Eric's favorite 'Picks to Click' on future Top-100 lists. Rundown 3:19 What Has Left the Minor League Cupboard Thinner Than Usual? 8:41 What Newly Available Minor League Data Moves the Needle? 16:04 Things That Are Innate v. Things That Are Learned 22:30 Eric's Cautious Assessment of Zyhir Hope 31:46 Jesus Made's Helium After an Impressive DSL Debut 37:48 Eric's Picks to Click: Looking for Future Top-100 Prospects 45:31 Is the White Sox's Rebuilding Effort on Track? 54:20 Making Sense of the Pirates' Hitting Development Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris With: Eric Longenhagen Producer: Brian Smith Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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slash connections. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Friday, February 21st. Derek and Ryper, EnoSaris, and a special guest joining us today, Eric Longenhagen of Fangraphs is here. Eric, thank you so much for joining us during Prospect Week. Oh, thank you so much for having me. This is what my face looks like internet Have you been hiding your face from the internet for this long? That's amazing it is I have an appreciation for how Accidentally famous people can get like the poor hawk to a girl Not know what you're what you're dealing with. It's not really in your control. I think one of my more proud moments is I was speaking at Sabre

and they had such trouble finding a photo of my face that from like one of my friend's weddings, there was a picture of me in the background and they like cut the person. They accidentally put the person who was in the foreground, like as the headshot of me in the program. And I was just like, okay, like I am, I'm doing a good job. I got behind that guy.

So screen grabs from this show may be used as a future Eric Long and Hagen headshot. Yeah, let me give you a terrible one. Let's give awful announcing all of the like terrible ones that they could possibly use. Yeah, the one where your I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm a little I was early on that one, which I guess is like the prospect writers credo is to like do. But but yeah, that was that was more about me and how it was making me feel than like me reading the tea leaves about how it was going to trend. But I haven't like done the blue the blue ski the blue ski jump because I just think like kind of the same. Right. Like so no thanks. the blue ski jump, because I just think like, kind of the same, right?

So no thanks. It doesn't make me feel as bad about my life and my, than the world, but yeah, it's an addiction, and it's, it causes me not to be as present for my children and stuff, so it's like, generally I'd like to do less of it. I could definitely feel my, when I got off there, it wasn't like my brain was like,

okay, we're gonna just read now, that's all you're gonna wanna do is be. Yeah, what did you do? It was just like, brain was like, okay, we're gonna just read now. That's all you're gonna want to do is be... Yeah, what did you do? It was just like, you're gonna be really good at fantasy football this year, Eric. And... No. But yeah, like, my brain is messed up too from it

in a way that is, I don't know if it's totally irreversible, but it's definitely an upstream swim for my attention being directed with my control. Yeah, I've experienced the same thing. I don't have ADHD or anything like that, but I think I've developed some symptoms of it from a decade plus on social media. But our own struggles aside, let's talk Prospects for a bit.

Since it is Prospect Week, tons of great content rolling out over at FanGraphs. If you're listening and don't have a membership yet you should get one support fan graphs Eric and the team there do phenomenal work I want to ask you just a broad question first because Keed Law hinted at this a couple of weeks ago on the show he felt like it was harder this year than almost any year he's put together a top 100 to come up with a full top 100 do you think the state of the minor leagues is generally down and that we're looking at

more top heavy lists going around the industry right now? I think there are a couple of things at play with that. One is the way the rookie roster rules changed around the pandemic made it so that players just graduate more readily. All those September days you spend on the roster, you know, they count against your rookie eligibility now. And so there are definitely players who have graduated

from our lists who have lost rookie status the last four or five years, who would not have before that just because September roster days count. So that's one thing. Oh, wait, that's just like a really boring reason. That's funny. Those didn't used to count?

I'm just saying the September days didn't used to count. The first year September roster days counted against your eligibility and it has persisted since then. So that's one reason. God, I missed that. But then the other one is the proliferation of data and now four or five years of that having occurred

within my peer group. And I think over time you start to see the trends of who you get wrong and why and what the warning signs in the data were that they wouldn't succeed earlier. And it just makes you more skeptical of those players at a time when there used to be unbridled enthusiasm for them in the lower minors. miners. It's now when you have like a guy's chase rate instead of just his walk rate, or you have an end zone contact rate that is like a full standard deviation below the big league average, and that's what's happening at low A, it's much easier to know what the potential problems are and then bake that into the way you're evaluating or valuing the player. Those are the two big ones, I think. But I also think that this year's group at the very top,

like there's not an Acuna or a Tatis or, like I like, you know, these guys, Roman Anthony's and Dylan Cruz's of the world, but there's not like that guy or a couple of them, at least I don't think so. And there are a couple of guys in the minors right now who within a year or two are going to be that guy. They'll have performed through the mid upper minors to the point where you have that degree of confidence that you can say Sebastian Walcott is going to be that player.

But as of right now, I don't think you can do that. When you were talking about the advanced stats, I was thinking about a little bit about Emmanuel Rodriguez in Minnesota because when you look at the sort of fan graphs Stats on him. You're like, oh the swinging strike is really low, you know He's really great sense of the zone It looks like is he just uber passive and then I think I heard something about his in zone contact being really bad specifically with Emmanuel Rodriguez It is like in that Trent Grisham area where not only is the in zone Rodriguez, it is like in that Trent Grisham area where not only is the end zone, the end zone contact is like not the worst 74%. The overall contact is at 66%. You know, there's

a clear hole in that guy's swing. Yeah. Like, and there are ways like splits with two strikes, your chase rate with two strikes. I mean, obviously it should go up strategically. You want to spoil borderline pitches with two strikes. You rather put a ball in play. Some of the deltas with the two strike chase and the overall chase kind of are meaningful in my view at identifying who is actually patient, has strikes own feel and who is passive. I do think with Emmanuel Rodriguez, like I think he's going to be good. There's just too much power on contact. He's such a good defensive player, but there are probably, and again, Trent Christian is a great comp here

because he's patient too. There's power on contact, not as much as Emmanuel Rodriguez has, but he's definitely in that mix, that player type where if you're looking at like the spider web graph, the sliders are shorter than the same places for those guys except Manny Rodriguez's are kind of turned up on 10.

But yeah, 56% hard hit rate for a guy who's a plus defensive center fielder. I'll take that guy even knowing that. Even if there's some flaws. Yeah, I think that's the other thing I feel like I've learned is when the stuff the guy does well is stuff you care about and it's like high, high end. When it is like seven power, like you just go sort the fan graphs, leaderboard, inverse order of contact rates.

Like the bottom 15 guys are Aaron judges in there and Shohei is in there. And Julio Rodriguez is in there. But when the other stuff you're doing is like seven or eight on the scale, especially if it's the power components, it makes me feel okay about guys like Manny Rodriguez, Samuel Basayo. where it's just like, this guy's a freak. He's performed at every level as a young for the level guy. He plays a position of value. With Juan Brito, I made some comps based on just result stats, and the comps weren't exciting. It was a lot of guys who don't hit the ball hard, and I was like, oh yeah, I don't think Juan Brito hits the ball hard and the Guardians don't seem to value that the same way I do in

terms of hitting the crap out of the ball. What are some of these stats that you've come to appreciate over the years? And it morphs a little bit every year because the sources that I'm drawing the data from can change. Like you don't want to, for the purposes of like protecting your sources, some of these stats are so specific to the team that it can sort of be like a skeleton key for the team to identify. Their stuff plus or their bat path grade or whatever. Right. So some of it is a little bit different year to year. I will say that like, you know, in-zone contact, overall contact, overall chase, two-strike chase,

a thing that I had access to this year that I hadn't in the past was chase contact, which I think is an interesting like bat control proxy. It's an interesting thing I think to fold in, although there are some anecdotal trends in my mind. The guys with low ball swings, I feel like, tend to have a better chase contact just because pitches that miss, chase pitches tend to live down. And so I think there's a little bit of a selection bias there. And then, you know, max exit, EV90, hard hit rates, barrel rates, or a team rates, and barrel rates,

or a team's version of barrel rates. Do you have these in a comprehensive way? Do you have high A hard hit rates? I don't have them broken down by level. If the way Kylie and I pool this data and then chop it up, we will do like averages by age for some of this stuff, but not necessarily adjusted for level. Sometimes although this wasn't the case this year, the spreadsheet that we source might have the level the player finished at and you can then like filter by the minor league

level and then collect the average for that level. But sometimes you get the, you know, the Rays do this, the Padres do this. There are definitely teams, Bryce Eldridge, you know, with the Giants is an example of this, where Bryce Eldridge wants to double A for a week and then it's triple A for a week. And so when you look at Bryce Eldridge's numbers, it says he's in triple A, but he amassed most of those stats in A-ball all year. And you have to know not to believe that, you know, like you have to know that the stats came from A-ball, manually adjust that this team is like trying to game like models made by people who aren't paying attention, I guess.

But yeah, like average launch and, and contact depth, like some of the expected stats this year, like expected ISO, sometimes expected slug. And yeah, like across the big leagues and the miners, we have dating back to 2017 now, Kylie and I, there were like 2018, 2020, there were a couple of years in that early window when we didn't have anything for one reason or another. And Kylie was with the team or there was a pandemic or whatever it was. But wish I had was like the chase contact, but split by like what part of the zone? Like I'd like an above zone chase contact. I'd like a below zone, like an east and west.

You'd be almost like figuring out bat path from that in a little bit. Yeah. And I think some of this is the other like monkey touching the monolith moment was during the pandemic when Kevin Goldstein was, you know, we were, you know, Batman and Robin of Prospect Stuff at Fangraphs for a couple months. You know, Kevin was just like, hey, we're not going to travel this year, so let's pump budget into video software program that can help us with this stuff. And the Bat Path piece of it really for me is a more visual, visually identifiable thing. When you start to see like in a strike zone scatter plot

where guys swing and miss locations and pitch types are versus like where the contact is, you can see like, okay, Matt Vierling, I see you. What you can do really well. You start to see the scoopy guys versus the flat guys. Right. Yeah, so like, OK, Alan Rodin, I see what you can do up here at the top of the strike zone.

And then where your power just goes away at the bottom of the zone. Unless it's a breaking ball, it doesn't finish, or whatever it is. And you can start to identify trends that way and Especially guys who have that hole up in a way Against fastballs you left-handed hitters who can't cover that pitch There are a lot of those pitches in the big leagues just like hard fastballs open. That's Brandon Moss

He said that's why his career ended basically very interesting guy obviously like high end of the the launch angle spectrum what's sustainable. Guys like Brayden Taylor remind me a lot of Brandon Moss, the Ryan Schimps of the world. Yeah, the super launch boys for sure. There are a lot of those guys. They're fun. My dumb way of doing it is that I have kind of settled on like sort of 50% grounders, 50% flies as like if you're worse on either end, then I get it worried about you.

I think that's actually sort of a bad pathy thing. And it's dumb and you can do much better than that. But like if somebody is looking at like lesser data set, you know, you can get something. Like if Rishin was a 50% fly ball guy, and like, Jose Bautista made it work and Moss made it work for a while, but you know, there's usually a hole somewhere if you're doing that. No doubt. Yeah. And that's the other thing.

For me, it's more like, if I can't find precedent for what it is you're doing, that is when I take a step back at least and we'll reevaluate. So like, a guy this year was Justin Crawford with the Phillies who in a bunch of the statistical categories that we have talked about he's excellent in you know these contact and the power on contact. But he's like a 60% ground ball guy. Right. There's just not anyone in the big leagues who is putting the ball on the ground that much and is actually good.

And so I still want to value him as a prospect. He's still a good prospect. Where'd you land with him? I have a 40 plus on him. The warning signs with him are similar to the ones with Zach Vien a couple of years ago. And with Crawford, you put on the tape of him playing center field and that needs work and the chase rates are higher than you want them to be. And so that's scary. And with Crawford, you put on the table him playing center field and that needs work and

the chase rates are higher than you want them to be. And so that's scary. But the upside is still there. I still want to have a grade of value on him that indicates that there's that sort of upside while also acknowledging that his present skill is more like an extra outfielder. So I have a 40 plus on him, which is that's what that's trying to communicate. Basically, one thing that fascinates me, sorry, just really quickly, you were talking about Crawford is one thing that fascinates me is like what things are innate and what things are improvable

and what have you found like that is more in the bucket of improvable and more in the bucket of innate and not improvable? Well, you're sort of reverse engineering this just through pattern recognition of the teams who are able to coax unexpected stuff out of some of their guys. And so on the hitting side, I would have told you up until I wrote Alex Freeland's scouting report this year that like the contact piece of it is mostly innate, the hand-eye coordination stuff. And I still think that's mostly true.

The hand-eye, pitch tracking, pitch tracking, ball strike recognition. And I think there's some teams that are doing a better job at gamifying their hitters' approach in the box, making it sort of like a meta game where they want you to attack the pitches that you can damage and they're improving guys' approach that way. I think with some of what like Boston has done, where they're taking the chase madroths of the world and the Christian Campbells of the world. Adding bat speed, right?

They're finding a way to just, even if it's just like, hey, swing really hard. I don't know what it is there. They're heavy on unweighted bats. Yeah, I think you can see some of the like the counterweighted knob stuff and the way the distribution of the bat is impacting how it traverses the zone. But yeah, I think that there are some teams.

And then like with the Dodgers, the Dodgers will take fast players and then try to layer strength onto them. So not all these guys have worked out, but like Jake Vogel is a high school outfielder who they drafted who was just fast. And Gavin Lux was a glove oriented high school prospect, which is hilarious now. And Kendall George is another speedy high school outfielder. When they traded for Zaire Hope, he was a speed first over slot, like 11th round high school outfielder.

He had bigger hams than I thought he would. I was looking at his quads, man. Those were prodigious. Right, and that's the thing. It's like, if you think about the stuff that a pro organization can really do that, high school weight room or a junior college weight room or whatever, like sports, science, and medicine, and strength and conditioning are the things that should be core competencies of any of these organizations.

And so if that's the missing ingredient for whoever the player is, then theoretically it should be like what you can help them do. But like Alex Freeland, who wouldn't surprise me if it's just the Dodgers everyday shortstop at some point this year, because he can actually play that position. He had a 63% contact rate in 2023. This is a college prospect who was a name in high school, but 63% contact rate in 2023 was 78% in 2024. And you can see there have been changes to his swing. They're pretty subtle. It's just like there's not a leg kick there anymore It's just a smaller toe tap. Nothing about his hands has seemingly changed like very subtle change to his footwork That's a huge improvement. Yeah, like an over

I could not believe it and now we don't really know what maybe was at play before that was causing him to be Bad enough that I had like an extra infielder grade on him and now think he's an everyday shortstop. But yeah, there's definitely some of the teams are for sure better at making hitters good in a way that is sustainable. And then there are some that are good at making them perform in a way that looks great in the minors and can inflate their prospect value but isn't necessarily sustainable. And I think there are definitely teams who are just like, yeah just pull everything that you can. ALICE The Guardians are like, everyone's a short

stop and everyone makes contact, don't you want our players? JUSTIN You can see it, the way it's manifesting more now is in the air pull percentages and- ALICE Oh, our guys pull in the air, you want that? JUSTIN Yes, you do that is that is a thing that I've noticed especially among some of my sources who are more You know quantitative in their style and they seem to have that ethos. Yeah, they've been running that for a while yeah, the twins I would say the twins the Rays the Blue Jays for sure David Schneider's of the world. He's a great example of how over time you get found out.

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you can get cash back. So treat yourself, family, and friends and book that holiday trip now. Start getting cash back today by joining Rakuten. It's free and easy to use, and you can get cash back deposited into your PayPal account or sent to you as a check. It's the smartest way to shop, plain and simple. Start your shopping at rakuten.ca or get the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. Are you crushing your bills?

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right there. Like I can see where you want to hit it. I see where you want the ball and I see where you want it. Yeah. And this is one of the other things where it's like, it is so hard to be good and then to stay good once the league has had a look at you. It's very difficult. So you end up with the James Outman type guys who have their one big year and then they get found out. What's a stat that you think speaks to that adjustability?

Is that sort of contact? Man, I don't know. I think that so much of it has to do with what changes. It's like an aptitude thing more than it is in the contact. Man, I don't know. I think that so much of it has to do with what changes. It's like an aptitude thing more than it is in the data. I would guess like, I would bet on the guys who make contact to do it more, just because of the players who we see having a long tail to their career, like the Howie Kendrick

as Drew Ball Cabrera type guys, tend to be the ones who have that skill. I think even just putting the ball in play a lot gives Adam Frazier a chance to have like a good bad, driven year in his early to mid 30s. Whereas like the Fran Mel Reyes type guys kind of don't you go to Japan? Yeah, you see that. Yeah, the end point is getting non tendered before you reach free agency, sometimes going to play overseas and then the contact orientedoriented guys play into their mid-30s.

You're like, how's this guy still getting opportunities? Well, defensive value and then just putting the ball in play. You mentioned Zaire Hope a little earlier, and I know you're not on Blue Sky, but I think there was some feedback about your ranking of Zaire Hope when the top 100 dropped this week. What did you see this year? What gives you some reservations about some of the more aggressive rankings that are out did you see this year? What gives you some reservations about some of the more aggressive rankings that are out there on hope this year? It can be frustrating. And like for sure, I had a prospect chat after the hundred dropped and heard a lot of the same thoughts that I'm sure were out there. I don't know why

the Internet allows expectations for prospects to be like it feels like the feedback I get from readers is like why aren't you beholden to these expectations whereas like the conceited part of me is like why am I not the ones setting the expectations? Why is everybody else not wrong? Right. Especially when it comes to like saying hey, who your horses on this 17 year old. It's like, wow, does he like 18, 19 teenager in a ball? Like, isn't this the thing that we always hit ourselves like head, Burt Perez and and like, I mean, there's a million guys who like, I've written a great example.

Yeah, it's a great example where I was just like, hey, this is like a bad defensive left fielder who I'm not buying can actually hit. This is like, if there's a thing that readers should key into on my stuff, it's when I say, Hey, like pump the brakes on this dude. And I'm not always right about that. Like I had Colton Couser outside the top 100 last year after he was in, you know, I was high on him before the draft relative to everybody else. And then I was just like, Hey, this

guy's striking out a lot and doesn't have enough power to be a left fielder. And then he came to camp last year, like clearly much stronger and with enough power to support like having a 30% strikeout rate. But with hope specifically, I just think it's too small a sample to care about the data in a big way and his data is Impressive and I have it here and I'll read some of it off to you so the big league average at some of these statistics in corner outfield are an 81% zone contact 73% contact rate with like a 104 and a half EV90 and a 41% hard hit rate.

And Zaire Hope is clearing the bar across the board there. He's got an 86% zone contact, a 76% contact, a 109 EV90, and a 45% hard hit rate. And yeah, this is a physically mature left fielder who at age 20, you mentioned how big this guy is. Folks can search here on YouTube, like Zier Hope Fan Graphs. I've got video from the fall league up. He's maxed out for me. I don't know what's going to happen with him physically as he ages into his mid to late 20s. Yeah, you're not dreaming on the body getting anywhere. I think that's what I was surprised about when I saw him.

I was like, oh, this guy's either going to happen or it's not. We're not saying, oh, when he fills out. He's filled out. Right. And then it's a 24% strikeout rate guy at low A, which already should be a, hey, let's take a step back from this before we go all in type of data point. And then watching Hope for six weeks in the fall league, he just is some of the tenants

of a guy who's hit tool I'm skeptical of. His head's flying around. He has that vulnerable to fastballs riding up and away from him, which like every big league right he has. And for, you know, I just want to see it across a bigger sample, number one, and against better pitching number two. Like if I were to reach you guys, here's another prospect, he'll go nameless. Let's see if you can identify who this is. This was a guy's 20, 23 season. This is a guy's 20, 23 season. Okay. He's 21 years old and the numbers that he posted again, it was a pretty small sample

because of injury, same as Hope, but it was even more, it was a bigger sample. I want to say it was like a close to a 300 plate appearance sample that occurred mostly at AA. Let me look and confirm. Yes, okay. 300 plate appearances, most of which were accrued at AA. He's 21 years old. He has an 85% in-zone contact rate, a 76% overall contact rate, a 105 EV90, he maxed out at 113, a 19% barrel rate. His ex slug from this year was 480 and he's a maybe shortstop who did this at AA. Can you guess who this game is?

He's a maybe shortstop who did this at AA. Who's your guess? Is that Blaise Jordan? No, it is Colson Montgomery. I knew we missed a little time. Colson Montgomery whose strikeout rate exploded this, who, you know, this data is amazing from 2023. We all got tricked, myself included.

Kylie had Colson number one overall in baseball mid-season 2023 in part because of buying into this data. Okay. And it just was faulty. It's just not a big enough sample to really care about, especially when the guys you're facing, when your problem is fastball and you're at low A and guys sit 90, you haven't been exposed yet. And so I'm just not ready to say about Zaire Hope, who I have a 45 plus on, that's the

tier right behind the hundred. I just think that this is a platoon corner guy with upside above that, that I'm not ready to buy enough to stuff him in there. And there have been too many times during my career, I guess is the word to use at this point, doing this, where either I've been peer pressured or internet pressured. This happens on my rankings. It's like, oh, but the ADP or like the general consensus and like, do I just have to keep them highish just to appease the masses?

Or do I, or just tank them all the way and just put them where I... Take a stand, don't give in, don't give in. The phrase that I have used is to try to be Directionally correct at least so that I'm not the guy ending up with Miguel Vargas Because the physical tools when you watch him is just like this guy is not that good When the world that we're living in is there's Aaron judge. There's Ali de la Cruz. There's show Hey, Otani, there's you know, I mean like there are just clearly players who don't

Check that visual box and sometimes that's identifying that there's an issue With what's happening with their swing that's gonna be exposed that just hasn't yet And even if that just means pumping the brakes like the great I haven't I your hope is like a top 10 draft picks grade It's not a bad grade, but I do think that there's it's more red flaggy to have watched him for six weeks and fall leagues, you know, swinging this as much as he did there. I was not ready to do whatever, you know, I don't know what the what the range of the other pubs is. I'm sure it's already on B ref, but let's find out. BP had them pretty high.

Right. And like there have been times when, you know, wow, okay, yeah, that is really high. Like, pipelines and BAs, you know, that's okay. Like, if you want to bet that it's real, then okay. For, you know, him to be top 10, you're saying like this guy's also a center fielder and, you know, ba-ba-ba but but yeah, it'll be fascinating to see who's right about this one. But I just got tired of like having an opinion that wasn't like being wrong, because I didn't stick to my guns, felt way worse than being wrong when I did. And so now I'm just sort of like, I'm not like my Jordan

Montgomery ranking last year I was like well everyone thinks he's a good pitcher and he did just get real money from a real team so I was directly correct I had him like 59th or something but he ended up being you would never end up with him I would never end up with the drafts I was like okay so like I did tell you guys not to draft him but I could have just not put or put him him 80 or 100. Like I could have put him, like it didn't matter to me where I put it. Like I was just like, need to put him somewhere. So here, I guess.

I think the conversation about Zaire Hope is fascinating because A, I love that you're sticking to your guns, and B, there are reasons to point out red flags when they exist. Jesus Made is getting attention. I think it's kind of unlike anything I've really seen from someone who's only played in the Dominican Summer League. This is pretty massive hype.

So what's different? What gives you more faith in someone like Mata who hasn't played stateside yet? Given that, you know, we're talking about a guy that won't even turn 18 until May. Yeah, some of it is just the position value part of it, where Maude has a chance to play shortstop or be a very good second baseman. I have him stacked in the hundred, along with some of those other middle infielders who in a bad draft year go one one ish or are in the mix for that type of thing.

And I do think especially with the teenage hitters in pro ball, using the draft as a filter for your thoughts is very useful to think like, okay, well, he was in the draft this year, what would he, where would he go? Right. Absolutely. Like we're seeing all these high schoolers you spent all last summer seeing the best high schoolers in the country again, you've got like, you know, a 10 or 15 year Rolodex to see in these guys. Does this fit physically first, before you even look at the data, does this guy's physical tools fit in that group

where you could see him going in the top five of a draft? And with Maude, I think, yeah, like, I think the body and swing comp that feels appropriate for him is like, like Kano. That's where like if you told me he was too boxy at physical maturity to play shortstop, I believe you but it's just such a beautiful looking swing and video in the DSL DSL guys, you know, it's out there. It's on YouTube. There are teams who stream their DSL games. Some of the streams are better than others. They have

the little track man, you know, read out sitting right there. So you can see the pitch below and exit below some of them. It's pretty cool. And then with my day, you know, that's one where when you're going to put a 17 year old DSL guy on your top 100. For someone like me, like I'm texting my sources and I'm just like, Hey, whatever video you have of this guy from the DSL, can you just send me 10 swings? And so you end up with watching 30 or 40 swings of this guy

from different camera angles from having done that. And you could go, okay, I buy that this is a really talented guy. I had a previous amateur report on him, so he was someone people cared about before he was in Pro Ball at all. And then you dive into the data and his data is crazy, like really crazy. And obviously it's DSL data and the quality of the pitching down there is god awful. And so you have to take it with a pillar of salt, but it is nuts. So I can recite some of that stuff off to you guys as well, because it is just like a good thing I sorted these alphabetically. So yeah, 17 and a half, get

a 90% in zone contact rate and 89% contact rate overall. The fact that the gap between those two is not bigger should tell you tells you more about DSL pitching. But he can also go get it wherever it is I guess. Right 15% chase again that's amazing but see also a 104 EV90 on a 17 and a half year old and a 47% hard hit rate when I do believe like hard in hard out is a thing and when you're facing kids who are thrown 87 for you to have a 47% hard hit rate that's amazing. Yeah the science on that is really kind of interesting. Exit velocity is four-fifths batter and one-fifth pitcher is something that Rob Arthur found. And so you can read that and be like, oh, it's all batter. It's not, it's still one-fifth pitcher. So it's like,

that's actually going to be meaningful when you're comparing guys. Right. So deciding when to stick your neck out for somebody like this, I like will tend to pick my spots because I had a, you know, I thought Kevin Maitan was going to be great. You know, we weren't using data like this to help reinforce opinions like that at the time, but I'd rather not, you know, so I have like a 50 on Jesus Ma Day. I think you could reasonably rank him anywhere between like 40 and a hundred and make a coherent argument for why he belongs there because like the grades

Are more important than the ordinal rankings and the way the tiers of talent sort of split You know after a certain point like it's a big fat hunk and Tira guys who are mixed with like 40 and upside There's lots of right so we have 40 this guy and Alfredo do know the Reds catcher Are the two guys where I was just like, yeah, here you go. I don't care. I'm all in on both of these guys for somewhat different reasons. Like Alfredo Duno is just a freak tool shed catcher who has unbelievable power and speed. He's been hurt. He hasn't really played his power data is amazing. The contact data is not, but like he hasn't really played. His power data is amazing. The contact data is not, but he hasn't really played a smaller sample.

So they pushed him over complex ball to low A. He was 18 in full season ball last year and then got hurt and blah, blah, blah. But these two guys are the two teenage hitters on the list where it's just like the ceiling on these two guys over the next two or three years is have a chance to be the best, you know a couple of prospects in baseball Whereas some of the more stable

Luke Keishel's of the world and you know, yeah the Juan Brito's of the world. It's more about floor and proximity than it is about their ceiling. Yeah, one of Brito's comps was Jiwon Bae and I was like, okay You know the guy who can play maybe some be okay than it is about their series. Yeah, one of Brito's comps was G1 Bay, and I was like, okay, you know, there's a guy who can play maybe some, be okay. A lot of what our listeners like are the next wave guys, the guys that haven't popped on the list yet. You write a lot about them, it's the picks to click, you write that every year,

so it's the search for the next wave of top 100 prospects. So broad question here, who are some of your favorites from this year's picks to click collection, the guys that could take massive leaps here in 2025? There's a hummingbird nesting right here and I wish I could show you guys. I'll pick a guy from each category. So it is helpful to like bucket these guys because they do sort of pop from these buckets. And one of them is like, in the past, I've referred to it as like black box pitching, where they're the Walker Bueller types, where you had TJ and you've kind of been gone for a year. And whatever has been going on there,

come out the other side and it's very good. And so with Bueller, he had had a massive velocity spike. And, you know, Brady Smith is my Dodgers guy like that this year, where I liked Brady Smith a lot at the 2023 combine as medium sized high school pitcher whose fastball had the traits you like and who had good secondary stuff, but just wasn't throwing all that hard. And now coming out of TJ, it wouldn't surprise me if, you know, just because of the physical maturation

and what you're doing with weightlifting and sort of nothing else during your rehab process, that it wouldn't surprise me if Brady Smith pops. So he's one of the young pitchers who I think has a chance. Then there's like the overt physical tool, this is what they look like group, where it's like, of course this guy is good he's built like Larry Fitzgerald and You know has made progress in a baseball skills way

Connor Griffin with the Pirates He's a hit tool risk high school prospect from last year's draft He's tooled up is unbelievable like unbelievable, like how physical, how fast, how much power. It's just, can he hit or not? And if he comes out this year and looks fine in that regard, then he's gonna move on to the top 100. The tools are too big, the upside is too big. If he reinforces it with any kind of like pro performance data at all by like, you know, July, he'll need to move in just on the basis of what his upside is. Connor Griffin, there are other guys like this. But then there's the sneaky,

then there's the sneaky pitchers group. Matt Wilkinson is my favorite of this group. The more I do this, the more I value proximity, durability. How many innings have you thrown? You're on the 40 man for my pitchers and Matt Wilkinson with the Guardians is I think, you know, by the end of next year, we'll have approached that he's a super fat guy. You have to really look past how husky he is and see that this is a really athletic guy. His delivery is beautiful and fluid and you know, he's powering so far down the mound. His shin is like scraping

the mound almost because of how you know low to the ground he is i just love what that does for his fastball plane he commands it and i just you think for a guy who sits 91 to have a fastball that plays like his does uh you know i've learned enough about the joe ryan's of the world now to be like be on these guys eric they command it and And so Matt Wilkinson from the Guardians is my picture of that sort for next year. And then developmental tweak guys where all the physical tools are there. And it's just about like, does this swing work? We don't know. Can there be a change made to this guy's swing or approach. And I mentioned one of these guys on a different podcast this week. And so I'll

spread it out. Justin Crawford is in this group on the list. Denzel Clark with the A's. Denzel Clark, you know, he's his parents were Olympians. And he's one of the best defensive outfielders in minor league baseball. His swing is so long. He's just one of those like super long six, four, six, five guys that if you told me he shortened up in his mid to late twenties, and I would tell you, okay, well, he's going to be one of the best defensive outfielders and have like a 25 or 30 home run season or two in there. And when that will occur for him, you know, we just

don't know. But I bet you it will take him having to make adjustments against big league pitching for a little while before. Because he'll just mash on the minors or something. Well, I mean, he's one where it has been mixed. But, you know, it's he's had K-Rights in the 30% area and still been like a 120, 130 WRC plus guy because of how much power there is. But you know, I have a 30 on his hit tool because I do think he'll be a 30% strikeout rate guy during the arc of his pre-free agency years. But he's just a swing adjustment away from doing basically everything.

And he already kind of does everything else but hit. Those are most of the guys. Now there are a couple other categories here where it's like, yeah, the low level Demetrio Casantes with the Diamondbacks performed on the complex end in the Cali again. And Zaire Hope performed in the Cali again. I just want to see those guys keep hitting against better pitching than they have. And then for the first time this year, I've got like, two year, two year dart throws. There's David Matoma from the Pirates who baseball in Africa

is becoming a thing. And David Matoma is a 19 year old from Uganda who throws a hundred. And so what's going to happen with him? Like, I don't know, but I bet you two years from now, we're going to think it's good. And then my other like absolutely, you know, crazy pick from this group is a guy named Johan for Santana with the Marlins, who had Tommy John last year, he made three starts and then blew out. He's 19 he's six, seven, and was like already in the mid to upper 90s. And he's just one of those where Oh, are you Yuri Perez? I don't know. He's in that vein where it's just like this guy's freaky. And so I just want to be on him because I've only seen a handful of guys like this in my whole life and he might not ever

throw strikes, but it's still true that like, I've just not seen statuesque perfectly put together, just scale Sandy Alcantara up to six, seven, and that's what this guy's put together like. And I absolutely wanna bet on a guy like that succeeding over time. And those are my two-year dart throws who are just like, yeah, for two years from now, here are the names who are fun and interesting to follow.

Deep, deep dynasty folks out there. I mean, we're in a league called Devils Rejects, and it's completely open player pool. And it's got you got to be get two plus years ahead to seemingly get a massive edge on players like that. I want to ask you about the White Sox. We were doing team previews earlier in the week, and I think we gave the White Sox about four minutes and most teams get like 15. And the big question is really

is this rebuilding effort on track? Are the trades they're making, are they amassing the talent they should be, are they actually putting it up together and do they have a coaching staff, a player development machine built for that group to actually maximize the talent in a way where they will make good on this long-term rebuild. Because I think there's this belief that rebuilds always work, but you also have to have the right pieces to turn A-ball and double A guys

into actual high quality big leaguers. Yeah, I would say it's mixed positive and trending more positive, the more like across the more recent trades, like the cease trade I did not love. And it seemed like his markets that go around and again now is just a little less robust than I would have guessed. I think whenever like all these rebuilds, they kind of have different component parts. There's the trading your big leaguers for prospects is pro

scouting, helping you in that way. There's the drafting part of it. There's the development part of it. And then there's the international scouting part of it. And with the White Sox, when you trade a guy like Dylan Caesar, anybody who's an established big league star, I feel like you have to get everyday hitter at least one back in that deal. And that deal was so built on pitching, which is a thing that you should be mostly developing. Like the teams who sustain success are the ones who have pitching depth that they have

developed. You don't get boxed into a corner from injuries that way. You're not costing yourself assets to acquire guys who are like fringe pitching staff types because you just need depth because you've developed it. And that has been a problem in Chicago. I don't mind using a high draft pick on Hagen Smith because I think Hagen Smith is really good. I don't mind using a high draft pick on Hagen Smith because I think Hagen Smith is really good. I don't mind using a high draft pick on Noah Schultz because I think Noah Schultz is, you know, he's got issues, but he's freaky in a way that if he does hit, the White Sox really don't have an opportunity to acquire players like this. And some of that is because of the state of the franchise,

some of that is like Jerry Reinsdorf's fault. But yeah, like a very pitching centric approach to the rebuild initially that I think has been more corrected with the crochet trade. Are there like super duper all star types here right now? Probably not. Like the guys who they've mostly acquired, I think are good solid average everyday player types like a Kyle Teal like an Edgar Cuero I think Braden Montgomery who they got in the crochet deal the Red Sox first-round pick from Texas A&M has that sort of upside to be a star player it's just about how does he look coming off of a severe injury that he suffered at the end of last

college season is the hit tool injury that he suffered at the end of last college season? Is the hit tool improvement that he showed as a junior at A&M real? There were a lot of strikeouts there at Stanford before he transferred. But Chase Madroth, they got as like a secondary or tertiary piece in that deal. I have more of a role player grade on him, but there are definitely people in baseball who really like Chase Madroth and think that he could be an everyday piece. And so they've started to accumulate a depth of these types of pieces via the pro scouting part of it.

The star players have got to come from the draft, they've got to come from international scouting and the international scouting part of this has been a real problem for the White Sox. The White Sox have tended to do the aftermarket thing where all these teams are like, here you go Dominican player, $3 million agreement. Here you go Venezuelan player, $2 million agreement. And the White Sox sit that stuff out for the most part. And they say, okay, Cuban guys who enter the market late,

we're on you. And that sometimes it works. And that's how you end up with Luis Roberts. That's how you end up with Oscar Colas. Correct him on that one. Like that's how you end up with Luis Roberts. I end up with Oscar Colas. Correct. And when nobody like that's exactly it. There are so many of these nor hey, Vera is another one where, you know, when this is the market you're playing in, you're just sort of subject

to whatever the quality of the players are coming out of that market in a given year. And it's highly variable. It's highly variable. And you don't have Jose Abreu around anymore to help you recruit these guys. And so their approach internationally has to change. But the problem with that is that that takes forever, not just because the players you're signing from that market take forever, but because the market for those players, it's already settled two, three years in advance. And it's so friendship based. So you actually have to hire people that have those friendships in place.

Like you have to kind of buy your way in. And you can't just be like, you can't just show up and they can be like, Hi, guys, I'm here to get all the good players. Yeah. And like when relationships are part of how you succeed in those spaces. And the Padres have established relationships with all of these players and their trainers. And the Rangers have established relationships. The Yankees have the pinstripes and the Dodgers have.

You are at a disadvantage when you have not been swimming in those waters for most of the last decade plus. Are the Orioles caught up on that? Because the Orioles were like out and are they caught up a little bit? Have they managed to do the work? Yes, I think you're at the point where they have interesting guys coming through.

And then like you're approaching that market. Teams might love to play in that market, but their approaches are widely different. Like Cleveland is a spread out six figure bonuses to a lot of guys team. Whereas the Braves are like, give one guy $4 million. And then the rest of our classes like go look at the Braves complex, you know, complex level hitters stats from last year, like there's one guy who slugged

400 because they give one guy in the international market 4 million. And then the rest are, you know, 10, 20 grand. And so you end up with one good player if he's good. You're putting all your eggs in one 17-year-old basket. So it's just like, this is the area where the White Sox, it's just going to take so long even if they could be motivated. I've asked Chris Goetz about this at the GM meetings two meetings ago. Is your approach going to change in this market?

And he said, yes, but the truth is that even if that's true, if your motivation is instantaneous, you still aren't, we're not going to see any results from that in who you sign until three years from now. And then any results from who of those players are actually good until probably three, four years after that. And so it's a real problem. And it's some of the same stuff on the data infrastructure side. Yeah, they have real problems with data. Like they're so weird about like, it's not good. I just think the stuff Jerry Rynsdorf cares to invest in, you know,

I have nice things to say about Jerry Rynsdorf too. He's an amazingly loyal person. I think that some of the people who he's kept in that org for a long time, you know, they're amazing at their jobs. Joe Butler is an amazing scout and there are stories about Jerry Reinsdorf. I know a homeless guy who Jerry Reinsdorf has like helped multiple times. The guy who signed Mike Cameron, his area scout is a homeless guy now. And like Jerry's, you know, made sure that guy's had a place to live. Gene Watson, you know, same thing, like amazing person. But yeah, like they've just, it's so hard to catch up

when teams in your division like Cleveland have understood kinematic sequencing because of cameras they've put in their big league park, and they have a decade and a half head start on you. Good luck. You have to have all the data infrastructure installed before you can even. Yeah, I hear massive player development problems.

And the stuff that I heard that was two, three years ago was so bad that even if they've cleaned up what I heard two or three years ago, they're still behind. You can be good still. Like the Padres aren't great at developing players, but they're sure good at picking them. Yeah, like A for scouting, even if it's a C or C minus for actual development, right?

And then maybe there's good enough to trade them. So that works. Yeah, like DVR, you know, in the rundown before the episode, you mentioned the pirates and developing hitters and how Henry Davis has been underwhelming. And yeah, like some of that is just the draft class quality. You go look at that draft class and you're scrolling

and you're just like, okay, who would you take first? If not Mickey Moniac, like who are you really gonna take first in this draft? AJ Puck, like no, Nick Senzel, like no. So even if he re-racked it, Henry Davis wouldn't be that far from first? Like there still wasn't a good draft? Well, that's the thing, it's like,

that's Jackson Merrill draft. Like Jackson Merrill went at the back of the first round. Could you realistically say, hey pirates, why didn't you take Jackson Merrill draft. Like, Jackson Merrill went at the back of the first round. Could you realistically say, hey, Pirates, why didn't you take Jackson Merrill? Probably not, but... There was no consensus that he would be a 1-1 guy. Right. But the Padres had him about that high.

Like, the Padres had him two or three. They had him ahead of Marcelo Meyer on their draft board that year. That's what you need because you got to stick with what you believe. But the reason we wanted to bring out the Pirates in particular is we were surprised to find that they are number one in bat speed. They're number one in bat speed at the Major League level last year. Now, they're number one in bat speed that did lead to good blasts. And in fact, they were underrated in barrels and they might have been top 10 barrels. So they do hit the ball hard.

The park, I think, obscures some of that. And then they were bottom five in square up percentage, which I have yet to sort of figure out how much I believe in it. It feels a little bit too much like line drive percentage, which can be really kind of wonky year to year. But there is maybe like strengths and weaknesses kind of coming out, which may be that they swing the bat hard,

they hit the ball hard, but maybe they're not lining it up well. And then the prospects you brought up sort of sounded like you're talking about, you know, Connor Griffin here. And it's like, okay, this guy sounds like a guy who swings the bat hard, hits the ball hard, and maybe doesn't line it up every time. So I wonder if that's a commonality you saw in the Pirates organization. And also just sort of in a larger sense,

like how much you worry about player development and like I guess how right you'll look if you pick a guy who's in a good player development org versus a guy who's not. Yeah, the predicting versus scouting, right? Where the second a guy gets traded, the second Nick scouting, right? Where the second guy gets traded, you know, the second Nick Nasrini gets traded from the Dodgers to the White Sox. Am I supposed to like downgrade what I think of him now? Right? Like, yeah, that is a challenging thing. As

far as the Pirates are concerned. Yeah, I think that clearly that they have a type you can see some of it internationally. They have a kid named your Donnie de los Santos in the, in the low minors too, where he's got unbelievable bats. Be Tony Blanco is another one, six, seven corner outfielder, ridiculous power. You know, if we sorted the leaderboards across all of pro baseball by like hard hit rate, he's going to be right at the very top with judge and Otani Tony Blanco. Some of the hitter development stuff especially is so obscured. The knowledge has not permeated. I don't think the industry as a whole, how to do some of whatever, whether it's working with VR or some of the high tech pitching

machines so that you can just take unlimited reps against Jake DeGrom or whatever it is. Then I look at Bob Nutting and I don't know whether Bob Nutting can be convinced to like invest in that sort of tech. But I don't know. Some of my biases are here I am in Tempe, Arizona, I can ride my bike to the Angels Complex, I could ride my bike to the A's and Giants Complexes. So I see their stuff. You know, I see the cameras being put in at the A's complex and the boxes from the Hawkeye, like, you know, just empty cardboard boxes. I just like to say Hawkeye on them and stuff. And it's like, all right, well, maybe you guys want to, uh, I'm just like taking

pictures and sending them to my friends. Like, Hey, look at this. Um, please leave, let me go. With the teams in Florida, it's more difficult because I'm not there a couple hundred times every year. So with the Pirates specifically, yeah, like maybe an overemphasis on bat speed and less about like how that can maybe be developed. There are certain guys where what they're doing with their body as they swing seems

so athletic in a way that it seems unteachable. Like peak Javi Baez, can you really teach anybody to swing like Juan Soto? When you see Juan Soto's bat finishing the dirt behind him like that and it's just like his whole swing is over in the blink of an eye and he's rotated like the head of an owl like completely around in the blink of an eye. Like can you really teach anybody to do that? Like, probably not.

And so there's a certain point where that's the sort of stuff I would be interested in targeting is like, yeah, let's trade for O'Neil Cruz because oh my God. And then at a certain point, yeah, like I was all over Cabrion Hayes thinking that the power would arrive, like actual in-game power would arrive. And it just didn't, you know, I was just like, oh, this in game power would arrive. And it just didn't. You know, I was just like, Oh, this guy will be Matt Chapman. But it didn't. Do you like Turmar? Do you like did you like the trade for Nick York? What do you think of their of their mind system?

Just generally. So Turmar, I liked Turmar in high school, and he just sort of hasn't done it. That sort of speaks to what you're talking about. I mean, it hasn't. Yeah, he still has power. I saw Tamar last fall a lot. And there are times when his hands are still in the right spot to put a charge into the baseball, but overall he just seems imbalanced in the box and he hasn't gotten any better

on defense. And yeah, he was a tough exclude from the 100 because I just really loved Tamar as a person. He's just such an amazing like seeming young guy so Nick York's gonna be a weird one go look at Nick York's splits Nick York has crazy weird reverse splits he's one where you when you look visually like let's just watch this guy face lefties just swing against lefties over and over and over again. And you just cannot believe how Angle of his bat just does not, just cannot deal with lefty fastballs kind of coming in at him this way. So his reverse splits are totally bizarre. That was a very

interesting challenge trade Quinn Priestor for Nick York. It was almost certainly need based, but you'll see like whatever Boston does with Quinn Priestor, they're amazing at developing guys. And so it wouldn't surprise me if like Quinn Priestor levels up, whereas Nick York just seems like an okay guy who they, the Pirates need player like that to like just be an okay hitter, but he's so strange. We're saying that he has a really strange bat path and there's nothing from the sort of ground ball, fly ball mix that that makes it obvious. I mean the reverse platoon swits would but 40 percent grounders 30 flyballs like yeah there's a lot of guys like that. Sometimes like the bat path stuff especially when it's a bizarre outlier guy can be hard to describe visually. I know so much of our readership doesn't

sit and watch these guys even if you've got MLB TV. If it's a Wednesday night and it's like from Rivalde's is facing Corbin Burns, like, are you going to watch that or are you going to watch Indianapolis and Toledo? And I'm sympathetic to that. But like, that's why we have the two teams. Meg's got one, you got the other. I'm trying to describe visually what's going on with as much of these guys as you possibly can. And Nick York is one of those where it's just so strange that it is difficult to do. But yeah, like Nick York is inside outing pitches from righties that are like down and

in. Okay, he's pulling the occasional hanging breaking ball that is like up around his hands. And he's struggling with like elevated fastballs against righties. He is like a pretty classic inside out hitter. It's just so strange who it's happening against and then against lefties. You know, he's a 75% contact rate guy where he's, yeah, I don't know. It's just weird. He was also a really weird draft pick when he happened, right? Like no, it was out of left field.

He was and some of that was pandemic related, but I saw York in high school and thought that he was like a fine second or third round type of like second base contacts, not big tools, but like in retrospect for the Red Sox to take a guy like that makes total sense considering all the other guys who they've targeted and had success with like the Christian Campbells of the world. Coach of the Batspeed. You got the contact. Where you just have Mikey Romero. Yeah.

These are like the Red Sox draft picks where it's like, oh, you like the Paul Shih tool guys. Okay. Me too. Simpatico with them and Cleveland and Milwaukee and the Rays and on a lot of that stuff. But yeah, Nick York's a really weird one. Pittsburgh, it's going to be fascinating to see. Obviously, there's some connective tissue with Charrington and some other orgs who we would describe as being successful

at some of this stuff. But yeah, my hope is that Pittsburgh is good soon, if only for some of my family members who went to college out there and cared about the Pirates. Yeah, it's a great fan base, great ballpark. They deserve better. They deserve some runs. They just need some hitters.

They got the pitches. They need some hitters. Some of these hitters need to work out. I got a little excited a couple minutes ago, you were going to explain why the Padres had Jackson Merrill ahead of Marcella Meyer a few few drafts ago. What was the reason for that? They just liked him more. They just thought he was more talented. Like, it's the Padres, they they just believed in him more as a

hitter. And you know, Maro had a who's in their backyard San Diego area high schooler Marcelo had a lot of profile very early because Keoni Kavaco was an upperclassman when Marcelo was sophomore. So people didn't see him for a while. I saw you know there's Keoni Kavaco was one of those like classically overvalued by the models because he was 17 and a half on draft day. Yeah, the Padres just pick, it's the opposite of trust the process, and it's just like trust AJ Preller and Chris Kemp and Logan White and David Post. Trust that

those guys know what a good baseball player looks like. And they do pretty well. As some of the other teams, as more of the teams gravitate toward a specific couple and types of approaches and are competing for the same types of players, while you don't, there's a game theory element, I think, that helps explain their success and Washington's success with some of what looks like their rebuild with some of the guys that they've gotten in some of their trades. Not that these teams are totally ignoring data. Yeah, I didn't think they did that amazing on the Soto trade at first.

I'm happy to be wrong. I just thought I look at James Wood and was like, I don't know too many strikeouts at his like already at that level Like he's striking out that much in the minors and then I looked at Abrams and I was like I don't know if he's a great shortstop and you know And I just saw all the flaws and now you look up and you're like, well, they have a starting shortstop James Wood is probably one of the most exciting young players that's about to enter into this into the lexicon this year He's like has some similarities to Ellie, right? He's like tall and runs like a gazelle

and hits piss missiles, you know? So it's like, oh, and you know, you guys did pretty good. Oh, and you got Gore too. Like, it's like, oh, okay. You actually, that was a pretty good deal. Yeah, and you can see some of it in, you know, Rizzo's, the free agents that he is on. And even like Keebert Ruiz like Keeber it's been disappointing

but you can see why catcher with like an 11 percent strikeout rate like that's free. Just why the Diamondbacks won Moreno it's like yeah he's and if this is Reese's the worst that it if Reese's this is the worst that works out he's still a majorly catcher and they got better up the middle and and yeah sure maybe Hassel didn't out, but they did pretty well in those trades. And Scherzer is one of the best free agent deals of all time. Yeah. I think Rizzo's ability to pick his spots and know like Jordan Zimmerman, bye, and who to retain and who to like piece together to be the role players around your stars. I, you know, as analytically inclined as I am,

and like my baseball fandom and sports obsession was seasoned by that when I was a teenager, because Moneyball came out when I was just like a sophomore in high school. By my junior year, I read it. I'm not a trust the process guy. I think Sam Hinkie has more in common with Sam Bankman Fried than he does with, you know, Ozzy Newsome or Pat Gillick or, you know, Jerry West. Like to me, there are definitely people in sports, sports executives who have come to an understanding with ownership about job security and the game they're playing is one about job security and not necessarily about winning as a means to job security. And I think that's part of how we end up with like, Hey, at this number, this payroll number,

this money wins, we're going to win like 86 games. Yeah, I was thinking that. I was thinking, it's everybody comfortable. Trust us. Right. That's a good example. Like, good example, like, trust me to make us have an our process at this budgetary number will put us in the 84 win area. And our people will help make it be 8688 wins. And then once you're in the playoffs, it's just a crapshoot anyway. But when the Padres are like, Hey, let's get freaks. And then it's your team, your 84 win team, you know, Juan Brito's and over there is Manny Machado and over there is Zander Bogart.

It's so funny they actually share a complex. It's like good luck. They couldn't be more different, by the way. Good luck with that. But, but yeah, then you get, for sure you get overzealous where, you know, the Padres, I, do you think that they feel the Soto trade was worth it? Like they were literally cracking champagne on the complex and were confident enough in it to like tell the media that that's what they were doing. And I just think that, I

mean, Tidesight's 2020, but like you'd rather have CJ Abrams if you weren't at the casino all night and James Wood and all these guys like. And the Bogart's trade was Jason Hayward and Tierso. That's gonna really hurt them. Yeah. So it is tough. Like you paint yourself into this corner when, but also like your owner's dying.

And so there are all kinds of other stuff, but sometimes it's just like some of this is because I live through Jaleel, Okafor. And you know what I mean? Like, I just don't think that it's good enough to be like, what if we're bad enough long enough that I can goof three times? It's like, no, you can't take Markel Foltz and move to Telltale. And I know that Hinky didn't take Foltz, but you can't. Yeah, Philly doesn't have anything to show for the trust the process really. I mean, they have Embiid, but they haven't won with him. But yeah, the Grizzlies are clearly analytically inclined

because they're just like, let's take Desmond Bane isn't long at all. He's like a short little, he's built like Doug Martin. They're actually amazing. And I think they're a player development team too. They take these guys and you don't know who they are and then they play to the top of their ability. Santi Aldama, Gigi Jackson, they're just like, they're just kind of, they're just, I'm surprised they don't do more packaging and trading, but they don't want to get too expensive, I think. So they're just like, we're okay, we're going to have 12 good guys. They all play amazing defense and can hit threes and.

Yeah, they basically like salary dumped Marcus Smart and had enough like ammo to be able to do that without the team. But also didn't add like the guardians. They're like the guardians of the end. Right. I know. I was kind of bummed. I wondered if if they had known about if they had known about Luca if they would have been like I hate Luca, so I would not have wanted that to happen. But like he's great, but I just still want to root for that guy. You know, just not my my flavor of of athlete to like be like, yeah, go Luca. The whining. Yeah. Yeah, he just seems like a petulant guy. Just not my style.

I like the stoic, like- Steph Curry, I'm a little bit more Steph Curry. But yeah, like I do, I'm trying to think of who some of my, who are my like NBA dudes who I like really ride for. I mean, I love the Thompson twins. That's what's been on the house a lot is the Rockets, the Grizzlies, OKC. Like I love the vibe of the OKC.

They also really are each other. Just a really good team. True holiday. That's my guy. That's too much. As well for baseball, I guess it's in the. I think I knew this about it. I'm going to talk. I'm going to talk basketball with you next. Oh, basketball is my second favorite sport, so you got a Doug Martin comp in there, too.

We got some football going across that. It was incredible. You had all the nicknames I've ever heard that became public nicknames for a player. That was the worst one. And I'm glad he hated it. He was very clear. They never liked that nickname. Yeah. Muscle Hamster's rough. It's rough one. I don't know. I'm trying to think of like some of the unflattering nicknames I've had when I was like a husky child. I was chipmunk. So I had chipmunk.

And then once like the body hair started to come, then like we were all over the map with like, hey, Sasquatch. It was like chipmunk to Sasquatch. But when you're in eighth grade and you just have no neck. So you had a Teen Wolf situation. You're going to get. Yeah. The point, Deppmer, there you go. There's a good reference for you to know Eric before we let you go.

Anything that you want to promote over a fan graphs from prospect week or otherwise that our listeners should go check out. Yeah, just go to go to our website. You know, we're a small but mighty websites with, you know, a handful of full time people. Our stat leader boards are I just saw that I was. I was looking at Rainn McGovern. It's a Stanford on there, dude. That's crazy. Yeah, that's been soft launched this week without a lot of fanfare because we're still getting some of like the dates of birth and like the team abbreviations and some of that

stuff settled. But we'll have college stats and college leader boards will be coming pretty soon. So that's exciting. Yeah, an ad free subscription at FanGraphs is1 a week for the for the course of the year. Really since the pandemic when ad rates tanked, we've tried to shift to a subscription base. And it's going pretty well. But it's a wonderful gift for yourself or for someone you know, who loves baseball, especially before opening day. And then Kylie

McDaniel, and I wrote a book four years ago, five years ago, yeah, about scouting called future value. And if you know, you want in depth thoughts about some of the stuff that we got into a little bit today. Definitely still relevant is not for years doesn't matter. It's still relevant. That's very good book. Some of the stuff came true way faster than we would have thought. And we could probably write another update now if we had the time or energy or if Kylie thought that the bang for your buck for sitting

and writing another 40,000 words. That's tough to sell at all probably at that point. Yeah, that's a that's a mountain to climb. Well, Eric, we appreciate your time, all the hard work you do. And yeah, looking forward to catch up again soon. Thank you guys so much for having me. That is going to do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. Support fan graphs, get a subscription over there.

It is a dollar a week. I use it all day every day. So definitely sub over there. Join our discord. You can do it with the link in the show description. You can find all of us except for Eric on Blue Sky. Eno is enocerous.bscoutedsocial. I'm DBR.bscoutedsocial. That's gonna do it for this episode of Rates and Barrels. We're back with you on Monday. Thanks for listening. He had bigger hams than I thought he would. I was looking at his quads, man.

Those were prodigious.