Rates & Barrels - The Last Week Before Fall League

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Eno and Welsh talk final week hitters and pitchers to stream and the release of the Arizona Fall League rosters. Rundown Zac Gallen vs Blake Snell 2024 - 6:33 Blake Snell stuff - 8:11 Felix interviews Snell - 14:35 Pitchers for Tue-Thur - 19:09 Hitters to pick-up - 30:47 AFL Roster release - 35:04 Top AFL hitting prospects - 38:48 Colson Montgomery - 48:05 Top AFL pitching prospects - 52:21 Deeper AFL prospects to watch - 57:08 Follow Eno on Twitter: @enosarris Follow Welsh on Twitter: @isitthewelsh Subscribe to the Rates & Barrels YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/RatesBarrels Subscribe to The Athletic for just $1/mo for the first year: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends and welcome into Rates and Barrels, the final regular season episodes. Oh my gosh, how did we get here? I am Chris Welsh, that is Eno Saris, and this is my final episode of the season. I don't know what the future holds, but boy have I had a blast hanging with you guys this entire year. And what better way to go out with a little bit of project prospect in this episode like a lot of it, because we're going to be talking about the Arizona Fall League. The rosters have been released. Eno and I will be together in about a month, as well as DVR. We're going to get to see some of these players, so we're going to talk

about that. We're going to talk about a few hitters and pitchers you guys can look at this week, a few other fun things. But Eno, it's crazy. We started at the beginning of the year, and outside of whatever my future holds with all of it, and this being my last episode for at least a bit, I can't believe we're here. it feels like this season has absolutely zipped by and it feels like we should still have months ahead but we don't and we're going to spend a whole off season breaking down a whole bunch but i very much enjoyed spending my time with you yes i enjoyed it as well um i hope to have you back and then you know it is interesting i i a little part of me disagreed. Like, I was like, oh, it didn't zip along. At least I feel in sort of the September, you know, they call it the dog days of August, I think.

But it's really September when I'm like, you know, these seasons are long. I guess like we're here is my point. You're kind of not wrong about that because I do feel like I was hyping Corbin Carroll up to everybody, but it feels like four years ago and it was only like, you know, seven, eight months ago or whatever. So you're right about that. It, it, maybe it took long to get here, but now that we're here, I'm like, what's going on?

Like this is the last week. I mean, you have two more regular season episodes, you know, and then you are done with the regular season rates and barrels. Yeah. Yep. We'll take a little pause. I think, I think it's good to take a little pause just, you know, to recharge. I think about even taking, you know, a day off like I did last week, you know, just it's,

it's useful. It's useful to kind of delineate. I wrote a piece once that seasons are arbitrary end points because, uh, we like to compare seasons so much and, uh, and, uh, you know, I do, but there is something about stopping and then restarting. You know what I mean? Like, I think if we just did rates and barrels all the way into Arizona fall league, all the way into prep season, we would just be like, ah, like I'm still talking. There's like a reflective nature. Yeah, there's a reflective nature to being able to like reprocess.

Like, I think you have to step back for a few minutes, whether you play redraft dynasty, high stakes, whatever it is. You have to kind of like step back to like rewire your brain. I find that sometimes when I kind of detach for a second and then come back and you just, you know, you just, it's almost like putting all the papers out, you know, like one of those psychos where you put everything up on the wall and you get the strings, like you're going to have to do that, but just like lay the papers out, just kind of stare at them for a little bit. And then you can start to formulate what next season is going to look like. People still in the now are very hyper focused and some people like awards more than anything else but if we're going

to start prepping for 2024 i like to have a like with you a little bit of a reflective period except mine doesn't really ever stop mine only stop becomes december but that's actual prep because i will be at the arizona fall league living out here in arizona one week from today as we're recording this uh with a few extra hours i'll be out there back at the Arizona Fall League living out here in Arizona one week from today as we're recording this with a few extra hours. I'll be out there. Back at the ballparks, yeah. Yeah. It is funny.

It's been crazy. It's been crazy out here. That feeling of stepping out. I once went from the World Series to the Arizona Fall League and was like, oh, my God. We're right into the season ending for the big boys and right into what's the future. That was a bit much.

I don't know if I'm going to do that again this year. But I also like if you step away and don't look at your team for a little bit and then come back to it, I think you come back with a more critical eye. Sometimes when you're managing a team, you see it every day, you, you just put all your hopes into it and you're thinking about it all the time. And you tell yourself why Mitch Hanager will be better next year. And he, you can't drop him in a 20 team league. And then maybe you step away, you come back and you'd be like, you know, he's, he's old and I don't know how good he's going to be when he's in. And, you know, maybe, maybe he isn't a keep, you know?

So I did this for my basketball team where I set up all the cuts and then I stepped away and didn't think about it for a couple of weeks. And when I came back, I cut like three more players, you know, because I was like, these guys are expensive, you know? I also think to what you're saying,

I see a lot of people doing this right now. A lot of people are playing the higher-stakes stuff, like the NFBCs, and they're looking at their DCs. A couple people I've been like, I've seen they go like, okay, this is what I've done, and got to rework some stuff in the offseason and see how to re-approach it. Taking that break and going back

and looking at the rosters and how you draft it, I think can help do that. When I go back and look at my best balls, there's a few where I'm like, what the hell was I thinking? And there's a couple where I was like, man, I'm smart. You know what I mean? Like you have a couple of those and then trying to like rework some of the thought process that got you there. And that's not just a best ball format.

That's in the high stakes or your redraft leagues. You can just kind of reprocess and then just start to break it down. We're going to be breaking down all of the things for you all off season long um and that'll be kind of a fun process getting into mock drafts i'm actually doing an early mock draft right now you know uh for my in this league stuff we always do a way too or yeah we do i know we do the way too early mock draft to end every single year and then we can kind of be reflective on that and you're already seeing like weird stuff happening you know like i'm seeing weird stuff. I don't know if it's weird, but like I got Mike Trout in the fifth round. That was, I don't know. I feel like that's low,

but I've seen a couple other mocks. I had him in the sixth. I got Zach Gallen in the fourth round. So I feel like that was a decent value for pitching. So, you know, we'll have lots of time to kind of reflect on all of those things. You know what a really interesting one was? And maybe I made the wrong choice here. I actually had this decision in one of mine in this draft in the fourth round between Zach Gallin and Blake Snell. And I went with Zach Gallin because I think there's still that unknownness of where Blake is going to end up going. The not going into the seventh is still out there. Maybe a Cy Young hangover. I still think there's a lot of questions, even though the ERA clearly in favor, the strikeouts clearly in favor. Gallon's got the wins. And I think Gallon is,

I don't know, he uncharacteristically kind of faded a little bit towards the end, but that is a segue. Just talking for a second about Blake Snell, we have the audio of your son talking with Blake Snell, which we can play in a minute, but you also got to kind of chat a little bit more with Blake. And I knew you wanted to talk a little bit about him, but that was a really tough decision I had to make. I thought it was one-to-one, but maybe it's not as close because Blake Snell ended up being like the, he went two SPs next. So he went like six or seven picks after, but I really was deciding hard between Snell and gallon. No, I, I, I like him a lot. Uh, but I never pushed him, uh, to like, uh, top 10 in my rankings. I think he peaked at 18th and, uh, I had a lot of people

in my ear about, uh, just innings and injury risk and, and had that sort of people in my ear about just innings and injury risk and had that sort of thought in my in my head and I think that that'll be a really interesting thing about projecting his number of innings next year when you're talking about Blake Snell basically is a guy who three out of four seasons gets 120 innings and that fourth season gets 180 now if you can get those 180s then you're happy if you get the 120 you're a little bit less. And I think that's going to be true of his next major league team. And that's going to be maybe a thing that you have to consider in fantasy. But on top of that is the thing that we did talk about after my kid was done interviewing him. I told him that I noticed that his slider wasn't moving the way it normally did in the first couple months of the

season. And he said, yeah, I didn't have my slider. I didn't have my slider, my good slider until just recently. And so that caused him to, you know, use his change up and curve more, which I think he has slightly less command of. And so you saw the walk rates go up. But is there a version of Blake Snell that kind of goes into next season and cuts the walk rate, keeps the strikeout rate high, uses the slider, the curveball and the changeup and has his slider from the beginning of the season? Like, is there another version of Blake Snell that's maybe even better than the one he showed us? Which I think there is because his other Cy Young season was better than this one. But then there's always also the risk of 120 so i think the over

under uh innings wise for snell has got to be it's got to be under 150 i think yeah one of the things i struggle with is i kind of feel like it's a misnomer a little bit where people are like okay contract year the guys play up and it's just like sometimes i struggle with like how do guys like play up better for that money and then they get the money and they kind of like taper down. But if you and maybe there's, you know, there's probably quantitative stuff. People have done studies where it is. But like I feel like that's even harder with like a pitcher. Like how is a pitcher going to outside of the only thing that I think you've seen and it's actually specifically Blake Snell was where he was pretty much all but happy not having that no hitter.

He was like, I needed to go. I want to take care of my health. He was very health conscious when he talked about it, which to me was like money, money, money, money, money, money, money, contract. I think one of the things that you will see that's huge is a change. I think there's research that backs this up. A change in playing time, a change in plate appearances and innings pitched when you get a new big deal.

And I think that it's just think about the incentives at play. Before you had the big deal, you want to get that big deal. You want to prove that you can play every day. You want to put in as many innings. You want to put up all your counting stats that you can. As soon as you have the big deal, the new team is your incentives are aligned. They want to keep you healthy for the long term. They just signed you for six or eight or 10 years, right? So all of a sudden now you're like, ooh, you have a bunion? Okay, let's step off of that.

Let's take a couple weeks and make sure. But here'd be my argument. How do you do that with a pitcher? Because here's the thing. Blake Snell's already doing that. Blake Snell, if Blake Snell were going wildly over seven innings every single game, way out of the normal, and he's getting this performance thing, and then all of a sudden teams are like, now the new contract, let's back that off. And now we're not getting the quality starts and maybe less opportunities for wins.

And that's how it fails. The guy isn't going seven. And a new team that would bring him in, the worst thing they could do would be to push him. So if you think in a big contract, they would be a little bit more easy that actually works in favor of blake snell in my mind instead of a team being more aggressive where now he gets what seven nine total innings past the seventh inning and they now pitch him 40 innings past the seventh inning he's probably more susceptible because he didn't do that in previous years to getting blown up maybe era inflating.

But what you just said would actually play exactly into his. So I guess my whole thing is like, how does a pitcher play up to a contract and then come back down? Are they, would they throw something different that they normally wouldn't? I didn't. So it's kind of an argument. I mean, I think Blake Snell being even better.

This is not specific to Blake Snell and I'm not suggesting that he's played through injuries they wouldn't play through in the past. I'm just saying that that could be a thing that pitchers do. Like your hamstring barks, you just keep pitching as opposed to taking the time off. And maybe that's fine in the short term, and then maybe the fact that you pitched a whole year with a bad hamstring shows up the next year.

So I think there are still ways that it can happen. pitched a whole year with a bad hamstring shows up the next year. I think there are still ways that it can happen. I want to be certain that people don't think that I'm suggesting this specifically about Snell. I'm just saying that's a way that it could happen for pitchers. I think it is a little bit easier with hitters because now we know load management and everything. It's much easier to see how a hitter might play through turf toe or something because he wants to get to 700 plate appearances and then his toes all screwed up for the next year like that that sort of thing happens i think fairly regularly yeah i

mean you get guys selling out for maybe more power and and the babbitt working in their favor oh and they steal always steal way more bases like aaron judges i see the hitter stole all those bases you know the year before he signed the big contract and like probably wasn't gonna steal many bases like that again i guess just in my snow has done everything the opposite of what a guy who would be pressing because you would think those guys would right like he's celebrating being taken out of the no hitter and like yeah yeah i get it he's like high five and he's like yes i'm out seven i'm not gonna get hurt like he's he's in it he wants that contract. But Blake Snell, at the end of the day, like there's

so much fun about him. I think the character of Blake Snell is hilarious. He's a really funny human being. And the way he interacts, I said this and you could tell I'd been around him. I I've been on the backfields with my kid and I've seen Blake Snell. One of the funniest moments of all time, by the way, um, with Blake Snell was, you know, everyone, if you've been to the Padres backfield, it's kind of this open world. It's weird. And you'll sometimes have players be kind of blocked off. And sometimes players are just like walking down the path. And there's a lot of people there.

And Blake Snell, I think maybe signed some monographs or something, but he's kind of walking out and he's in the wide open. And this little kid sees him and he grabs his card or whatever or ball and he runs to blake and he goes blake and blake turns around and blake just starts running but he's play running so the kid would get close and then blake would run even further and he would keep doing it and then he stopped and he totally chucked it up with this it was just like a little six-year-old kid and that was i was like man this guy is really good in this interaction. He's good with kids.

Yeah, he can maybe have some stuff that people get on him, but he's a very lovable guy and the results are there. And you kind of see it in your interaction with your kids. So the full video is out there. You put the minute in here, but you and I were talking before. I'm gonna put this up here. There's the very beginning question was kind of fun. So this is the first question. I think it's about your favorite animal.

So here we go. And then what is your son's name? Felix. Felix. That's Felix. All right. What's your favorite animal? What's yours? what's yours I don't know a human my favorite animal is a human a human what else you got

so Blake's like what is yours and Blake tried to give him suggestions and then Felix is like what about a human that's a great that's a really great interaction right there. So he did go to, was Felix like excited about after that?

Oh yeah. Yeah. He's like, he actually likes, now it's like one of his favorite players. He has a Blake Snell Jersey and now he has a, a San Diego Padres hat that he wears all the time. That's signed by it on the,

in the bill. That's cool. And he, he was asking me like should i stop wearing it now and i was like no man you're not gonna sell that hat just wear it and uh uh uh and he like uh i don't know he's just he's he's a big fan of snell's and uh you know another funny thing is that you know felix is doing this stuff at school where um uh they have like a real life class where they're supposed to get a job and get an apartment and like you know that's a good

class you know like practice uh living i guess is the word and good luck i can use that class right now and so everybody in uh his class became a financial analyst because it was the highest paying job that you could just have with a BA and not Felix he chose sports writer and I said you're going to make less and he goes that's alright I like my job

and so he got to do the job for a day and so that was a lot of fun he also sent me four questions that's attached to the piece that we did together where he sent me four questions that I asked of a bunch of people in the clubhouse. And we had some

really funny ones. One of my favorites is Tatis. I ask him, favorite animal? And he goes, a horse? And I go, because they're so powerful? And he goes, no, because i can ride them did he have all like questions too like uh because i could ride with that yeah oh yeah he was like no because i can ride them you know like you if you've ever seen tatis is like instagram he seems

like the type of guy that might be like i'm gonna ride a horse on a beach or something like that i could see why he might say horses yeah His vibes give off that for sure. He was funny overall because then he said like, I said, did you have any cards? He goes, oh, I didn't have many cards. I did have some cards of my dad's. And I go, did you ask them to sign them? And he goes, no. And I'm like, yeah, I guess that would be weird to ask your dad to sign the cards.

That was a funny interview with him that sounds fun alex cobb was funny too because he like a lot of people when i asked him favorite animal i had to think about a lot and when i asked alex cobb he was like my kids ask me this every day because his kids are like just a little bit younger than felix and his brother so he's like my kids ask me my favorite animal is every day. I have an answer. And it was like, you know, finger monkey. I was like,

okay. A what? A finger monkey. I don't know, like a small monkey. He's like, he wants, he's like dreamt of having

like a small monkey pet. Really? Monkeys terrify me. I'm terrified of them because like, they're just like, like rip people's faces off and stuff.

Like I don't, any little monkey that's cute. So smart. Yeah empire like a i mean those are big but chimp empire is like some wild documentary to see but i'm terrified of that so i thought he was talking about those little like finger remember those little like squishy finger puppets yeah put on your fingers puppet or whatever no yeah he's talking about an actual monkey okay i know thanks but uh there you go so that's a very fun one of my favorite people to talk to so well i'd also say that you're a pretty good role model for your kid in the sports writing world you can teach you can teach him a thing or two on in that world and other areas that

you can expand yeah if you get started going it started earlier than me then maybe you'll have even more success there you go blake snell is already a buddy. So, uh, go into it. When is that coming out? Is that out? It's out. Okay. It's out. So athletic.com slash rates and barrels. Go and check that out. You can get a subscription right now. You can go to Eno's Twitter and you can, I'm going to read that right after we're done with this. So I'm going to jump on that.

Let's talk about a few things to help some people right now. And then we're going to talk about the Arizona fall league and the things about right now are just going to be some hitters and some streamers that people can look at so i pieced together since you and al are going to be back on friday you guys can cover some of the friday ish and then the weekend stuff and this for us we can cover tuesday wednesday thursday and i got two pictures for you Thursday. Just your thoughts, and you can pick one or the other. Really, are these viable guys that you want to put your season on the line for? Tuesday, we actually have two really good matchups. I actually think of any day, this might be the best day.

Reese Olsen up against Kansas City and Michael King up against Toronto. I think those are the most viable streaming options. Hyper competitive leagues, they might not be available out there, but if you're looking to stream Reese Olsen, Michael King, how would you rank them? What's your comfortability on both of them? We've talked about them a decent amount. I'm in love with Michael King,

and I think he's going to be a big riser and sleeper for me, quote sleeper, as soon as we talk about them, they're not. But this is going to be someone I'm going to be very into for next season. But what do you think about Reese and Michael Young for this week? Yeah, I love Michael Young. The only thing, and I said this with Al, is that I just think he's got to be a massive injury risk. Just jumping up in innings pitched like this, coming off of injury last year, and it was a fairly gruesome injury. I think he fractured his elbow pitching. So, you know, there's, I think there's a little bit more injury risk there than people want to want to admit. He'd probably get to a hundred

innings and maybe that's the, that's why they're pitching him. I think it's interesting that the Yankees that are out of it, you know, officially now would pitch him, but I think it probably is related to pushing that inning. So if you get him to 100 this year, you feel like you can throw him 130, 140 maybe next year. I think you're thinking of Schmidt. We're talking Reese Olsen. I think you're thinking of Schmidt.

I was thinking of Michael King. I've been saying Michael King. Or Michael King. I'm sorry. I completely threw us off. My stupid brain thought you were talking about Reese Olsen. You're talking about Michael Young. Yes, Michael King. Michael King, about Michael Young. Yes, Michael King.

Michael King, not Michael Young. Is Olsen a sleeper for you too? I think Olsen is a decent pick, but I think his command is iffy. And so with Olsen, next year I will take him as a bench pitcher in a lot of leagues. I will like him. And the deeper the league goes, the more I like him because I think he will have, you know, 150, 160 innings in the major leagues next year in a good park for pitchers. And so I think that he's a high floor guy. This week, I like him, but I'd like

Michael King better. You know, I'm assuming they're actually going to make that start. You know, it gets a little bit iffy this time of year especially for non-contenders and that's why I was mentioning that the Yankees are out of it and why would they throw King at all and I'm guessing it's just to get King more innings

because they're not going to send him to the fall league or anything to get more innings this is his last chance to get innings so I guess they let him pitch five and a third, you know, maybe six to get to that hundred innings. And that's it for Michael King this year. In terms of starts that you have listed here, I like the King start the best.

You know, I know it's versus Toronto, but I think that King is a better pitcher, period, like the capital P, as opposed to, you know, Olsen has those command issues. The matchup's a little bit better for Olsen against Kansas City. Those are, I think, clearly the two best streams of the week, along with, you know, Olsen's teammate, Gibson Long. I like that. It's against the Royals again on Thursday, and that's a light scheduled day. So, you know, if there's a way for you to pick up Gibson Long now in anticipation of streaming him Thursday, that's a good idea too. Yeah. If you're, if you're limited on your starts

and by the way, hilarious that I did the Michael Young thing again. I mean, I've been doing it for a week straight of that. Just real quick. And what you mentioned with resource and as far as being a sleeper to next year, it won't be in the Michael King territory for me, but I think what he's going to go is he's going to go into that pool of like, you take them towards the back of drafts and he might end up being like a really high end streamer.

And maybe that'll change, you know, this past, this September has been everything for him because as good as he's been a 1.4 ERA in September, which has been nice due to sub.7 whip, he has not had an under 4.5 ERA any other month of the year.

So, I mean, it's really been like backtracked. He's got an expected ERA closer to 5. I'm going to see him more as a streamer. This is Olsen you're talking about? Yeah, that was Olsen. Michael King. Michael King. Michael King. Michael King. Can be, I think, more of like a station

starting pitcher for your rotation next year that you're going to probably get outside, easily get outside the top 200 as he's stretched out. I guess so. I think that he's going to get the hype sleeper title, and I actually think he might go past where I'm comfortable taking him because even though he gets to 100 innings this year

with what I think is pretty high injury risk, I don't think I'm going to put the over-under at much more than 100, 120 innings next year. Yeah, I mean, that's a decent cap. That's like a rookie cap. It's like a rookie SP cap like we'd have like with grayson rodriguez uh this past year or something like that so yeah so that makes it interesting it's it's uh if he gets put into the like uh category where he's being taken around guys that will give me i think 150 plus innings i'm gonna have to think

hard about it because so one of the things is when you were talking about looking at mistakes this year, especially in like my draft and holds, I ended up taking the Michael Kings over the, I have Jordan Montgomery in some of those places, but just an example, I took, I'd take Michael King types over Jordan Montgomery types, chasing that like, you know, real excellent upside. And then your Jordan Montgomery's can have good seasons and they're slated for more innings. And innings ends up being such a thing. And I did have two draft and holds where I had dead lineup spots

a couple times in the year. And I couldn't field nine pitchers. So that's something I have to think about. So I don't want to overreact and not take King because of it, but you know, uh, I have to consider innings as, as, uh, maybe stronger, uh, of an input next year than I did the last year, this year. So you mentioned, uh, Sarah Gibson long that. So if you're going Tuesday to Thursday, the top three is probably my, in my mind, I think it's Michael King long. And then Olson, if I'm ranking them and you agree with the same three. So if you guys can be preemptive about it. I put

two other names on here that I thought were interesting. I want to get your take on. You've got Brandon Fott versus the White Sox on Wednesday. Fott has shown signs of good, and then he gives up a gajillion homers. And then Tyler McGill, Thursday against Miami. Those are two others that maybe stood out. I believe these are more in volume desperation. I wouldn't be looking at either one of those guys if I'm attempting to really be hardcore. Like if I'm like, I can't lose my whip and my ERA,

I wouldn't want to look at those players. But if I'm chasing and I may be behind and it's not quite the Hail Mary, I think Fott and McGill might be options. But what do you think about both of those guys? Well, you know, one of the things that happens in this part of the season is that you need something very specific, you know? And so in my main event league, we had a choice. We need wins. And at this point, ERA and WIP a lot of times are out the door unless it's head to head, right? And so if you're in Rotor and you just need wins, you might have a decision like we had, which was the choice was we needed one pitcher out of Fott

against the White Sox, Means against the Red Sox, Kyle Harrison against the Padres, Sox, Means against the Red Sox, Kyle Harrison against the Padres, Hyunjin Ryu against the Rays, and Aaron Savali at Toronto. And we're actually going fought, and here's my reasoning. Means is going exactly five in every outing, right? And so I think he's capped at five. So I think it would be pretty hard for him to go five, do so well against that Boston lineup that he definitely gets a win. You know what I mean? I think that win will happen in the sixth

or seventh. Kyle Harrison is a rookie on a team that treats their pitchers like, you know, he could go three, he could go six. I don't know. Anything could happen. But he's also going up against a Padres team that's probably better and is playing better uh Ryu is going up against a Rays lineup that's very good uh and their team needs to win that game to get into the postseason and so if Ryu is struggling at all he's out you know they're not like oh you know we're not going to let him you know give up five and go six you know none of those three were my option of the guys you listed either so i cut them all off i think so the decision was civali at toronto versus fought at the white socks that was the decision civali's got some sort of day-to-day injury right now um and the rays to me are actually in a spot where they at some point they may just say screw it we're not winning the

division we're not going to start aaron civali becauseali because he's day to day and we want him in our postseason rotation. We've lost too many people already. So that's one where on some teams, the good pitchers may not pitch at all. You know, even I guess means that Boston's probably not that, but there's people like that where you're like, oh, you're on a good team. It's going to the playoffs. It's going to be people like, will Bobby Miller make his last start for the Dodgers? Or will they just say, yeah, maybe we won a good team that's going to the playoffs. There's going to be people like, will Bobby Miller make his last start for the Dodgers? Or will they just say, yeah, maybe we won't have home field every game, but we'd rather sit Bobby Miller so he's ready to be our number one starter in the postseason. You know what I mean?

So there's a lot of decisions like that to make. And in fact, Fott, to me, lines up. That's a team that needs to get in the postseason. They could take Fott out early if he's struggling, but it's also a White So a team that needs to get in the postseason. They could take Fott out early if he's struggling, but it's also a White Sox team that's checked out, and they might not even be playing Robert in that game. So it's a very right-handed thing, and Fott's best pitch is a sweeper. So it's a very right-handed lineup, maybe without Robert. It could be a good matchup for him. And in terms of wins, you know, Tampa Bay versus Toronto is probably closer

in terms of team matchup than Arizona and Chicago. So that's how I made my decision. And that's how I think you have to kind of run along and be like, do I need Ks most of all? Do I need wins most of all? What am I looking for here? Because that'll make you sort things differently. I'm not sure that

Gibson Long is the best streamer on this list if you're just looking for wins. You know what I mean? And Michael King versus Toronto becomes a much better... It's about their categories that you're looking at specific. So I think Fott is a decent chance

at a win. And that's where I'm. So I think Fott is a decent chance at a win, and that's where I'm going with him. And really, Fott's thing is if he doesn't get himself behind and just start getting lit with earned runs, he can go deep. He can go seven. I mean, they could push him. I don't think they're going to cap innings pitch with him. They need him to go deep.

But similar to the Ryu thing, like if things get bad, they're going to have to try to get him out but he has gone over five in two of his last three uh one of them was a great start they don't even have a great bullpen so if they did take him and they have a garbage bullpen and that's the other garbage bullpen who you going to you need the bullpen to get the win so it's like you can really go down a rabbit hole with these things but uh yeah at some point you just got to click the button and take one of them yeah on the hitter side if you're looking to chase a couple uh hitters really categories like you said that's the way you play it over the last seven days just a couple names i'm going to throw them all out to

you real quick and you can comment on them if you're looking for maybe even keel players uh jared triolo has been really good hitting over over 500, two homers, nine runs. If you're chasing runs right now, that might be a play. Evan Carter, if he is available out there, has been really good. I did this last night, so it may have needed update from yesterday, but 353, two homers, a stolen base.

That's kind of a five tool play. TJ Friedel has got multiple stolen bases hitting 350 and homers. If he's out there for stolen bases, I'd also mention Xavier Edwards stole a couple of bases and getting a little bit of run. And if you're chasing just pure homers, Nelson Velasquez hit more double homers, more homers again last night, having a two bomb night. So, you know, pending percentages of what's out there, there's a couple, you know, high run, high batting average guys in Trelo and Carter, Friedel and Edwards for stolen bases and Velasquez for homers. I don't know if you want to add anybody or if you specifically like any

of those guys, if you're chasing categories. Yeah. Uh, Velasquez is interesting. So he goes to a park that's not great for, for homers and, for homers and just unloads a bunch of homers. And I feel like I said, either with Al or I forget who I was talking to, but I kind of remember circling his name when he was traded and being like, this could be one of the few players traded at the deadline that actually steps into a role and benefits from the extra playing time and is a pickup. And I don't think I ended up picking him up anywhere. Sometimes I needed to write a note to myself, like, before this publishes, go pick up Nelson Velasquez,

because I missed out on that train. Him and Jake Berger just really stepped into full-time roles where they went to parks where you might say, well, is this power going to translate? I think Berger and Velasquez are the types of players where they hit the ball so dang hard it doesn't really matter what park they're in. So those are some interesting names to me. One thing I do want to point out is that Cincinnati and Cleveland have the worst weekly schedule this week. They are both five-game weeks.

So Friedel, you know, I dropped Laureano just because I didn't think it was worth keeping around for the weekend. You know, there was definitely a lot of decisions I could have made this week where I said, oh, I just can't, I can't pick that guy up for five games. So as much as I like Friedel, it's going to be a daily stream for you. You have to make sure he has a game that day and that you like the matchup. Probably a better play in daily moves, you know, head-to-head type of stuff than it is going to be in any other spot.

But, you know, where you other spot. You can also go to Jacob Young is another one of those guys if you're chasing stolen bases. They're kind of the same players, but there are quite a few streamable options out there if you are chasing those categories. I think Parker Meadows might have the five-game schedule too.

No, it's not ideal. Parker Meadows is kind of a fun player because we debated about him in the Arizona Fall League, didn't we? Well, he started off really hot in the AFL last year, and then he kind of tapered down. But I talked to him that last week, and I just remember he was just like, I want to go. He was so tired.

He was so tired. That's why it's kind of a bummer, to be honest with you, when you guys come out at the very end. They're all just gassed. These dudes are gassed. They're done. They're so over it. The first two weeks is kind of the big hyper

attention where these guys got that rejuvenated here. Here's a new league and they get going. Third week kind of tapers and then the Here's a new league. And they get going. Third week kind of tapers. And then the fourth week, it's weird. Maybe they get re-hyped with the All-Star game and stuff like that. But that last week, those dudes are just done. So reading whatever you want to read into it.

I remember the first time we were out there, Trout and Harper looked very tired. Posey looked tired. Those are some of my first memories of the Arizona Fall League. That's a pretty good one. Speaking of, let's talk about the Arizona Fall League then. let's jump into it. The Arizona fall league rosters were officially released and they were underwhelming, incredibly underwhelming. It's just really bad, dude. This is really bad. Robert Hassel is like a top prospect in here. Like Robert Hassel has

not been playing well. I am a a prospect person i know most of these guys i'm not gonna tell you that i'm not super interested there's a lot of like deep prospect people that are like oh i'm not like it i like it grimy i like these like players oh i like that's fine okay i do too i like players that we've kind of no one knows and pays attention to. That's what's so fun about the AFL. But it is the worst top end Arizona Fall League rosters that I have seen since I have been paying attention to the Arizona Fall League. The Peoria team is pretty stacked, but the Peoria team out here looks like the average team in a normal year. So let me backtrack just a tiny bit. You should know at this point, I assume most people do here for the project prospect portion of this, the Arizona Fall League is six teams that are comprised of five major league teams. They play together.

Usually teams send out their top prospects. That did not happen this year. Part of that is probably due to the usage of prospects. Part of that is probably due to the usage of prospects. Part of that is probably due to players now being paid year round and maybe decisions being able to be made during offseason programs and rather putting their time spent into that when they're all getting paid the same. So you think that they get paid for the AFL in the past? Yeah. So there's some form of money. I'm not going to say it was good money. But remember, these guys stopped getting paid in September. So there was no money coming in, yeah.

No money was coming in. And then you could come to the Fall League, you could make some money, vendors come in, you get some free stuff, maybe they do some autograph signing. That's true, the bad vendors all come for sure like definitely there's some free stuff aspect you get taken care of the home run derby or you make the all-star game there's little bonuses or something yeah they got bonuses out there you get taken care of teams can treat this like a workout it's a place to make money blah blah blah blah that's gone now because these guys get your paid year round and teams have to i think

over incentivize for even like offseason programs. There's a lot more decision making that's put in here. This is me more speculating. I've had a couple of people chirp in me about that might be the thing. I heard about some really good players that declined to come here. Maybe next year will be different. But this is from the top end, the most underwhelming it's ever been. But I don't want to sell it like

you shouldn't want to go if you, I know like, you know, it's still fun, but give them the rundown. Your list of the top prospects. People should get it pretty quickly. So again, the top six teams in here are comprised of a bunch of teams. So how about that

Peoria team real quick, just to let you know that has the home team in Peoria, which is the Padres and the Marin teams. So how about that Peoria team real quick, just to let you know, that has the home team in Peoria, which is the Padres and the Mariners. So those prospects are there. They also have the Tampa Bay Rays, the Miami Marlins and the Guardians. So the prospects all make up this one team. And that Peoria team is stacked.

They've actually got a few of the top prospects in here. So this is a list of some of the best hitting prospects that are coming to the AFL. Again, this isn't bad, but when you see tweets about like, man, how cool is AFL when Ronald Acuna was here

and Vlad was here and Julio was here. They were there the same year and like, yeah. Yeah, it's not the same. We had Trout and Harper one year. There is not a Trout or a Harper on this. There's not a judge on here or anything like that. There's some good prospects. So the top hitting prospects, Peoria has actually got a handful.

Kyle Manzardo, a big power bat, missed some time, but he's really found his rhythm. Yeah, he's been an absolute monster. He's going to be paired with Harry Ford, who might be the top prospect out there with the Mariners, and Carson Williams, as well as Chase DeLauder. So that team has Chase DeLauder, Manzardo, Harry Ford, and shortstop Carson Williams with the Tampa Bay Rays. And Carson Williams, it's funny,

when I was talking with somebody and the roster did come out, I was not special enough to get the early version of it, but this person was, and they were saying, Oh yeah. One of the top prospects we've seen is Carson Williams. So when I heard that, I was like, what?

The top prospect out there is Carson Williams. That doesn't sound good. He's a good pro. He's a very good prospect, but that didn't raise my eyes. My problem with Carson Williams had been massive strikeout numbers in, in high a this year, 30,

almost 32% while putting up video game numbers, he had 23 homers, 17 stolen bases, but a huge strikeout rate. He jumped up to double a and a couple of games in triple a, and you actually saw a really low strikeout rate in triple a, but he is tooled out beyond belief. Carson Williams is the type of guy that could be vying for a spot next year

with, you know, the issues of Tampa Bay's got, especially since he played shortstop and Caminero junior Caminero, uh, just came up, um, and DH. Yeah. And he could be a third baseman. He played short in the minors, but they're not playing him short in the major. So it does not seem like Junior Cameron Arrows at all a possibility at shortstop in the majors. You could have the start of next year

be Cameron Arrows at third and Carson Williams at shortstop. And what's also interesting is there were almost 40 or maybe 40 plus prospects from last year's Arizona Fall League that made the majors this year. So I know this doesn't resonate with everybody, but this league usually is full of major leaguers.

Finishing school. That's always been the thing. I think it's going to be different this year with the talent pool, but Carson Williams is one of those players that is going to pop. We're going to get to talk about these guys individually for a second. I just want to kind of give your list here real quick across the board just so that people get a sense of, like, these are the best prospects at the Arizona Fall League. individually for a second. I just want to kind of give your list here real quick across the board just to get so the people get a sense of like

these are the best prospects at the Arizona Fall League. We're talking about Kyle Manzara, Harry Ford, Carson Williams, Colson Montgomery, the shortstop for the White Sox, Kevin Alcantara,

who's the outfielder for the Cubs, Chase DeLauder, Jace Jung, Robert Hassel, Alexander Canario. So the list is already too long because I don't think Robert Hassel is actually a top prospect. I only put him because of a name.

I don't have him as a top 100. I wanted to put him on there for perspective. Canario strikeout at 30% of the time? Yeah, but Canario made the majors. I put him on here because he was with the Cubs Major League. I know. He could make it. But there are flaws with these guys.

You know, Carson Williams strikeout rate. Alexander Canary, like Harry Ford was in like high A this year. So like some of these guys are being pushed a little bit faster than they were in the past. I mean, Carson Williams himself was a high A player. Yes, he got like 50 plate appearances at AA and AAA combined. But like, you know, usually this is like finishing school. This is a guy who's played some AA. You want to push him to 600 plate appearances for the year

so he's ready to play in the major leagues. That's what it was in the past. This is reflective also of the trends we've been talking about in terms of aggressive promotions in the minor leagues. But it's also reflective of, I think, a lack of star quality with these prospects. Yeah. One of the first questions I had asked was like, what happened to Jackson Holiday?

Why was he there? And as I was told, it was like, oh, he just really long season with how they pushed him. So that's like the other thing. It outside of just want to be a major leaguer next year. Doesn't want to have 600 plate appearances in his back pocket. But you want to know what i think this might be telling that maybe this is turned with the new incentive programs with minor with teams having less roster space because you've only got four teams and not four teams in a rookie ball instead of six with like two short season in a

rookie ball you have less roster space and the incentives that teams are moving prospects more so the afl might not be a finishing school anymore. It might not be the case because you're right. It may change its role just in general. It may just be something else. It may just be for people who have been hurt all year and it's just a league that's playing at the time when they've been hurt. They need innings.

That's what it is for Ricky Tiedemann. Definitely that's the case for the pitchers. If you have a good pitcher in the fall league, it's because he was injured all year and he needs innings. It's always that what you said. The other thing, the trend that I noticed, this is the class of 2021.

Everybody is from the 2001 draft class. It is crazy. The 2021 draft class. This is like, so that's the first draft after 2020. It's the short draft. It's people that lost a year, lost a year of development time.

If I were to go and look from a roster construction standpoint and go and click on every single guy, I would bet you 60% or more of the AFL this year is from the 2021 draft class. Now there are other names of course. So it's changed. So I just think the perception of that league might be different because it's like,

why would you not get Jackson holiday here? It's because they pushed him four levels throughout the start of the season. Why would we not? We didn't see Churio in the majors. Why would we not see Churio here? You'd think Churio get into 600 plate appearances so you can play in the big leagues next year. That's that's Churio is totally in holiday are totally the you can play in the big leagues next year.

Churio and Holiday are totally the kind of guys who would have been here in the past. They would have been here in the past. Without question, they would have been here. They would have been the Mike Trout and the Ronald Acuna just being like, we want to get you to 650 plate appearances this year because that's what we want to add you next year. One of two things has changed or both it is the lack of need for players to come here with the choices because they make more money now and or this is not a finishing school anymore because of how teams are processing their developmental system moving guys this is not the necessary and a third thing could just be

weird 2020 stuff still coming up. It could still be that because, because if you think about it, 2020 is like a hole in our history, you know, and there wasn't a draft that year. So if you were now, so you're saying that 60% of them are 2021. That means that like in past years, maybe 40 or 50% would have come from 2020. You know, if you're thinking about like a rolling time, so this might actually be the Arizona fall league. That's most affected by 2020. If you think about timelines and stuff,

it's a great point. It's a really good point. Yeah. Where are the stars that would have been drafted in 2020 that would be here now, you know, that sort of deal. And then like the fourth is like,

it's just a total anomaly. And next year it'll be just a random great guys and whatever but it lacks that oh and the last thing is the september rules the september rules so is it not impossible that jordan westberg and jordan lawler would be here or was lawler there last year lawler was there last year okay but like westberg as a person he wouldn't necessarily be a big star name that makes this any better, but he would be another player that we could put on there instead of putting Robert Hassel on there at least.

You know what I mean? And he's not doing it because he's just finished. He's going to be still playing with the Orioles in the postseason because of the new roster rules, which suggests that like, I'm going to bring up Westberg

and give him less than 150, uh, plate appearances. So he's still rookie eligible, make him readier for next season by playing him in the big leagues rather than the Arizona fall league. He's going to be more ready if I play him against big leaguers and then maybe like more likely to be rookie of the year next year as the Orioles. I can now put Jordan Westberg and Jackson holiday on the roster for the whole season and get to roll two dice at getting rookie of the year and get that pick. And I, I think there are teams that definitely thought about the way they pull up

guys thinking about that rookie of the year and thinking about preserving their rookie eligibility, but giving them a chance, a chance in the major leagues. So now the major leagues becomes finishing school September. You just hit where I was going to go. I think I don't care at all about so-and-so was in low A and is finishing in triple A. People are like, oh my God, this guy's in triple A.

I don't think it means anything. What it does mean to me, though, is what you just said, that the minor leagues in September are the finishing school and the guys that are moving up levels that we've never seen before. Those are the players I think are going to be big pushes. They're the AFL guys. I think Dylan Cruz and Wyatt Langford and Jackson holiday are more likely options to break camp than Carson Williams or any of the guys in the Arizona Fall League right now so that I think is a huge telling point to it but going back to the there's still a lot of fun prospects and there's a lot of players you should be paying attention to from a dynasty perspective and a redraft perspective we listed off Manzardo Ford Williams Montgomery Alcantara

DeLauder and Young those. Those are probably insulated. I think Montgomery doesn't get enough love. I've had my eye on him in terms of what I see as a really plus-plus plate approach. I mean, this is a guy who, let me see if it does work out that way. It's pretty close to having more walks than strikeouts. I don't know that he actually does, but it's pretty much like a one-to-one where you're talking about a guy who, for the minor leagues,

walked like 15% of the time. I'm not even kidding. And struck out maybe 20% of the time. I kind of love that from a plate approach standpoint. It's so very not normal for the White Sox. But with Tim Anderson on his way out, I feel like opportunity is right there knocking. And this could be one of your traditional

Arizona Fall League stories where he gets up to, you know, what's he going to be? He's going to get up to three. He's at 300 plate appearances right now. He's got to get up to 450, 500 before you can consider him as a rookie candidate for next year, the white Sox may decline the option on Tim Anderson and just go with Colson Montgomery from day one. It's possibility. I mean, he is a clear cut. He was always coming here because he

missed so much time and he had to play in the complex league a little bit this year, but yeah, he gets a lot of like Corey Seager compss a big physical guy making better decisions i think he is even interviewed after his um after coming off of complex and going to high a with like he was even surprised at some of the success he's had he's a guy that can shine here and that's the whole point is there are some players that as much as i'm kind of poo-pooing there's definitely some talent level there chase the lottery is underrated tell me about him i don't think i know enough about him as I'm kind of poo-pooing the talent level, Chase DeLauder is underrated. Tell me about him. I don't think I know enough about him.

So Chase DeLauder, shout out because he probably listens because he loves listening to the show. So always shout out to Jeff Ponce. Jeff Ponce, me and him will go back and forth about stuff. Because I think he loves getting your take on things. But Chase DeLauder was seen as a number one overall prospect at some time. And then he ended up getting, I think he loves getting your take on things. But Chase DeLauder was seen as like a number one overall prospect at some time.

And then he ended up getting, I think it was an injury. And actually, Bryce Hubbard and Parker Messick really screwed him up at the beginning of the year in college in 2022 that kind of set him on this bad path. All of that aside, this year, he was coming back from injury. He's missed time. 366 batting average in high A, four homers, three stolen bases, a low walk rate. He goes up to double A a little bit of time, walking 18% of the time, striking out 10% of the time,

hitting 360 again. Tons of contact, kind of a can-get-under-the-ball type of hitter. Not big, crazy big EVs. But not like a Guardian's limp bat either. I just think Fangrass has a 60-60 raw power on him. Yeah, and you've got to imagine the time miss due to injury and the adjustments. He actually was like, when he was in complex, he was supposed to leave, and then he had to come back.

He had to sit back. So he just had a really weird year oh god i'm completely forgetting what it was i want to say there was an arm injury involved in it okay i think it says foot here yeah and there was some setback the day he was i actually talked to a guardians player that day and he had some setback with it but he is a high-end contact hitter that is just learning to make it's kind of very new large new bar and yeah he's got to optimize his ability to barrel with bigger hard hit stuff so this is going to be an opportunity i think he's the type of guy that could be mvp of this league because he is a uh he's going to hit probably 370 while he's here yeah he's going to run into some homers he's having that kind of year i I like the fact that in the biggest sample at high A,

he only had a 42% ground ball rate. So it's not necessarily someone who has a weak swing that hits it on the ground. And I'm also interested, a lot of the Arizona Fall League, if not all, has StatCast. Yes, well, it's usually Salt River river fields i don't know if the others are going to get it to us salt river fields does and they are going to be let's see salt river fields has the diamondbacks braves rockies tigers and pirates and that's where the all-star game is

um i think so i'd have to look back on that i'm not sure uh but let me give you a couple other players pitchers it actually uniquely is a good pitching time. I think the best pitcher since, I hate to say Forrest Whitley. Forrest Whitley was a huge prospect at the time. But Ricky Tiedemann here is like my favorite thing. I couldn't be more excited to see Ricky Tiedemann here. I still think he has the stuff to be the number one pitching prospect in all of baseball. Paul Skeens makes that kind of tough.

But Ricky Tiedemann is here. Jackson Jobe, who has big spin numbers. He's one of these 3,000 slider RPM guys. Top five stuff number in A-ball for the people we had for A-ball. Yep. And then Cooper Jerpy. Jerpy with the Cardinals is another one of those good spin guys that's going to be out here. What's that? I'm glad you said that name. Yeah, it's Jerpy. Jerpy with the Cardinals is another one of those good spin guys that's going to be out here. What's that?

I'm glad you said that name. Yeah, it's Jerpy. Yeah, there's a silent H in front of it. But there's also some interesting relievers that are out there that are some deeper names. 35 present command, 55 future command. That's how he ended up walking 15% of the batters he saw, Cooper. A lot better.

Big strikeout numbers. Yeah, strikeout, but also just a much, I think this is going to be an opportunity for him to kind of shine. Um, there are some relievers that are interested, but I want to throw this in cause I had this guy, I have a couple lists of players for you guys to watch, but one guy that probably belongs in the top pitching prospects. I know you wanted to speak on was to co Roby to co Roby who got traded from the Rangers to the Cardinals. He is going to be out here in pitching And that's quite a few pretty decent name. You also have Wilmer Flores of the Tigers who used to be here,

but to co Roby specifically is somebody that is flying up boards, especially as the Cardinals have got their hands on him. Really good, really good stuff. I think, I think he's the best pitcher they acquired. One thing that we're seeing out of drew ROM in the major leagues is that he has surprisingly poor velocity. He is still sitting at 90.5 for the year on his foreseam. And I think that's part of why he's being hit so hard, because the movement's good. But one thing that people don't think about, maybe they do.

I don't know. I don't know. Not in everyone's head. I shouldn't put it that way. What I'm saying is, you know, when you think about the minor leagues, do you think of like the VLO is lower down there? It is, you know, because the ones with the best VLO make the major league. So like, you know, and the younger ones, it does fill out. So with every level as you go up, the velo goes up.

But also it's possible for someone like Drew Rome to have good shapes on his pitches and to have a good array of pitches and be sitting 90 in the minor leagues and not be able to replicate that success in the major leagues, maybe primarily because of velocity. Roby, I don't think, has that problem. And so I'm excited to see him pitch because I think he's,

this is finishing school for him. This is adding to the innings. And I think there's going to be real opportunity in that Cardinals rotation next year because they only have Michaelis under contract. Michaelis, Thompson, and Liberatore. I don't think you really want to start Liberatore. Matz, I mean, their rotation right now is in tatters.

And whatever they do in free agency is only going to be one or two spots. So even let's say they sign two guys. So then Michaelis is the third guy. Thompson is the fourth guy. Matz is the fifth guy. Roby could be the sixth guy. I mean, Rob might be the sixth guy. Hez is the fifth guy. Roby could be the sixth guy. I mean,

Rome might be the sixth guy. It could be jerky too. Yeah. I mean, these guys might be on the cuffs of the major leagues that quickly because they need pitching. And even the guys in that top five, they can leave frog somebody.

I mean, I like Thompson's cutter, but we've seen him struggle recently. Rome, the Velo, Libertor has not made it work, and Mats can't stay in one piece. So that's, you know, if those are the guys in front of you, you've got

a real opportunity. So I think Roby might be a step ahead of Zerpy, just in terms of innings, and also, you know, just experience. He's had more experience. So that's why I wanted to highlight Roby a little bit. Yeah, I think it could be interesting too. This might be one

of the first years that we have a more even class of pitchers to the hitting talent that's out there that you might see some pitchers shine a little bit more, which maybe will create some false, uh, values on some players. We'll have to monitor where that goes because I think there's some decent relievers, a guy to pay to Ronan cop, Ronan Kopp with the Dodgers is really interesting, sub three ERA. Who are those other guys? Who's Victor Scott and who's Ivan Malenka? Yeah, so that's exactly where I was going. A couple players to pay attention to if you're not familiar. You might be familiar with some of the big names like Manzardo everybody has probably heard about and Carson Williams, especially if you've been paying attention to the project prospect.

Kevin Alcantara is one of the hottest prospect names right now. Exactly. Four names that I think you should pay attention to from this league. One is, this is the most likely you've heard of is Ivan Melendez with Arizona Diamondbacks. Ivan Melendez was a Texas grad, the Hispanic Titanic,

as they called him. And Melendez had a wild 30 home run year so far this year, hitting 270, getting up to AA, but huge strikeout numbers. But he is legit 40 plus home run power. He's going to rock, rock some balls this year. And he's going to put up some big EVs. He's a huge power first baseman. Home run derby favorite. Guarantee it. Guarantee it. He will be in the home run derby.

The other guy that will be in the home run derby, I can guarantee, he fell, I believe, too shy of the minor league home run leaderboard was Abamelik Ortiz with the Texas Rangers. He's a six foot, bigger, 230 pound. He just won minor league hitter of the year for the rangers

first baseman who had 34 during the mat 33 homers with over 100 rbi hit and that's only 450 plate appearances hit 307 at high a and 290 at um i'm sorry 307 at low a still talking about like a 28 percent strikeout rate for the year but him and he and i've been melindez are both big strikeout guys him a little bit less but with massive massive offensive like big power numbers so even if you don't here's what i point out even if you don't like these guys we're probably going to be talking about them in the afl they might be trade players that you want to look at. The other two guys, Victor Scott, you mentioned why he's important is because he had 95 stolen bases in the minor

leagues this year. Victor Scott with seven homers as well. Not great power numbers, but a sub 17% strikeout rate at both levels. He had almost 10% at low a, he hit three 23 at double a stole 44, bait 45 bases in 66 games, but 95 stolen bases and nine homers. So over a hundred Homer and stolen bases combined. That makes it sound better than this. It's 95. I chalked it up a little bit. And then another deep player who kind of did a little bit of everything. He's going to be playing in his home park. He moved three levels. That's something to like.

Graham Polly with the San Diego Padres hit 300 at all three stops this year. 309, 300, 321. Ended up with 23 homers, 22 stolen bases. Only had an over 20% K rate at high A, but had a 13% strikeout rate at double A and had double digit percentage, percentage, walk percentage, double digit walk percentages. So three level movement plays the infield third base, and he should be playing a lot here.

He might be a super sneaky guy that we're talking about going into next year. Spiders don't have a lot of guys. I think he has a chance to shine. The only problem is that team is loaded on the infield with a bunch of talent. There are others. There are plenty of other players I could have talked about, but those were four players I wanted to highlight. Pauly in particular. There's a player who's playing now for the Padres that's getting playing time that he's better than, which is Matthew Batten. And I can say this pretty comfortably because Matthew Batten has played all the same places as Pauly and been worse. So I don't even know why it's Batten that's getting this run right now, other than the fact that he's 28 and maybe doesn't need any finishing school and so is therefore is just,

they're trying to still win games and he's the best that they can do right now. I would say that, you know, if there are played appearances written down for Matthew Batten next year, just race those and put Graham Pauly in his place. But the other thing that comes to mind is this could be a showcase for a trade.

That's the other thing that we didn't talk enough about in the overall for the Arizona Fall League is everybody's prospect, all their scouts go there, and it definitely is a place where people showcase players for trades. And you just want to see them hit in a nice, friendly environment where the power looks good.

And one thing that kind of sticks out for me when I look at Graham Pauly is he's got these 51% pull rates. And yet he has sub 200 ISOs in a couple of spots that he started in. In fact, if you look at the place that he had the most sample in one at one level was a ball this year with a one 57 ISO. And one thing that, uh, that AJ Preller has done is trade away guys that maybe look like they have more power than they, than they do. So, you know, when Abrams came over, I was like, I don't think he has any real power when hassle went over. I was like, I don't think that's any real power. When Hassel went over, I was like, I don't think that's real power. You know, Woods is probably a different story. But I could see this being a trade. And the reason why is if A.J. Preller makes it through this next,

the first couple of weeks after the season ends, you know what I mean? I think that's up for debate on some level. If he had a different general manager, he'd be fired by now. And if he makes it through, then he's going to be all about this next year. And he has right now under contract in the rotation next year, Joe Musgrove and you Darvish and you Darvish coming off elbow surgery. So he's going to be looking for starting pitching on the market and he's

going to trade people. I don't, I think Salas, it gives me the vibes that he me the vibes that that's the one he wants to keep, like Camposano before him. And Merrill. And then Jackson Merrill I think he'll try to keep, but Graham Pauly looks like kind of a pop-up guy. He's not super young.

He's not super rated highly, but maybe some other team will like something about him. He doesn't strike out that much. Maybe the Guardians will like him. Whatever it is, I think he'll be shopping for starting pitching, and at least one of the ways

he'll do it is a trade. So I think Pauly can end up somewhere else. Yeah, funny. I actually remember, I'm forgetting who the player was. He was a relief pitcher, but he was traded

in the Arizona Fall League. He literally had to change jerseys in the Arizona Fall League. Honestly, it was like a cub or something. I'll have to go back and look, but you're right. Rule five,

you've got trade candidates. You've got roster. some of these guys have to be added to the rule five by december so you can just get a little more look at them or maybe trade them before the rule five it's a lot of what this is but the thing that you can this last thing is you can take advantage of even if you're not into the development is there are going to be players that when the whole industry comes down as a whole and sees a player in a small instant is going to fall in love with and the hype will grow play people like me and a few others will talk for the next month will grow up some of the hype as well you might have opportunities with some players to move them for pretty good deals before something else happens or if you just like to do that there's a lot of people that just like to take

prospects and just kind of move them for other assets. This is the time where guys are going to build up their value. And some of the pitchers in shorter stints might look better. And some of these hitters in these environments. Yeah, in shorter stints, they might look better. And then this might be the year to move some of these hitters because we're just telling you that we don't think there's really like the Acuna types here.

So if they're not the really high end and you're in a 12 team league with prospects and everyone's talking about Kevin, Kevin Alcantara, like in a couple of weeks or, you know, in a month from now, like it's not like he's not a Acuna type, you know, I know that people are excited about him, but he has his own flaws and, you know, sometimes the strikeout rate is a little bit high. And I don't think the speed is like 60, 50 level in terms of stolen bases. So I think he could be somebody you capitalize on the hype and go get a real major league veteran that you can be sure of next year uh for your for your hype piece this is what this is all about and guess what you know ndvr are going to be out here for the arizona fall league think uh live podcast next project prospect will be from the arizona

falling that's right that'll be super fun that'll be fun to get you guys out here so if you guys plan let us know you know shoot a tweet and make sure to find you're gonna be down there yeah say hi yeah If you're going to be down there, if not be on the lookout for the content with drafts and lots of people will be out here, rates and barrels, a project prospect will be out there. It'll be a lot of fun. But again, I just want to thank everybody for inviting me in and whatever capacity it was. I hope I did right by DVR when he was out. I hope you could tolerate me when I was here. And hopefully I added something to the conversation. know i love you brother and thank you so much for having me on this year

it's a delight it is a pleasure to be able to be able to hang with you i always i've said a million times my time i get to spend in the arizona fall league is always so unique and fun because we don't get to talk a lot in season we've got to talk every single week the whole year which is like a gift to me so thank thank you, brother. I appreciate you. It's been really fun, yeah. From the podcast we did in the caviar truck on the way back from the game to now, it's always been fun. And hopefully there is more into the future.

Yeah, thank you, man. And you guys go to the athletic.com slash rates and barrels. Get yourself a subscription so you're not missing any of the action. Probably going to be some good AFL articles that are coming out here. And make sure you're subscribed to everything on the YouTube and on the podcast because we got one more this week. It is Alan Eno. And then we'll check back in with you later on. For Eno, I am Welsh.

Thank you all. And to all, a good night until Friday. Bye, friends. Thanks for listening.