Rates & Barrels - The Top of the 2024 MLB Draft Class, Rookie Hitter Struggles & Prospect Risers w/Keith Law

Episode Date: June 12, 2024

Keith Law joins DVR to discuss a few intriguing names near the top of 2024 draft boards including Charlie Condon v. Travis Bazzana and Chase Burns v. Hagen Smith. Plus, they discuss the sluggish starts for many position players at the big-league level, the early success of Jackson Merrill, the Pirates' next wave of pitching prospects behind Paul Skenes and Jared Jones, and the ascent of James Wood to a top-five position on Keith's updated in-season prospect list. Rundown 2:07 Charlie Condon v. Travis Bazzana 9:06 Nick Kurtz and Risk/Reward of a First Base Prospect Early 11:59 Chase Burnes v. Hagen Smith 19:01 The Increasingly Difficult Adjustment Phase for Rookie Hitters 30:35 Paul Skenes Meteoric Rise To Ace Status & Pittsburgh's Pitching Development 42:59 Does Luis Robert Jr. Make Sense for the Pirates? 52:14 Noah Schultz & James Wood Move Up the Prospect Ranks Follow DVR on Twitter: @DerekVanRiper Follow Keith on Twitter: @keithlaw e-mail: [e-mail] Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe Join us on Fridays at 1p ET/10a PT for our livestream episodes! Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello guys, I'm Ioan Kimmolere, host of the Athletic FC podcast and I'm here to tell you about a mouth-watering summer of international football. The Copa America and European Championships kick off in mid-June and we're going to be covering both tournaments every step of the way. With the World Cup in the US just two years away, the Copa America is the US men's national teams chance to prove they can really compete with heavyweights like Brazil and Argentina, while England will be hoping to go one better than their agonising Euros final defeat last time out. So join me and the Athletics' unrivaled team of football reporters Monday to Friday as

we take you inside the biggest stories from the tournaments with more than a sprinkle of transfer talk on top as well. Just search the Athletic FC podcast wherever you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Rates and Barrels. It's Wednesday, June 12th. Derek and Rhyper here with Keith Law. Keith, of course, is a senior writer covering baseball at the Athletic. Keith, thank you so much for joining me. Your name rings a bell. Have we talked before?

Yeah. It's almost like we used to do a show on Fridays. That show still exists. Stephen Nesbitt's the pilot these days, but he's OK. Yeah, he's a good guy. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's been a minute. Listen to the windup. Stephen Nesbitt, Chad Jennings, lots of guests rotating through on Fridays. But it's been a minute since we had a chance to catch up, Keith.

And it's been a fun season so far. A lot of unique twists. And I think the biggest one for me is the run environment being so challenging. And I think that creates some misconceptions perhaps about the rookies in particular. So we're going to talk about rookie pitchers who are having success, some rookie bats who have struggled early on. Talk about some prospect movers from your latest prospect rankings update and a few prospects coming up in the MLB draft, which is just about a month away now. It's coming

up quick. It is less than five weeks, right? So I'm working on my next mock and yeah, it's coming quick. And I mean, I think I speak for a lot of us in the industry where it can't really come quick enough. Like this draft class is not great. I think I'm already hearing a lot of fatigue from folks who've been on the road and I share it too, where it's like, let's get this one done and look at next year, next year, next year can't be worse. I think it's better, but this year is really, I mean, we can talk about it more, but this year is just, it ain't good.

Especially if you have to get the past, the first few names, it does. I guess people can't see, but yeah, it doesn't nose dive pretty quickly. Heck, let's do it. Let's start with the draft. Why not? Sure. I think every class has quality big leaguers in it. It's the question of depth many times, right? And the question is, how do you find quality big leaguers in a thin class? We'll start at the very top. It sounds like it's a one, two toss up for some folks, Charlie Condon versus Travis Bissonna. Which direction would you go if you had the pick and which direction do you think the Guardians are actually going to go since they have that spot?

Sure. So like, let me step back a little bit. So for folks who don't follow the draft a ton, just real quick, they are, these are two college position players who've had unbelievable seasons. Condon and outfielder has also played third base. He's mostly played center field for Georgia. But on a second baseman, who's Australian born and raised, went to height all the way through high school in Australia and came over here to Oregon State. You argue I would argue the two best performances by position players in the college in college this year. They are both Golden Spikes finalists.

Condon set the modern home run record for single season since NCAA changed the bats about 12, 13 years ago. You could see our home run totals went down immediately. He has now set the new record. The ball was flying this spring, so take that with a tiny grain of salt, but he's super, super talented. And it's power, it's athleticism, it's size, he's 6'6", he's lean, he moves well, he played a capable center field, I'm sure he's probably going to end up in a corner in the long term, or could go back to third base, potentially, but athletic enough that there's going to be some value there. But I also know some scouts who aren't totally sold on the hit tool and sort of

the way he goes about it. And some other folks have pointed out, he's got a huge home road split this year. He did a tremendous amount of his damage at home at Georgia. It's not a fatal flaw, but it's just a variable you want to consider when evaluating players. He's the upside guy for me, whereas Bazana is you want to consider when evaluating players. He's the upside guy for me, whereas Bazana is you want to get the sure-ish thing, and I say that because there's just no sure things ever. I mean, I could list sure things who worked, but Bazana, he can really hit.

I mean, everybody is convinced he's going to hit. He's going to stay at second base. Not going to be great, but he will work to make himself at least adequate at second base. And he's come into some power and I don't think it's going to be 25, 30 homework power and pro ball, but he's going to hit the ball hard enough that the batting average is going to hold up and that there's going to be something beyond just batting average. She's not going to be an empty two 80. He's going to get some doubles damage few balls in the seats, be able to draw his walks. It's going to be a complete enough player. It's not to say I don't think Bazzana can be a star, but I think that Condon has more upside, there's more potential that you are getting the

all world, you know, maybe MVP type player with the caveat that I don't know that either of these guys would even have been a top five prospect a year ago when we had one of the best draft classes of my entire career. Yeah. Where we had obviously Skeens, you know, Langford, you know, and if you don't know Dylan Cruz, you probably will pretty soon. I mean, those are what three of the top five picks right there, along with two elite high school players in Max Clark and Walker Jenkins. Those guys were the first five last year. They might've been the first five,

even if you put Condon or Bizana in the draft class last year. So just keep in mind, we are starting at a slightly lower level here. You also asked, you know, what do I think Cleveland's going to do? The betting has all has been all along that they will do the best deal for them in that whatever their little group of players is, and no one knows for sure, Cleveland does not, they really don't divulge much, if any information until the very last minute. But my guess is they'll pick their two or three guys and make offers to several of them. And whoever takes the lowest bonus will be the pick so that they can reallocate some of the savings

from their bonus pool to subsequent picks. In a lot of years, I would say that's a good approach. I'm a little hesitant to say that this year because the high school class, particularly the high school position player class this year is really poor. And I don't know that you're getting those first round talents when you pick again, if you're Cleveland and they pick it's like sixth or seventh in each round. I don't have the draft order in front of me. They won the lottery to get the first overall pick, but that's not their pick in all subsequent

rounds. So by the time they come up again and again and again, I think a lot of the players they might want to pay are going to be gone. And you have to take that into account. If you that's great that you save the money. As long as the players you wanted to give it to are still available, if you save money by taking a lesser player at one and then you pick again and all the guys you wanted are gone. There's no way to undo it. You're already locked in. I think the other part of this too is Cleveland seems like a very model centric team to look at things a little bit differently than a lot of other organizations. They also have a player profile type in their system, middle infielders.

Yeah. And Travis Bizana sounds more like a guardians type than Charlie Condon to me. Again, that might not matter at the end of the day, given those factors. You're not wrong. In fact, the joke coming into the year was they were going to take West Virginia infielder J.J. Weatherholt because he was a short middle infielder who can hit. Now Weatherholt has had two significant hamstring injuries now in the last 12 months. And the general belief is that Cleveland being also, I think, fairly conservative

when it comes to things like medicals, because they've been burned a few times, they probably wouldn't go that direction if you pick one. If you pick seven, that's a different story. I think if you're saying, say, Louis is seven, if you're sitting at seven, JJ Weatherholt's there and people were talking about him as one one coming into the year and the issue is health, not a, not some sort of deterioration of skill. We got, I would take that guy and pop champagne, but that was the joke, right? Cleveland was like, they have a type, right? Who's the shortest middle infielder they can take. Well, that's right. Well, Bazzana might sort of be that guy. It's, it's a little unfair because, but these, these players are also very talented. They're not reaching down and taking a guy who stinks just because he fits a profile.

They have a profile and these guys are also pretty good. But I agree with you. I think in the first mock I did, I gave them Bazzana and I would probably do the same thing right now. We'll see. I have a week to finish it, but we'll see what I hear. But definitely my gut says they'll take Bazzana because it's the sure thing. It's the player archetype that they really know and like. And then they'll probably go after,

they also have another type on the pitching side where they like to go after those guys later in the draft, right, where they're looking for the Tanner Bibbies and the Shane Bebers. There are some of those guys kicking around out there. I'm not necessarily gonna tell you I know who they are, but they exist because they're in every draft. Those command guys, good delivery, got some characteristics on the fastball, maybe team likes that the model likes and they're like, we can help those guys, but we don't have to take them in the first round.

We can take them in the fourth round and take them to the fifth round. And they've had pretty good success with those guys so far. So that's the other thing I think that you'll see too is whatever Cleveland does, maybe they do save some of that money instead of going after high school guys. Maybe they say, we've got a couple of college command guys we particularly like, and we're just gonna offer them some extra money

to make sure we get them. You had Nick Kurtz, first baseman out of Wake, I think third on your latest rankings from this class. I find it challenging if I were calling the shots for a team with an early pick to choose a first baseman that early, like that actually seems pretty risky. So do you think the bat, I mean, you must, if you have third, even in a weak class,

you have to have a lot of faith in the bat overall. What type of ceiling do you think Nick Kurtz has as a hitter as he advances against top level pitching? I think he has good ceiling. I think the issue, I agree with your philosophical concern and I would say that is the problem is the floor is pretty, the floor is Andrew Vaughn. I mean, I brought this up a few times, especially because when I saw Kurtz last year and early

this year, he was passive. He was taking, taking to take. And hey, look, everyone, especially anybody with an internet connection, they love to look at the stat line. This guy walks a lot. He walks more than he strikes out. Look at his on-base percentage. Hey, on-base percentage is great, but we're talking about on-base percentage in the big leagues, right? Having a great on-base percentage in college is an indicator of something, but it may not be an indicator that it's going to be high on base percentage in the big leagues necessarily. And Andrew Vaughan is a great example of that. Andrew Vaughan was a super disciplined hitter at college and he can't buy a walk at this

point and he kind of stinks. Like I looked at his seventh home run the other day. I'm like seven home runs. That's not that great. Oh, and his on base percentage is 280. So yeah, the floor for a first baseman who doesn't actually hit the way you think he's going to hit is kind of zero at this point, right? That is a replacement level player. And I do think you have to be mindful of that. And with a guy like Kurtz, to his credit, he suffered in about a week after I saw him, a shoulder

injury missed a week or so he was back pretty quickly and then went off. It was like, I don't know, got hit up, you know, guy like gets bonked on the head changes his personality, right? All of a sudden he was like, I'm swinging. And he had something I think it was seven homers and eight games or something. It's like this is that's it. That's the guy. Cause he does have bat speed. He does have power. So the argument for Kurtz is if you hit, if he hits, right, it's average, it's on base, and it's 25 homer power in a capable first base. So, you know, there's not much positional or defensive value, but the bat will profile. So to me, he is more in that Condon group where you could hit it pretty big, but the floor is pretty low, right? There's a chance that it, right?

Because if the bat doesn't pan out, you don't have much and you don't even have the positional value that Condon might offer, which is why I still have him below there. Again, it's a guy a year ago, I'm not taking cards over any of the top five guys from last year. You know, it's just in this year,

we don't have a Paul Schienz and we don't have a Wyatt Langford. Yeah, everyone always wants there to be players like that who are quick impact players, who are future stars and we're just not that lucky year in and year out. Right. There's another toss up couple college pitchers, Chase Burns out of Wake, Hagen Smith out of Arkansas. Curious which way you lean between these two got them right next to each other in the ranks. But what do you think plays a little better at the big league level out of these two guys arsenals? you think plays a little better at the big league level out of these two guys' arsenals?

And I will say, I think it's a toss up if you talk to scouts, um, folks who've seen them both, scouts, directors, people who've seen them a lot. Um, I saw them both this spring. I saw, I've actually seen Smith each of his three years at Arkansas. I saw Burns as a freshman at Tennessee, not last year. He was bounced from Tennessee's rotation, transferred to Wake Forest and became their number one starter.

I personally lean towards Burns because I think he does it a little better mechanically. I think it is going to be a little more sustainable and because Smith has already had one Tommy John surgery and Burns has not had a major injury yet. And I do think that that is a factor. I'm not taking a guy off the board because he's had one Tommy John surgery and Burns has not had a major injury yet. And I do think that that is a factor. I'm not taking a guy off the board because he's had one Tommy John, but we're looking for fine distinctions between players. How do we separate these two guys? Smith, the argument for Smith, the primary argument for Smith is he's left-handed and that he has since he had Tommy John surgery in high school, his progression over the three years at Arkansas is textbook

This is what we used to think players would do right before we got into this Mindset that they all got to throw 96 coming out of high school You know Smith was I think 88 92 when I saw him as a freshman and then Double velocity last year and then he comes out this year and suddenly he's bumping 99 and the slider is a wipeout pitch last year and then he comes out this year and suddenly he's bumping 99 and the slider is a wipeout pitch. He's, I mean, he had an outing against Oregon State where people were saying that was Kerry Wood, that was Randy Johnson. That's the best pitching performance I've ever seen by a college player. I may never see something like that again. Yeah, that counts. That's pretty good. And I imagine if I had seen that particular outing in late February, maybe I would have Smith

higher. I recognize that the power of seeing something like that in person, just seeing just how dominant it is, which is not something you can get off video, certainly not out of a box score, that might sway me. I happen to get a more dominant outing actually out of Burns, where in his second to last pitch of the day, my daughter happened to be with me and I turned her, I said, pick up the radar gun. She goes, why? I said, because he's going to hit a hundred here.

Cause it was two strikes, sixth inning guys on base. Like he is going to air it out. And sure enough, he had a hundred for the first time and the miss the call. I was like, really? Did you not get the script? It was just one of those like, yup. This is, this is what guys like chase burns do. This is how, you know, you're dealing with someone who's got that, just that extra level of not just ability, but competitiveness. We think he punched out 15

or 16. It was again, it was one of those you walk out. Yeah, I saw thing I saw. It's one of those starts I'm going to talk about for years. So I get it. Is that what's swaying me? That's quite possible. The, the in person, the bias of just getting a better start from him than I got from Smith. Smith was good when I saw him, very good. Burns was on another level. Knowing that these guys are not quite on the same level as Polsky, it's unfair to expect them to be in the big leagues by this time next year. That's absurd. But I do think we're hitting a point where teams seem to trust pitching prospects a lot faster than they used to. And some of that comes back to, I mean, by all accounts, Wake Forest has an incredible pitching

lab, right? So if you are becoming a pro and you're spending time at Wake, you are learning at a very high level and you're going to be much more prepared for professional baseball than you would be going through some other programs out there that don't quite have the same setup or especially compared to high school arms who are so much further away. So I mean, I think this is this is kind of like, okay, in the long run, because spending time year over year in the minors, when you have major league caliber stuff or near major league caliber stuff is not good for your arm health. It's not good for your career.

It's not good for you as a pitcher, right? You're wasting maybe your some of your prime years potentially and not getting paid. So what's a reasonable timetable for Burns and Smith to actually be in the big leagues, not even knowing which organizations are going to turn to them because I think this is a league-wide shift where teams are being a lot more aggressive with pitching in part because it's a little easier to see what major league stuff looks like now. And I think they've also shortened up the development time because of the evolution of labs and the improvement of coaching and off season facilities that players now have

access to. I agree with everything you just said and maybe more strongly. I think, I actually think Smith and Burns, if healthy, are probably in the big leagues by the, by next year's draft. Like I think you take those guys. With the full intention that we're moving them fast. Like I just pulled up Rhett louder, who was the second pitcher taken last year. Uh, he got to double a by mid may had actually a couple of rough outings to

start now his last three outings have been much more Rhett louder, more strikes, more swing and miss fewer walks actually only walked to two now in his last three starts. He was giving up a lot of hard contact. And I think that's just the jumping level, right? Double A hitters are better. You can't just put stuff by them. Looks like he's already made an adjustment. I just talked to a scout the other day. You saw him and said, yeah, this guy's if he's not ready for the big leagues, he's super close to being ready for the big leagues. That's why you take those top end college starters, they should move, they should get to double a really quick, especially because a ball kind of stinks right now. The caliber

of a typical a ball lineup, high or low, she's not very high. If you're coming out of the eighties, ACC or SEC, it's not much of a challenge. And we got, we saw that with schemes, we're seeing it now with louder, we're seeing it with a lot of the advanced college starters, They're just ripping through we're seeing with guys who aren't even that good as college starters, but they can pitch and they can just dominate a ball line up. So they get to double A and the suddenly the reality bill has to be paid. But I think with Burns Smith, Tray is savage at East Carolina, who is probably going to be the third college starter taken he's another one where you're just moving them real fast you don't you know there's this mentality they don't have a ton of bullets so why have them wasted the miners potentially get hurt uh if they're that close to being ready we can work with them in the big leagues we can get them the big league with the big league coaching staff we can get value out of them sooner also the more you push them up the system

assuming they continue to perform, they have trade value. So if you're a contender, right, Cleveland's a contender, okay, they're not taking him. But hypothetically, you know, they could take a player now thinking we could trade him this offseason or we could trade him next year at the trade deadline, because if he's not in the majors, he's going to be super close. So I think this is a real shift where the top college starters are all going to move through the low miners very quickly. Maybe that's not getting to the big leagues within a year, although I think Burns and

Smith could do it. I think it's going to be getting them to AA or above within a year so that they're either on the cusp of helping the big league club or they've immediately established some trade value. Hello guys, I'm Ioann Chimoliero, host of the Athletic FC podcast, and I'm here to tell you about a mouthwatering summer of international football. The Copa America and European Championships kick off in mid-June and we're going to be covering both tournaments every step of the way. With the World Cup in the US just two years away, the Copper America is the US men's national team's chance to prove they can really compete with heavyweights

like Brazil and Argentina, while England will be hoping to go one better than their agonizing Euros final defeat last time out. So join me and the Athletics' unrivaled team of football reporters Monday to Friday, as we take you inside the biggest stories from the tournament with more than a sprinkle of transfer talk on top as well. Just search the athletic FC podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from.

How do hitters keep up? You know, there's so much more it seems like going into pitching developments that we're not trying to develop bats as well. It just seems like pitching is moving faster. Yeah, I agree. So what are position players supposed to do? We have these lofty expectations that guys that are 21, 22 years old are going to come up and hit some of the nastiest big league pitching we've ever seen. And it creates this disconnect where,

oh, well, White Lankford didn't just hit the ground running. Jackson Churio struggling a little bit. And big league teams have to find a balance. Like the contending teams especially, I think are in a really tough spot right now with their top prospects because, yeah, you're weighing your options within your organization. Who's the next outfielder on the depth chart, AAA,

that plays if Jackson Truro goes down? That player might be a quad A sort of guy. And then how important is it to get Jackson Truro's future optimized to the point of making sure he's challenged? If you send him down to AAA right now, where, correct me if I'm wrong, is this as bad as AAA has ever been? It was already trending in the wrong direction two or three years ago when we started doing the pods on Fridays, but it seems like it's as bad as it's ever been. So how do you fix someone? The Tigers are doing it with Spencer Torklson.

How do you fix Spencer Torklson at AAA against suboptimal pitching? It seems like an impossible ask right now. Yeah, it's AAA is not good. I mean, the miners just aren't good, right? The gap between, I've been, we had been talking about this for three years now. Yeah, it's AAA is not good. I mean, the miners just aren't good, right? The gap between I've been we had been talking about this for three years now. You know, and I can Rosenthal wrote a piece a couple weeks ago and it's nothing against Ken, but people are like, well, Ken wrote this. It's like, I've been saying this for years, like, because I go to the games, because I talk to the

people who go to the games, like we know this, it has gotten worse, it got worse after the pandemic, because more than anything else, because major league baseball eliminated all the short season leagues. And so a lot of those guys who would have been in short season leagues, but our prospects got pushed up into full season ball, squeezing out players who maybe weren't necessarily prospects, but improved the overall caliber of competition. Cause they were older, more experienced, wiser, had to find ways to continue to survive because they weren't as athletically gifted, for example. And that has actually tripled upwards all the way through the minors, where I think

all four of the full season levels are worse than they used to be. I think it's most pronounced at the lower levels, but yeah, it turns out AAA is not as good of a warm up practice. We need a runway to get someone to get a hitter, especially to the big leagues. And we're seeing this time and again, if you send Jackson Cheerio down, that's not going to do anything for him. He's going to go down and rake. Right? Jackson Holliday, I mean, I understand there were more factors there

in no small part because the Orioles have such a crazy surplus of position players who can hit. But I don't think Holliday is learning a whole lot now in AAA. He already showed he could hit at that level. Teams are going to have to get used to this idea that you're going to call up prospects. Even the best ones are going to struggle. They might struggle badly like Holliday did. You have to have a lot more patience than you did.

Be willing to give them more of a ramp to say, yeah, you might strike out half the time your first couple of weeks in the majors and that's okay. And it's not gonna get you sent down immediately. I think communicating that to the player is gonna be a big part of this. You know, and it isn't coming on the teams to know, okay, well, this guy's really,

he's never gonna figure it out and this guy is like there is there there are some decisions that have to be made within that context but We're seeing a lot of these top hitting prospects struggle on their first exposure to big league pitching because it's like nothing they've ever seen before and It's really nothing they've ever seen consistently before and And that is, yeah, causing a lot of them to struggle, even though I still think Wyatt Langford's gonna be a star, so Jackson Holliday's gonna be a star, so Churio's gonna be a star.

Turns out none of them's really had a great start to their big league careers this year. And that's, I think, an indicator of, I mean, in three of the top, what, six prospects in baseball coming into the year, I think that's an indicator of just how bad things are in the high minors. Yeah, and it might take a season or even a season and a half to make those adjustments instead of a month

or a half season. It used to take shorter windows of time for a lot of the top players, at least somewhat recently. That was the case, but I think it has changed because of the quality of pitching, among other things. Jackson Merrill is having a lot of success right now as a 21 year old who skipped triple A and only played 46 games at double A

and some of that was just by need. They needed someone who could play center field. So he moves off the dirt, plays center field, learns a new position defensively, comes up. He's always striking out 15% of the time. He's not getting to ton of power yet, but you'll take a 96 WRC plus from someone in their first half season against big league pitching with so little experience in the

upper levels of the minor leagues. This is a wildly successful outcome, even though it doesn't jump off the page and make you think he's a superstar right now. He still could develop into that type of player over time, given this foundation. Yeah, I would agree with that. And you mean, yeah, he's a below average hitter, right? That is that, I mean, he's interesting, he's a below average hitter, but because he can play centerfield, he's actually been playing it very well, which is really impressive for a guy who had basically no experience off the dirt. That makes him an average to maybe slightly above average player. I mean, he's birth, I just pulled up baseball reference. He's at a win and a half, a warning, one and a half war

so far this year. So, you know, even if he just maintains, he doesn't improve what you would like to think a young player, more exposure, he will start to improve. He's got to cut down. He's chasing a lot. I mean, that's, which is not terribly surprising, right? He hasn't seen a lot of pitching of this caliber before he's doing well when he stays within the zone. He's chasing, even if he cuts that down, I could see him having a much better second half. He might be a three war player as a rookie. That's a great, great outcome, particularly given how many of these guys have struggled.

Even guys who have had that upper miners experience facing the best pitching that the minor leagues have to offer. He didn't even get that and has managed to, like you said, have a pretty solid, you know, to be close to an average hitter with above average defense at a position up the middle, that adds up to a really good player. I'm sort of trying to put his hitting in context and at the same time, make sure I'm adequately addressing the fact that he is having a very good season overall. I was wondering if one of the counter adjustments for position players is spending more time

becoming above average defenders because that buys you time. If you're providing value in that facet of the game, your team can justify maybe two players in the lineup who are below average with the bat. But if they're above average with the glove and they do it at a premium position, that's OK. You don't need one through nine hitters to all be league average or better. That's an unrealistic expectation for a major league lineup at this point. The other guy I wanted to ask you about is Colt Keith because

he's hit everywhere he's played. And I think he's a great example of just the difficulty of making those adjustments. Even just looking at his numbers in May compared to the first month of the season, it seemed like things were starting to fall into place. It doesn't necessarily show up in the full season results just yet. Still not getting to the power, but he's not striking out that much. He's not chasing a ton of pitches outside the zone. I think the Tigers are in one of those spots where they can be a little more patient because they're not expected to be a playoff team this year. But what do you see in Colt Keith and what type of progression do you think we'll get from him as someone that really crushed pitching everywhere he played prior to his arrival?

Yes. And it's funny because he did have a great night. I had noticed a while ago. This is, you know, he's figuring some stuff out, right? That it's better contact quality is getting better results. And then he's one for 23 in June. So sorry, sorry, Colt. Sorry, we jumped the gun a little bit. Um,

what has surprised me, I guess a little bit, and we're still dealing with kind of modest samples. He is not striking out. He's not hitting the ball quite as hard as I expected. I think as he did in the high minors and cold Keith's, I remember talking to a scout a year ago and said, what do you got on Keith's position? Cause they were, I think this was around when there was like, well, he's third baseman, they're going to try him at second. The answer was his best position is batter's box, right? That guy just hits and he hits it hard. And he hasn't done a lot of that yet, which again, not concerned about the long term. I still think he's going to be fine. He'd be destroying AAA if he were down there, but it is, it's a lot,

it's a lot to catch up to big league stuff consistently. I think a lot of hitters also struggle to find that balance between not striking out too much, but also making hard contact. Very rare is the guy who doesn't strike out a lot, but also makes a lot of hard contact. Those are the superstars. Most guys aren't going to be like that. I think Keith and Merrill are both examples of guys who may have given up some hard contact to maintain contact rate, which can be a deliberate

approach, right? Just to keep yourself in the big leagues. Well, if I'm putting the ball in play, something can happen. If I'm striking out 40, 50% of the time, I get sent back to the minors like Jackson Holliday. So I can certainly understand that that might be put in both players cases. This might be a deliberate choice. In Colts case, I especially, I just don't think that that is who he is as a player in the long term. I mean, maybe five years from now, he becomes that player who doesn't strike out a lot, but has a lot of hard contact. I might actually say to him, Hey, you know what you're striking out. It's 18.3% of the time. Thank you. Baseball, Sevan. I'd be fine if you're striking out 24% of the time, hit a few balls

harder, swing a little hard. It's okay if you strike out. That's a hard thing for players who've probably never struggled in their lives, who get to the majors and they're experiencing real struggles for the first time. That's definitely true of Keith. That is definitely true of Jackson Holliday. When the heck has that kid ever struggled? And I do, I think it's hard. It's hard, especially on players to not change because you're like, well, this isn't working. I got to do something. It's no, no, no, just going to take time. You're going to have to get used to it. But especially if you're in a situation where you're like, I might get sent back to the minors. I

don't want to get sent back to the minors. Nobody wants to get sent back to the minors. So it is, it's a challenge and it's a coaching staff challenge as well as a challenge for the player themselves to make sure that not these are the things that got you here. Keep doing them. This will work out over time with more reps and more experience. Yeah. I think you layer on a pitcher friendly ballpark in the early part of the season too. That's a tough assignment.

Like hitting in Detroit in April and May is challenging. It was also a pretty cool spring as we've talked a lot about on this show. So you take that plus some other factors. I did actually hear, I was listening to the Effectively Wild podcast, they mentioned Pizza Cutter, Russell Carlton wrote an article about how a lot of the suppression and offense might be better positioned outfielders. So more fly balls just being turned into outs this year. And I had not thought about that at all. So that, you know, if you're wondering, hey, why this guy had power, he doesn't hit the ball into the ground too much. Like what's, what's going on? Why, why is everything down so low? That actually could be

part of the explanation. So something I got to check out in greater detail, but one explanation that I had previously not considered with all the rookie hitters, seemingly struggling, not all the guys like Colton Couser and Joey Ortiz, you deserve some flowers for that one, performing really well. Interesting that both of those guys were up last year, kind of up and down guys, now they're having success. I wonder if we're going to see some teams look at players like that and say, yeah, you know what, it's okay to demote players for a couple of weeks. It's okay to be an up and down guy your first year up on a good team.

Maybe in year two, everything will come together. The pitching has been really good. And it's not just Paul Skeens, but Paul Skeens could be a top ten starter in Major League Baseball already, Keith. I mean, he might be that good. Oh, I think he is. It reminds me of the Steven Strasburg arrival after a handful of starts. You could just say, OK, yep, he was as ready as people said.

And this is basically must see TV every time he takes the ball. Yeah, I think his arc from Grafton to now is more interesting than even than Strasburg's because. Strasburg was a four pitch guy coming out of college. He was as finished a product as a college starter as probably I've ever seen. Whereas Schemes basically did it with four seam or up to 102, but by his own acknowledgement, Pitch didn't have a ton of life or movement and a wipeout slider. And a lot of college hitters, if they didn't guess right, they would, you know, you're

trying to gear up for 102 and it's a slider that's like six feet away from you. You have no shot. And then he comes up with the Splinker, which obviously everybody's talked about quite a bit and it's, um, you know, that pitch is filthy on its own. He didn't have it last year. Like I saw him at LSU. He threw one change up and everything else was a four seam or a slider. So he adds this Splinker and he's throwing the change up more, which people

aren't talking about as much, but that's also useful because it gives him a real weapon against lefties. I think the splinker is also helping the four seamer become more effective. So now he's a real four pitch guy who's obviously got pretty good command, pretty good feel. Um, we actually interviewed him on the show I do on the stadium network and just hearing him talk about pitching. Oh, yeah This guy's there's a lot going on up there. This is really good You know, they don't you don't have to be that kind of guy to be a really good pitcher

But he is absolutely like that is one of those guys where it's like no I needed to fix this tiny thing and I did it Okay, you're terrifying also awesome good for the Pirates He's like, okay, you're terrifying. Also awesome. Good for the pirates. So I'm all in. Like I think, you know, now it's just one of those where it's like, oh God, please stay healthy as long as possible.

Cause I would like you to have a really long, successful career where I just get to watch you all the time. Like he, this is, to me, he's so fascinating because, you know, there wasn't, he wasn't clearly one at the time of the draft and the concerns were one, he's a pitcher. He's a pitcher, though, super hard. He'd actually only had one year where he was that sort of pitcher after he transferred from air force. And it was, yeah, he was a two pitch guy. It's like, well, he's going to have things

he has to work on. And he just disappears through the off season. He comes back. It's like, no, I'm done. What the heck? Who does that? And also where did you go? So we can send some other pitchers there to do the same thing. Yeah. We'd love to make more pitch pictures like Paul Skeen's. That would be phenomenal. Yes, please. Even before the Skeen's arrival, I think the arrival of Jared Jones and the success he's had. I love that one. I mean, I think plenty of people here liked Jared Jones. He was someone that, you know, talked about a lot last year,

had a lot of success at AA, spent more of a season at AAA. If you just look at the full arc of Jared Jones's time in the minor leagues, improved control is one thing that sort of jumps off the page just by the number scouting. He's always been able to get whiffs. Swing strike rates consistently good everywhere. What do you think it is that's enabled him to become better at avoiding free passes as he's moved up and seeing a career best walk rate from a pitcher against top level hitters is kind of mind blowing for me. I'm really impressed that that facet of his game reached this level this quickly, a 6% walk rate and almost 75 innings. That's excellent.

Yes, it is. He's one of my favorite sort of scouting and development stories of the year because. You with all this talk in the spring about that to me, Tommy John surgeries, what are we doing wrong? But one big thing is we gotta stop encouraging. Incentivizing teenagers. incentivizing teenagers and throwing as hard as they possibly can. Jared Jones is the old school. He threw reasonably hard as a high school prospect, but nowhere near as hard as he does now. He was very much the, we're going to take an athletic, rejectable high school pitcher and we're going to wait.

We're going to take our time and we're going to let him develop kind of at his own pace. And a lot of really good big league starters have followed that path. And yet we still in the draft, right? Who are we talking about going in the first chance? All the guys who throw 97 at age 18, they don't all get hurt. I understand. I'm not saying that that's like, Oh, you can't take the guy who threw super hard, but now look, look for the other guys too.

The guys who are athletes, the guys who have good deliveries, the guys who show real good command or have a particularly good secondary pitch, love a high school or with a great change up, they don't all work out, but there aren't a lot of them. And they're pretty, you know, that to me, that says something not, not just about their arms, but about their, their mentality and their ability to pitch their field to pitch. And to me, Jones is one of those. Like we should, we want more of those stories, right?

That's a great scouting and player development story where he got better in a lot of ways almost every year. You can see a lot of gradual progress, gradual progress. And then it was this year that he took that final leap, right? Starting harder, starting more strikes. You know, I think he looks a little stronger this year. You know, I'd be curious if he actually put on waiter, if this is just, I don't know, maybe big league cameras at 10 pounds.

I don't know. I just watching him. So his first start, it was the start where he got yanked after throwing like 10 pitches and they're like, now you're done for the day. You know what I'm talking about? Where it's like, wait, he, even he afterwards, like, I don't know what happened, but that was one where it's like, Oh man, like I, I still have such a clear memory of seeing him in high school and being, that's pretty interesting it's like, oh man, like I still have such a clear memory of seeing

him in high school and being, that's pretty interesting. I like that. I think I said he was a second or third rounder, which is a shit that he went in the second round. Like I didn't think he was going to become this, but it's like, yeah, this is a category of player that good player to the good teams, good player development systems want and work with. And, you know, again, I can't praise the Pirates enough for what they did.

Pirates fans will tell you, we don't develop anybody. Actually, you got two guys in your rotation, you developed pretty well. So maybe give your guys a little bit of credit here. And Jones to me in particular is just, it makes me happy on like a fundamental level. Like, no, no, no, we can still do this. The old model of developing high school pictures into big league starters in a

way that not only helps them become successful, but gives them a better chance to stay healthy that's still there. Even if we're often sort of chasing velocity more than we should as an industry or paying it more than we should actually think is a bigger issue. If the, if we weren't paying those guys more for throwing harder, they wouldn't try to throw as hard. Yeah, that's very true. And if it didn't work, I mean,

throwing harder gets you more strikeouts, strikeouts gets you paid. Like it's the process too. This is an organization that maybe is turning a corner in that regard. I think Jones is a great example of it. Skeens seemingly has a little more on his own in terms of like what he did, the way you were describing how he came back this off season with a better plan, more pitches,

knowing that what he was doing in college wasn't going to work. I don't know how much credit the Pirates get for that, but I think they do get a lot of credit for Jared Jones and deservedly so, but they have more on the way. They have Bubba Chandler, they have Anthony Solomito, they have Thomas Harrington. Things kind of look like they're trending in the right direction in Pittsburgh. And if this isn't, if they can become that sort of organization that turns out high quality starting pitching,

that changes everything about their short and long-term future. Yes, and I also think then at some point they're gonna have to say, all right, we need to go get it back. All right, because that is one thing I would argue. They have not done a great job of developing. And I think this crosses regimes too. This goes back to previous to the bench, Harrington regime where they're, they just have not figured out how to develop power, particularly,

you know, the previous regime really preached contact and I've, I've, I won't belabor the point, but I do think it held back some of the prospects they had. Some guys who never panned out, even guys like Cabrion Hayes where it's, this guy should have more power. He was going to be elite power, but he should have more power than he does. You know, that to me, they may just have to go outside the organization at some point, whether it's trade or free agent. I can't believe I almost said that without laughing.

Well, yeah, it's just not, it's not something we've seen the Bob nutting pirates do. Nope, nope, no, he's got to cash those revenue sharing checks, right? It's a lot of work, man. Long walk to the bank. It is, it is. Well, you know, he's got to carry the suitcase full of cash up to the seven Springs casino, I guess. They're going to end up at a point pretty soon.

I mean, they're kind of in the wild card race now because everyone is, you are, I guess they're going to end up at a point pretty soon. I mean, they're kind of in the wild card race now, cause everyone is you are, I am Joshin wrote, I don't know if you saw his newsletter today. He's like the whole, and almost the entire NL is separated by like two games. It's ridiculous right now. So maybe this is their year. Maybe it's one more year, but at some point they're going to have to say, we got to go get a bat.

We got to go to a thumper for somewhere in the middle of the lineup. And I think that probably changes their outlook quite a bit. And they will think have some pitching depth to be able to trade from and Chandler is the one I've seen Chandler and you know, he had a disaster outing about a month ago and they skipped his next start wasn't serious, but they were, I think it was a reset. Something didn't feel quite right. And I said three pretty good starts since then. I mean, the way the ball comes out of his hand, you've got to see the fast ball. It is, I mean, that fast ball is to say it has life is kind of understating. Like it is teaming with life. It is crazy.

And he's got to change up. That's really good. And he's got two breaking balls. I think he's still trying to figure out. It's a lot of command and consistency. And for folks who don't know, he was both a two-way player and a real two-way prospect in high school who was also committed to Clemson,

I believe, to play quarterback. So he came in, I think, way less polished as a pitcher. And it's almost like his stuff is just, you know, I worry about the Tiki Toussaint problem where the stuff is so good. And he just kind of never figures it out. He never manages to get the consistency. The stuff moves so much. But you all I always want players like that. And Chandler is one where it's like, like, go see Bubba Chandler tonight. Yeah, I absolutely want to go see Bubba Chandler. It's not even to evaluate him. It's just because it's fun to watch what he can do with the baseball. And it's fun to like, go see Bubba Chandler tonight. Yeah, I absolutely want to go see Bubba Chandler. It's not even to evaluate him. It's just because it's fun to watch what he can do

with the baseball and hit and it's fun to watch hitters try to react to it. They're like, what the heck? How the heck that ball was supposed to be here and it's here and I don't know what happened. Oh, by the way, it was 96. It is. He's pretty exciting. And to me, he's the one guy in that whole system of all those pitchers where I'd be like, no, we're hanging on to this one. But we'll we'll trade it pretty much anyone else. They got some other guys. You put another package together, some of their

other guys to go get that thumper. I don't know. Pirates fans may disagree that that's what they need, but I think that's probably the best thing for them to go after. And it's also easier to go. It's hard to go out and trade for pitching. The price for pitching is always really high. Price for a corner bat with some power can find those guys. You know, they just have to get out of this rowdy, tell as Vogelbach, right? They need to go one tier up from that. Stop playing with those guys. They're going to have to put some money into it and say, all right,

this is what we're going to do. Go get a guy who's where it's now. It's now power. We're paying for him right now, even if it's a little more short term, which is just not the way they've operated as a franchise. This has nothing to do with any front office. Just not the way the club's been run for about, I don't know, it was about 10 years.

Might be a little less than that, but it's been a while. Yeah, the Pirates caught a little bit of a bad break, right? I mean, they were, I think, knocked out of the wild card game consecutive years in their last two played appearances. So they drew a short straw for sure, as far as getting to the postseason and being an elimination game right away and not having that work out so their last window Didn't bear much fruit I guess the three consecutive appearances it lost in the divisional series in five in 2013 before two

Wild-card exits in 14 15 14 and 15 the last two playoff appearances. They were one and they're due. They're due to give back It's not this year. It's next year And look I think if you can only develop one of those things, developing pitching right now is the way to go because you will find it easy. It's inexpensive to find bats, relatively speaking. I know everybody right now wants to pick the carcass,

so to speak, of the white socks and try to extract as much of current talent off that roster as possible. Save those guys. Save Luis Robert. Save Eric Fetty and Garrett Crochet. Get them onto teams that could go to the playoffs in the next two or three seasons. Do you think Luis Robert makes sense for Pittsburgh? I've seen his name linked to pretty much any team in need of an outfielder.

I just think he's intriguing because we saw the ceiling last year, but frustrating because we've seen the downside and the difficulty staying healthy and the hip injury came back again this year. It's the second time he's done with a hip problem. So I can see the case for it, but it's an awfully high risk, high reward sort of player to go after, even though the player options on his contract, it's not, not at all cost prohibitive. It's just gonna be extremely expensive in terms of prospects. He's a fit for everybody, right? If you need a bat, he's a fit. He's gonna cost a lot in terms of prospects and he is injury pro. And there's some volatility in the performance, but I think you're just gonna have to live with that. I mean, there's who else is really out there as an impact

bat, particularly who's right. He has one more year. He's not a rental, not a rental. So that's but I think you're just gonna have to live with that. I mean, who else is really out there as an impact that particularly who's right, he has one more year. He's not a rental. Not a rental. So that's why I think a team like the Pirates might be into that. It might be more interesting. It's 20 million dollar team options in 26 and 27.

Oh, I'm sorry. He has way more control than I realized. I thought he had one year and then, yeah. So that's actually even more appealing, but also that's why the price is gonna be through the roof. Right? I think, so I think it was John Greenberg did a thing. I saw it was a video was, I don't think he wrote it

where he was arguing that the White Sox should keep Robert in crochet. And I'm like, no, you should trade those guys immediately. I totally disagree. Like, because first of all, crochet has been healthy for 20 minutes. Like he's been one of the best pitchers in the American league right now, but oh my God, this guy has already had serious injury history going back to before he was even drafted. So I

absolutely am not banking on him. Also, Robert, he's a superstar when he's at his best and fully healthy, but there's volatility in the performance and he's been hurt a lot going all the way back to the minors. It was a running joke among with my readers where I never saw Robert get a hit in the miners because half the time I went to see him he was hurt. I would like show up at the ballpark and be like, why isn't he playing? Like, oh, he got scratched from the lineup because he's hurt. Or I'd see him go over. And I mean, mostly that was humor, but the truth is he was hurt a lot and he is likely to continue to get hurt a lot.

So it's another one. Like I don't think he is a similar to crochet. I mean, you're not building the whole roster around him. If he's, if you think of the rosters, you've got your core players, you know, where you're absolutely building around, sign them to the long-term deal. They're there forever. He's in the next circle outside of that. Really great player, especially when he's healthy and he's on, but I don't know that you can bank on him to be healthy and effective for full seasons the way you might need an absolute core player to be.

But maybe you trade Crochet, Robert, Eric Fetty, you would think would have a lot of value right now. And you get one of those core players somewhere in return. Maybe it's prospect at that point, but somebody who could end up one of those core players. Like that to me is the approach that I would take right now. And could the pirates give them enough for Luis Robert? I don't know. I wonder. I think the pirates could beat a lot of teams offers, but they can't match. This just came up the other day. Cause I was on San Diego radio with Darren Smith. Padres are not going to match Orioles, the Dodgers, the Mariners. There are a couple of teams out there that have pretty good stables of high end prospects where they could kind of beat any trade offer.

Like I'm not, if I find out that Mike Elias is on the other line, I'm like, I fold, they just have got, they traded Joey Ortiz who could, you know, he's in the rookie of the year race in the other line. I'm like, I fold. They just have got, they traded Joey Ortiz who could, he's in the rookie of the year race in the national league. And I don't know if the Orioles have noticed that he's gone yet. No, it has not impacted them in any meaningful way. I mean, with Jorge Mateo on the concussion IL for a week, I guess maybe that would have been a time where Joey Ortiz would have played a little bit more for them. But yeah, they've, they've definitely benefited more from having Corbin Burns there than having Joy Ortiz as a bit of a spare part. Worked out great for both sides, right? We love it.

Yeah. So far, so good for both sides of that deal. Padres are pretty interesting because they don't necessarily have to shop in the most expensive bin, but clearly there's still interest in adding to this roster. And it seems like it's going to be more likely in the rotation if it is somewhat splashy at and they were the team linked to crochet. The hardest thing about Garrett crochet though, like where do you go with his workload? This is a problem because he's going to be 25 in a couple of weeks. You do think about his health today, future health.

You do think at a certain point, you just got to let it happen as far as the workload goes. And I know there are tech driven ways to monitor workload and fatigue. You can watch and see where the Velo and spin and different things are going. What kind of 2024 expectation does a contending team have if they trade for Garrett Crochet? I can totally understand wanting to have his development in your own hands. If you want to trade for him

for these next couple of seasons, you want to control what happens to him in 2024, but are you shifting him into a short relief role or a multi-inning relief role in August, just to kind of keep the innings in the 120 to 130 range, and then you say next year,'s a regular starter and as long as everything's good we're just not holding him back anymore? So this may surprise people but I am of the opinion that you are going to if you trade for crochet this would be different for the white

socks right because he is very much a long-term play for them. His contract or his contract status is a long-term asset. So if you trade for crochet, because you're contending this year, I would be inclined to say, and I think you, you handle, there's a way you handle this with the player, the agent, if you feel up to it, you're going to keep pitching. And I might say to him, look, we're going to put you in, you know, we're going to guarantee some money. He's arbitration eligible next year, I believe for the first time. So, you know, we'll you compensate him and say, look, we're going to guarantee or maybe you say we'll give you

contract that covers the next couple of years so that, you know, recognizing that if the way we use you does result in some kind of overuse of fatigue related injury that you're paid, I mean, he's 25, he's already broken multiple times. I believe it was a shoulder issue in college. You had Tommy John in this 2022. Um, you know, if your argument is, well, we, you know, you can't pitch that much more than he's ever pitched before. Too late. He's already pitched more this year than he has in any professional season. Um, he's at 75 innings now. He's never, I mean, that's 20 something

innings above his previous heights more than he ever pitched in any single calendar year while he was an amateur, or at least in college, high school could be, but this guy broke a lot. So I would be of the opinion that if the player says he feels fine, if the trainer's doctors are like, he seems fine, you pitch him until he's like, all right, something's wrong. I feel fatigue or you see the stuff start to decline, then you back off. As opposed to saying we're arbitrarily going to say this is the number, the Stephen Strasburg thing. Let's go. Let's close our podcast where we began, right? On the Fox, Stephen Strasburg, where do to me,

the idea that we're just gonna say, we're gonna get to 120. We're gonna stop. I mean, look, I can pull numbers out of that particular orifice as well. But there's no, let's not pretend there's any science behind it. That so-called for did she effect turned out to be a whole lot of BS. There was absolutely nothing to back it up. And in this case, I would just very much say, if you're acquiring crochet, because you're cont And in this case, I would just very much say, if you're acquiring crochet because you're contending, I would want to be responsible to the player too, but also say, we want you to pitch. And as long as you're good with it

and your body is saying you're good with it, let's make sure we're all on the same page here, but we will allow you to continue to pitch. Maybe you pitch them a little less within games. But I do not like the idea of saying, we're going to bring you in, but we're going to shut you down. We're going to put you in the bullpen. But guess what? Putting a guy in the bullpen doesn't necessarily save anything, especially if do not like the idea of saying, we're gonna bring you in, but we're gonna shut you down. We're gonna put you in the bullpen. But guess what?

Putting a guy in the bullpen doesn't necessarily save anything, especially if he goes to the bullpen and says, we're gonna throw as hard as I can now. That's not the answer either. I would much rather say, we're gonna acquire you with the attention of continuing to use you as long as it works for you. As long as we're not seeing deterioration in stuff

or quality of stuff. And as long as you are not experiencing thick pain, discomfort or fatigue, we can continue to pitch you. I'd say this very differently if we're talking about a 19 year old amateur player, but crochet has already paid something. And I would like to see in that situation, certainly if I were the GM, I'd say like, we're going to, let's figure out what your salary is for next year. We'll just guarantee it. So God forbid you do blow out. You're paid no matter what. So, you know, you're, you at least have that comfort level and hopefully that gives the player more incentive to speak up and say, Hey, my shoulders a little sore.

I'm going to need some time. Great. We're all on the same page here. We're working towards the same goal. Yeah. You got to make it more mutually beneficial. I want to throw White Sox fans some reason to be optimistic because it seems like it's just only negative.

It's been a brutal season for them and well, they really, those fans deserve better to watch. I mean, look, you could watch Noah Schultz, right? Pull up a MLB TV and turn him on. Yeah. Freaking took him out of my league. I was going like, Oh, when does Winston Salem come through Wilmington? I mean, he deserved it.

He's another one, man. If that guy stays healthy. Cause he finished last year on the shelf with a little bit of a tired shoulder. I think they handled that one brilliantly. And a buddy of mine who saw him earlier this year was like, this is like, this is some Randy, Randy Johnson ish going on here. Like he might be a top 20 prospect in all of baseball, which I think is about where I had him actually after doing that update a week or so ago.

Yeah. It's six, nine, the ball looks like it's being released about two feet from the plate. He's got the slider. He's got velocity. It's health and some, you know, the little, the little things you want these high school guys to develop. But credit to the White Sox credits of Mike Shirley scouting staff all the way on up. That looks like an absolute home run of a pick for them. Yeah. I wonder what it would take for them internally as far as like seeing enough growth in their system from Schultz and a few other players to convince themselves that holding

on to crochet and or Luis Robert ends up being a good idea. Right. Because of the distance in which you have them into the future is far enough where if you believe in your development, you could start to talk yourself into holding them if you don't like the offers you're getting from other clubs. And would you agree though that, I understand why you're grouping these guys together, I'm not arguing with you,

but Robert is the guy you keep of those two? Yes. Like Crochet, just cause he's a pitcher, cause he's broken before, before multiple times Robert is the guy it's like if you said all right well we want to keep one to me that's a no brainer and it's Robert but then you could trade and you got to trade Feddy right that is yeah the most obvious if we could for him too like right I'm sure he's he's pitching great and this is such a great outcome for him but also like who wouldn't want to contend at this point, right?

Go, let me go pitch for Keegan. According to Sheehan again, he said in his newsletter today, he could start a playoff game. I was like, yeah, he could for almost every club actually. Right. Which is funny to think that's a guy who basically washed out of professional, but rather major league baseball and had to go pitch in Korea comes back a new guy and it's no, actually he'd be a two or three starter on almost every contender right now.

So, you know, maybe trading a FETI gets you one more core position player. To put next to Robert, they pick third in the draft this year. Nah, no, it's not third. They're sixth Colorado's third. They're on some similar players. That's why I did that. But maybe you get another guy like that, right? You can see ways they can start to put those

people can't see my hands, right? But you can start to put some of those pieces in place and fill out the roster. There's a way you can do that that you keep Luis Rob. Of course, Chris Gatz could also just say, I'll take offers on Luis Robert. I don't got to trade him. Right. And that's the truth, right? Somebody wants to offer me the Herschel Walker package. Great. I'm all in. Love the 80s trade references.

Wrong sport, wrong decade. It works for a lot of people though, because that was a franchise altering move and it would be, right? That's what the White Sox need to do. They need a lot in one big move. They need their version of the Juan Soto trade. Like the Nationals are gonna be back

to some sort of competitive level a lot sooner because they Soto trade. Like the nationals are going to be back to some sort of competitive level a lot sooner because they crushed that trade. I mean, they crushed that trade. James Wood, the best case outcome looks like it's starting to play out for him. He was another one of the risers in your updated rankings up to five.

Because of what he did, right? Let's give absolute clear credit where it's due. Last year, as good a year as he had, up to five because of what he did. Right. Let's give absolute clear credit where it's due last year. As good a year as he had, there were clear deficiencies, particularly sliders in the lower third of the zone and below the zone. He is six, six pushing six, seven. He had a hard time covering the entire strike zone. Like a lot of those taller hitters do look at what he's done in AAA this year.

You can look, especially if you dig into some of the stack cast data, because we now have that for AAA. I actually haven't seen him live. I've seen a fair bit of video. It's different. Like he has absolutely closed that. He's going to get to the majors. He's going to have to make that adjustment again. Like we talked about the top of this conversation, but I am so much more optimistic about his ability to make those adjustments. This is everyone's like, what's Aaron judge? Aaron judge figured out Aaron judge made those adjustments at every level. He would get to a new level. Pitchers would attack him in a new way, and he would make the adjustment.

The good hitters do that. And James would by moving up another level, he didn't even play great at double at the end of last year, they moved him up to triple A. He made the adjustment. That says to me, that's a star that he is going to be a star. Yeah, impressive. And with the K rate jumping up to 33% at double A, they recognize the adjustments gave him the promotion up a level anyway, didn't make him go back to double A, especially given the age to level, they could have justified that at least initially and geez, a 56.9% hard hit rate

at triple A this year. Yeah, that's fine. I got it. It's loud. I mean, when he started the year in Wilmington last year and there was, I remember there's one game where I saw the bad strikeout because there's fastball up and sliders down because that was the book. But he also hit one out that was like, I think that hurt my ears.

Like he is just, and he can run. He gets consistently underrated for how fast he is. When he gets going out of the box, it is real, like you're like, I didn't think someone that big could move like that. And I think he's going to surprise a lot of people. Even there are people in the national system were like, we don't think he can stay in center field. And this is just opinions, right? I'm not burying anybody. I am not moving that guy out of center until he absolutely has to, because he can run and he gets good reads. I've seen him play really good defense in center. This guy's got a chance to be an all around both sides of the ball superstar. Good job by the Padres taking him because obviously this is long history. I was one of many

people couldn't believe the money they gave him or where they picked him. And good job by the Nationals for buying in and saying, no, this is the kind of upside we can't get enough of. And that trade is eight. And it's a franchise altering trade for them right now. It looks a tremendous return for the Nationals. Yeah, and at the time when they did it and they were doing that tear down, I mean, they were criticized just because,

hey, like, what are you giving up? How are you giving away Juan Soto for anything? For a bunch of prospects. You know, sometimes Bryce Harper was a prospect once. He's OK. I think they also just caught a team willing to give a lot of talent to the Padres or a willing participant on the other side. There's so few teams that are comfortable making a deal like that. It's almost a perfect storm.

And I've wondered for a while, would it be better to have a few more teams that operate the way AJ Preller does? Like the, let's go, let's try. Like, cause it creates something on the other end too. It creates action for another franchise, having a willing trade partner that will do more than the typical team. And whatever people think about AJ Preller,

dude wants to win. Absolutely determined to win. or the new typical team. And whatever people think about AJ Preller, dude wants to win. Absolutely determined to win. Can I do something today to make my team better? I'm not saying other GMs don't wanna win, but he will, whatever it takes. And he is, right, there is, it's almost like the inhibition part

of his prefrontal cortex has just turned down a little bit. You can't trade those prospects. The hell I can't. I'll just get more. Yes. That's the right mindset. Good. I'll go find more.

I want more executives like that. It's fun, it's interesting. If I were still a fan of an individual team, I would be very happy being a fan of it. Being a fan of the Padres right now, because look, if there's something AJ can do to make this team better, he's going to do it. He's going to be involved in every trade conversation. I might not like all the trades, but he's going to do something. I would rather that than the guy who doesn't make the move,

right? The guy who refuses to, I can't part with these prospects. Look, you got to win. You got to try to win. The windows are short. You got to do it when you can. Absolutely. Well, Keith, we really appreciate you joining me on the show today. Still out there on Twitter at Keith Law. You got a lot of great stuff coming up at the Athletic with the next mock draft dropping next week. Next week. I think we're shooting for Wednesday of next week.

About this time next week, we should have that available. Theathletic.com slash rates and barrels gets you a subscription if you don't have one already that is going to do it for this episode of rates and barrels but back with you on Thursday. Hello guys, I'm Ioan Kimmolere, host of the Athletic FC podcast, and I'm here to tell you about a mouth-watering summer of international football. The Copa America and European Championships kick off in mid-June, and we're going to be covering both tournaments every step of the way. With the World Cup in the US just two years away, the Copa America is the US men's national team's chance to prove they can really compete with heavyweights like Brazil and Argentina, while England will be hoping to go one better than their agonising Euros final defeat last time out. So join me and the Athletics unrivaled team of football reporters Monday to Friday as

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