Rates & Barrels - Young hitters and their swing paths

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

Eno and Jed discuss the big baseball news of the day and they do a big breakdown of some young hitters and their swing pathsRundownRonel Blanco to have Tommy John SurgeryMiguel Amaya out 4-6 weeks with an obliqueBryce Harper hit by pitch in TJ elbow and leaves gameCorey Seager is back for Texas, but are the Rangers still in it?Junior Caminero hitter breakdownNoelvi Marte hitter breakdownChase Meidroth hitter breakdownAndy Pages hitter breakdownKristian Campbell hitter breakdownBrett Baty hitter breakdownFollow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.socialFollow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.sociale-mail: [e-mail] our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFeSubscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrelsHosts: Eno Sarris & Jed LowrieExecutive Producer: Brian Sith Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it? It's the best deal, the highest cash back, the most savings on your shopping. So join Rakuten and start getting cash back at Uniqlo, Best Buy, Expedia, and other stores you love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at Rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. Rakuten.ca. Welcome to another episode of Rates and Barrels. We do not have the sultry voice of Derek Van Riper to guide us today. We are going to do our best. I will bungle along and Jed Lowry is here to help me as I bungle. Thank you so much, Jed.

Happy to bungle with you. You were at some, you said there was a sort of a, a stressful volleyball game. Was it a volleyball game that you were attending over the weekend? Was it, uh, was it, uh, high stakes? Those youth volleyball tournaments, my, you know, 12 you is like, it means nothing and it means everything. Uh, like I, like, I means nothing and it means everything. I like, I don't think the anxiety level is any higher for parents when you're watching your kids compete. It's a lot of fun. And at the end of the day, right, you know, no matter what the outcome is, you know,

you just got to make sure you remind remind them how much you love them and how great they did. Yeah, it's so crazy. Uh, we had an end of year scrimmage for my eldest who, you know, he's in juniors, which is like the level past. It's like a 13 under baseball. Yeah, it's a scrimmage. It means nothing. It's like an inner city scrimmage. So it's like all the, you know, the Palo Alto team's coming. It's a potluck. We're supposed to be hanging out. But my son gets the news that he's the starter. And you know he doesn't got a lot of chances to pitch this year so I'm I'm trying very hard not to be up at the fence and not to be yelling a lot of

stuff and you know I know he's his stomach is already you know kind of churning and so I know that I know that he's worried. And so I'm just trying to be supportive and engaged and try not to look like it. I'm as tense as I am. And I, I probably looked pretty tense. Yeah. I was just going to say, good, good luck with that. Good luck with that. Cause I will, I will say, you know, like the body language, you know, I think that's where big league managers really, the good ones have figured that out, you know, and I'm starting to figure that out too, is like, you know, your kids, they're picking up on every little body language, like, you know, if disappointment, excitement, I was

just going to say good luck with controlling your own emotions. Cause they, they all also feed off of that seemingly. Yeah. So he had a, he had a good, uh, he had a good ending. He gave up a, he gave up a blast, but happens to the best of them. One and he did better than the other pitcher did in the first inning. And, uh, he got his outs and there you go. He had a comeback or that, uh, that he had to kind of matrix his way out of. So made the play, play or just didn't get didn't get hit the play was made guys the pitcher So it kind of was going past and fast by the mound What was funny was he threw harder? after that

I got him fired up a little bit So anyway, let's get to we got some news and then we are going to get to five, six young hitters that have not quite established themselves. We're going to try and use some of the new bat shape metrics and just what we see and what we think about maybe their long-term futures, I guess. They're a little bit different. Each of them different sort of combination of skills in terms of how tilted they are, how much loft they can get. They all pretty much have bad speed except for one of them,

but we'll get to those guys. First, just a couple of pieces of news around the big leagues. We got the news on Ranelle Blanco's elbow and it's not good. He's gonna miss the year. I did have a question for you. So they have this starter in Colton Gordon, who is a little bit, reminds me a little bit like Bubic.

He's like this, he's a lefty that has a big breaking ball and it's like a slow, it's a slow, you know, mid 70s breaking ball that he can locate really well. And what I've noticed with both Bubic and Gordon is, I feel like a lot of right-handers give up on that pitch. You know, it's backdoor-ish because it's so big. It'll end up maybe in the middle of zone. So it's not like a backdoor that's just barely getting the zone. It's just I feel like they give up on it because it looks so big and it

looks so slow that, you know, they're like this is not a strike and he's able to land it for strikes and Bubic has done a lot with that as as part of his arsenal did you I guess you didn't really as a switch you would have yeah you would have been right-handed facing this what if you faced like big slow breaking balls did you ever feel like you just gave up on them too early sometimes especially the first couple times you face a guy. I think that's where those guys, you know, the long-term success of guys like that is really just playing with eye levels. You're trying to entice those guys to go up there and do more, right, against a guy like that.

Like, oh, I haven't seen a guy throwing 92 in a month, you know? And so, so, so, you know, you're, you, you think you're going up there. I mean, it's like Mark Burley, right? It's like these guys that you never really feel uncomfortable against, but you walk, you know, the end of the game, you look back and you're like, how did I just get out four times? And it's because of, you know, that execution. I mean, Mark Burley was the, Mark Barley was the prime example of that, a guy that you never really felt uncomfortable,

but he always got you out. It was doubly frustrating because of that. But that just goes to the man's ability to know what makes him good, execute, and then just get guys out. And I think there's a lot of value in that. So this guy, like you said, boob- bitch, moving the ball around, changing eye levels, feeding off of feeding off of the energy that that guys are coming up against them, you know, using that against them.

Yeah, and Boo, which is, you know, maybe it's maybe it's important. He's a little bit faster with his sweepers at eight three, but Boo, which is the model for me for Gordon, which is that, you know, even though you're throwing a pitch that supposedly has bad platoon splits, you can have some success throwing them by kind of using that back door a little bit and using the batter's tendency against them to sort of give up on that pitch. The other news that we've got is Miguel Amaya is out four to six weeks with an oblique injury. It's a little bit of a shame because the Cubs catching tandem had really

been so great this year. Carson Kelly has really found something at age 30. He's, you know, just having his best numbers supported by his best barrel rates and hard hit rates and even his best strikeout rates. So it's a real combination of things that came together. You had a couple of years where you step back, I think probably a lot of times it was injury, but when things came together later in your career, was it usually one thing or was it just sort of an accumulation of factors that kind of came together to produce some of those? I always think of of factors that kind of came together to produce some of those? I always think of it as like when you came back to Oakland.

Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of it had to do with health, you know, and having a healthy off season. You know, for me, it was all about just being able to be available and stay on the field and avoid injury. I dealt with my fair share of, you know, unique injuries and like collision type injuries that are not as common in baseball, as opposed to, you know, basketball or football.

But yeah, I think it was just a matter of, you know, having a healthy off season, feeling strong going into the season, and then, you know, being able to stay on the field. And I'm happy for Carson as a first time all-star at 34 years old. It's good to see guys that are still at that age using the knowledge that they've gained

and finding ways to still produce. Yeah, there's not too much in his bat metrics that says that he made a huge change. One thing that he did was spread out a little bit more, but he's done that before. The bat speed is up a little bit. And I would just say that that's probably due to maybe even regular at bats as being a part of it is just, you know, step in the box knowing you're going to get another at

bat after that in the next day. So I think they won't miss a beat necessarily, but I still like Amaya as one of the better young catchers in the game. Bryce Harper got hit in the elbow that he got TJ surgery on. They're saying that there's nothing broken, but when you got a jolted in some place

that you'd been dealing with pain over the past, you'd had surgery on, it hurt more. Of course. I remember my first at bat back from, I tore him with the UCL on my right thumb. And my first at bat back was Clayton Kershaw. So I'm hitting right-handed. The bat is sitting in that surgically repaired thumb against a guy who is just pounding me in with cutters. That was one of the more uncomfortable at bats. I think I've had in my career, just, just like the level of trust too.

I think Bryce is probably on the other side of, you know, feeling comfortable and confident in the actual structural integrity of, of that repair, just based on the way that he's swinging the bat. And, and I'm not as concerned. I think it's just making sure that, you know, the inflammation and, um, you know, the stiffness, you know, doesn't affect that. And you hope that there's no confidence that was changed in his ability to, you know, to move with that arm, that surgically repaired arm.

This is a guy who is highly successful, very confident in his abilities, and so I don't have any long-term concern, obviously. Assuming there's no micro fracture or anything like that that didn't show up on the initial x-ray that would prolong it, assuming that it is structurally sound from a bone perspective, I wouldn't be too concerned.

But even when he comes back, there's being a little bit of swelling. So it may not be like necessarily his best week. Yeah, no, I would. Yeah, depending on how long they give him to, you know, kind of feel, feel confident in it. And to get the swelling down. I think that's a fair statement. Course Seeger is back for the Rangers. And you know, one thing that we've been talking about a little bit with Corey Seeger is that his injuries seem to be around the middle of his body. He's had a lot of hamstring and abdominal core hernia. He's had, I think he's had two hernia surgeries.

Obviously, his team is thinking about it. And you know, and I mean, when I say team, I mean not only his actual team, but probably his personal group of trainers and people he works with. Did you ever have a hernia injury? Thankfully, no. Yeah. One of the ones I didn't.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, anytime you start getting, you know, into core and groin and hamstring stuff, those are the types of things that can linger. And you look at the body of work, he's 31, played in a thousand games and started at 21. There is a little bit of a workload that you start thinking, are some of these going to

start adding up? Obviously insanely talented. Have they been adding up, obviously insanely talented. Or have they been adding up? Yeah, right. And we're just starting to see the body of work catch up with him. But like I said, it's 4,500 plate appearances in the big league.

It's a big workload. It's not a lot, I will say. So I think this is some of these things that he's just gonna have to manage. I mean, towards the end of my career, I just realized how much extra time it took to get ready on a day-to-day basis. So, you know, I think as he moves into the later part.

What did you do to keep your core, is it loose is the word, or do you keep your hamstrings loose? Core is stable, you know, stability, a lot of rotation, just in terms of treatment, you know, making sure that, that you're, you know, showing up and, you know, treating the bumps and bruises to make sure that they don't get worse and just managing your body. Uh, I always found later in my career, the, the, the recovery was really the, the challenging part.

And so those day games after night games became exponentially harder as you got older. So I think it's just it's probably you know, the Rangers re-evaluate. What does that recovery look like? Are you taking an ice bath? Are you getting massaged? Like what do you what all of it? I'm all the above. You know, I think for me, a lot of the contrast where I found value is contrasting both before and after games where you just, you know, you're really getting the blood flow where you got, you know, you're going from hot to cold and getting that vasodilation where you're

just getting fresh blood pumped throughout your body. And before games I'm ending in hot, you know, so that I'm feeling good. I'm feeling loose. After the games I was ending in cold just to kind of cool my body off, like feel that reset. And it always seemed to, you know, help help on the margins. Are there just like tubs and you're just getting into a nice tub and then you jump right into the hot tub next to it. That's it. And the more, you know,

I kind of wish I had that just lying around. You know, after my runs, it would be especially like it. Although I can't imagine that being fun getting to a bucket of ice, basically, to go your whole body. Some guys, it's like a badge of honor that they're, you know, jumping into water that's in the 40 degrees. You gingerly put yourself in it. I don't know if it's like a circulation thing. I always found too, like with my hands and my feet, like if I was able to like keep my hands and my feet out of the water and or covered, it helped me stay in the water longer.

And so that like my actual, like the rest of my body outside of my hands and my feet, I could withstand a fair amount of time. But I also, like I said, I body, outside of my hands and my feet, I could withstand a fair amount of time. But I also, like I said, I wasn't trying to break any world records. I was trying to keep, I was trying to keep like- Just sitting here long enough. And just from like water temperature too, like I was trying to keep an appropriate,

you know, distance. So like, if I was in the low 50s to mid 50s and then get the hot up to 100, I figured if there was a 50 degree difference, that was enough. Like I said, I wasn't trying to break any records on water temperatures. My buddy John Baker, who's with the Pirates, was telling me that he really liked ice baths and he would do them at the beginning of the day. And I was like, you know, he loves reading the research and, I have like he loves like reading the research. And he's like, they had this research that this good for this good for this. And I was

like, but why do you think it? Why do you think it works? And he goes, Well, one thing that I like about it is, it's the worst thing you'll do all day. Yeah, no, that's fair. You get the worst thing you'll do all day out of the door, then you can have a great day. The psychology probably plays a little into that, right? You said I wasn't a big, you know, cold bath only. I'm a contrast guy, right? Like I like to get that, like, you know, just that blood pumping. The contrast going back and forth actually promotes that.

Kids and I will do that with those combination hot tub pools all the time. You got to keep it moving. The one thing about the Rangers is just it's been a really disappointing season for them, and the offense is hitting 222, 284, 359 for the year. And that's the 27th best park adjusted line in baseball. And it's weird because the different players in here, That's the 27th best park adjusted line in baseball. It's weird because the different players in here,

I still like, you know? And some of them are doing well, like Wyatt Langford is doing well, Josh Smith and Josh Young are fine. So Corey Seeger coming into this will be meaningful. It's really the struggles of Jake Berger and Adolius Garcia that kind of stand out the most and maybe Jock Peterson before he got hurt.

Do you see anything when you when you when you think about this Texas Rangers team or is this just you know some of these veterans have to get it going again? I look at what good teams do they find a way to win that pitching staff has only given up 195 runs right where the where they've scored 185 and there's only two teams in the league that have scored fewer runs than that and that's The the Rockies and the Pirates and you're talking on the margins, right? Like the Rockies have scored 176 runs and the Pirates scored 173 So so you're not talking about wide gaps

The the Royals are equal at 185 and the White Sox have actually scored more runs than the Rangers this year Believe it or not. And the Royals are above 500. So, you know, if they could, if you were talking about like, you know, extra run every two games or something and they would have had a, they would have a different record. And that's where, you know, you start looking at differentials and good teams versus bad teams. The good teams are the ones that find a way to win, right?

Especially close games. And I mean, I think for the, for the Rangers to only be two games below 500 and only scoring 185 runs. I mean, I do think that bodes well for them, assuming the pitchers stay healthy. And so, you know, there, there might be a little bit of a caveat there, but you know, with the offense kind of underperforming at this point, I don't think they really have a choice in continuing to run those veteran guys out there and just having faith that there'll be some sort of reversion to their historical production.

Yeah, it's possible there's a little bit of the effect of the schedule going on here. I mean, they just got swept by the Yankees. They're going to have to fight Houston and Seattle all year, but you know, those are, you know, and the athletics and you know, they've got, they've got some flaws each of those teams, but having already, you know, had to face the Dodgers, you know, and the Red Sox twice and the Yankees, maybe there's some better days just coming from the schedule. I see the Nationals upcoming and the White Sox and Royals upcoming. So maybe they can just use a little bit of momentum caused by the schedule to get some Ws up on the board.

I mean, this is a team that won the World Series with a lot of these same players. And it would be such a shame to waste a de Grom. It looks like this is a vintage de Grom season, even though he just had an outing where he didn't strike a batter out for the first time. It's funny though, he only gave up two in like seven innings. I don't know what it is about de Grom. He just gives off this energy that I know offense feels like they don't need to score because he's so darn good.

I mean, we saw that play out with the Mets for his entire career there. It felt like the run production for him was very different than with any other starter. And that seems to have carried over to the Rangers. I mean, the guy is just special. He's got the stuff and the mentality. And I was always enthralled watching him. A guy that I would pay to price of admission to see pitch. I love watching him a guy that I would I would pay to you know price of admission to

pitch to see pitch yeah it's because it's such great command with such great stuff I mean it's such a great combo no doubt the last three games to your point the Grom his the Rangers have lost one to two three to four and they won one of them one to nothing literally so. So not his score. I don't know what it is. You know, he's I don't know if that's he is an ultimate competitor and is not like is going to find a way to keep his game. It keep his team in the game.

That's where a lot of this, you know, a lot of this data comes from is like win-loss records don't don't really matter because he can't control the offense. But here's a guy that I know regardless of the situation is going to keep you in the game. I wanted to say maybe it's because he gets matched up against other aces, you know, early in the season, that's the case. But by this point of the season, all the schedules are all messed up. So like he did face Hunter Brown and one of those those but he also lost to Ryan Yarbrough. So yeah that's it's things come and go and you can't hit for your team at least not anymore.

Although he can. He would love to he's definitely in the cranky type where he's like oh man give me a pat I'll be good you know. For good reason, I've seen it. love. You can even stack sales on top of cash back. Just start your shopping with Rakuten to save money at over 750 stores. Join for free at rakuten.ca or download the Rakuten app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N rakuten.ca. Hey, it's Lauren Dragon from Wirecutter, the product recommendation service from the New York Times, and I test headphones. Sweat is actually conductive because of the saline content in it. So we basically make our own fake sweat and spray it over and over on these headphones

to see what happens to them over time. This is 85 dB of airplane noise. We're gonna put on some noise-canceling headphones and see how well they actually block out the sounds. Put them on the ground and kick them over there. Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay. Go!

Are they broken? No. I have 3,136 entries in my database. Kids, workout, running, does it have a connector that's lightning or USB-C? What version of Bluetooth is it? Does it have FDX HD? We have ones that track your... At Wirecutter, we do the work so you don't have to. For independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world, come visit us at nytimes.com slash wirecutter, we do the work so you don't have to. For independent product reviews and recommendations for the real world, come visit us at nytimes.com slash wirecutter.

We even have one that's solar powered. Let's talk about those guys that have a bat in their hand. Upcoming, we've got here, we've got six young hitters that we want to talk about that have not quite established themselves, but do have something interesting going on under the hood. The first hitter that I wanted to talk about was Junior Caminero and we put together a sort of list here, this graphic that has different stats for these guys and what you can see with Junior Caminero is not a great walk rate, pretty good bat

to ball skills, about league average chase rate. The barrel rate is just barely above league average due to 80-80 or hundredth percentile, 80 bat speed. He's got 78 mile an hour bat speed. That's why he can hit the ball 117, hard hit right through the roof. And when we get to the shape things, I think we get to a little bit of the flaws. You've got a 27 degree angle that's below normal tilt. The attack angle is below normal tilt.

But what is interesting to me, and I think we could do some analysis here before we it's all been played out in the public sphere in terms of vetting this sort of analysis but what I see there at the end there was he's getting the ball out in front but he's not getting the attack angle so even though he's getting the ball you know three four inches out in front of the average hitter, he's not getting that benefit. So it's flat through that part even. He's not even getting that little uptick out in front of the plate. So you can't tell Junior DiCamminiero necessarily that the way to hit more homers is to get it further out in front. I mean, that's exactly what I have. You know, the bat speed is undeniable.

You look at that and what he's able to to produce and what I'd love to see from him is just is getting more on plane This is a guy who you know creates even at 27 It's not the it's not the flattest swing in the league But to your point like he is hitting it out front So he continues to mean it seemingly make that like downward angle through the ball And I think that that's what ultimately and if you you know, if you look at the squared up rate That's the one that jumps off the page for me is you know if you look at what the bat speed is and the pitch speed and I think it's 80% of what the maximum

Exit velocity is is the squared up rate that squared up rate being in the 19th percentile is something that I look at as like, hey, let's get a little bit more on plane with this. And then quite frankly, take more chances in the zone. His whiff rate is 66 in the 66 percentile and he's not striking out a lot, right? He's chasing a lot. So you gotta find a way to stay in the zone

a little bit more. And I think that will happen with a guy, you know, still 21 years old, you know, not a ton of professional experience even in the minor leagues. And so I would say that, you know, as he evolves, I'd be looking for him to just, you know, maybe work on pitch recognition and then taking more chances in the zone. And then I think with that, I think a squared up rate would go higher that he could actually leverage that bat speed a little bit more. Well, when he's looking good and you can see on this homer,

this is a relatively high pitch for Junior Caminero. And he can, when it's a high pitch, then it all works out. And I was just seeing like sort of a graphic of, if you're trying to hit the high pitch, then it all works out. And I was just seeing like sort of a graphic of, you know, if you're trying to hit the high pitch, that's actually sort of around a 27 degree angle. That's literally his angle. When you look at a homer like this, it all lines up for him. Good carry will it go? Gone! Hole run!

Hamadaro! He looks perfect on that. I did notice that he seems very vertical, you know, like his trunk seems very vertical. And of course it has to be to hit a high pitch. You have to sort of be vertical. And I wonder if there's a flexibility issue. I mean, he is like kind of a stockier dude. I wonder if there's a flexibility issue in terms mean, he is like kind of a stockier dude. I wonder if there's a flexibility issue

in terms of bending down to get those low pitches. And if there is just something in his body that's keeping him from getting more tilt and getting down there to do something better with the lower pitches, I don't know if I disagree with you, but then I think that the way out would be to just spit on everything

in the lower third. Challenge guys to hit that. He's like a Soto, right? Soto has poor bat shape. He has a flat bat path. What he does is he basically spits on everything low in the zone until he has to do something about it. And then he can do something about it, but generally he's looking to make the pitchers come low in the zone until he has to do something about it. And then he can do something about it.

But generally he's looking to make the pitchers come up in the zone. If Junior Kamenera can see that's what's missing for Kamenera is he doesn't have that elite pitch recognition. If he can make them come up in the zone, meet them where he's at strongest, the way out is something about pitch recognition. And that should just get better with age, right? I think that's the hardest.

It is the hardest skill to develop, right? And it takes the longest is pitch recognition. And this is where, you know, when you're when you're taking batting practice or, you know, you're even taking flips and you're hitting one speed one spot, you can fool yourself into thinking that you're swinging the bat well when you know what's coming. I look at your example of Juan Soto, I look at that swing and his ability to get on plane.

I think that he's far more in his legs, and so he's able to match the plane low, high, wherever it is, far better. I don't see caminero's tilt as a problem. I think the contact point is great. He's in the 85th percentile and making contact out front. I think that's great. I just think that the ability to get in your legs

and match the plane of the ball, to your point, he's kinda seemingly taking the same swing regardless of the pitch location. When those pitches are up like that home run, his lower body just kind of naturally syncs up with the plane of that pitch up. And so I think it's the ability to learn how to match the plane with a similar tilt and contact point for lower pitches and the way that I would look at it. That's interesting.

I remember Adrian Beltran told me that we were talking about how he hit a home run off of one knee. You know, I was like, oh, my God, from the outside, I was like, that's crazy. Like you were using half of your your legs like you were. And he was like, it's not crazy at all. I dropped that leg when I saw it was a curveball. You know, that's basically what you're talking about is like using your body to match the plane.

So if there isn't necessarily a plate discipline way out where he's definitely not gonna wake up tomorrow or even the next three years and be so-do when it comes to chase rates, I think that is actually the hardest thing to change. So maybe the thing, the way out is a little bit more what we were talking about with the flexibility to bend more or working on, you know, what he can do with his lower half to basically, if he wants to swing where it's kind

of like, you know, stiff upper half, then can he like lower himself with his legs so that he's just sort of like like an elevator almost? I don't view eliminating the bottom third of the zone as like a viable, you know, option for sustained success. I think that, you know, you're you're especially with the vertical break in the game now, right, you're you're going to get those big 12, six curveballs that are in a clip. Sinkers are coming back. Sinkers are coming back. I think you're just going to get a lot more balls at the bottom of the zone. And I think I have a hard time imagining sustained success

by eliminating the lower part of the zone. I find him, I'm working on matching the plane on that lower body. And that, to me, is more being in your legs, getting down, recognizing. I do think pitch recognition does matter in that, but it's really being an athlete and matching the ball in space,

as opposed to just taking the same swing robotically. So there's a little bit of similarity here with the second guy and a little bit of difference though. Nuelve Marte here, if we were looking at these graphics again, a little bit better eye, at least he's taking more walks, got that same bat to ball ability. I would say there's a lot of similarities here in terms of good bat speed, not as much tilt, a little bit of a key difference is a little more tilt than Nuneke Minoru, a little bit better attack angle.

But one thing that we have talked about in the past with N'Valmi Marte is that he's had these great max EVs and then the power, the actual demonstrated power, like his barrel rate is even worse than Junior Camero's and the demonstrated power that's come from all this bad speed has been less than he's been less than some of the parts a little bit I don't know maybe these guys are too similar one difference is normally Marta is getting even further out in front and he has improved his attack angle so maybe he actually represents what's something that Junior Cameron could still do like there's two more inches

out in front Junior Cameron could get it and maybe that would finally access some of that lift in the end of his swing. Marte also doesn't have that like 80 bat speed. It's more like 70. What did you notice that differentiated him all from Kamenoh or is he just very much like Kamenoh to you? I look at the K rate, right? He's in the, he's not qualified. It doesn't have enough at bats. You're extrapolating a little bit here, but if you look back at the minor league performance too, like this is a guy who puts the ball in play, you know, relatively low K rate at all the stops that he's had.

And then I look at that K rate, and then I look at the the whiff rate. To me, it's a guy that kind of like Caminero, that probably needs to take a little bit more of a chance inside the zone. And to me, that's a young, you know, it represents a young player that hasn't really learned who he is at the big league level yet or the pitches that he can handle. And so, you know, he's not striking out a lot.

Walk rate is okay. Chase rate is still high. Squared up rate is much higher than Kim and Arrow. Once again, this is a guy that I'm looking at to say, let's figure out these pitches that you're capable of driving in the zone. And when you recognize that pitch, let it go a little bit more because the whiff rate is okay,

but I would like to see him take a few more chances in the zone. And he's off to, I know, I wrote down 2023, you know, really exciting profile, right? Like you got a 21 year old kid that gets 114 at bats and hits 316 with three homers, six stolen bases. And like, hey, we got something here, right? And he was a big part of that Seattle trade to get Castillo.

And then 24 as a 22 year old takes a pretty big step back just in terms of, you know, bat to ball in the whiff rate, really, really went down, K rate really went up. So you're talking about a guy who took a big step back in 20, 2024, as he kind of got exposed at the big league level, 242 plate appearances. And this year has seemingly taken that step back. There's some recognition in 73 plate appearances,

kind of getting that average back up, some more homers. So this is a guy that, you know, and you're talking about a sprint speed in the 96 percentile. There's a guy who's a great athlete that has shown, you know, plate discipline, I will say, at least to walk and not strike out at the minor league level. I'm looking at this as a guy that is still learning who he is at the big league level, but the ceiling is still high.

Yeah, looking at his history, he's had higher tilts in the past. This is something that does get affected by how you're being pitched. So it's possible he's just being pitched higher in the past, this is something that does get affected by how you're being pitched. So it's possible he's just being pitched higher in the zone. That's why his tilt has gone down. It's not quite as flat of a swing. I think even when you see him swing on this double right here, we can watch him double. I think that it's not quite the same flat swing that you see from Kameniro. The 0-2 from Meyer to Marte.

And that is hit hard, stung towards the gap, left center field, and Myers is gonna cut it off. Fraile's on his way to third, he'll stop there. If that ball got by Myers, that's probably a run, but this is the first real threat of the evening. You know, his hands are above the ball there, and he does have that verticality in the trunk that seems like that caminero, but again, those are high pitches. So, you know, it actually matches it.

Relatively flat swing. I mean, even at 29 degree tilt, that high pitch, that high velocity at the top of the zone kind of matches up with that, with that tilt. So I don't know't know, you know, bottom of the zone against him. But once again, I think if he can keep his chase rate down, I like the upside here, especially with the with a high output athlete like this with the sprint speed and the bat speed that he has. So you're not so worried about the lack of tilt with these guys? I mean, they're 21 and 23. You know, you think that they're, that

they have the opportunity to, especially I think with Marte with, you know, some higher tilts in the, in the, in the rear view mirror, I think he's shown the ability to, to move differently. Before we, you know, unveil all the names, do you, do you have a favorite of these six and is, is, is Junior or Marte one of them? Kim and Arrow is one guy that is really exciting for me just in terms of the bat speed. You know, I think we didn't talk about defense with him and how that might limit some of his his upside value on the other side of the ball. There is one more that we're going to talk about later that I'm you know, just in

terms of ceiling. I think I like the best. And so we, yeah, we'll save, we'll save that one. I'm guessing it won't be the next one here. I don't want to be negative about him. No, he definitely is the outlier in terms of the rest of these guys chase my draft. You know, if we look back at this graphic, he's definitely got the best plate approach on here. He's going to make the most of a contact, probably gonna have the best walk rate of anybody on here. Look at his chase rate, it's like half the other guys.

Literally, he has an 18% where Junior Caminero and Marte have 35%. He has a 1% barrel rate. I'm surprised even, I don't know, if the 40% hard hit rate will sit, then that might actually be pretty meaningful for his career, Because if he can at least hit the ball hard, you know, in the angles he's hitting them in, then he can be a really productive hitter. But, you know, 107 max EV, 68 bat speed, that's below average. And it's fairly below average. I mean, the average is 71.6. So,

you know, he's sitting four miles an hour below average. I don't know how much tilt in these things matter if you're not trying to hit for power, but he lets the ball travel more than the other two guys that are trying to hit for power. And so I think on some level, his approach might be well within his skills. You know what I mean? Like he's not chasing, he's letting the ball travel,

he's trying to have a fairly adjustable swing that he can make all this contact with. So maybe he doesn't have the upside of a Marte and Caminero, but maybe he can really do what he does and do it well. I love this kid. I mean, I think that he's not the one that I think has the highest ceiling, but I think

he's got the highest floor, right? I think he's got the highest floor. This is a guy that I think is going to be an impact player at the big league level for a long time, like somebody you're going to want in your lineup. And then you look at, you got a guy who's in the 91st percentile for range according to to the, you know, according to the metrics. And so, you know, he just looks like a really productive player to me.

And you know, I'm looking at a squared up rate, which he hasn't qualified yet, but you're talking about 42% squared up rate. So he's really efficient to the ball. And you know, you're talking about a kid that's 23 years old, first season, he's in the 96th percentile for chase, 98th for whiff, 92nd for Ks, 81st for walks. So like this kid can just flat out hit. And so I mean, and you look at the flat swing, it's a relatively deep, you know,

intercept point 29 inches as compared to his body. So I think that as he, you know, gets more into his career, you know, intercept point 29 inches as compared to his body. So I think that as he, you know, gets more into his career, you know, you're talking about 129 plate appearances. I think the natural evolution of this is, you know, you're going to feel a little bit more confident, feel like you belong, and then start to, we kind of took, took this approach with the last two, or I did at least, with taking more chances in the zone.

Like this kid clearly knows the zone really, really well and is very efficient to the ball. And so I think he's gonna as he feels more confident and comfortable that he is a big league hitter, I would love to see that chase rate actually go down in the right situations. Let it rip. Yeah, something like maybe like Stephen Quanish outcome seems possible for him, where maybe he, you know, pushes that home run total, you know, maybe it's single digits for the first couple of years

of his career, but maybe he peaks with some 12s and 14s as he, you know, kind of takes some situational hacks like you're talking about. One thing I wanted to bring up was that we've seen this profile before not work. And, you know, I'm not trying to be overly negative about a player, but, you know, Nick Madrigal was a guy who came up in Chicago and had great contact skills. I think first we haven't been talking about this so much, but one of the differences that defense matters and I think Maidroth's, even though he had, I mean I had to show the video,

I don't know if you saw it of him trying to field the fly ball that bounced off his head. You know, I think in terms of true talent, defensive ability, he's got defense that'll keep on the field and it's defense that's better than like even like a Luis Arias defense or whatever, you know, if he gets put in this bucket of guys who make a lot of contact and don't have a lot of bat speed, McMadrigal's defense was never really a good thing and he really had to work hard to even get passable at certain positions. I'm looking at Madrigal too. Like I, you know, I think that the reality there is, you know, you just didn't have, you have a much different chase rate and a much different walk rate. Right? And so I think this is where, assuming that the chase can maintain the chase rate and the walk rate that he is, I mean, you're-

That is what came with the scouting report for sure. With what? Sorry. My draft scouting report was like always the same. Yeah, exactly. And, I mean, it's pretty consistent with Madrigal, right? Like he, he didn't whiff, he didn't K he squared the ball up, you know, more often than not based on, based on the bat speed that he exhibit, but I just look at the chase rate being, you know, it's not qualified in 23, the one I'm looking at right now, but, but the chase the chase rate is below average, right?

The walk rate is 3.4% and a chase rate 29.6%. To me, that's a very different profile than Chase Medroth, where you have a guy who I would say that Madrigal presents as a guy who is going to hit the ball if you throw it up there, but he's going gonna swing at a lot of things, like maybe the rosin bag. I do think that there's, you know, we're not emphasizing bat speed for this type of player because it's not plus,

but there is a difference between Nick Madrigal's bat speed and Chase Midroth's. You know, Nick Madrigal has 65 on our bat speed. And I think that there may, with all the sort of discussions out about bat speed, there may still be a sort of bottom level that you have to get to, to get to be a major leaguer. If you look at bat speed, for example, at high schoolers,

and then you look at bat speed at college players, and you look at bat speed in the pros, like they're each in order of magnitude higher. And so 65 may just not play. 65 just may be something that worked in college because you were seeing more 88 monar fastballs and 91s and just not gonna work up here. If you're gonna be a lower bat speed guy,

there has to be some real discipline in that and then efficiency with the squared up rate. So I think Madrigal squared a lot of balls up. He didn't whiff a lot and that's a guy where like, you know, once again, Madrigal, maybe there was an opportunity to maybe whiff more, right? Take bigger chances in spots. And I think that's what I'm suggesting with Chase as he feels a little bit more confident and a little more comfortable in the box.

Not so much where, you know, he's dropping in the 50th percentile. I just don't think that's who he is. And it probably, with the bat speed, wouldn't match up to be positive production. But I think with a little bit of a drop, you could see more extra base hits, see a few more balls go out of the ballpark. That said, Luis Arias and Jacob Wilson have minus,

and Stephen Kwan have under 65 mile a bat speed, but they also have really short swings for the most of them. So, you know, there is no one size fits all, but I do like, you know, at 68 miles an hour, my draw is more has more in common with Jung-Hoo Lee than he does necessarily Nick Madrigal. He's hanging out with Victor Scott and Jake Myers and Nico Horner. I think that's a great place for him to be. And Nico Horner in particular seems like maybe a model for Maidroth, someone who can give value with the legs and give value with the glove and make a lot of contact and have surprising

pop, even if it's like a 30 or whatever on the 80s scale. Command the zone, be a tough at bat, right? Like every single at bat you go up there, if they make a mistake you might pop them, but at the end of the day, you're gonna be a pain in the ass when you're up there. Pitcher's gonna make their pitch

and you're gonna get a hit off of it and it's just gonna put them on tilt. Here's a representative ball in play for my drop. I thought it was just a, like a nice little double. And here he goes. It's this one hard into the gap and left center field. Welcome back. Chase my drop as the helmet flies off and the youngster, the Cali kid with a double. That's a single for some people, you know. That's one of those mistakes, right?

That guy just throws a little, you know, sinker over the plate. You know, the pitch recognition is there. The efficiency is there for him to rip that ball in the gap regardless of the situation. And in order to get his walks, he has to be able to do something with that. And you know, to make a double better than a single you know. The walks that he is creating are because you know he has the ability to foul pitch tough pitches off. I don't think any pitcher is walking up there you know scared to pitch to him. They're gonna get you know give up a bunch of homers to him. So he's earning every walk that he gets and showing it with his plate

discipline. So this next guy might actually, I don't know if he's my favorite, but the more that I looked into the numbers that we're looking at for this, I liked him a little bit better. This is the guy that, you know, if I'm looking at the guys, we are evaluating, this is, this is the guy that I look as the highest upside. And I look- Oh, that's great.

Yeah, so I look at Pahez and I see the tilt and the bat speed and that contact point that he's making. There's a lot to like in this player. I mean, you're talking about a high output athlete too with a high sprint speed, well above average bat speed, appropriate with and K I think for the profile. And it really just comes down to me to the chase, right? Like he's chasing a little out of the zone too much

for sustained success at this point. But I think if you look at all of the other intangibles in terms of bat speed, contact point, the sweet spot rate, you know, I know the barrel percentage is only 42%, but I think a lot of that, you know, like I said, a lot of that is pitch- 42nd percentile, yeah. Yeah, 42nd percentile, I'm sorry, 42nd percentile.

So, you know, 42nd percentile for the barrel rate. I'm not as concerned to that, you know, still a guy that is at 650 plate appearances, but like I said, a guy that if he can stay in the zone, you look at a guy that with the tilt and the bat speed that he has, you know, like I said, I don't wanna go too far with this one and the contact point, but there's a lot of it trending towards like an

Aaron Judge type, you know, swing path. And that's why I say that when you have a high, high output athlete like him, the ceiling is really, really high. And it just, to me, it's all gonna it's all gonna boil down to that chase rate. Yeah, you know, he had better walk rates in the minors, and he had some really good ones. And we don't really have access to all of his chase rates in the minor so we can't tell how that changed over time but I can't tell you that his chase rate was lower last year and so you know I think that's in him to improve that but the things we liked about him he had the best tilt of this group Páez did and he didn't have the best bad speed but you know there is a relationship

there between the two and you know what we've heard is that it's kind of hard to marry that because you're you were saying that you're working against gravity a little bit. So for him to have that tilt and still have above average bat speed, I think that's really exciting. One of the better attack angles and he's not necessarily getting the ball out in front as much of their guys. So there's still maybe a little bit of a chance to uncover as he gets more comfortable, maybe as he chases less and becomes more aggressive on the pitches he does swing on. That's the toggle that you find with age, right? It's like, you can look in the numbers and see

there's uncovered ground for him. When he's making contact 31 inches out in front of the plate or 31 inches out in front of the center of mass and then Noel DiMarte is making it 36 inches out and Junior Kemere is making it 34 inches out. I feel like they don't like Kemere and Marte don't have as much uncovered ground. They can't get the ball much further than that.

You can't get the ball 40 inches out. I think a lot of that has to do with the tilt of the swing. I would be concerned actually if Pai has started to hit the ball much further out front with the tilt that he has. Because you're just eventually gonna run, you're gonna run out of room, right? Like, you know, there's just, there's not,

like when you have a flatter, when you have a flatter swing, you can make contact further out front and still have room to go with the tilt that Pahez is swinging at. And I, and I don't, I don't view tilt as good or bad. I view it like as, as an aspect of the profile. I wouldn't want to see Pahez make contact much further out front, especially with the chase rate that he has. I'm assuming that he would cut the chase rate and be selectively aggressive and get some get selective pitches out front.

But it's an interesting point that the tilt has something to do with what you can do out in front. I would just say that like, it does look like of the people that we will talk about today that he has the best collection of things for possibly the best power upside of the group. The only difference is that Kamenero does swing the bat six miles an hour faster. So that might be the difference. And once again, like I, you know, the bat speed obviously plays huge into the upside

here. But I think that I think what Pa has has demonstrated so far is that, that, you know, he does have, he does have the ability to drive the baseball pretty much in any part of the zone. That to me, and then you add that with the sprint speed, the fielding value, where Kamenero is not the athlete that Pahez is in terms of sprint speed, arm strength, some of these other metrics,

but the bat speed is clearly there. And I think with Pahez, like I said, I think it's just, it's a matter of him staying in the zone, pitch recognition. And, you know, I would almost say with that, you know, with the tilt that he has and the bat speed that he has, I actually think there's an argument to be made that he could let the ball travel a tick deeper and still be able to drive baseballs. You know, one of the points that coach Rodriguez made yesterday when he came on was that one of the nice things about tilt is that you can miss the ball. He was challenging some of the,

some of the beliefs that we've had about flat swings versus steep swings. And he was kind of saying that, you know, the steep swing you can maybe miss the ball a little bit and have some better outcomes. So he's saying like a flat swing when it misses the ball a little bit it's a pop-up right or a hard ground ball. He was saying with a tilted swing when you miss the ball it can be like kind of a filleted opposite field double or like a hard single because you the bats coming through and if you miss the ball a little bit you can be like this right and instead of when you're flat and you miss the ball

it's a pop-up right but if you're like this and you miss the ball you can actually get some value out of that that might be a double to the opposite field. This argument just boils down to theory versus practice, right? I don't disagree with the theory. I'm just saying in practice, none of this stuff happens in a vacuum. So if you're like, and that's why I say like,

I look at tilt, I look at these things as just a portion of the evaluation process, because you know, you get into an uncontrolled environment, you're not going to, you're not going to be able to just, nobody's going to just stand there and wait for their pitch. Like you're going to be standing there a long time if you're just waiting for the pitch that you know, you got in batting practice.

I guess my point is, is none of this stuff happens in a vacuum. And that's why I say I don't view a tilted swing or a flat swing as inherently good or bad. It's the other factors involved that matter, right? And that's where I look at a contact point where Pajas is making it 31 inches out front of his mass with a high tilt and high bat speed. And I think there's actually, that's why I said that altogether.

You like that altogether. I like it all together. And that's why I also say there's an ability to let the ball travel a little bit deeper for him in this moment. When you have a really high chase rate, I still think if he catches the ball deeper with the tilt and the bat speed that he has, he's still going to drive a lot of baseballs. Right. Like and this is, once again, like I'm talking about in practice versus theory.

It needs the bat speed to take balls out, Oppo. Absolutely. It needs the bat speed to make those doubles, so. Exactly. I like that. We gotta be a little bit faster. I always think we always do this. We don't have DVR to keep us on schedule today.

That's right. We're just riffing. DVR, where are you? But we have two more left. We got Christian Campbell and Brett Beatty. Christian Campbell and Brett Beatty both have above average bat speed. Beatty's is plus. They have the same tilt. Campbell has a better attack angle and gets the ball out in front a little bit. They have the same kind of hard hit rate. Beatty has been barreling the ball this year, but has had a real problem generally hitting the ball into the ground. I was surprised to find that his tilt was above average. I thought that he must have a flat swing. That's why he's hitting the balls in the ground. So instead, what I've diagnosed

for Beaty is that he lets the ball travel too much and he needs to go get that ball. I think there's still room for him to go get the ball further than he's going right now. I don't have a diagnosis of something being wrong with Campbell. I'm just excited about a guy with a 73 mile an hour bat speed that does not seem to have the problems of Beaty. Like he's not somebody, he's getting the ball at 29 inches, you know, he's got an 11 degree attack only. That's the highest attack angle of anybody in this sample. So he's going to put the ball in the air.

He has a good max to be at 112. I just generally believe in him. I know he's in a bit of a slump. I think he's got all the skills. Batey is a little bit more of a complicated one for me because he's laid the ball, traveled so much and he's barely ball now But he hasn't in the past. He has plus bats. We second best bat speed in this group Are you just sort of generally positive about Campbell and then an inquisitive about baby like I am or what?

Do you see with these two? I look at Campbell. I'm looking at a you percentile chase rate, 77 percentile walk rate. And so here's a guy who is not going out of the zone, he's walking, but he's whiffing in the 25th percentile and striking out in the 17th percentile. That tells me he's just flat out getting beat in the zone. He's not leaving the zone. He's not you know he's not leaving the zone he's walking he's taking his walk so he's a disciplined hitter but he's flat out getting beat in the zone and and you know I and that's where I guess I'm my concern would be a little bit higher on that one because

you can't you can't survive in the big leagues getting beat in the zone. They are pitching him high in the zone he's's missing as a 50. I know, K%. I don't know what that means when you're talking about a heat map, but he has a large red up and away and low in a way. So he's he's he's got some places he can be pitched to, I guess. I just look at I look at that, you know, that whiff rate as compared to the chase and walk rate, the whiff and K rate. And you know, they just, to me, that means he's getting beat in the zone a lot. So clearly the kid has really good pitch recognition and he's got good discipline. He's got to find a way to let that bat speed play.

This is a young kid, 22 years old, virtually no experience in the minor leagues, figuring out who he is at the major league level, right? And he's shown the discipline, he's shown the pitch recognition with the chase and the walk and just got to find a way to recognize those opportunities in the zone and not miss them. Yeah, his swinging strike rate is much lower than his strikeout rate suggests, and he's had really good swing strike rates in the minor. So I'm going to bet on him making this adjustment.

And I also think back to the spring where he wasn't hitting well, and then he made some sort of adjustment that I didn't really see necessarily right away. And the whole narrative around him changed. The team was like, he's ready, he's going be, he's our start opening day, you know, starting second baseman. And it wasn't because he hit a bunch of homers. Like he must, maybe he was fighting off these high pitches in spring and they were like,

that's all we needed to see, you know? I have a feeling he's made one big adjustment this spring already and we're a month later and he needs to make his next one, you know? And I kind of think he's gonna do it. Beaty has taken longer to make these adjustments. I mean, Beaty has really struggled for the last three years and I guess it's because he really likes to let the ball travel, you know, despite having a good eye, not a great eye, but a good eye and great bat speed.

I think if I would tell somebody with a 76 mile an hour good eye and great bat speed. I think if I would tell somebody with a 76 mile an hour bat speed that was had a 27 was getting the ball out in 27 inches in front of himself, I would say, I think go get that ball. This is the really the one you've been talking about selective aggression and aggression in his own. This is the one where I would tell I'd be like, come on, you have this great bat speed, like, you know, take advantage of it, go get that ball. My final thoughts on Christian Campbell is like, this is a guy we're watching kind of make

professional baseball adjustments at the major league level. With the ability that this kid has, like, I'm not betting against him. I just want to make that clear. I think that this is a kid that knows how to play the game and is just figuring out who he is at the big league level. To your point with Brett Beatty, like this is a big, strong kid with elite bat speed.

You know, he's got a higher tilt swing. And when he hits it, it's a hard hit ball, right? I mean, he's barreling a lot of balls, although the squared up percentage is relatively low for the bat speed. I think what I wrote down in my notes was, there's gotta be just a better pitch recognition, right? I think, and to your point, selective aggressiveness,

it just, to me, this one is a pitch recognition that he just hasn't been able to find the pitches that he's able to do damage on consistently. You're talking about a high chase rate, a high whiff rate, a high K rate, and a low walk rate. I think a lot of that just has to do with pitch selection. He's done a better job this year, clearly, with his, you know, the average edge of velocity.

But like I said, I would love to see a little bit more efficiency with the squared up rate to let that bat speed play. You know, one thing that is super weird is even though he's doing so well this year, last year he had a 238 slugging on four seamers. This year he has a 313. So he really does his damage on secondary pitches, which is just, again, it's weird for me for somebody with plus bat speed to do the damage on secondary pitches. It would suggest to me is those are the pitches he's catching further out in front. And that's where, you know, he's probably, you know, I would guess in the past, he's probably, you know, beat on fastballs and out speed or out front on the off speed. And has like, you know, is probably a little bit, you know, more comfortable at the big league level now,

and has is starting to figure out, you know, the pitches that little bit, you know, more comfortable at the big league level now, and has is starting to figure out, you know, the pitches that he handles, I still think there's an opportunity to be a little bit more efficient to the ball and pick better pitches to to swing at because I think a guy that is, you know, has the barrel rate that he has, and the bat speed that he does to have a squared up percentage that's 24%. To me that that's a level of efficiency that could go up. He cut 12 inches between the distance between his feet. So he's trying, I think that

speaks to a little bit to what you're talking about in terms of maybe being more efficient with his movements. You know, he's, he's, he's, he's tweaking the stance a little bit and he's become a little bit more open. So he's trying to find something. I would just say that I was a little bit surprised, I put him on this list because I was a little bit surprised to see that combination of bat speed and tilt given this guy has hit so many ground balls. And I think that he is for, you know, our fantasy listeners, I think he's a really intriguing

guy to pick up. If you're selling this year, he'd be an interesting young guy that could be in the process of putting these disparate skills that he actually has together. I mean, nothing leaps off the page as being a real problem. Even letting it travel, there are guys who succeed letting it travel and he has the bat speed to do that. But to me, it suggests that there's a little bit more that he can he can squeeze out of this and he then he can really put this together. So

all of these guys I'm pretty excited about so I don't think that I'm negative about any of them. Yep agreed. They did give some examples of you know Chase's you got the the lower power output possibility. I think we both there are also an agreement that this type of analysis really circles Andy Pah has on this page And I was more positive about him coming out of this than going into this but I really appreciate you giving your analysis your analysis your hit or I to this and Checking out a group of youngsters DVR. Please come back. Please come back. I don't even know. I don't know how to end this. I just know that I thank Jed Lowry for his work. I thank the listeners for listening.

It's something that I'm supposed to do. I say something about joining our Discord. I think we have an invite somewhere. Somewhere. Find it. You can bug me on the socials. I'm EnoSarris on Twitter, on Blue Sky, everywhere. We've got Jed at, what was your Instagram handle? Just Jed.Lowry. Jed.Lowry on Instagram and thanks for listening. Thanks. DVR, please come back. Shop with Rakuten and you'll get it. What's it?

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