Speaker 1: Any Swiss high.
Speaker 2: Understanding deep the center field and it's gone, Wow, his
Speaker 2: first big league swing is gonna be a grand Slam,
Speaker 2: a home line swing.
Speaker 1: Good time to look to them solve. Time to audit
Speaker 1: ourselves a little bit here on the call up, we
Speaker 1: are checking in on the breakout predictions for the American
Speaker 1: League teams. Arm Lton Jack McMullen. We are to have
Speaker 1: all thirty that we did this year is the first
Speaker 1: time that we did it going into the season where
Speaker 1: we did breakout picks for a prospect in each organization.
Speaker 1: And when we did that episode, you remember, I was like,
Speaker 1: some of these just really tough. I kind of felt
Speaker 1: like a forced one. It'll be fun to see if
Speaker 1: those aged well. Some of them did not, and I
Speaker 1: can acknowledge that a couple that were forced definitely appear
Speaker 1: to be forced in our midway check in, but we're
Speaker 1: gonna kind of get a pulse, right, We're halfway through
Speaker 1: the minor league and major league season, so a little
Speaker 1: bit more than halfway through the minor league season. We
Speaker 1: can check in on the numbers say to this point,
Speaker 1: is is it a breakout? Is it valid? Was the
Speaker 1: prediction right?
Speaker 2: Or is it not?
Speaker 1: And also kind of evaluate what went wrong or right,
Speaker 1: and then the last thing will be if it's not
Speaker 1: the guy that we picked who is breaking out in
Speaker 1: this system. I'm excited to do it.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be fun, man. Yeah, we can do like
Speaker 3: kind of a two parter here. We're gonna go team
Speaker 3: by team and we'll start with the American League and
Speaker 3: then pivot to the National League for part two of this.
Speaker 3: I feel like every single like every single thought that
Speaker 3: we have on the call up immediately turns into like
Speaker 3: a two parter or a three parter. So this is
Speaker 3: right on par with what we got going. But we'll
Speaker 3: go AL East, then AL Central, and AL West. And
Speaker 3: I ran you through the names and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I was reading you the names and you
Speaker 3: were like, Okay, which league did I nail in particular?
Speaker 3: Pretty spread out across the board, and you mentioned there
Speaker 3: are some that might be flubs, but there are others
Speaker 3: that it's like, holy smokes, you were on it, like,
Speaker 3: not to spoil it, but Nathan Fluelling with the Rays,
Speaker 3: Devin Fitzgerald with the Nationals, but there could be some
Speaker 3: tweemers as well. So really excited to get into it.
Speaker 1: That's where we're on you. It's a you got to
Speaker 1: give us the thumbs up or thumbs down. Sorry, you're
Speaker 1: the judge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, on those. We'll start with the guy who is
Speaker 3: thumbs down unfortunately at this point, but you have to
Speaker 3: judge him a little bit differently. We'll start with the
Speaker 3: Toronto Blue Jays. Your breakout pick was Juan Sanchez, a teenager.
Speaker 3: Juan Sanchez an eighteen year old from the Dominican Republic
Speaker 3: playing a lot of shortstop right now, playing a lot
Speaker 3: of third base as well.
Speaker 1: In the DSL.
Speaker 3: In fifty six games in twenty twenty five, he had
Speaker 3: an OPS over one thousand, He hit three forty, he
Speaker 3: had a four to forty OVP, he had eight home runs.
Speaker 3: Then he goes to dun Eden, so he skips the
Speaker 3: Florida Complex League entirely, and he's sitting two thirty six
Speaker 3: with the six to eighty two OPS in fifty three games.
Speaker 3: Walk right has dipped a bit, wrikeouts have climbed a bit,
Speaker 3: and the power not as prodigious in a low way
Speaker 3: as it was in the DSL. It's tough. He's eighteen
Speaker 3: years old. How do you assess this pick?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm actually really excited. I'm gonna watch him play tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with Jupiter dunninged Ins in town. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get to see uh Montanchez and of course Jojo Parker.
Speaker 1: This is one where I say, wait a little bit,
Speaker 1: because it has been better. We actually just mentioned him
Speaker 1: on the heat sheet with the way that he performed
Speaker 1: over the last couple weeks. And this is usually like
Speaker 1: the selective stats thing where like you kind of hope
Speaker 1: that right where he picks up when you're going in
Speaker 1: the game logs of fangrafts fits like a round number
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, hopefully it's the last thirty games,
Speaker 1: the last thirty one games. This is the classic, like
Speaker 1: since he's been hitting, he's been hitting this. But he
Speaker 1: had a multi hit game on on May fifteenth, and
Speaker 1: since then, Sanchez hitting three seventeen with a one twenty
Speaker 1: WRC plus three eleven or sorry, yeah, with a three
Speaker 1: sixty one OBP and a four sixty seven slug So
Speaker 1: it's it's solid. It's three eleven excuse me, three eleven,
Speaker 1: three sixty one, four sixty seven slash line of one
Speaker 1: to twenty WRC plus, So geez. The pitching in this
Speaker 1: league is terrible. So usually the four to state league
Speaker 1: that slash line would give you a lot better off
Speaker 1: a WRC plus. But point being, he's been a lot
Speaker 1: better of late kids skipped a level and making the
Speaker 1: acclamation state side. I think there's still time for this
Speaker 1: to be a correct pick. But obviously he didn't jump out.
Speaker 3: Of the gate.
Speaker 1: Maybe the way that you'd want to break out prediction
Speaker 1: to jump out.
Speaker 3: Got you okay. Next one that we got to talk
Speaker 3: about here and it pertains to the Baltimore Orioles. You're
Speaker 3: looking really sharp on this one. Joseph's Zurwa, the left
Speaker 3: hander in the Orioles system. Zurwa so far this year
Speaker 3: has been a very intriguing arm in the oriole system,
Speaker 3: and he's a guy that has climbed to the mid
Speaker 3: levels of the minor leagues. Twenty two year old second
Speaker 3: round pick last year at Michigan State, and Zurwa is
Speaker 3: already in double A forty and two thirds innings with
Speaker 3: Hia Frederick at a two to two Erra punched out
Speaker 3: fifty to ten walks, jumps up to double A Chesapeake
Speaker 3: and in thirty five and two thirds innings. This guy's
Speaker 3: a two eight erra, no home runs allowed in one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty batters faced. He's punched out forty six
Speaker 3: and walked nine. So when you compare or when you
Speaker 3: combine his hi A in double A numbers so far
Speaker 3: this year, a twenty two year old in his first
Speaker 3: taste of professional baseball is at seventy six and the
Speaker 3: third innings on June thirtieth, with ninety six punchouts, nineteen walks,
Speaker 3: and two home runs allowed in over three hundred batters faced.
Speaker 3: Is he gonna be the second minor leaguer to one
Speaker 3: hundred k's after Seth Hernandez.
Speaker 1: I think so. I'm trying to I was gonna pull
Speaker 1: up the leaderboards and by the way, the Blue Jays
Speaker 1: breakout pick the one that would have been correct, as
Speaker 1: Sean Keys hit his way from Hya where he wasn't
Speaker 1: even good last year really to the big league, so
Speaker 1: should have known. I wish I had the crystal ball
Speaker 1: on Sean Keys. Really awesome to see him breakout. Jureuah
Speaker 1: was a little bit more low hanging fruit, I think
Speaker 1: to a degree, just because of the way that he
Speaker 1: he threw in spring, but that aways always gonna be
Speaker 1: baked into this, so I don't think. I think ans
Speaker 1: in which we'll get to is more of the low
Speaker 1: hanging fruit Jureoe. I think is was still a pretty
Speaker 1: pretty solid pick because of how much better he's been
Speaker 1: than even I think you would have expected if you
Speaker 1: were high on him. He really feels like this this
Speaker 1: year's Quinn Matthews. When what we saw kind of Quinn
Speaker 1: Matthews coming out party in his first full pro season,
Speaker 1: where the stuff ticks up in terms of V Low's up,
Speaker 1: feel for the secondaries is improved, and the quality of
Speaker 1: the secondaries has improved. And Jurwa similarly, it was like
Speaker 1: good command low nineties fastball, really good change up. That
Speaker 1: was kind of the story with Quinn Matthews, right, pitchability guy,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll be back end guy. And now Ga you know,
Speaker 1: adds that cutter slider Sharper didn't quite see the Vlow
Speaker 1: jump as much as Quinn Matthews, but still saw the
Speaker 1: Vlow jump a little bit, and you have this just
Speaker 1: ridiculously impressive arsenal all of a sudden across the board
Speaker 1: and with the pitch ability still married. Now Matthews lost
Speaker 1: that over the last two years, and that's a whole
Speaker 1: different story. But ZEROA. You really see that that feel
Speaker 1: to pitch with the enhanced stuff resulting in just pure dominance.
Speaker 3: Right, So happy with this pick. No adjustments.
Speaker 1: Can't say I would adjust this one. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's anybody in the osystem, you know, with as much
Speaker 1: helium as as Surewell, right now.
Speaker 3: How about the Yankees? Your pick? Was that your heard
Speaker 3: so far this year? Heard? He has been alright. If
Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken, I'm pulling up the numbers right now.
Speaker 3: If Thatcher heard twenty three year old, he's a form
Speaker 3: of the former LSU Tiger. Limited to eight starts so
Speaker 3: far this year, but that youer heard five starts in
Speaker 3: Tampa nineteen inning z walk twelve, did punch out twenty nine.
Speaker 3: It has been a rough go for Thatcher heard, yeah.
Speaker 1: Coming off injury, so I maybe I was hoping he'd
Speaker 1: kind of just lie right through and have the success.
Speaker 1: And of course there's been a little bit of that
Speaker 1: I think acclamation process to just getting back from the
Speaker 1: injury and coming back from TJ. But I think the
Speaker 1: stuff is there. He's also pitching at low A, so
Speaker 1: the strikeout numbers, it's going to be difficult to fully
Speaker 1: fully assess that because you kind of expect to college
Speaker 1: on with this to be able to overwhelm hitters. But
Speaker 1: last time out for Herd four and two thirds, one hit,
Speaker 1: no runs, two walks, ten k's. He's struck out now
Speaker 1: eighteen in his last nine innings, so that is encouraging.
Speaker 1: But he's also doing it in a low A as
Speaker 1: a college on, but he's building up, So I obviously
Speaker 1: there's there's probably a better pick in a Yankee system,
Speaker 1: and that's what I want to kind of go dial
Speaker 1: up right now and see who would have been a
Speaker 1: better selection. But I think there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: time still for him to sprint through the finish line.
Speaker 1: I just don't think enough to quantify as a breakout,
Speaker 1: you know, coming back from the injury. It just hasn't
Speaker 1: happened as quickly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, college arm. You hope that he you know, kind
Speaker 3: of hits the ground running and gets to the upper minors.
Speaker 3: But not really going to too well for thatcher Herd
Speaker 3: right now, and again he is in low A as
Speaker 3: it stands, you got a Yankee pick or not so much.
Speaker 1: Looking at the bats right now, not great on the
Speaker 1: bats side. There's always a pitcher, though, like there's always
Speaker 1: a pitcher, I feel like that ends up surprising you
Speaker 1: and performing really well. But right now, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a clear cut guy that you'd say
Speaker 1: relative to expectations, unless I'm forgetting somebody you know, is
Speaker 1: outright breaking out in this system per se, which is
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting because you know they're gonna want to
Speaker 1: be aggressive at the deadline. But yeah, when I look
Speaker 1: across good players like Elmer's thrown well, I'm Rodriguez is
Speaker 1: thrown well, Like, I don't think anybody's full fledged, really
Speaker 1: broken out per se in the system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, Uh, you nailed the breakout pick as
Speaker 3: it pertains to the Tampa Bay Rays. Here, nineteen year
Speaker 3: old catcher Nathan Fluelling was your breakout pick coming into
Speaker 3: the year nineteen year old in a HIGHYA through sixty
Speaker 3: five games, fourteen homers, forty two driven in, hitting two
Speaker 3: sixty with a three to ninety OVP and an eight
Speaker 3: seventy six ops. He is three years younger than the
Speaker 3: league average hitter in HYA. Nineteen years old. This is
Speaker 3: not only the breakout pick of the Rays, this is
Speaker 3: one of the breakout players in Minor League Baseball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love this kid, and I felt like from
Speaker 1: what we saw last year, and we've talked about Welling
Speaker 1: a little bit on the show now already because of
Speaker 1: the year that he's having, But what we saw from
Speaker 1: last year as a player that was extremely young as
Speaker 1: a collegiate or as excuse me as a prep catcher
Speaker 1: going straight to full season ball and handling it the
Speaker 1: way that he did and with the peripherals, the raw
Speaker 1: power was there, the patience was there, the arm strength
Speaker 1: behind the dish was there, and that's why I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: some of this kid's parts are really impressive. And talking
Speaker 1: to some people around the Rays organization, they all said,
Speaker 1: this kid is ahead of his years. Like we love
Speaker 1: the way he goes about his business, and there's more
Speaker 1: power in there that would always be like the follow
Speaker 1: up too, And so when you hear that side too,
Speaker 1: when you see the underlying, it was all exciting. He
Speaker 1: had this kind of big move I've talked about where
Speaker 1: the hands would start by a Sternham and then go
Speaker 1: all the way like pull all the way back. It
Speaker 1: was hard at time, and he has completely overhauled that
Speaker 1: to where now sands are on a more traditional spot,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of sitting up high by his back,
Speaker 1: by his ear, and it's a simple move, and I
Speaker 1: think he's able to repeat his moves more consistently, be
Speaker 1: on time, and get the barrel out a little bit quicker.
Speaker 1: And now we're seeing that results in that raw power
Speaker 1: turn into more game power. He's still nineteen years old,
Speaker 1: so you pair that with the fact that you can
Speaker 1: develop into an above average catcher and has the makeup
Speaker 1: to be a good, just solid piece behind the dish.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned being so young for the level. Usually
Speaker 1: what you see with the guys that are really young
Speaker 1: for the level, and this is a generalization, but it's
Speaker 1: something that like anecdotally, I could tell you I've just
Speaker 1: seen so so so many times that if I was
Speaker 1: able to somehow run, the numbers would back it up.
Speaker 1: The younger guys at the level that are even performing
Speaker 1: pretty well, they are crushing fastballs and maybe the approach
Speaker 1: is pretty good, but a lot of times the numbers
Speaker 1: aren't quite up to par with the secondaries, and it's
Speaker 1: usually just, hey, this is a really talented hitter that's
Speaker 1: feasting on fastballs and patient enough on the secondaries. You
Speaker 1: don't usually see eight's across the board, like you see
Speaker 1: with Foelling, eight sixty one ops against fastballs, eight fifty
Speaker 1: one ops against breaking balls, eight seventy six ops against
Speaker 1: splitters and changeups. That to me is a hitter that's
Speaker 1: just ahead of his years.
Speaker 3: Thing the Rays have. It seems like so many guys
Speaker 3: that you can choose from. But Fluelling was the slam
Speaker 3: dunk pick, and you have another slam dunk pick with
Speaker 3: the Boston Red Sox Anthony Ironson. You mentioned a little chalky.
Speaker 3: A lot of people like ianson in spring training just
Speaker 3: because of how loud the stuff was, and Ironsen is
Speaker 3: proving the truthers rights.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think there were doubters, but he's proving his
Speaker 3: truthers rights. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is oh sorry, go ahead, No, you're good.
Speaker 3: In fifty and two thirds innings for ionin across twelve
Speaker 3: starts between high A and double A, seven starts in
Speaker 3: double as a twenty one year old, he's got a
Speaker 3: one point oh seventy RRA, six earned runs and fifty
Speaker 3: and two thirds with sixty four punch outs to nineteen walks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just he's just too polished, I think for
Speaker 1: these these hitters, even a double A. He's a cut
Speaker 1: cut ride guy, and then you have the arsenal that
Speaker 1: just really works well off of itself in just a
Speaker 1: vertical tunnel where it's the cut ride fastball, then a
Speaker 1: cutter below that, and then he'll throw so you know,
Speaker 1: a gyro slider below that, and then we'll have the
Speaker 1: downer curveball below that, and it's just all different speeds
Speaker 1: and all very difficult to differentiate out of the hand
Speaker 1: because everything kind of looks like he's coming around it.
Speaker 1: Even the fastball, he's kind of coming around it. So
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes hitters can maybe pick it up a
Speaker 1: little bit because you see him come around the side
Speaker 1: of the ball and say, okay, here comes to breaking
Speaker 1: ball and you see the spin different. Everything looks like that.
Speaker 1: So it's creating this very difficult tunnel for hitters. And
Speaker 1: anytime you take a good command guy and you up
Speaker 1: the stuff, it's generally gonna age, you know, or it's
Speaker 1: generally gonna turn into two quite good results. It's funny
Speaker 1: now Ianson has become so popular that I actually feel
Speaker 1: like I skew a little bit lower on him than
Speaker 1: some of the other in the industry. I took the
Speaker 1: layup of the breakout. There's just nobody better to pick
Speaker 1: than Ianson. But at the same time, I do have
Speaker 1: some concerns, Like the stuff works well off of each other,
Speaker 1: but I do have some concerns about how he can
Speaker 1: keep lefties at bay with everything still kind of working
Speaker 1: glove side and the strikeout rate has dipped pretty significantly.
Speaker 1: We're working with small samples at double A, so I
Speaker 1: think you can do a good job of avoiding barrels
Speaker 1: for the most part because of the tunneling effect and
Speaker 1: how it can be different difficult to differentiate things out
Speaker 1: of the hand. However, I do think that like there's
Speaker 1: some normalization to these numbers coming, and there is going
Speaker 1: to be a challenge, you know. I think, what this
Speaker 1: is the thing with the big leagues too, and you're
Speaker 1: trying to project these guys up to the big leagues.
Speaker 1: There's more left tened hitters than like ever, and every
Speaker 1: team has a left e that they can you know,
Speaker 1: they can go lefty heavy lineup. What does Ionson do
Speaker 1: when he's got to see seven Like if you had
Speaker 1: to see the Marlins right now, dude, and they put
Speaker 1: seven lefties in there, That's where I'm interested to see,
Speaker 1: like that's where it's going to be tough, So I
Speaker 1: think there's a little bit more refinement and execution can
Speaker 1: help that. But I do think he's more of a
Speaker 1: fifty to seventy range top one hundred guy and not
Speaker 1: a twenty to forty range like I've seen elsewhere.
Speaker 3: Can I give you a take that I've been just
Speaker 3: like it's just kind of been I don't know, stewing
Speaker 3: in my brain for a little bit. I think I
Speaker 3: have a new best pitch in baseball. It's a right
Speaker 3: handed changeup. Like it's it's ridiculous the number of premier
Speaker 3: lefty bats there are and the number of drastic splits
Speaker 3: that I see for pitchers as it pertains to right
Speaker 3: and left. It's like, oh, Lefty's ops nine hundred against him,
Speaker 3: but right he's are ops and six fifty against him.
Speaker 3: Why is that? Because the slider's good and the sweeper's good,
Speaker 3: and everybody prioritized working on the slider and sweeper instead
Speaker 3: of something to get lefties out, and like it could
Speaker 3: be a sinker, but very few right handed pitchers, it
Speaker 3: seems like in Major League Baseball have a feel for
Speaker 3: a change up and it's like a splitter accomplishes it
Speaker 3: to a certain extent, but if you've got a little
Speaker 3: armside diver, dude, it's one of the best pitches in
Speaker 3: baseball right now. I think.
Speaker 1: Well, one the biggest thing I think it's a great
Speaker 1: point is and it's the cyclical league that we have,
Speaker 1: is is that it became in vogue to go sweeper
Speaker 1: hoppy fastball and like right on right, nightmare right, Like
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be do that. So the only way
Speaker 1: to combat that is to have more lefties against those
Speaker 1: types of guys. But the other reason why why they
Speaker 1: did that and like why sweepers became in vogue is
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier from pitchers. I've talked to pitching
Speaker 1: coaches I've talked to like a lot easier to teach
Speaker 1: a sleeper than it is to teach a change up
Speaker 1: and like duh. But even like with everything that we
Speaker 1: have today, it's even more of a gap in terms
Speaker 1: of teachability than you think, like and then we already
Speaker 1: think that it's a huge gap. So like a lot
Speaker 1: of guys, if you already have a little bit of
Speaker 1: ability to spend it, like they can get you on
Speaker 1: a sweeper pretty quickly, change up not so much. And
Speaker 1: I think with how much we push towards that, yeah,
Speaker 1: this change up has become even more valuable. And I
Speaker 1: think that's why we're saying, like Logan web Man, like
Speaker 1: just on this heater of all heaters right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just crazy. All right, We're gonna get to
Speaker 3: the American League Central in a moment. But before that
Speaker 3: little woosh heading into the Cleveland Guardian conversation and the
Speaker 3: Cleveland Guardian breakout pick for you was a guy that
Speaker 3: seemed like a slam dunk at time, and now it's
Speaker 3: not a slam dunk. Joey Oke was your pick. Joey
Speaker 3: Oke last year in fifty nine innings, punched out seventy
Speaker 3: eight guys, and you're sitting here saying, if only he
Speaker 3: walks fewer than six hitters per nine innings. Unfortunately, joey
Speaker 3: Oki went back on his word in thirteen starts in
Speaker 3: low Way in his age twenty season, joey Oki in
Speaker 3: forty five at a third innings has a six eight era.
Speaker 3: Why you ask, because in forty five and a third
Speaker 3: innings he's walked forty two guys. Man, what's gone wrong? Mechanics.
Speaker 1: It's mechanics. It's such a long arm action. It's so
Speaker 1: hard for him to time up. And I just he
Speaker 1: tried to tweak it and whatever, and I think it
Speaker 1: might have made things worse. Like did you see now
Speaker 1: he looks uncomfortable and mechanical. I've picked this guy twice
Speaker 1: now to breakout, so I can. I can promise you
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be picking irons in or excuse me, ice,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be picking ok next year. I still
Speaker 1: think he has a lot of time and a lot
Speaker 1: of talent, but it's probably going to be more in
Speaker 1: that relief role, right. I mean, they're gonna give him
Speaker 1: time to like try to figure it out, obviously, But
Speaker 1: I just when you watch him throw and you see
Speaker 1: that long arm action and just some of the erraticness
Speaker 1: still like trying to time that up with his body,
Speaker 1: he can get a little bit jumpy. It seems like
Speaker 1: the timing is inconsistent across different like different pitches, and
Speaker 1: you can it's very tangible. So that's where I get
Speaker 1: even more concerned about the command is when you can
Speaker 1: really see the timing inconsistencies with the arm and the
Speaker 1: lower body and it's the fastball slider combination could play
Speaker 1: in a bullpen, but even then, like the command's gonna
Speaker 1: need to get a lot better to even get there.
Speaker 1: And so I was thinking about, like, okay, so who
Speaker 1: would be then the Guardians breakout prospect per se. What's
Speaker 1: funny is, you know, we've had Cooper angle as a
Speaker 1: top one hundred prospects in previous years, so as recent
Speaker 1: as last year at some point. So I guess he's
Speaker 1: still the pick though, because he's very Bonds and trip
Speaker 1: Awa and now it's up in the show like he's
Speaker 1: been so good offensively that the Guardian said, like, let's
Speaker 1: get you back into left like you're at Clemson again.
Speaker 1: So I think he's got to be the pick. But
Speaker 1: I was kind of pushed away from that because we've
Speaker 1: always liked him to the point that he was a
Speaker 1: top one hundred prospect for us within the last calendar year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dude, I mean, Ingle is definitely the pick right now.
Speaker 3: And what they have going in terms of guys that
Speaker 3: are just getting going in their big league career is astounding.
Speaker 3: We've been begging for a half decade for line of
Speaker 3: protection for Jose Ramirez. I think longer than that. I
Speaker 3: really think since they traded Lindor, it's like, how are
Speaker 3: you going to have line of protection? And now de
Speaker 3: latter Bizana and Ingle are in the fold. It's really
Speaker 3: really fun to watch right now.
Speaker 1: The other one, real quick is sorry, is Duke or Cassarras.
Speaker 1: Cassarus is one of people, well what about him? He's
Speaker 1: a breakup. We had him as a top sixty prospect
Speaker 1: going into the season and so I and I know
Speaker 1: there's way higher than everybody else, So we couldn't have
Speaker 1: Cassarras as the breakout guy. However, he's walked more than
Speaker 1: he's striking out and he's a nine to sixty four
Speaker 1: ohps is an eighteen year old in Loway, so he's
Speaker 1: definitely breaking out.
Speaker 3: There you go, Royal. Here's what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3: Warren kel Kanye, who is a nineteen year old who
Speaker 3: is in the Dominican Summer League. He's played fifteen games
Speaker 3: in the DSL, sixty five played appearances. I assume you've
Speaker 3: watched every pitch of one kel Kanye to this point.
Speaker 1: No, but there's not been much reason too. This is
Speaker 1: a bad one. Uh, we'll see. I really liked what
Speaker 1: I saw from the nine games before he went down
Speaker 1: with the shoulder injury. He went down with a shoulder
Speaker 1: injury that flared up multiple times. I I Sharon eventually
Speaker 1: wiped out his season, so I'd imagine there's some residual
Speaker 1: effects there. But the kids got a sixty five WRC
Speaker 1: plus and ds i's that's my bad. I still think
Speaker 1: he's gonna be good, like pretty good. I do think
Speaker 1: it's injury related. However, obviously this is a brutal pick.
Speaker 1: And there's another one where I tried to get a
Speaker 1: guy in a bounce back from injury, and as you
Speaker 1: can learn here, like the sometimes you just don't know
Speaker 1: how long it's going to take some of these young
Speaker 1: players to bounce back from that injury.
Speaker 3: And I get it. Who would be your royal pick here?
Speaker 3: If you have one?
Speaker 1: That's a tough one because I love the guys that
Speaker 1: they just drafted, and those guys have been good. Uh,
Speaker 1: but like those aren't going to be breakouts per se,
Speaker 1: like Josh Hammond, Like that's a guy that you drafted
Speaker 1: in the in the first round, like of course, or
Speaker 1: like in the early parts of the draft, like of course,
Speaker 1: that's going to be a guy that's performing. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think. I'm not going to cross like Spencer and
Speaker 1: Nippens has been good, but like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's a breakout. There's no one that's quite jumping. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know we're gonna miss some. So like in the comments,
Speaker 1: please let us know who in your mind is breaking out,
Speaker 1: because we can only catch up with so many of
Speaker 1: the systems while we're doing this in real time. But
Speaker 1: I would say Michael Lombardi. I guess like Michael Lombardi.
Speaker 1: Fourteen appearances this year, fifty five and a thirds innings,
Speaker 1: a two four, four yard, eighty six punchies, the walk
Speaker 1: rates a little bit high, but I mean he's been
Speaker 1: pretty good. But he is also a little bit older
Speaker 1: for the level low way, But that's probably the guy
Speaker 1: that's standing out to me, is just like putting up
Speaker 1: better numbers than I think people would have expected.
Speaker 3: Well, I was thinking Michael Lombardi, Bill Belichick's GM at
Speaker 3: North Carolina, but no different, Michael Lombardi. Good. I love
Speaker 3: it all right. Next squad, John Peck was your pick
Speaker 3: for the Detroit Tigers. John Peck was an unorthodox pick
Speaker 3: for you because this was a guy that already made
Speaker 3: his way to double eight eerie. Last year, one hundred
Speaker 3: and eighteen games, Peck hit three oh one with a
Speaker 3: seven ninety two ops, had eleven homers and nineteen backs.
Speaker 3: This year looks very similar, hitting Q ninety with an
Speaker 3: eight to sixty OPS, eleven homers, and nineteen bags. The
Speaker 3: difference is it took him one hundred and eighteen games
Speaker 3: last year, mostly in high eight, to get to eleven
Speaker 3: homers and nineteen bags. Took him sixty games, fifty eight
Speaker 3: of which in Double A to get to eleven homers.
Speaker 3: In nineteen. Bags got up to Triple A Toledo for
Speaker 3: two games and then got hurt. I saw he's on
Speaker 3: the shelf. Do you know what with I do not
Speaker 3: know with the shelf right now, but you asked me.
Speaker 3: It was like, is this guy? Is this a fair
Speaker 3: breakout pick? Like? Can you say that he broke out?
Speaker 3: I will give you the The field goal is good,
Speaker 3: I think so. Like the power numbers being that good
Speaker 3: that quickly at a level higher is really impressive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would. I appreciate that he tweaked his leg.
Speaker 1: I guess the other night, so we'll see how bad
Speaker 1: that is. Yeah, it was. It was one where it's
Speaker 1: like this was a system that was really hard to
Speaker 1: find a breakout pick. But also I thought, Okay, if
Speaker 1: he hits his way to the big leagues for this
Speaker 1: team and dominates double A Triple A, like that's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be a breakout, or not even dominates just like
Speaker 1: forty fifty abovely gaverage double A Triple A and get
Speaker 1: to the big leags. I thought that'd be a breakout,
Speaker 1: and he might have been on pace to do that,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately we are going to see a little bit
Speaker 1: of a detour there. I was excited to see what
Speaker 1: would happen in Triple A and obviously was off to
Speaker 1: a great start with them there. So TBD. But if
Speaker 1: he gets into the big leagues and has some success,
Speaker 1: I'll I'll give it, I'll give it a thumbs up.
Speaker 1: But for now, I appreciate the field goals good. I
Speaker 1: he was kind of an easier pick too, because he
Speaker 1: had a really good year last year, but I did
Speaker 1: and if you look at the rite up which linked
Speaker 1: in the episode description, is all the picks here. The
Speaker 1: big part of it was that I thought there'd be
Speaker 1: an uptick and slug based on what we saw in
Speaker 1: the second half last year, and like, clearly, if you're
Speaker 1: matching your home run total and half the games, there's
Speaker 1: a pretty significant uptick and slug. So that part I
Speaker 1: do feel good about.
Speaker 3: Got you, Okay, cool, Let's jump to the Minnesota Twins
Speaker 3: here and your pick. With the Minnesota Twins unfortunately walked
Speaker 3: six in an inning and two third and then hit
Speaker 3: the sixty day I l Santiago Castianos with Minnesota Flora
Speaker 3: is yours. H.
Speaker 1: I guess that's just a push, right, you gotta you
Speaker 1: just gotta wait and rewrack him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's to wait and see.
Speaker 1: Unfortunate the injury there, I Castos because of when we
Speaker 1: went through this episode too, how advanced the pitch mix
Speaker 1: was for a sixteen year old. We saw a ninety
Speaker 1: three to ninety five min on hour fastball, five different pitches.
Speaker 1: It had above average carry. The sweeper looked good, the
Speaker 1: change up was already decent feel wise, and he even
Speaker 1: showed a bridge cutter. So I still think this is
Speaker 1: a really interesting pitching prospect that unfortunately throwing hard at
Speaker 1: a young age, Like yeah, you're sitting ninety three ninety
Speaker 1: five at sixteen, Like sometimes this injury comes up a
Speaker 1: little bit quicker than maybe it does for some others.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it comes back, you know, strong and healthy. But
Speaker 1: I think clearly that he felt something in that one
Speaker 1: outing and that was that. So we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: and see. But for Twins fans, I do think this
Speaker 1: is a good player here that could end up becoming
Speaker 1: a pretty solid arm for them. As it pertains to
Speaker 1: who the breakout is. Yeah, that's another fun one that
Speaker 1: I they have a lot of guys performing, but it's
Speaker 1: like their top guys are performing.
Speaker 3: Trying to think of outside of outside of like their
Speaker 3: top ten prospects for you, like just seems like a
Speaker 3: very quiet system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Henry Mendez, I guess would maybe be that like
Speaker 1: breakout guy. And it was someone I considered a little
Speaker 1: bit there, but the the peripherals were never as good.
Speaker 1: But Mendez, you're twenty two years old here has been
Speaker 1: having like a really nice season. He was really good
Speaker 1: last year though too. It was a one thirty eight
Speaker 1: WRC plus last year at double he was acquired from
Speaker 1: them the Phillies UH this year thirty games or twenty
Speaker 1: four games in double A one seventeen WRC plus thirty
Speaker 1: games in Triple A A one forty two, so that
Speaker 1: combines to a one thirty one and fifty four games
Speaker 1: for Mendez is a twenty two year old at the
Speaker 1: upper levels once turn twenty three until after the season's over,
Speaker 1: that's probably the pick. But yeah, I think that the
Speaker 1: good thing with the with the Twin system right now
Speaker 1: is that the top guys are performing, and like, you
Speaker 1: just want those guys to stay healthy, and I think
Speaker 1: you'll feel pretty pretty good.
Speaker 3: I dig that. All right, let's go to the White
Speaker 3: Sox here, White Sox parlay vous Francis. Matthias Lacombe was
Speaker 3: your pick for the White Sox here, twenty four year
Speaker 3: old that did go to junior college in the United States.
Speaker 3: He was a early to mid round pick in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, no mid late round pick in twenty three,
Speaker 3: twelfth round at a coach Ice College in Arizona. But
Speaker 3: Matthias Lacombe so far this year, what was it late
Speaker 3: start due to injury?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he started injury.
Speaker 3: Yeah, made two appearances at the complex. But in twelve appearances,
Speaker 3: spending twenty innings with hy A Winston Salem, twelve hits,
Speaker 3: six runs. That's a two to seventy r Rabit in
Speaker 3: twenty innings, punched out thirty two and walked eight. Too
Speaker 3: early to tell her you feel good about it?
Speaker 1: It's looking good. I mean he's got to do it
Speaker 1: for more than twenty innings and yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 1: we've got a guy that's striking out fourteen and a
Speaker 1: half per nine that's gonna play. I know he's older
Speaker 1: and it's shortest burts because of the shoulder discomfort started
Speaker 1: the year. But I'm not going to say it's a
Speaker 1: victory yet. But I think we're for an injury to
Speaker 1: start the year. I think we're off to a pretty
Speaker 1: good start now of game setting for him.
Speaker 3: I ben all right, Matthias Lacombe, that feels good. Are
Speaker 3: there other big time breakouts in the minor leagues for
Speaker 3: the White Sox? They have had a good performing system.
Speaker 3: But like a lot of the guys that have been
Speaker 3: performing in the system yet you already knew about, Like yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, Braden Montgomery was never gonna be a breakout,
Speaker 3: but like Nishida making his way to the big leagues,
Speaker 3: that almost feels a little breakout.
Speaker 1: Well, and real quick to one lacomb he's averaging ninety
Speaker 1: six on the heater, he's touching ninety nine. It's a
Speaker 1: really like weird kind of short arm, low three quarters release,
Speaker 1: and the slider from there is outrageous. You just can't
Speaker 1: pick it up, and he's flashed, you know, twenty inches
Speaker 1: of horizontal on that. So it's like a sweeper that
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a little bit more carry, sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more depth, and it looks like a wipeout
Speaker 1: pitch for him. So I'm I think Combe's gonna be
Speaker 1: a good relief piece for them. But as it pertains
Speaker 1: to the White Sox, that's a great question. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that are performing pretty well in
Speaker 1: the system that I think you feel pretty good about.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I do kind of feel like like
Speaker 1: Antonachi was already a guy that I think you felt
Speaker 1: like was kind of good in a good position to
Speaker 1: do what he does. I think the breakout is the
Speaker 1: fact that he's doing it at the highest level and
Speaker 1: to the degree that he is doing it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's really a clear cut breakout
Speaker 1: for me in this system unless I'm unless I'm missing somebody.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't seem like there's one right now that
Speaker 1: I can that I can see off the top of
Speaker 1: my head.
Speaker 3: I don't think you are, So we'll pivot to the
Speaker 3: AL West. And before we do that, one more first
Speaker 3: guy that we got to talk about in the American
Speaker 3: League Est or in the American League West, weast I
Speaker 3: thought you said at least was Yeah. First guy with
Speaker 3: the Houston Astros is Ethan Fry. You had Ethan Fry
Speaker 3: as your breakout with the Astros. Fry so far this year,
Speaker 3: twenty two year old third round pick. Last year out
Speaker 3: of LSU forty seven games at A seven, been fifty
Speaker 3: three ops, got thirteen bags and five homers so far
Speaker 3: for Fry, yeah, not not not good.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, the peripherals were so good last year. I mean
Speaker 1: he hit the living It was a small sample, but
Speaker 1: he hit the living crap by the ball. Albeit college
Speaker 1: bat low A. You kind of expect that, but the
Speaker 1: way that do hitting the ball, I had some concerns
Speaker 1: about how stiff the operation can be, and I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of challenged him now more at the even
Speaker 1: just the high A level, breaking balls have just dismantled him.
Speaker 1: He's hit fastball as well, but five h nine OPS
Speaker 1: against breaking balls that sixty percent contact right against spin.
Speaker 1: The whiff in general is just really weird. It's had
Speaker 1: sixty eight percent contact right overall, and then a flatter
Speaker 1: swing path, which even in the positive wrinkle like was
Speaker 1: something I was kind of concerned about, but it felt
Speaker 1: like the good was going to outweigh the bad because
Speaker 1: of how hard are you hitting the ball. The contact
Speaker 1: rates at low way were solid enough, but for the
Speaker 1: most part this year it's just kind of been a
Speaker 1: step backwards across the board and as a result, you know,
Speaker 1: we've we've fort seen an eighty five WRC plus another
Speaker 1: league though, Dude, like seven fifty oh ps is an
Speaker 1: eighty five WRC plus. Wow, there's something weird going on
Speaker 1: with the base balls. I know JJ Cooper's discussed this
Speaker 1: a little bit, like that's just there's some data points
Speaker 1: that are a little bit off with Baseball America.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 1: Something's going on. It's just the these numbers. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at some players that have the same batted ball data
Speaker 1: as the year before and seeing the power up tick,
Speaker 1: like I could be something to justify Peck maybe as
Speaker 1: a little bit too, but I don't know. Something something
Speaker 1: going on. Okay, the offensive numbers.
Speaker 3: Are up too much interesting. Okay, the astros, if they
Speaker 3: are buyers, do they have anything?
Speaker 1: I mean they do, But it's the guys that like
Speaker 1: would have been rejected as breakout picks because they are
Speaker 1: discernibly their best, like Kevin and David nine. So I
Speaker 1: pissed pick the guy that they just drafted in the
Speaker 1: first round. That'd be the laziest thing of all time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and that's all the crazy parts, Like are
Speaker 1: you going to trade your your first round pick? Are
Speaker 1: you going to trade your top bi F A guy?
Speaker 1: I think it would be kind of nuts. But you
Speaker 1: never know. With with the Astros, like we talk about
Speaker 1: on the JB Show, like with the way they're kind
Speaker 1: of approaching this, you just don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a clear, clear, clear cut breakout. I liked
Speaker 1: Cole Hurtzwer when I saw him for the first time
Speaker 1: ever in the Spring Breakout Game, and he's thrown well
Speaker 1: this year. But he's a twenty three year old between
Speaker 1: high and double A and as a two five six
Speaker 1: RA but he's walking thirteen and a half nine, he's
Speaker 1: striking out thirty one percent. But I don't know if
Speaker 1: you could quantify that as a breakout offensively, Like you
Speaker 1: could shout out Luis Dillon, who is a complex kid
Speaker 1: with one thousand and seventy five ohps through one hundred
Speaker 1: and seven played appearances, But that's kind of where you
Speaker 1: got to go there. But Dillion does have my attention.
Speaker 1: He's been he's lashing three ninety eight, four ninety five,
Speaker 1: five eighty. I understand it's the Complex League, but I've been.
Speaker 1: I've seen some clips of him too. He looks he
Speaker 1: looks really good for his age. That's probably their guy.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of the point, like you got to
Speaker 1: go to the Complex for the breakout performers per se.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's push to the athletics. The athletics
Speaker 3: your breakout pick. Here was a guy by the name
Speaker 3: of Edgar Montero who's still nineteen years old. Native of
Speaker 3: the Dominican Republic, he is a right handed hitting short stop.
Speaker 3: Montero spent two years in the DSL. First year in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, his age seventeen season, hit two forty
Speaker 3: with a seven to seventy ops three homers. Next year,
Speaker 3: after repeating the DSL three thirteen with a four eighty
Speaker 3: four obp walk sixty times in fifty five games, had
Speaker 3: a ten sixty three OPS, and the home run total
Speaker 3: tripled from three to nine. Now in fifty three games
Speaker 3: as a nineteen year old with low Ay Stockton, he's
Speaker 3: hitting a tick below the Mendoza line at one ninety nine.
Speaker 3: He's got four homers and he's punched out ninety times
Speaker 3: in fifty three games. It's a six twenty nine OPS.
Speaker 3: This is the one.
Speaker 1: I think I even had it in the write up.
Speaker 1: I was like, this one can pribble up in my face,
Speaker 1: but also it could be good, Like I either in
Speaker 1: the right up I remember talking about in the episode
Speaker 1: where was, this could either make me look really good
Speaker 1: or really bad. And unfortunately it's the latter, because anytime
Speaker 1: you have a guy repeating DSL, I'm always gonna take
Speaker 1: that with a grain of sault. But it was such
Speaker 1: a I was something about least Covid with the Marl
Speaker 1: Wines too, right, Like he repeated the DSL, but his
Speaker 1: numbers were so good and the bad of bal Dada
Speaker 1: was so much better. It's like, oh, that's exciting, and
Speaker 1: then he's also kind of had a dud, so repeating
Speaker 1: DSL guys like you got to really take that with
Speaker 1: a grain of assault. But the hard hit rate was
Speaker 1: fifty percent, was an average exabossi of ninety mas per hour,
Speaker 1: and he's really patient. I'm like, okay, this could translate something.
Speaker 1: Could he could have figured something out or he could
Speaker 1: have just figured out how to compete against really bad pitching.
Speaker 1: And that seems to be what happened here. And that's
Speaker 1: where it's very difficult to draw that line. Is you know,
Speaker 1: you could figure out how to hit DSL pitching and
Speaker 1: still not have improved that much as a hitter, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: And that's pretty much what happened here. He still has
Speaker 1: plenty of time, he's still clearly can move the bat
Speaker 1: quickly and there's some good tools there. But it's been
Speaker 1: a really, really, really rough season and this is probably
Speaker 1: one of the worst picks. I would say, But you know,
Speaker 1: you got to swing for the fences. Sometimes it's okay, you.
Speaker 3: Got a pitching breakout in the A system or is
Speaker 3: it a hitting breakout way and one.
Speaker 1: Was so good before he just went down with injury.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's tj for him. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 1: was like the breakout though he's probably the breakout, even
Speaker 1: though he was so so good last year, to continue
Speaker 1: it at the upper levels. I don't think anybody was
Speaker 1: fully expecting that. What's funny is Henry Boltay took a
Speaker 1: huge step forward last year. I think you could call
Speaker 1: him the breakout for the way that he has just
Speaker 1: torched Triple A and then what he's done at the
Speaker 1: big league level. It was everything just better across the
Speaker 1: board defensively, bat a ball, data wise, in terms of
Speaker 1: the angles, just getting slightly better. Approach wise, significantly better,
Speaker 1: Like he cut a strikeout right by ten percent climbing level,
Speaker 1: and he's even cut a strikeout rate at the big
Speaker 1: league level compared to where he was at at HIA.
Speaker 1: So I would say I'll take could probably be the
Speaker 1: pick as well.
Speaker 3: I love it all right, we push on to the
Speaker 3: La Angels and this is a hell of a pick
Speaker 3: here by arm Layton. The La Angels, your pick was
Speaker 3: Hayden Alvarez, and Hayden Alvarez has been awesome nineteen year
Speaker 3: old who's spending the full year in Low A. As
Speaker 3: it stands right now, last year was an eight sixty
Speaker 3: five OPS and he got off the complex for twenty games.
Speaker 3: He is leveled up from last year, hitting three eight
Speaker 3: with a four to fifteen OBP and a nine eleven ops.
Speaker 3: How is he leveled up? Well, he's already beyond his
Speaker 3: stolen based total from last year, and he had two
Speaker 3: homers and seventy five games a year ago. He's got
Speaker 3: eight homers and seventy games this year. This is a
Speaker 3: guy that should comfortably be in the top one hundred
Speaker 3: for a while, right, He's.
Speaker 1: Got a chance. He's absolutely got a chance. I The
Speaker 1: thing with him is it's just a very well rounded player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think when watching him, I think in the
Speaker 1: defensive side of the thing, because I think that was
Speaker 1: a bit of a question for him. I was impressed
Speaker 1: with how much that's kind of come along and how
Speaker 1: he's able to kind of get pretty good reads and
Speaker 1: cover ground with these longer strides because he's a big
Speaker 1: he's not big, he's longer like big framed I guess
Speaker 1: six three, one hundred and ninety pounds long limbs, So
Speaker 1: it's long strides and he can smoothly cover a fair
Speaker 1: amount of ground. But the fact that he can get
Speaker 1: to his top speed the way that he does as
Speaker 1: a longer guy, I think is really impressive as well,
Speaker 1: and just seeing the way that the stolen bases have
Speaker 1: continued to be a huge part of his game. A
Speaker 1: little bit more whift that' scrept into his game. But
Speaker 1: I think in exchange for trying to get into more power,
Speaker 1: and that's why we had him ranked in the top
Speaker 1: ten and four the system, I think ever before the season,
Speaker 1: and then picked as a breakout guy. I think if
Speaker 1: he can improve against breaking balls, I'll be a guy
Speaker 1: that absolutely could be in the top one hundred. And
Speaker 1: this is though the classic what I was talking about
Speaker 1: before Young for the level right, he won't turn twenty
Speaker 1: until spring training next year, the end of spring training
Speaker 1: next year, but Young drawing fastballs to the tune of
Speaker 1: one thousand and seventy two ohps, but six thirty six
Speaker 1: against breaking balls, five eighty six ops against splitters and changeups. However,
Speaker 1: he's chasing those pitches twenty three percent of the time,
Speaker 1: so demolish fastballs, don't expand too much against spin. You
Speaker 1: can still have a lot of success at low A.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be the improvement of you know,
Speaker 1: being able to hit non fastballs. I think that's going
Speaker 1: to come along to see matures. The thing I'm most
Speaker 1: excited about for him is there's probably room for another
Speaker 1: fifteen pounds a muscle, and that may saw him down
Speaker 1: a little bit, but how much power could be in
Speaker 1: there as well. And I still think he'll be able
Speaker 1: to move pretty well because he just clearly has a
Speaker 1: gliding nature to his speed. I'm excited to see what
Speaker 1: can be with him, and I hope they challenge him
Speaker 1: with Hie soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Two more teams that we got to talk about here,
Speaker 3: and this is a slam dunk. Yes, Nick Becker was
Speaker 3: your pick for the Seattle Mariners and Becker has been awesome.
Speaker 3: Surprised he's not in Modesto just yet. But Nick Becker
Speaker 3: in forty one games of the complex so far this
Speaker 3: year in his age nineteen seasons round pick last year
Speaker 3: to don Bosco Prep in New Jersey by the Mariners
Speaker 3: forty one games, hitting right around three hundred, but walked
Speaker 3: thirty seven times. In forty one games. It's a two
Speaker 3: ninety two batting average and a four to sixty two OBP.
Speaker 3: This guy's four homers so far this year. He's twenty
Speaker 3: three for twenty five in the stolen based department and
Speaker 3: I mean, this is again a hat tip to Scott Hunter.
Speaker 3: He the best drafter in baseball, and it's not close.
Speaker 1: He's got to be and well, And I think with
Speaker 1: the big part, I think what really works for him
Speaker 1: is that the draft, like the draft team, amateur scouting team,
Speaker 1: really works in lockstep with player development team. And I
Speaker 1: know everybody, but there's different levels of how teams are
Speaker 1: seamlessly making that transition and allowing those players to be
Speaker 1: able to make that transition once they joined the organization
Speaker 1: to kind of know exactly what they need to work on,
Speaker 1: like working with their player development folks to identify players
Speaker 1: that they feel like they can get more out of
Speaker 1: and for the out inside identifying people. And I remember
Speaker 1: talking to Justin Toole, like the biggest thing he said
Speaker 1: about Becker is just how hungry he is for information
Speaker 1: and how eager and how he's kind of like to
Speaker 1: sit at the front of the class type of guy.
Speaker 1: And you don't always get that from high school guys,
Speaker 1: especially early drafted high school guys. So that's the fun part.
Speaker 1: And I alway have the quote when I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the article right now, it was quote from Justin Toole.
Speaker 1: He's really wiry, big, strong, physical. You can see why
Speaker 1: our scouts loved him so much, just his athleticism and
Speaker 1: how he moves. He's gonna need to cut down the
Speaker 1: whiff a little bit for this to be like a complete,
Speaker 1: complete w and we'll see how he handles low A.
Speaker 1: But this was always going to be a guy that's
Speaker 1: a project. I think there's fun defensive tools there where
Speaker 1: he can be an above average short sound, he's a
Speaker 1: plus runner. There's above average to plus power to dream
Speaker 1: on as well, and it's all just going to come
Speaker 1: down to the hit tool. But he could be a
Speaker 1: guy that strikes out thirty percent of the time and
Speaker 1: still plays every day because of the value that he
Speaker 1: brings to the table, across the board everywhere else.
Speaker 3: Ye last guy that we got to talk about less
Speaker 3: team that we get to talk about here is the
Speaker 3: Texas Rangers. He's a Tiger. The twenty five year old
Speaker 3: was your pick. He missed all of last year. It
Speaker 3: was TJ. Right, Yeah, you can just I guess chuck
Speaker 3: this year up to yeh DJ. Too early to tell.
Speaker 3: It's only six appearances, four of which and Hya, Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Far we've got ten and a thirds innings twenty k's
Speaker 1: two walks. Yeah, so we're off to a good start here.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean a bunch of six and two
Speaker 1: thirds of that was in the complex, probably just bullying kids.
Speaker 3: And then yeah it was fourteen it was fourteen k's
Speaker 3: and two walks and six and two thirds innings of
Speaker 3: the complex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just like just literally abusing kids there. And
Speaker 1: then you go to Hya where just working in short spurts.
Speaker 1: It's it's just been pretty nasty there as well. Obviously
Speaker 1: you let up a few runs, but in terms of
Speaker 1: the swing and miss. So wait and see here there's
Speaker 1: another injury roll of the dice that that we're going with.
Speaker 1: But I think this is another really fun player that
Speaker 1: can ultimately I think, be pretty It's it. The heater
Speaker 1: is plus borderline plus plus. And that's the funny thing
Speaker 1: with the complexy these poor kids have to see, like
Speaker 1: a seventy great heater, you're gonna you're gonna be in trouble,
Speaker 1: and the slider off of that he in the Rangers organization.
Speaker 1: I think this is a guy that could develop really
Speaker 1: nicely and end up being one of those later blooming
Speaker 1: twenty five, twenty six year old prospects that miss a
Speaker 1: lot of bats and could be pretty exciting, even if
Speaker 1: it's in a relief role. But I still think this
Speaker 1: is somebody that they hope they can build into a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a starter's role.
Speaker 3: Love it.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think if there's somebody else in the
Speaker 1: Rangers Org Cameron Cowley, by the way, just got the
Speaker 1: you know, that's a guy we've loved on the show
Speaker 1: because of I think he's in one of the best,
Speaker 1: most impressive athletes in the minor leagues, can play like
Speaker 1: every position, absolutely flies, sneaky pop. I think that's a
Speaker 1: very fun player to add to the big league level
Speaker 1: for them in pretty dynamic. I thought he should have
Speaker 1: been taken in the Rule five draft. I believe he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was protected. I either thought he was definitely
Speaker 1: a slam dunk guy, and if he wasn't, I thought
Speaker 1: I remember talking about him as a guy that should
Speaker 1: have been taken in the Rule five, whether it was
Speaker 1: maybe two years ago or last year, regardless. Excited for Collie.
Speaker 1: I think he's a very very fun player there. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think if who else could kind of qualify
Speaker 1: as the breakout in this Ranger system before we wrap up.
Speaker 1: But I'm looking right now a lot of ds gets
Speaker 1: swinging it already for them, but that's usually going to
Speaker 1: be the case early in the year. No one jumping
Speaker 1: out offensively, by the way, shoutout Arturo disla I've post.
Speaker 1: I'll post a highlight of him every four or five months.
Speaker 1: I want to see what his listed heighten waight is
Speaker 1: real quick. They say six two two forty. That's a
Speaker 1: complete lie. He is one of the more units. He's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest units in the minor leagues. So
Speaker 1: much fun to watch that guy hit. It's pretty funny
Speaker 1: and he will absolutely crush balls. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't think I have a specific guy. I think
Speaker 1: I think it's Aj Russell. Maybe it would probably be
Speaker 1: the breakoup, but it's only thirty one of the thirds innings.
Speaker 1: Russell has struck out fourteen point two per nine and
Speaker 1: pitch to a two eight forty ra another ridiculous heater
Speaker 1: and the Rangers are always gonna have arms.
Speaker 3: Can I throw you Sung June Kim on the complex
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 1: That's a guy that actually has a chance to do
Speaker 1: two way too. And I don't believe anyone really can.
Speaker 3: But he actually has a chance, and he's got and
Speaker 3: he's got a nine to thirty two ops and thirty
Speaker 3: two games so far this year.
Speaker 1: Yeap, all right, we'll roll with him too. Kim is fun,
Speaker 1: Kim is fun cool. All right, that'll do it. Thank
Speaker 1: you everybody for listening. We will be talking nationally excited
Speaker 1: this thing sometime this week. We also have a fun
Speaker 1: interview coming up Andrew Fisher of the Milwaukee Brewers organization
Speaker 1: this week, and then another one potentially next week as well.
Speaker 1: Reminder to follow us on social media accounts. Lists or
Speaker 1: the links are in the episode description. Putting out a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff on X and on the on Instagram
Speaker 1: and everything in between. And team top prospect lists continue
Speaker 1: to be turned out on Just Baseball dot com as
Speaker 1: we have been focused on that after the last Top
Speaker 1: one hundred update. A lot of draft stuff continuing to
Speaker 1: come up to We'll probably do a check in on
Speaker 1: that front sometime soon as well. As always, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. Before to talking prospects with you this week.
Speaker 1: H