Speaker 1: Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy
Speaker 1: Baseball Podcast. It's me Joey Bay, Joe Pizafia, and you
Speaker 1: know what time it is. It's baseball time and it
Speaker 1: means early drafts. We got best ball going on, we
Speaker 1: got early rankings going on there up right now at
Speaker 1: Fantasypros dot com. There's also a lot of buzz going
Speaker 1: around about a lot of players. So today, my good
Speaker 1: friend the Welsh and I are gonna sit and talk
Speaker 1: about the ten players that are breaking draft boards right now,
Speaker 1: moving up, moving down.
Speaker 2: Maybe the value is good, maybe not so good.
Speaker 1: We're gonna tell you as early NFBC drafting has already begun,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna see if we can help you crack
Speaker 1: the code on some of these players that I'm sure
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about Welsh from now all the way
Speaker 1: into marsh because some of these guys right now are
Speaker 1: definitely buzzworthy.
Speaker 3: The other word would be like polarizing. I think all
Speaker 3: ten of these guys are kind of polarizing, whether it's
Speaker 3: pulling up or down in drafts. And the idea is
Speaker 3: these guys are breaking draft boards because this is a
Speaker 3: lot of the big movement. This is a lot of
Speaker 3: the big focus. These are things that you might need
Speaker 3: to be prepared for the early trends if you start
Speaker 3: checking in around March. Luckily, we're here to help you
Speaker 3: kind of navigate that whole process. Whether it's I've got
Speaker 3: my ranks primer available, the article you can check out
Speaker 3: with my ranks over on Fantasy Pros, or stuff like this.
Speaker 3: We've got to try to identify and that's what we
Speaker 3: did here. These are the crazies. These are the crazies.
Speaker 3: Some are going to open your eyes, some you might
Speaker 3: not know about, and some you need to take advantage of.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about those players breaking the draft boards.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, and don't forget everybody. The Draft Wizard's
Speaker 1: going to be open before you know. It's a go
Speaker 1: to Fantasypros dot com. Get on that Draft Wizard, start
Speaker 1: using it, start training yourself, training your brain for baseball drafts.
Speaker 1: All right, let's start with somebody here in the first
Speaker 1: spot leading off Ellie Dela Cruz, one of our favorites
Speaker 1: on leading off our program last year. Well, somebody we
Speaker 1: were so excited to see. You got to see him
Speaker 1: in person before in AFL and you know, this is
Speaker 1: a very exciting player. Last year he was everything you
Speaker 1: could possibly made the two ninety eight with one thousand
Speaker 1: ops over in thirty eight games last year in Triple
Speaker 1: A at twenty one years old. Then he came out
Speaker 1: to the big leagues at thirteen home runs and ninety
Speaker 1: eight games there. Now he only had two thirty five,
Speaker 1: and he did have the OBP go from three ninety
Speaker 1: eight to three zho one.
Speaker 2: So clearly the strikeouts are.
Speaker 1: A problem here, but we know the speed he offers
Speaker 1: to thirty five steals and thirteen homers, that is something
Speaker 1: that's very tantalizing. So we're looking at the ADP right
Speaker 1: now of twenty two. It was nineteen earlier before in
Speaker 1: November to seven and some of the early ranks that
Speaker 1: were going on. But at least one of these players
Speaker 1: that I think we all look at and say there
Speaker 1: might not be a ceiling like he is that kind
Speaker 1: of a special guy. Bigger kids got to fill out
Speaker 1: a little bit more. Certainly, there's a little bit more
Speaker 1: growing physically for him to do, and also the maturation
Speaker 1: too at the plate in terms of seeing so many
Speaker 1: pitches striking out as much as he did there's obviously
Speaker 1: a better version of him somewhere. The question is are
Speaker 1: we going to see it in year two or do
Speaker 1: some of the struggles and some of the negatives kind
Speaker 1: of linger into the sophomore season and the perennial sophomore
Speaker 1: slump that we deal with with so many players.
Speaker 2: So when you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Elie de la Cruz, do you let the excitement kind
Speaker 1: of get away from you a little bit in this
Speaker 1: early ADP or you somebody that is thinking, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is kind of where I want.
Speaker 2: Because I want to be in the Eli Delacruz business.
Speaker 3: I think I am the former. I think that's how
Speaker 3: I say it correctly, would be the former side of
Speaker 3: that for the first one, Yeah exactly, yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 3: didn't mess that up.
Speaker 2: I think I got that in lay terms. That's the
Speaker 2: first one.
Speaker 3: In dy tunes. But you kind of said it in
Speaker 3: the very beginning, like he does everything, but he does
Speaker 3: everything positively and negatively, Like the one of the hardest
Speaker 3: hit balls, like the third hardest hit ball of the
Speaker 3: year at like one nineteen overall, which was absolutely absurd,
Speaker 3: big hard hit numbers. I mean, the guy stole the
Speaker 3: three bases and stole home. I mean, what he did
Speaker 3: was great, but what he did bad was also not great.
Speaker 3: You know, the strikeouts or what are staring us in
Speaker 3: the face. So there's a risk versus reward factor. And
Speaker 3: I know that when you're talking about like breaking draft
Speaker 3: boards here, that number might not seem like a lot,
Speaker 3: but to move three spots inside the top twenty five
Speaker 3: over a two or three month span, that's kind of
Speaker 3: eye opening. He has a men pick of a so
Speaker 3: that means some people are comfortable jumping in at eleven.
Speaker 3: I was granted this position in one of my draft
Speaker 3: champions on both sides obviously first and second round, and
Speaker 3: I passed. I've got him lower than the so just
Speaker 3: out of curiosity, I went really safe. I went Freddy
Speaker 3: Freeman and oh man, I'm complete, and maybe Corey Seeker.
Speaker 3: That might have been what my parent understand that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was like a really really safe I.
Speaker 1: Would agree with that that judgment call that you made, though,
Speaker 1: I think that's the right judgment call because right now,
Speaker 1: I mean where he is on the early ECR on
Speaker 1: Fantasy Pros dot Com, and you can check out the
Speaker 1: rankings there a FP he is a thirty eighth overall
Speaker 1: player and that feels a little bit more comfortable. Now.
Speaker 1: I could argue all the way up to thirty, but
Speaker 1: I understand when you get into these formats like NFBC
Speaker 1: where people were like, look, the ceiling is just too big.
Speaker 2: We can't let it go.
Speaker 1: Because he is one of these guys that if you
Speaker 1: have him and he figures it out, the power and
Speaker 1: the speed, the combination of everything he brings and as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, the tough part is disseminating the negatives.
Speaker 2: From the fun to watch factor.
Speaker 1: And he's fun to watch, he's exciting, he's likable, you
Speaker 1: want to he's good television, but he's not necessarily good
Speaker 1: fantasy yet as a whole complete project.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you can take your shots in
Speaker 3: different spots with Alie. And this is why he breaks
Speaker 3: the board because he could fall. There are gonna be
Speaker 3: some ranks, some early ranks that have popped out, and
Speaker 3: it's because people are worried about the strikeouts. So where
Speaker 3: that is going to take away from the top end.
Speaker 3: He had a two forty XBA, which doesn't leave a
Speaker 3: lot of room for big batting average. But if he's
Speaker 3: hitting two forty, that's great. Launch angle was crazy low,
Speaker 3: but it reminded me of Vlad Junior, where Vlad Junior
Speaker 3: in his rookie year was like hitting really really hard,
Speaker 3: but couldn't get the ball in the air. Ellie had
Speaker 3: a three point six degree launch angle, which you got
Speaker 3: to get the ball in the air if you're going
Speaker 3: to really take advantage of those homers. But good hard
Speaker 3: hit numbers, good barrel numbers. You tied for one of
Speaker 3: the fastest players, actually tied with Bobby Witt for the
Speaker 3: fastest sprint speed in the league. But he is going
Speaker 3: to have a wide range of outcomes, not only in
Speaker 3: his production but where he's drafted in leagues, And it
Speaker 3: just kind of comes probably about the construction that you're
Speaker 3: putting in. I'm likely not going to have a lot
Speaker 3: of shares. I would love Ellie in the third, he
Speaker 3: will cost you a second. And if he costs you
Speaker 3: a third, I think you can stomach it, especially if
Speaker 3: you put together something like a I don't know, Freeman
Speaker 3: Endeavors or a Freeman and Riley, or you could have
Speaker 3: a Freeman in an outfielder put together there. I think
Speaker 3: they're definitely constructions that you can do. But he has
Speaker 3: number one overall player upside, and that's why he has
Speaker 3: a men pick of eleven. But he also has the
Speaker 3: potential to be outside the top one hundred and fall
Speaker 3: apart with those crazy strikeout numbers, which you know is
Speaker 3: probably going to push him in some leagues outside the
Speaker 3: top fifty. So he breaks boards across the board. But
Speaker 3: what is interesting is over the last two months he's
Speaker 3: falling down even in the big high money leagues where
Speaker 3: people are taking shots.
Speaker 1: I like that, breaking boards all over the boards, all
Speaker 1: over the boards. That's Walsh has a number three for
Speaker 1: the season, number two on our list. Pablo Lopez of
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Twins, coming off a year with his highest
Speaker 1: strikeout rate in recent memory in his career NFBC ADP
Speaker 1: of thirty seven. It was forty six in October. So
Speaker 1: he's moving up a little bit right now in the
Speaker 1: Fantasy Pro's early ranks. Again, this is a guy who's
Speaker 1: a top ten pitcher. He's ranked eighth overall and the
Speaker 1: expert consensus ranks right now with Fantasy Pros, and again
Speaker 1: you cannot deny Welsh. Last year was very eye opening,
Speaker 1: you might even say a breakthrough. The era was at
Speaker 1: three to seven. But when you dig deeper into things,
Speaker 1: you'll see that the XCRA was at three, the X
Speaker 1: fIF was a three twenty five. So there's even a
Speaker 1: better version here of Pablo Lopez to be had. And
Speaker 1: Minnesota is a team that still looks to be very
Speaker 1: competitive this year despite some of the shortcomings of the
Speaker 1: American League Central at times that we've all joked about.
Speaker 1: But Pablo Lopez is one of these guys you have
Speaker 1: to believe whether or not this guy is an ACE
Speaker 1: or not to draft him at this current top ten
Speaker 1: SP value, that's the big question.
Speaker 2: I know some people aren't sold on that.
Speaker 1: I feel pretty good about it, and I still feel
Speaker 1: like he's going late enough where that's one of the
Speaker 1: two guys I'd like to pair with somebody else.
Speaker 2: I like him as a pairing.
Speaker 1: Like if you give me Pablo Lopez and then a
Speaker 1: little bit later, maybe the guy we're gonna talk about next,
Speaker 1: or maybe a shot at Yamamoto or a Logan Web,
Speaker 1: that's good start to a rotation.
Speaker 2: But what do you think about Pablo?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think one of the things talking about
Speaker 3: what you're saying is there's actually some good safety pitchers
Speaker 3: that go a little bit later. I personally am big
Speaker 3: into George Kirby this year, but you'd probably have to
Speaker 3: go back to back Lopez and Kirby. But you can
Speaker 3: get like a Logan Gilbert a little bit later. Zach
Speaker 3: Eflin is a really safe option Logan Web. So if
Speaker 3: you wanted to go, you know, third round Pablo Lopez,
Speaker 3: you have the potential to swoop in and get like
Speaker 3: a six round Logan Web and that's pretty good. But
Speaker 3: you know, you're saying in the consistent consensus ranks, he's
Speaker 3: coming in at eight. He's going as high as a
Speaker 3: third sp in NFBC leagues, and it's because of not
Speaker 3: only what he did, but what a lot of the
Speaker 3: expected numbers are saying he can get too. Again, that
Speaker 3: expected era was one of the better jumps, three and
Speaker 3: a half down to three. The strikeout number is close
Speaker 3: to elite twenty nine point two percent with a low
Speaker 3: walk rate. And one of the biggest reasons behind all
Speaker 3: of this was the change that he made. He added
Speaker 3: velocity to his fastball, which made that better. You don't
Speaker 3: see fastballs with really really high wift rates a whole bunch. Well,
Speaker 3: he had a thirty one and a half percent with rate.
Speaker 3: Usually that's on the secondaries twenty three percent with rate
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two over thirty percent with rate on
Speaker 3: a four seen fastball crazy. But he added a sweeper
Speaker 3: and that changed the game. It was his number one
Speaker 3: whift pitch thirty six point six percent and he threw
Speaker 3: it twenty one percent of the time. Previous year he
Speaker 3: was fastball change up. This year fastball sweeper change up,
Speaker 3: and even through a higher propensity of curveballs and sinkers.
Speaker 3: So the whole point of this is is there is
Speaker 3: a lot of strikeout potential. He gave himself a strikeout pitch.
Speaker 3: He added velo and expected numbers are telling a better story.
Speaker 3: So people are anticipating the expected numbers to have a
Speaker 3: bigger year. If you think he's going to be top five,
Speaker 3: you're kind of getting a discount. But this is one
Speaker 3: of those situations. I kind of feel that, like the
Speaker 3: you're already buying him at the price of where he
Speaker 3: is going to push, so it's like you.
Speaker 2: Have to return the value at eight.
Speaker 3: He has to be better to return the val value
Speaker 3: of what you're paying for, So that makes a little dicey,
Speaker 3: But he is one of those guys. This is another
Speaker 3: one of those instances, he has risen of draft boards.
Speaker 3: I think you said the number a little bit ago.
Speaker 3: I think he was. Yeah, he was forty six in
Speaker 3: October overall, and he's jumped into the mid thirties and
Speaker 3: he's pushing into the twenties on his mid midpick. So
Speaker 3: if you want Pablo Lopez in those strikeouts, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have to pay a lot. And he's gonna open some
Speaker 3: eyes when you see him in the draft room.
Speaker 1: He's thirty nine right now on Fantasy Pros, ahead of
Speaker 1: Zach Gallen Tyler Glass, now, which I can understand why.
Speaker 2: But that is an interesting.
Speaker 1: Debate, and maybe the best piece of advice is they're
Speaker 1: all pretty close.
Speaker 2: Maybe just take the guy that falls ye of the
Speaker 2: best value.
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably when we start getting into
Speaker 1: our draft season or the shows, you're probably gonna see
Speaker 1: me doing a lot of that. Like I like these
Speaker 1: guys this grouping, just like I liked him last year
Speaker 1: and I attacked them hard in all those drafts, and
Speaker 1: I think the same thing here as you attack this grouping,
Speaker 1: because there isn't that much of a difference between them all.
Speaker 3: And to your point, and this is a little bit different.
Speaker 3: But in that DC I had Pablo Lopez went in
Speaker 3: a third round and I swooped back and I didn't
Speaker 3: take a picture in my first three, and then the
Speaker 3: fourth round George Kirby felt to me and I took
Speaker 3: Kirby and it was like it was Pablo, then Gallon,
Speaker 3: and then I.
Speaker 2: Just fund because Kirby's ranked ahead on Fantasy Bros.
Speaker 3: Of Bablo Lopez, and I'm probably one of those reasons
Speaker 3: because because I have them above now, Lopez is the
Speaker 3: better strikeout option and there's a big push to chase
Speaker 3: your strikeouts this year. But there's something about Kirby specifically
Speaker 3: to me that has such a such a great floor.
Speaker 3: I feel like I can take more risks with guys
Speaker 3: like Glass now or the guy we're just about to
Speaker 3: talk about. If you wanted to maybe go back to
Speaker 3: back round pitchers.
Speaker 1: Well three Schooble is that guy at number three NFBC
Speaker 1: ADP of fifty overall. And last year what a finish
Speaker 1: to the season. He had eighty innings, he was seven
Speaker 1: to three, one hundred strikeouts, just fourteen walks, a two
Speaker 1: eight zero era, a point nine zero whip, and you
Speaker 1: think will that era is unsustainable. You might be wrong
Speaker 1: because the XCRA was two three zero two feasts two
Speaker 1: five six excuse me for the x FIP, so it's
Speaker 1: not a fluke here. Teri Scooble was straight up dominant
Speaker 1: and in terms of left handed starting pitchers, one of
Speaker 1: the best in baseball last year over those final eighty
Speaker 1: innings that he threw. Now, the question is what does
Speaker 1: it look like over the full season. That's what we
Speaker 1: want to see Kenny sustain this sort of pace. He
Speaker 1: was good in twenty twenty two, the three three seven era,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people liked him going in. Secondary
Speaker 1: numbers were good, peripherals were good, the whip was decent.
Speaker 2: This was a whole other level.
Speaker 1: So if he finishes with one hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five innings this year, with something
Speaker 1: between twenty twenty two and twenty three twenty three, I
Speaker 1: think he returns the value of this pick.
Speaker 2: But what do you think, Welsh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually think this one is really interesting because
Speaker 3: it's like it's near Pablo Lopez, but it's quite a
Speaker 3: bit lower. Treek School's got so much going for him,
Speaker 3: you know, the stuff was incredible. I think it was
Speaker 3: like the highest expected era total. If he qualified of
Speaker 3: pictures of the eighty or more innings, he would have
Speaker 3: been number one. The k percentage was absolutely elite, pulling
Speaker 3: that up thirty two point nine percent with a sub
Speaker 3: five percent walk rate. That's like exactly what you want.
Speaker 3: That is what you want in this world of pitching,
Speaker 3: especially if you're gonna try to jump into the strikeout marker.
Speaker 3: Good fastball almost ninety six, which was almost two miles
Speaker 3: per hour more than the previous year. His change up
Speaker 3: absolutely elite. Had a fifty percent whiff rate, one of
Speaker 3: a handful of pitchers and all of baseball that had
Speaker 3: a fifty percent withff rate on a dominant pitch. We've
Speaker 3: talked about them over the last couple episodes, so I
Speaker 3: love trikes Scooble. One of the only knocks though, is
Speaker 3: the people that he faced. He had like a one
Speaker 3: point something ra at home in a four era away.
Speaker 3: That's one little marker because Detroit was a really pitcher
Speaker 3: friendly environment. But also if you look at his pitching log,
Speaker 3: here are the teams that he faced in the month
Speaker 3: of August. The White Sox, the Boat actually two White
Speaker 3: Sox Angels, A's and Royals. The month prior to that,
Speaker 3: you did have Yankees and Cubs, but you had Guardians,
Speaker 3: Red Sox and Rays. You know, the end the season
Speaker 3: is central.
Speaker 2: In the Central soft anyway.
Speaker 1: So like for no period, I look at that and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, he's gonna get those teams again, And
Speaker 1: like if he was pitching in the American League East, maybe.
Speaker 2: I'd have a little bit more of a concern, right or.
Speaker 1: You know, but you know, he's gonna get a lot
Speaker 1: of Royals and a lot of Guardians and a lot
Speaker 1: of you know all.
Speaker 3: You want to talk about breaking these draft boards, you
Speaker 3: got to break one. Who are you going with Pablo
Speaker 3: Lopez in the third or trick School in the fourth?
Speaker 1: Uh? You know again, if I'm going, I'm you know me,
Speaker 1: I'm going hitter early one too. So if I want
Speaker 1: to double up on pitching, I like having both of them.
Speaker 1: But I think I keep coming back to the same thing,
Speaker 1: which is I'm gonna take the guy that's cheaper. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm ready to make Schooble my ace.
Speaker 1: So once again, if I did take Schooble I would
Speaker 1: probably want to pair him up right away. If I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have Schooble. I want to also have, as I said,
Speaker 1: a Logan Web who I trust, a Framber Valdez who
Speaker 1: I really trust. You know, do they have the same
Speaker 1: upside as Garrett Cole? No, but I know who they are.
Speaker 1: I feel good about it, and I want that pairing together.
Speaker 1: I feel very important, like about three four five, if
Speaker 1: I can await with two pitchers there that I feel
Speaker 1: really good about. Is the top two guys in my
Speaker 1: rotation two one a's or two high end number twos,
Speaker 1: however you want to talk about it, That's my approach,
Speaker 1: just like it was last year, because again you keep
Speaker 1: seeing the injury factory, keep seeing the turnover.
Speaker 2: You see these guys were aging out.
Speaker 1: These veterans that were so used to the Verlanders and
Speaker 1: the Shuress at the top of the board. Those days
Speaker 1: are gone, and the guys that are coming are not
Speaker 1: quite established yet. So you've got to be really careful
Speaker 1: because it is kind of a it's a very murky
Speaker 1: water because if you put too much draft capital into
Speaker 1: these guys, they don't pan out. You miss that on
Speaker 1: that offense, and it really does set you back in
Speaker 1: these deeper leagues.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and another thing we talked about in the previous episode,
Speaker 3: like if you tuned out early, there are things that
Speaker 3: are a lot of these guys that are breaking these
Speaker 3: draft boards that we're talking about. These are things that
Speaker 3: might be kind of new to you, like, oh, I'm
Speaker 3: paying maybe second round for Pablo Lopez and oh Tarik
Speaker 3: Schoobles here, but you're gonna have to take more shots
Speaker 3: this year and you're gonna have to just be paying
Speaker 3: attention to your construction. Scooble is another one of those
Speaker 3: players where you can balance out some of the inherent risk.
Speaker 3: And the only inherent risk here, lastly, is just the
Speaker 3: amount of time that he's been able to do this.
Speaker 3: It's sample size eighty innings. Though he was phenomenal last
Speaker 3: year in a good hitter environment, he is worth it
Speaker 3: and you can break those boards a little bit for
Speaker 3: trick school.
Speaker 2: Now, one guy that we are already in disagreement with.
Speaker 1: If you listen to the last show and go back
Speaker 1: and listen to it, you can watch on YouTube also
Speaker 1: Nolan Jones, NFBC ADP of fifty seven right now. So
Speaker 1: Welsh is not as big of a fan as I am,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. We can disagree on things here on
Speaker 1: the program. This guy at a twenty twenty season in
Speaker 1: one hundred games, and I understand that it's in course field.
Speaker 2: I get that, but still playing at course field in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: So the soon to be twenty six year old Nolan
Speaker 1: Jones as a player that last year in TRIPAA at
Speaker 1: twelve homers forty two RBI hit three fifty six with
Speaker 1: an eleven hundred ops. Granted it was in the PCL,
Speaker 1: but again, you can't help where you play. Todd Helton
Speaker 1: played his whole career in Colorado, and damn it, Todd
Speaker 1: Helton was fun to have in fantasy. So I'm looking
Speaker 1: at Nolan Jones, look at the versatility of the guy,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at what he can deliver, and I
Speaker 1: think this is pretty appropriate looking around where he's going
Speaker 1: right now, after Cody Bellinger, before Paul Goldschmidt, right now
Speaker 1: in our ECR. That feels right to me. What about you,
Speaker 1: I know you've had some hesitations, but comes to Nolan Joes.
Speaker 1: So let's let's have a bigger conversation about him here
Speaker 1: since we can today.
Speaker 3: This actually might be like the number one hitter that
Speaker 3: is going to open up draft boards because people want him,
Speaker 3: and similar to Pablo Lopez, Nolan Jones is the Pablo
Speaker 3: Lopez of hitters this year because everything underlying tells this
Speaker 3: story outside of like XBA. Like his XBA isn't great.
Speaker 3: He had a really good statistical season this past year
Speaker 3: where he hit two ninety seven with a twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: His XBA is like fifty points lower. But if he
Speaker 3: hit two fifty, we're still gonna take him. But what
Speaker 3: I'm getting at is, like Max ev was one fifteen,
Speaker 3: he had good hard hit numbers overall, walk was there,
Speaker 3: barrel percentage over fifteen percent, You totally want that with
Speaker 3: good hard hit numbers. So all of those things played
Speaker 3: this really good story in a hitter friendly environment. He
Speaker 3: hit all sides of pitching well by the way. He
Speaker 3: hit fastballs and breaking pitches over three.
Speaker 1: Hundred lefties and righties over two eighty nine on both
Speaker 1: of them three four, which is against left headed pitching.
Speaker 3: And he broke the curse of not being reliant on Colorado.
Speaker 3: He had as many homers away as he did at home.
Speaker 1: My problem is and a nine hundred ops on the
Speaker 1: home roads spot too so and hitting for average also,
Speaker 1: so I don't get the concern about Nolan Jones because
Speaker 1: if those numbers were more stark Welsh, then I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, that's kind of a red flag.
Speaker 2: But I don't see the red flag here when it
Speaker 2: comes to Nolan Well.
Speaker 3: I mean one of the okay, well, one of the
Speaker 3: red flags is are the strikeout numbers. I want to
Speaker 3: pull this up here because this isn't on the baseball now.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something we all have to accept,
Speaker 1: whether it's Eli cr whether it's.
Speaker 3: You're not wrong about that, but part of it now.
Speaker 3: But Nolan Jones is also this like really high end passive.
Speaker 3: He's one of those guys do you matter, like Carlos Santana,
Speaker 3: where Carlos Santana would have like a really big OVP
Speaker 3: and big strikeout numbers, because it's like the two outcomer,
Speaker 3: the three out guy. They walk, they strike out, or
Speaker 3: they get a hit. And I know that seems silly
Speaker 3: how I'm saying it, but it's like there's not a
Speaker 3: lot of nuance in the game. It's gonna happen as
Speaker 3: one of those. So the passiveness can also equate to
Speaker 3: lower batting average because he's not gonna He's not gonna
Speaker 3: he's gonna take more walks than he is just getting
Speaker 3: base hits. He kind of changed it this last year,
Speaker 3: but I'll throw here's one caveat. He had a four
Speaker 3: hundred babbit that is like the highest in the league,
Speaker 3: one of the highest babbitbs in the league. With expected
Speaker 3: numbers across the board that say it's gonna fall do
Speaker 3: I think Nolan Jones is not gonna be good. No,
Speaker 3: Colorado's a great baseline. He puts a big, hard hit numbers.
Speaker 3: I love how he barrels. There's a lot advantage there.
Speaker 3: He doesn't pull the ball a bunch. Expected numbers don't
Speaker 3: play in as well. The babbit is way too high,
Speaker 3: and I think he's gonna come back down to earth.
Speaker 3: I think people are paying for him in the fifties
Speaker 3: as a thirty thirty guy. I think you need to
Speaker 3: pay for him closer as a twenty twenty guy, like
Speaker 3: he performed last year over a full season, and then
Speaker 3: you can stomach it. Now, does a twenty twenty Nolan
Speaker 3: Jones feel good in the fifties. Maybe maybe it's still does.
Speaker 3: I'm not as enamored as everybody else is with him,
Speaker 3: though there is a story, as I mentioned, of why
Speaker 3: you would like him in all of those underlying numbers.
Speaker 3: He is someone that eight out of ten people in
Speaker 3: a draft want on their team. He will go higher
Speaker 3: than consensus. I would guess seventy to eighty percent of
Speaker 3: the time in drafts.
Speaker 1: Of this year barrels per played appearance percentage, he was
Speaker 1: twenty fourth in baseball last year year. I think that
Speaker 1: accounts for some of that high babbit that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna have a better bat. This is where
Speaker 1: you know you take that one step further with the
Speaker 1: deep stats. And deep SATs are great, but sometimes they
Speaker 1: make my head hurt, and I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 1: people who love fantasy baseball it makes their head hurt too.
Speaker 1: If you hit the ball hard, it's gonna find a
Speaker 1: lot more spots, and you're gonna have a higher babbit
Speaker 1: because you're hitting the ball so dam hard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you're fast and wills too. I'm not
Speaker 3: arguing any of that. I'm really pointing at a really
Speaker 3: high babbit in a short sample size. Sure that that
Speaker 3: kind of looks a little bit as a warning sign
Speaker 3: with really high strikeout numbers still I mean.
Speaker 2: Five this year and he maintains the power speed levels.
Speaker 2: I'll take that at this ADP all that day, and that.
Speaker 3: Is his projected Steamer batting average two sixty five. So
Speaker 3: I agree with you on that it will work. But
Speaker 3: there's some things are going to work here. This is
Speaker 3: why boards are crazy around Nolan Jones one under.
Speaker 1: Bobby Miller is the next guy on our list, number
Speaker 1: five to talk about the Dodgers young starting pitcher. NFBC
Speaker 1: ADP is at seventy three right now. Bobby Miller last
Speaker 1: year twenty two stars for the Dodgers. He was eleven
Speaker 1: and four. Obviously pitching on a very good team, a
Speaker 1: three seven six era. The whip was at one point
Speaker 1: one zero for him. Last year he had the caper
Speaker 1: nine was at eight point six, which if you go
Speaker 1: back to the minor league level, it's around eleven for him.
Speaker 1: So that's the one thing for me about Bobby Miller
Speaker 1: is like I kind of want to see the elite
Speaker 1: K guy. You know how I am strikeoutser sexy. I
Speaker 1: like my pictures strikeout guys because that means they get
Speaker 1: out of jams with big pitches at big times. Now,
Speaker 1: he was tough to hit two just one hundred and
Speaker 1: five hits at one hundred and twenty four innings. That's
Speaker 1: also an important one too, so he made up for that.
Speaker 1: The wall great was low two point three. So it's
Speaker 1: Bobby Muller got you're buying in here. He doesn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on him because he got Yamamoto,
Speaker 1: you got Glass. Now we'll see what Walker Bueller, whether
Speaker 1: or not Kershaw returns. We're still waiting on that news.
Speaker 1: But Miller doesn't have a lot of pressure on him
Speaker 1: per se. But do you think the ADP is worth
Speaker 1: the investment?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I do. And this is one of those guys that
Speaker 3: has been he's creeping, he's creeping up. These people want
Speaker 3: to they want to be invested in in him. You know,
Speaker 3: you talk about the strikeout numbers two thousand and two below.
Speaker 3: He had never had under a ten point seven K
Speaker 3: per nine in the minor leagues. He's always been a
Speaker 3: high strikeout guy across the minders with a big, big
Speaker 3: power fastball. Then you know there, I mean, there was
Speaker 3: only four starts in triple A this year. There's a
Speaker 3: little bit of a change in the process. And then
Speaker 3: you saw all the K numbers go lower, but I'll
Speaker 3: take that if this is about becoming just a better,
Speaker 3: more nuanced pitcher. I've said this a whole bunch, so
Speaker 3: apologies to people, but if you're just tuning in one
Speaker 3: of the things I've loved about Bobby Miller. He's one
Speaker 3: of three starting pitchers according to stuff plus numbers, which
Speaker 3: Inina Sarus has in this over on fangrafs want of
Speaker 3: three pitchers to have a fastball that has a one
Speaker 3: twenty five plus stuff plus and a secondary which in
Speaker 3: this case is like I think is slider that has
Speaker 3: a won twenty five. But he also has five pitches
Speaker 3: that graded out at one hundred stuff plus or higher,
Speaker 3: and that is just one hundred is like the median line.
Speaker 3: These are above average pitches he has with good control
Speaker 3: numbers that he threw out to us this year, a
Speaker 3: great fastball which is kind of key, which you really want.
Speaker 3: Ninety nine point one he averaged on his four seam fastball.
Speaker 3: And it's really going to just be about utilizing these
Speaker 3: secondary pitches because he is throwing five pitches fifteen percent
Speaker 3: or more of the time. So you take a history
Speaker 3: of strikeouts with great stuff numbers, good utilage of pitches
Speaker 3: and put it on the Dodgers. For me, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna buy Bobby Miller. I want all the shares he
Speaker 3: is rising. He's one of those guys that I think
Speaker 3: a lot of people are also targeting that want on
Speaker 3: their teams. This is a tough one. He he is
Speaker 3: one of those young pitchers in this pool of the
Speaker 3: Yuri Perez Is, the Grayson Rodriguez is, and the Bobby Millers.
Speaker 3: These guys all kind of break the boards in general.
Speaker 3: They are gonna be high risers. Bobby Miller is one
Speaker 3: that I definitely wanted to get in on, you know,
Speaker 3: and you talked about it earlier. There is a team context.
Speaker 3: Treike Scooble, even though we're picking on like oh we
Speaker 3: faced the Royals and stuff, good because he's always gonna
Speaker 3: face him because he's in the division. That's a good
Speaker 3: thing that he's doing that. Well, guess what, Bobby Miller's
Speaker 3: on the Dodgers. There's gonna be run support every single game,
Speaker 3: every single game that's out there. And the division that
Speaker 3: also has like the Rockies and stuff. So yeah, I
Speaker 3: will break my board all day long for Bobby Miller.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Jazz Chishom and the next guy, number six we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about NFBC seventy six was sixty one back in October,
Speaker 1: but now he's at seventy six, So a little bit
Speaker 1: of a fall there, and I understand why. I mean,
Speaker 1: you look at the body of work here, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of incompletes for Jazz Chism. Moving to the outfield too,
Speaker 1: now he does qualifying a lot of leagues. Still at
Speaker 1: second base, you'll se him on the rankings their Fantasy pros.
Speaker 1: But last year nineteen homers in ninety six games, twenty
Speaker 1: two steals.
Speaker 2: He's a two fifty hitter. I think we all know
Speaker 2: what he is at this point.
Speaker 1: We seen enough of them to know, like that's where
Speaker 1: the batting average is going to be. The question is
Speaker 1: to get a full season, ever, and the full season
Speaker 1: does that equate to a thirty to thirty guy? And
Speaker 1: if so, then you're getting kind of a huge discount.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of the risk reward. Where do
Speaker 1: you standwi Chism?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you said it perfectly. You know what I
Speaker 3: think is really funny The trend in early drafts are
Speaker 3: is drafters are just so much less worried about sample size,
Speaker 3: and repeat of production that they can trust versus injuries.
Speaker 3: They'll take a guy that had forty innings or one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty at bats or was good for a
Speaker 3: final month of the year exponentially over a player that
Speaker 3: has any injury risk. And that is how early drafts
Speaker 3: work and how and then what that does is that
Speaker 3: tends to drive what the future price is going to
Speaker 3: look like. And as you mentioned, Jazz is moving down.
Speaker 3: Jazz has moved over a full round or in a
Speaker 3: fifteen team redal, he has moved a full round spot
Speaker 3: wise over the last couple months, and we're going to
Speaker 3: take that into the draft season. My only question, we are,
Speaker 3: like you said, we know exactly who he is. He
Speaker 3: had a dog crap I expected batting average two twenty
Speaker 3: four this year, but we know he is a two
Speaker 3: forty to two fifty hitter with high strikeouts. But we
Speaker 3: also know the counting stats will be there, you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's whatever the runs and RBIs look like or
Speaker 3: relative to the games out there. But there isn't a
Speaker 3: production question. Can he be a thirty thirty guy? It's there.
Speaker 3: He does it even in his struggles. I'm actually down
Speaker 3: with this. I am down with this, But I think
Speaker 3: this is the one, and this is why we identify this.
Speaker 3: You know, in this episode of breaking draft boards and stuff,
Speaker 3: Jazz Chisholm falling is wild. In a world where people
Speaker 3: are taking big risks to get their stolen bases, a
Speaker 3: guy like Nolan Jones with a four hundred babbb and
Speaker 3: is a twenty twenty guy people are pushing into the forties.
Speaker 3: The guy like Jazz Chisholm, who in his sleep is
Speaker 3: a thirty thirty guy who has strikeout issues and it's
Speaker 3: probably a two or two to fifty hitter. People are
Speaker 3: dropping and dropping. I'm gonna take when I'm t my shots,
Speaker 3: Jazz will be one. I'm willing to take the risk
Speaker 3: on the injury stuff.
Speaker 1: Number seven on our list Josh Young n FBCADP at
Speaker 1: one to ten. It wasn't ninety three. So this is
Speaker 1: another guy that's starting to go in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: Now. To our credit, Welsh, we loved Young last.
Speaker 1: Year because he was a free square and we took
Speaker 1: him everywhere yea, and we looked like geniuses for the
Speaker 1: first eighty games or so because he had nineteen homers
Speaker 1: in the first half fifty six Reees hit two to
Speaker 1: eighty with one of the guys at the top of
Speaker 1: the board for Rookie of the Year in the American League,
Speaker 1: and then the bottom kind of fell out second half.
Speaker 1: He played only thirty four games, so obviously health was
Speaker 1: an issue there too. Four homers, the batting average dropt
Speaker 1: from two eighty to two twenty nine, the ops one
Speaker 1: from eight thirty five to six thirty eight.
Speaker 2: So definitely some issues there.
Speaker 1: You could tie it to, you know, struggling a little
Speaker 1: bit against the right handed pitching, especially down the stretch.
Speaker 1: He still hit fourteen on runs against the right handed pitching,
Speaker 1: but that was a problem. The overall picture looks good,
Speaker 1: but now the draft stock is starting to decline. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's correct?
Speaker 3: You know, I actually think we're kind of stabilizing a
Speaker 3: little bit with him, Like this is one of those
Speaker 3: well so you know, conceptually when we're talking about these
Speaker 3: boards again, like Josh Young is one of those players
Speaker 3: that I think a lot of people were like, oh,
Speaker 3: if I could have a little bit late, maybe I
Speaker 3: would target him. I'm not as enamored with him, I
Speaker 3: think again, you give me like really high strikeout stuff
Speaker 3: with a especially with a guy that is a complete devot.
Speaker 3: He's devot of stolen bases. So then you're you see
Speaker 3: one category is gone, and then you go, okay, do
Speaker 3: you believe the batting average? Expect a batting average two sixty?
Speaker 3: All right, so batting average isn't a negative, but it's
Speaker 3: just not quite there. Overperformed on his counting stats with
Speaker 3: some injury stuff, counting stats from like RBI in runs
Speaker 3: that team just scored so many runs. But can he
Speaker 3: hit thirty homers? Yeah? Absolutely, that's one hundred percent in
Speaker 3: his game in the nineties eighties. Did you want to
Speaker 3: really want to pay for that? No, But we're having
Speaker 3: the same jazz chism thing happen. There's such an overcorrection
Speaker 3: happening where people might have waited before, Oh I can
Speaker 3: get Josh Young, Now they don't want to. Now you
Speaker 3: kind of can You can look back and say, hey,
Speaker 3: if I can post one hundred, if my risk is
Speaker 3: you know, the World Series contending top three run producing team,
Speaker 3: if I can get the corner infielder that is going
Speaker 3: to hit me to sixty two seventy eighty plus both
Speaker 3: sides and thirty homers, that's a much better risk. The
Speaker 3: injuries are concerned. He had two different injuries that were
Speaker 3: going on zapped a little bit of the production, but
Speaker 3: is not enamored as I am with Josh Young post
Speaker 3: one hundred. I think the correction is going in the
Speaker 3: wrong area and that is kind of an advantage for
Speaker 3: people as you are in your draft constructing and looking
Speaker 3: on you Actually, I think can now look to like, oh,
Speaker 3: Josh Young is a backup for me because he is
Speaker 3: falling down wark That is a dramatic What is that
Speaker 3: almost twenty spots over the last like two months or
Speaker 3: three months. That's a big drop.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, that's a big drop, and it's understandable.
Speaker 1: Look, there's also a lot of buzz coming around after
Speaker 1: you know, the team won the World Series and again
Speaker 1: that first half was so good. You know, you're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out did he get figured out? Did not
Speaker 1: make adjustments?
Speaker 2: Was just health? Like?
Speaker 1: What was it the wear and tear? He had had
Speaker 1: some injuries previously too, missed an entire season, So was
Speaker 1: it just.
Speaker 2: The stamina issue too?
Speaker 1: Like, There's a lot of things you could start to
Speaker 1: ask yourself those questions, But I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think the assessment of the ADP is correct for and.
Speaker 3: I wrote about him in The Black Book. People want
Speaker 3: to check it out, The Fantasy Black Book available now
Speaker 3: on Amazon. This I did the infield and he was
Speaker 3: one of those guys where you know, I'm really focused
Speaker 3: on the strikeout rate. I did point out something you
Speaker 3: can take a look at, was he really dominated on
Speaker 3: like inside portions of the zone. But I think pitchers
Speaker 3: are going to see that he was well below average
Speaker 3: on both the outside portions of the zone on the
Speaker 3: top and bottom. So I think you're going to get
Speaker 3: pictures that are going to be tacking the outside even more.
Speaker 3: And he has a really bad poll rate, So what
Speaker 3: is that going to look like If he gets more
Speaker 3: outside zone pitching and he's not pulling the ball. I
Speaker 3: worry that that's going to equate to not as dramatically
Speaker 3: high results. But again, I like the overcorrection. This is
Speaker 3: why the overcorrection is good for Josh Young.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see what's gonna be good for the
Speaker 1: Brewers young superstar Jackson Curio, who we all believe is
Speaker 1: going to start with the big cull. Otherwise why would
Speaker 1: you pay him with that giant extension? So I'm sure
Speaker 1: the players Union wanted him to wait, but when people
Speaker 1: were offering you guaranteed money of that magnitude, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say no when you're just the boy and he
Speaker 1: is still and that's the one thing you got a
Speaker 1: timber expectations. The NFBC ADP right now for him is
Speaker 1: one forty five in Churio last year. Just in case
Speaker 1: you weren't paying attention in the dynasty realm to Jackson
Speaker 1: Curio in the redraft scenario, now you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: because in double A last year he had twenty two
Speaker 1: homers forty three stone bases at two to eighty just
Speaker 1: an eight h three OPS. He had six games over
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. He did play in the Fall
Speaker 1: League this year too, where he hit three seventy nine
Speaker 1: with a nine to eighty four OPS the winning league.
Speaker 1: Pardon me, in the Winter League. My apologies, but Cheerio
Speaker 1: is a player that is going to get a ton
Speaker 1: of attention, and rightfully so.
Speaker 2: The guy's got power, he is young.
Speaker 1: You're talking about a guy who could switch it like
Speaker 1: you're talking about a guy who could do it all.
Speaker 1: So this is a really exciting young player here. So
Speaker 1: what do you think about Jackson Curio in terms of
Speaker 1: his twenty twenty four redraft value, because I think that's
Speaker 1: the thing that we're all trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: And and part it's not about loving the talent or not.
Speaker 2: It's about loving the talent in this situation he's in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's get back to the concept of this episode.
Speaker 3: You want the real players. They're gonna break your boards
Speaker 3: the next three or them, because their ADPs are so
Speaker 3: low in a lot of these pre draft things, in
Speaker 3: specifically in NFBC leagues and any league, because there's there's
Speaker 3: no lack of assurance that they are there. We assume
Speaker 3: they are, but people want that little step. If Jackson
Speaker 3: Trio is named the outfielder, let's just arbitrarrily say March first.
Speaker 3: They say, you know what, it's his job, Like Julio
Speaker 3: Rodriguez from a previous year two years ago, where he
Speaker 3: went from you know, two twenties up into the like
Speaker 3: high one hundreds, pushing inside the top one hundred, Trio
Speaker 3: will do the same thing. Trio is already kind of
Speaker 3: being presumed in that area inside the top one fifty.
Speaker 3: But don't get confused. The possibility is that he could
Speaker 3: go higher inside the top one hundred because this is
Speaker 3: a twenty twenty guy. Key key factor for him was
Speaker 3: lowering his strikeout rate previous year twenty twenty two, twenty
Speaker 3: eight percent strike out rate in High A, twenty two
Speaker 3: in I'm Sorry in A, twenty two in High A,
Speaker 3: and then he went to Double A and struck out
Speaker 3: a whole bunch in a very short sample size under
Speaker 3: nineteen percent at Double A in twenty twenty three. Big power,
Speaker 3: huge stolen bases showed the ability to cut the strikeouts down.
Speaker 3: Steamer projection in one hundred and twenty eight games has
Speaker 3: got him just under a twenty twenty guy. I think
Speaker 3: this is a great bet for twenty twenty season, a
Speaker 3: good Rookie of the Year candidate. I think he will
Speaker 3: break with the team, and he doesn't cost you a
Speaker 3: top one hundred. That's why this breaks up this whole thing.
Speaker 3: When you can get these type of discounts early, you
Speaker 3: do it when things stabilize. I think he'll still be
Speaker 3: worth a top one hundred pick when we get into
Speaker 3: the seventy fives and sixties and stuff like that. That's
Speaker 3: where things get a little bit dicey. But just remember
Speaker 3: that's where guys like Bobby Witt and Corvin Carroll pushed
Speaker 3: inside the top fifty, you're getting a discount. This breaks
Speaker 3: the whole mold.
Speaker 1: I misspoke earlier too. He's a right handed batter and
Speaker 1: not switch hitter. So I was just so excited about Jurio.
Speaker 1: I forgot that for a second. But you know when
Speaker 1: you continue to watch the highlights of him, and I've
Speaker 1: been watching a lot of him in the offseason, just
Speaker 1: trying to, you know, again, after a football season, get
Speaker 1: up to speed on some of the guys that not
Speaker 1: get to see enough of last year. In terms of
Speaker 1: the minor league stuff. The hands are fast Welsh. The
Speaker 1: hands are fast as a strong kid. I mean he
Speaker 1: attacks the baseball. You leave a pitch up in the
Speaker 1: zone too, he is going to murder it like he
Speaker 1: is that guy. And that's one of the things too.
Speaker 1: When you watch him, you see a lot of those
Speaker 1: balls when the balls get elevated on him. Sometimes that's
Speaker 1: a problem for young players. That's where you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of young players kind of you know, like the
Speaker 1: old I like the high ones kind of stuff. You
Speaker 1: throw a ball up in the zone of this guy,
Speaker 1: he is going to put it out somewhere in you know,
Speaker 1: five hundred feet somewhere, and that, to me is so impressive.
Speaker 1: And I think it's because his hands are so fast
Speaker 1: and he's got such a good aggressive approach there. But
Speaker 1: that's one of those things too. I think when you
Speaker 1: look at some of these young players, you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: you can beat them up high. You cannot beat this
Speaker 1: guy up high with high fast balls, like he's going
Speaker 1: to absolutely murder them. Whyatt Langford another player to talk
Speaker 1: about NFBC ADP right now currently at one excuse me,
Speaker 1: one fifty six. I was gonna say forty six, but
Speaker 1: that would be incorrect. So Wyatt Langford another player here
Speaker 1: for us to figure out, as it were, a young
Speaker 1: player here and for the Texas Rangers, and we're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what he is going to be in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. You look at the ADP, do you
Speaker 1: think this is a player you're going to be investing
Speaker 1: in at this price?
Speaker 3: If you go and look at my ranks right now,
Speaker 3: you will see I have Wyat Langford inside my top
Speaker 3: one hundred. So yes, I do. For all intents and purposes,
Speaker 3: for people I've talked to, the Rangers are expected and
Speaker 3: Their expectation is like he gets this shot, like they're
Speaker 3: going into camp that he can be one of their outfielders,
Speaker 3: one of their dhs. They're not looking to replace. They're
Speaker 3: going to give him every opportunity and his opportunity last
Speaker 3: year he went absolutely insane. He had nine homers in
Speaker 3: just under forty games. I think it is, or maybe
Speaker 3: it was forty one total minor league games, over double
Speaker 3: digit stolen bases. Hard hit numbers were through the roof.
Speaker 3: He hit over three hundred at every level. I got
Speaker 3: to see him in his pro debut out here. I
Speaker 3: saw two different games in complex level. The guy can run,
Speaker 3: he can hit, he's patient high OBP players. He's an
Speaker 3: advanced college bat that they are going to move. It's
Speaker 3: a little weird that the team might jump in with
Speaker 3: like two rookies Evan Carter and White Langford, but I
Speaker 3: think at this point guys like Cherio and Langford are
Speaker 3: going to be given the opportunity, if not early. And again,
Speaker 3: this is like outside the top one hundred. These are
Speaker 3: phenomenal spots. But don't be surprised when Wyatt Langford goes
Speaker 3: inside the top one hundred, and don't be surprised when
Speaker 3: the announcement happens that the new norm for both of
Speaker 3: these players is inside the top one hundred.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Evan Carter last time we talked about on
Speaker 1: the show. I was trying to find a comp for
Speaker 1: him in my brain and I happened to catch on
Speaker 1: MLB Network they were running an old you know, baseball seasons,
Speaker 1: and they're right in front of me was Wally Joiner.
Speaker 1: And if you are as old as me, you remember
Speaker 1: Wally Joiner in Wally World with the California Angels then
Speaker 1: California Angels and very similar.
Speaker 2: Kind of stroke.
Speaker 1: Left handed hitter, you know, had you know, made good contact,
Speaker 1: had to pop all these things. And I'm watching and
Speaker 1: people forget like he kind of was this huge rookie phenomenon.
Speaker 1: Then he got hurt in the playoffs, had a staph
Speaker 1: infection his leg. He was never the same player he
Speaker 1: Actually they were up three to one in that series.
Speaker 1: They ended up losing to the Red Sox. Again, these
Speaker 1: are useless bits of information, but fun. But that's the
Speaker 1: guy that he kind of reminds me of. Was watching
Speaker 1: these Wally Joyner highlights. We were talking about the eighty
Speaker 1: six Angels and I'm going, ah, that's the Evan Carter,
Speaker 1: that's the comp I'm looking for in terms of player.
Speaker 1: And you might have to go back and look at
Speaker 1: some old things as Wally Joiners see what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: But I think that is kind of the style and
Speaker 1: hopefully you know he is able to have a longer, better,
Speaker 1: healthier career than Wally Joyner had. But people forget when
Speaker 1: that guy came on the scene. He was like a
Speaker 1: revelation and he was a big reason why that veteran
Speaker 1: club made it to the playoffs at all.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying this will happen, but I will not
Speaker 3: be surprised if White Langford just given the opportunity and
Speaker 3: runs with it early that by let's just say mid
Speaker 3: April to May, he's hitting third for this team. Because
Speaker 3: right now, the assumption is Simming is leading off seegers
Speaker 3: to Evan Carter would be three. You're probably looking at
Speaker 3: Josh Young at four, and then they could throw like
Speaker 3: a Jonah him in at five.
Speaker 1: That's where Young is valuable if he's gonna hit in
Speaker 1: the middle of that order with those guys ahead of him.
Speaker 3: Point to this is you go back to back lefties
Speaker 3: with Carter. Carter struggled against lefties. If you have Carter
Speaker 3: backing up Corey Seeger and you're going two lefties, and
Speaker 3: if he struggles and Langford doesn't, then you can go righty, lefty, righty.
Speaker 3: Don't be surprised because Langford HIGHOBP player, really good contact,
Speaker 3: hard hit numbers could run. I don't think it's out
Speaker 3: of the realm of possibility that a different rookie is
Speaker 3: hitting three for this team, because it ain't gonna be secret.
Speaker 3: And Simon, those two are locked in, so that spot
Speaker 3: is open. And if it does. But there's a lot
Speaker 3: of speculative stuff here, welly freak browards.
Speaker 1: Last guy we're gonna speculate here on today, number ten,
Speaker 1: Junior Kamanio NFBC two seventeen. Now, obviously there's gonna be
Speaker 1: some openings in the infield in the Tampa Bay situation.
Speaker 1: So Caminaro is just nineteen years old, he'll be twenty
Speaker 1: this year. If you go back and look at last
Speaker 1: year's stats for him, Look, it's you're you're talking about
Speaker 1: a guy who played as high as double A last year.
Speaker 1: You're talking about that showed you twenty home runs there
Speaker 1: at eighty one games at Double A. He hit three
Speaker 1: fifty six at single A. Before that at high A
Speaker 1: over thirty six games, he hit three fifty six at
Speaker 1: one thousand ops at A nine to twenty one ops
Speaker 1: in those eighty one games at double A. So it
Speaker 1: seems like he is ready for at least that audition.
Speaker 1: But it's Tampa, and Tampa's that one thing that.
Speaker 2: We always saw, Oh no, what are they gonna do?
Speaker 2: How are they gonna act? Now?
Speaker 1: Rules have change, so it's easier to do this nowadays,
Speaker 1: and there the need is more obvious now. So do
Speaker 1: you think that Camonaro gives us enough of a season
Speaker 1: to warrant the two to seventeen ADP that he's currently
Speaker 1: going at.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I actually think Cameron Aro could be one of
Speaker 3: the biggest values in drafts right now. And this is
Speaker 3: another one of those guys. If they said tomorrow that
Speaker 3: Cameron Aro is the starting third baseman top one twenty five,
Speaker 3: without question, maybe inside the top one hundred, I think
Speaker 3: was in the realm of possibility as well. He came up,
Speaker 3: he was fine in his uh was it seven games
Speaker 3: that he played? He went into the offseason, played in
Speaker 3: the Dominican Winter League, I think hit another six homers
Speaker 3: in like twenty something games. Absolutely dominated. Here's the deal
Speaker 3: with that lineup though currently it says Esac Praides is
Speaker 3: their third baseman and they just traded for Jose Cabro,
Speaker 3: who's gonna be their shortstop. Well, Praidies has been in
Speaker 3: trade rumors the entire offseason and could be shipped out
Speaker 3: Dhing right now. Richie Pelosio, So I know you love.
Speaker 3: My point of all this is to say there's open spots.
Speaker 3: If he's gonna play third base, Parides if they kept him,
Speaker 3: could play DH. You can put him there. Yes, I
Speaker 3: think four hundred and fifty plus played appearances is a
Speaker 3: good bet. It's post two hundred. He's got thirty plus power.
Speaker 3: He's an electric bat. There's no speed that's really in there.
Speaker 3: But this is one of those guys you talk about,
Speaker 3: Oh good, wait for Josh Young, you can wait for
Speaker 3: Kevin Arrow. He's a target in every single draft, and
Speaker 3: really the braid the board breaking is going to be
Speaker 3: about who the person is in the draft that decides
Speaker 3: to pull the trigger on him. Because I think he
Speaker 3: can push inside the top one point fifty. And like
Speaker 3: I said, if the announcement happens. You want to bet
Speaker 3: on a thirty plus home run power rookie hitting near
Speaker 3: the middle of the Rays lineup, absolutely, and you will
Speaker 3: bet near the top one hundred if they give him
Speaker 3: that spot. But to your point, he didn't play in
Speaker 3: the minors past double A, but they did give him
Speaker 3: the opportunity in the majors.
Speaker 2: But physically he looks like he's ready to. Oh, Like,
Speaker 2: the physical.
Speaker 1: Build of him, the lower half is very strong. We
Speaker 1: always STI look at Evan Carter and I go like,
Speaker 1: he's still got some growing to do. He's got some
Speaker 1: filling out to so's ely do a Cruz to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. But he's such a tall guy. It's a
Speaker 1: very different set of circumstances. So, you know, the tall,
Speaker 1: lanky guys sometimes it takes a little while there, But
Speaker 1: when it comes to Cavi and Arrow, it's very different.
Speaker 1: Like Cam Arrow looks like a guy who's playing right now.
Speaker 1: He looks like a lot like the guy he's probably
Speaker 1: going to be replacing at that infield eventually. In terms
Speaker 1: of what he means to the Tampa Bay.
Speaker 3: RAI, Yeah, and he won't be in he won't be
Speaker 3: in it. Short But you know, listen, I've said this
Speaker 3: and people know this, but I talked to Carson Williams,
Speaker 3: who's the top shortstop prospect for the Rays. It talked
Speaker 3: him in the AFL and one of the first things
Speaker 3: out of his mouth was, like, Judi, Camanarroo is the
Speaker 3: best player I've ever played with. He's the best player
Speaker 3: I've ever seen play within person. And he joked, He's like,
Speaker 3: you know, when when someone wants to talk defense, they
Speaker 3: come to me. When someone wants to talk offense, we
Speaker 3: go to Junior. And those are the two guys you
Speaker 3: probably see by the end of this year manning that side.
Speaker 3: Cam and Arow's home is at third base. And that's
Speaker 3: why focus on parades. If parades is gone and traded,
Speaker 3: I think they have made full room for it, and
Speaker 3: and I have asked some team personnel and the thing
Speaker 3: I keep hearing is, yeah, people love the idea of
Speaker 3: getting this extra pick when it played, because Junior Camonaro
Speaker 3: will be if he breaks camp, he's eligible. If he
Speaker 3: were to win Rookie of the Year, he will be
Speaker 3: eligible for that extra rookie compensation. It's not even about
Speaker 3: the pick, it's that player pool money. That these team
Speaker 3: want and what are the Rays love? They love to
Speaker 3: save their money and not pay their players. So if
Speaker 3: there's any team that would make sense this day and age,
Speaker 3: it would be for cam and Aro to break camp
Speaker 3: and then to get that extra pool money. He breaks
Speaker 3: boards and he should be on your team.
Speaker 1: What I like about Camanaro when I watch him too,
Speaker 1: and this is why I think he is ready. There's
Speaker 1: times where it does it looks like he doesn't get
Speaker 1: all of it and the ball still goes out.
Speaker 2: That's power, that's strength feel power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, like some you know a lot
Speaker 1: of young players, like you know, when they get it
Speaker 1: and when they don't.
Speaker 2: There's times where he hits the ball and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we didn't get all that one. The ball goes.
Speaker 3: Out right like Ryce Lewis was.
Speaker 1: Doing that, or a little bit of that, A little
Speaker 1: bit of that, a little bit of that like feeling too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of those things when you
Speaker 1: look at young players, you know, in terms of are
Speaker 1: they physically ready to handle themselves at the major league
Speaker 1: level with some of the pitching they're gonna see and
Speaker 1: the wear and tear of the season, all that stuff. Like,
Speaker 1: I look at that body type, I look at what
Speaker 1: he's doing in terms of the swing. There's times, like
Speaker 1: I said, where he gets all of it and you
Speaker 1: know it, and other times where you don't think so
Speaker 1: the ball still goes out and you go wow, like
Speaker 1: he just literally took that one and muscled it out there,
Speaker 1: and that's very impressive for a player at nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: years old. That's a very impressive thing. So what do
Speaker 1: you think about all these players? Drop your comments below
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Speaker 2: Go check it out.
Speaker 1: Keep looking any day now, any hour now, it should
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Speaker 1: game goes on for the Welsh.
Speaker 2: I'm Joey P. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 3: Kids,