Speaker 1: Any switch said, high deep, under standing, up deep to
Speaker 1: shut her feel and it's coming.
Speaker 2: Wow, his first big league swing, He's gonna be a
Speaker 2: gland slam.
Speaker 1: Home run swing.
Speaker 2: Good time to Welcome.
Speaker 1: To the show. Welcome back to the Call Up, your
Speaker 1: go to podcast on the future stars of Major League Baseball,
Speaker 1: and we continue this week of Top one hundred Prospect episodes.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be the theme for this week and next
Speaker 1: week as well. We are doing the biggest risers today,
Speaker 1: it's arm Light and Jack McMullen to break it down,
Speaker 1: and then we'll do another episode coming up on the
Speaker 1: other newcomers. Then plenty more going into next week on
Speaker 1: the top prospects in the entire list, and twenty more
Speaker 1: to discuss as it pertains to the list and breaking
Speaker 1: it all down. We're also going to talk about a
Speaker 1: very dynamic and unique Rockies prospect making his big league debut.
Speaker 1: But Jack, this is the first Top one hundred episode
Speaker 1: with you since the update. Really excited to talk risers
Speaker 1: as well, because with this first update we always get
Speaker 1: some major movers, including one of the biggest, actually the
Speaker 1: biggest riser in the history of US ranking Top one
Speaker 1: hundred prospects here just baseball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you've got a guy that went from one
Speaker 2: hundred to nine. I will save I guess I'll save
Speaker 2: the actual name for the tail end of the episode
Speaker 2: when we do that, because we're gonna work from lowest
Speaker 2: on the top one hundred to highest on the top
Speaker 2: one hundred. But I don't think I've ever seen you
Speaker 2: go one hundred to nine with someone before. But this
Speaker 2: was a guy that was out top twenty at one
Speaker 2: point too. He was top five for some outlets way
Speaker 2: back when. So it's just amazing to see the process.
Speaker 2: And if you're reading the tea leaves, chances are you
Speaker 2: figure it out.
Speaker 1: But it's so.
Speaker 2: Cool, especially in this pre CBA expiration year and where
Speaker 2: like prospect promotion is so heavily incentivized. You're seeing more
Speaker 2: and more guys get up, and you're seeing more and
Speaker 2: more guys get paid, like Bradon Montgomery just got up
Speaker 2: and Luis Laura just got paid in the last forty
Speaker 2: eight hours, which is awesome. Yeah, so like we're seeing
Speaker 2: more and more of this. You will see more and
Speaker 2: more graduations and now with the league just skewing a
Speaker 2: little bit younger and more exciting, you have that many
Speaker 2: more prospects to rank, So heck of a job again, dude,
Speaker 2: on this It's available obviously in the episode description and
Speaker 2: then on Just Baseball dot com. It is such a
Speaker 2: fun article to read every single time it is updated.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, man. And it's been really fun with
Speaker 1: this grouping because we talked about it in the last episode.
Speaker 1: So many new faces, so many players that we haven't
Speaker 1: been able to discuss too much because it's a twenty
Speaker 1: five draft or maybe that emerged out of nowhere or
Speaker 1: a little bit of both. And with the Max exodus
Speaker 1: that we had a lot of refreshing, you know, new
Speaker 1: faces here on the and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: more of the risers. So these aren't going to be
Speaker 1: as many of the new faces, but these are gonna
Speaker 1: be guys that really improve their stock since the start
Speaker 1: of the year. But before we get into that, guy
Speaker 1: that has improved his stock as well, and it's probably
Speaker 1: within an arms reach of top one hundred prospect status
Speaker 1: is called Carrig and he got called up for the Rockies.
Speaker 1: He in his first big league game tripled. That's kind
Speaker 1: of the name of his game. He is I think
Speaker 1: Warren Schaeffer said it in himself, the Rockies manager. He
Speaker 1: plays with his hair on fire. It's exactly what you
Speaker 1: kind of feel when you watch this cop B pick
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty three. Colt Carrig switch hitter that can
Speaker 1: play all over the diamond. He caught some games in
Speaker 1: the first days of his professional career that quickly were like,
Speaker 1: you're way too athletic to be in the squad. We're
Speaker 1: not going to do that anymore. And he was playing
Speaker 1: shortstop and center field. Then over the last couple of
Speaker 1: years a lot more just center field, but then this
Speaker 1: year a little bit more shortstop again. So I think
Speaker 1: Carrig projects best in the outfield where he's played all
Speaker 1: three spots. His speed can absolutely play in center, but
Speaker 1: it's an asset to have a guy that you can,
Speaker 1: you know, late game replacements wise, or you're subbing and
Speaker 1: moving things around to be able to move a guy
Speaker 1: into the dirt or spot start into the dirt. So
Speaker 1: it's been fun to see the Rockies lean back into
Speaker 1: that side of things. And then with Carrig, I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: playing in some hitter friendly environments of course, hitting in
Speaker 1: in Albuquerque there, but that's what we have WRC plus
Speaker 1: four and you know hit this slash line will play
Speaker 1: anywhere three thirty eight, four, fourteen, five, twenty nine good
Speaker 1: for a one to twenty nine WRC plus thirty bags
Speaker 1: in fifty seven games for Keragin six homers as well.
Speaker 1: He can sneak, He's got some sneaky pop. He's absolutely
Speaker 1: one of the faster guys that you're gonna see and
Speaker 1: immediately like probably the fastest guy on this Rocky scene.
Speaker 1: And then also just the ability to impact the ball
Speaker 1: a little bit from both sides of the plate. At worst,
Speaker 1: this is a very dynamic super utility player. But I
Speaker 1: think at cores where it's gonna hedge some of the
Speaker 1: swing and miss that he's already hedged himself. His skill set,
Speaker 1: his athleticism. This is a very fun player for the
Speaker 1: Rockies to bring up in a year where, look, they're
Speaker 1: not gonna hit the playoffs, but they're better.
Speaker 2: And I don't think this is somebody that goes down
Speaker 2: to Albuquerque when that decimated outfield becomes healthy again. Like
Speaker 2: I think this is a guy that you're comfortable having
Speaker 2: on your bench. And you mentioned the late game defensive situation,
Speaker 2: the pinch running situation. If he keeps hitting, he's gonna
Speaker 2: get some pinch hit situations too. Troy Johnston's not going anywhere.
Speaker 2: That guy has been one of these surprises offensively in
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball. But Jake McCarthy has been a heck
Speaker 2: of a lot better than I was ever anticipating. Jake
Speaker 2: McCarthy would be, to be honest with you. And then
Speaker 2: they've got some other guys that they are committed to
Speaker 2: that are on the IL right now, right Mickey Moniac.
Speaker 2: He's on the IL with an ankle sprain. Tyler Freeman
Speaker 2: just hit the IL. That's why Carig got up. Brenton
Speaker 2: Doyle is on the IL with an oblique issue. Jordan
Speaker 2: Beck is on the IL with a hamstring strain. So
Speaker 2: you've got four outfielders that are on the shelf and
Speaker 2: Carig is up. Carig is going to play pretty much
Speaker 2: every day while Freeman is out and while the rest
Speaker 2: of the outfielders are out. But when those guys get healthy,
Speaker 2: Carriig is somebody that can fill in for Tovar, who's
Speaker 2: been brutal so far this year. He's somebody that can
Speaker 2: fill in in all three outfield spots. You mentioned the
Speaker 2: shortened center thing. He played like six games and left
Speaker 2: in six games and right in twenty twenty five in Hartford,
Speaker 2: but this year was back to shortened center. That's a
Speaker 2: super valuable piece. Oh yeah, and if you can play
Speaker 2: shortened center, I automatically call you like a super utility
Speaker 2: guy that can play absolutely anywhere on the diamond.
Speaker 1: And then the switch hitting, the speed, the stolen base ability, Like,
Speaker 1: this guy's gonna have a spot on a roster whether
Speaker 1: he reaches his offensive potential or not for a very
Speaker 1: long time. But the exciting part is he's reaching closer
Speaker 1: to that offensive potential.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna start calling this guy, what do you need? Guy?
Speaker 2: Like he can just go up to the manager and
Speaker 2: be like, what do you need? I got you you need?
Speaker 2: So yeah, cole Kerrig is a what do you need guy?
Speaker 1: It's kind of Willie castrosh except better athlete, right, Like
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a gether actually like making it and
Speaker 1: obviously he's got to make some strides to hit like
Speaker 1: castro Is hitt in stronger seasons.
Speaker 2: But best what do you need guy? In baseball? Mauricio Dubon,
Speaker 2: what do you need? I got you? So?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's freaking all and that probably fits the bill
Speaker 1: even more with the defensive value that you get there.
Speaker 1: Last thing, I'll mention twelve percent cut in the strikeout
Speaker 1: rate this year at TRIPLEA compared to double A last year.
Speaker 1: That's really exciting there for Carrig. Hopefully it gets a
Speaker 1: long look here, and I agree I think he will
Speaker 1: with the Rockies. Let's get into the biggest risers here,
Speaker 1: where we've got again some masitive jumped record amounts of spots,
Speaker 1: but plenty of others that I'm excited to highlight here. Again,
Speaker 1: as always, the link for the list is in the
Speaker 1: episode description.
Speaker 2: So I want to start us off with Kendree Chorio,
Speaker 2: the pitching prospect for the Kansas City Royals. Because Chorio
Speaker 2: was at ninety six on the preseason update. He's up
Speaker 2: to seventy three now. Kendree Chorio again of the Kansas
Speaker 2: City Royals, a teenage pitching prospect. Why do you love
Speaker 2: him this much?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Chorio? Man, just just the numbers. Look at this guy.
Speaker 1: Every single time you check in. He just has not
Speaker 1: slowed down, and he's so ahead of his year. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're looking at a eighteen year old, by the way,
Speaker 1: doesn't turn nineteen years old until October first of this year,
Speaker 1: who already has success at Lowe under his belt. He
Speaker 1: was okay at the end of our shirt Lowa in
Speaker 1: his age aged seventeen season, which the fact that he's
Speaker 1: even there is remarkable. And then this year in his
Speaker 1: age eighteen season, forty two innings, he's pitched to a
Speaker 1: one seven to one el for low A Columbia, forty strikeouts,
Speaker 1: eight walks. To be doing what he is doing is ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and you might think, oh, well, is this another like pitchability,
Speaker 1: you know, teenager, Like, what's it going to look like
Speaker 1: against more challenging competition. He throws ninety six and look,
Speaker 1: the shape could be better. So I think there is
Speaker 1: like aspects of that rhetorical that I just asked that
Speaker 1: are maybe valid, but they would rear their heads until
Speaker 1: like double A and triple A and maybe by then
Speaker 1: he's throwing ninety nine. Who knows, like, this is a
Speaker 1: guy that with a smooth, easy delivery, six feet one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five pounds is sitting ninety six and
Speaker 1: touching ninety eight plus. Yeah, the shape could be a
Speaker 1: little bit better, but you look at the pitch mix
Speaker 1: man and yeah, it's three above average offerings that I
Speaker 1: think will develop into plus with what looks like plus command.
Speaker 1: I can very soundly knowing that this guy's going to
Speaker 1: at worst eight innings as a back end of the
Speaker 1: rotation starter. But you figure there's a lot of time
Speaker 1: for Chorio. Now, Hukui is a great field to throw
Speaker 1: the baseball and just a good field to spin it
Speaker 1: to develop as just a more well rounded arsenal, Like
Speaker 1: why can't Chorio find that cutter or or that slider
Speaker 1: or that sinker and really just develop, you know, a
Speaker 1: more well rounded pitch mix.
Speaker 2: You bet on the guys that throw like a twenty
Speaker 2: four year old when they're eighteen or nineteen years old,
Speaker 2: Like there are very very few guys in the DSL
Speaker 2: or at the complex or even in low A before
Speaker 2: twenty years old that actually don't look nineteen years old,
Speaker 2: like Kendrick Chorio. It seems like from what you're laying
Speaker 2: out is a guy that throws like a college kid
Speaker 2: that happens to be eighteen that's throwing up the complex
Speaker 2: right now, which is fun and more room to grow.
Speaker 2: Another guy college kid staying in the al Central. Kaylan
Speaker 2: Culpeper was a first round pick of the Minnesota Twins
Speaker 2: back in twenty four out of Kansas State, and all
Speaker 2: Kaylan Culpeper has done in the Upper Miners, mind you,
Speaker 2: over the last year and a half is mash Kaylan
Speaker 2: Culpeper last year between high end Double A one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirteen games, hit two ninety with twenty homers, twenty
Speaker 2: five bags in twenty nine attempts, and an eight forty
Speaker 2: four ops. He's been better this year fifty seven games
Speaker 2: with Triple A Saint Paul, fourteen homers, forty driven in
Speaker 2: thirteen for fifteen in the stolen based department, keeping the
Speaker 2: k rate in check and opsing eight seventy. You have
Speaker 2: Culpeper up to sixty one. Kaylan Culpeper was previously at
Speaker 2: eighty four on your list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a big part of that is that
Speaker 1: Culpeper is just held serf and if, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: if anything's gotten a little bit better at a higher level,
Speaker 1: and all the other guys ahead of him have graduated,
Speaker 1: and you also have a lot of times these players
Speaker 1: don't maybe repeat or completely match what they did and
Speaker 1: they're kind of coming out party season. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: Colepepper is doing again this year. If anything, it's just
Speaker 1: slightly better across the board. I think the biggest thing
Speaker 1: though that stands out to me is Colepepper sitting the
Speaker 1: ball a lot harder. And that was the aspect where
Speaker 1: Colepepper's a very much as some of his parts. Guy
Speaker 1: not a clear plus tool, but you look at above
Speaker 1: average field to hit at least average power because of
Speaker 1: the way that he's able to drive it in the
Speaker 1: air consistently, he air poles and just again I think
Speaker 1: is able to maximize what he's got. The approach has
Speaker 1: always been fine, I think, or at least that's probably
Speaker 1: the area where he needs to get better. He can
Speaker 1: struggle at recognizing spin sometimes that's gotten a little bit
Speaker 1: better this year. He's got the chase rate by five
Speaker 1: percent and then again the hard hit rates up like
Speaker 1: fourteen percent. He can play shortstop. Is it going to
Speaker 1: be off the charts? No, But I always forecasted him
Speaker 1: as an average to slightly above average every day shortstop,
Speaker 1: and he just continues to look more and more like
Speaker 1: that at a higher level. So he's basically just solidifying
Speaker 1: his floor in his foundation more and more. Well, just
Speaker 1: ever so slightly improving that ceiling. So the biggest thing
Speaker 1: for me though, is seeing how much more consistently he's
Speaker 1: finding the barrel. And when you see that hard hit
Speaker 1: ray jump by fourteen percent, I mean, that's obviously going
Speaker 1: to come with a lot more excitement around him to
Speaker 1: be a pair of that. With a few percentage points
Speaker 1: better in the bats of ball department and five percentage
Speaker 1: points better in the chase department, you've got a really
Speaker 1: good player here. Nothing is quite going to be that
Speaker 1: eye catching aspect for him, but he's a gamer that
Speaker 1: just does everything pretty well. And the last little thing
Speaker 1: to monitor here, which has already gotten better, is the
Speaker 1: swing decisions against spin. Last year it was a forty
Speaker 1: percent chase rate against secondaries, actually forty against breaking balls,
Speaker 1: forty two against secondaries. This year it's about thirty five
Speaker 1: percent against breaking balls and thirty two overall against secondary
Speaker 1: So it could get a little bit better, but that
Speaker 1: that is much more into the range of reasonability, especially
Speaker 1: with how selective he is fastball wise in terms of
Speaker 1: not expanding the zone and attacking the pitches that he
Speaker 1: wants to hit within it. And when you have the
Speaker 1: uptick in quality of contact, I mean there's a world
Speaker 1: where maybe you can dream on above average pop here
Speaker 1: as well. With how much harder he said, He's hitting
Speaker 1: the ball to pair with the angles that have always
Speaker 1: been there.
Speaker 2: Exciting stuff for Kaylin Culpepper. Back to the mound, Let's
Speaker 2: talk about Jack Weninger with the New York Mets. Weninger,
Speaker 2: by the way, just click for me went to Kerry
Speaker 2: Grove High School, two years younger than Quinn Priester. You'd
Speaker 2: have to assume that they were teammates at Carrie Grove,
Speaker 2: so Wenener and Quinn Priester might have been sharing a
Speaker 2: rotation in the Chicago Land suburbs, which is kind of
Speaker 2: fun in high school. But Weninger is up from eighty
Speaker 2: seven to fifty six on the top one hundred list.
Speaker 2: Twenty four year old young twenty four year old taken
Speaker 2: out a u OFI in twenty twenty three. But Weenener
Speaker 2: so far this year, after a great showing with double
Speaker 2: a Binghamton last year, has been better.
Speaker 1: In Syracuse.
Speaker 2: The third innings at a two seven era, He's punched
Speaker 2: out forty nine. He's walking five hitters fifty like that's
Speaker 2: the problem. But he still rose about thirty spots for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was a little bit of like a combination
Speaker 1: of okay, guy that is benefited from the graduations ahead
Speaker 1: of him, but at the same time the newcomers. I'm
Speaker 1: Wheningers walking guys a little bit more this year is
Speaker 1: not enough for me to, i think, relegate him behind
Speaker 1: some of these newcomers. And that's just where I'm at here.
Speaker 1: It hasn't quite been the year that I think you
Speaker 1: want to see. But to your point, he's been better
Speaker 1: still from an era perspective, which I think does say
Speaker 1: a lot about just his ability to get whiffs when
Speaker 1: he needs to, get the week contact when he needs to,
Speaker 1: and maintain composure and poys. I have been surprised to
Speaker 1: see the command back up the way that it has,
Speaker 1: because I mean, this is guy that initially projected us
Speaker 1: with above average command. But I think there's been some
Speaker 1: adjustment to that triple A ball that we see with
Speaker 1: so many guys that just kind of getting used to
Speaker 1: this slick aspect of it and just the different feel
Speaker 1: to it that I think is happening here with Wenninger.
Speaker 1: But the fact that he has still been as solid
Speaker 1: at preventing runs as he has been despite the command backup,
Speaker 1: I think is extremely encouraging. And if you look at
Speaker 1: the last you know, handful of starts. Overall, there's been
Speaker 1: a couple of duds in there. There's been a couple
Speaker 1: dominant outings. He had a stretch of sixteen and two
Speaker 1: thirds consecutive innings without allowing an earned run. So it's
Speaker 1: just trying to string together the consistency here. But for me,
Speaker 1: it was more of him holding his spot despite new
Speaker 1: names kind of creeping up behind him and names ahead
Speaker 1: of him graduating. But this is one of the few
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about where it's like it's not like
Speaker 1: he's doing something tangibly better than he was doing last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not a new name to the list, but a
Speaker 2: high riser is an eighteen year old in the Guardian
Speaker 2: system by the name of Junaker Casceras Cassara's you have
Speaker 2: rising from eighty six to forty four, and it's because
Speaker 2: this guy has been awesome as a Hill City howler
Speaker 2: in his age eighteen season. He's eighteen until August fifteenth,
Speaker 2: and Cassara's in twenty nine games, hitting three ten, walking
Speaker 2: more than he's punched out, and hit five homers. In
Speaker 2: the state of Virginia. It's kind of humid in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this guy's really fun man, and I think he's
Speaker 1: just scraping the surface of what he can be. We're
Speaker 1: talking about an eighteen year old at low Way that
Speaker 1: is keeping a strikeout right below ten percent, is starting
Speaker 1: to get into that power as you mentioned, and also
Speaker 1: running extremely low chase rates. I just to be and
Speaker 1: also I'm looking at I've talked about him in like
Speaker 1: his operation, and I always felt like he was a
Speaker 1: guy he kind of stepped he was stepping in the
Speaker 1: bucket previously, kind of flying open a little bit and
Speaker 1: still having the success bat to ball wise and production
Speaker 1: wise that he was having. He seems to have made
Speaker 1: some improvements there where you seem kind of coiling and
Speaker 1: has this rhythmic load in to his backside. He can
Speaker 1: still leak out a little bit, but it's already getting better.
Speaker 1: And you're seeing an eighteen year old clean up his
Speaker 1: mechanics after already having success at low A last year
Speaker 1: and dominating the complex. So now have success this year
Speaker 1: at low Way and still be making these tweaks and
Speaker 1: getting better is so so exciting. But when you look
Speaker 1: at some of the underlying numbers. It's only a ninety
Speaker 1: one percent in zone contact rate and an eighty nine
Speaker 1: percent contact rate, So the overall contact rate's only two
Speaker 1: percent lower than the zone contact rate. That just shows
Speaker 1: you how good the feel for the barrel is. It's
Speaker 1: an eighty five percent out of zone contact rates. So
Speaker 1: you have a guy that doesn't chase, and when he
Speaker 1: does chase will immediately spoil and or drive it still,
Speaker 1: and then you can't beat him in the zone either.
Speaker 1: That's how a guy at eighteen years old at low
Speaker 1: A strikes out less than ten percent of the time.
Speaker 1: You pair that with above average batspeed, and this guy
Speaker 1: is a rocket ship dude. I really think by the
Speaker 1: end of this year he's going to be a consensus
Speaker 1: tough fifteen. I can't believe he's not on every top
Speaker 1: one hundred list right now. I get it because it's early,
Speaker 1: and you know, but we we've seen as an industry
Speaker 1: now like on out, ones are very eager to throw
Speaker 1: a complex get on there or DSL get on there.
Speaker 1: And I don't blame him.
Speaker 2: He's already off the complex. He's already in low A.
Speaker 1: That's my thing. So I don't know where the lag
Speaker 1: is here. With Cassras because the underlying's great, the surface
Speaker 1: levels good. He's still extremely young, and I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to dream onto.
Speaker 2: Interesting. All right, next guy that we got to talk
Speaker 2: about here is a big leaguer, Logan Henderson, who has
Speaker 2: yet to fully graduate. Henderson just id fifty innings unfortunately
Speaker 2: on the IL right now, seventeen and two thirds with
Speaker 2: Triple A Nashville this year at a one point oh
Speaker 2: two ERA off of five starts. Last year in Milwaukee
Speaker 2: had a one seven eight ERA five more starts at
Speaker 2: a two seven this year, punched out thirty and walked
Speaker 2: six in twenty three innings of work. So in ten
Speaker 2: major league starts he's five and one with a two
Speaker 2: to two three ERA, punching out sixty three guys and
Speaker 2: walking fourteen and forty eight and a third and a
Speaker 2: career minor league e RA of three point one one.
Speaker 2: We've talked a lot about Logan Henderson, but at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, there might be nothing new with him.
Speaker 2: It's just a whole bunch of pitches, really good command,
Speaker 2: and he's a good major league pitcher at this point
Speaker 2: when healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like I'm ranking a big leaguer compared
Speaker 1: to these these other minor league guys, and it's just bizarre.
Speaker 1: But you know, he's just so good in the in
Speaker 1: the five and dive roll even but like we've seen
Speaker 1: him go deeper now, like he eats six innings in
Speaker 1: one of his outings already this year. We saw him
Speaker 1: do it a little bit last year as well. The
Speaker 1: thing with Henderson is you're asking me to compare a
Speaker 1: guy that's proven that he's a big league starter at
Speaker 1: this point. Now the question is just ceiling versus floor,
Speaker 1: and I think he's really solidified the the both. I
Speaker 1: think because the question before is like, Okay, it's four
Speaker 1: seamer that has some outlier characteristics and then a really
Speaker 1: good change up off of that, and those two pitches
Speaker 1: are going to get, you know, be able to get
Speaker 1: big league hitterers out at a pretty consistent clip. But
Speaker 1: what happened second third time through the lineup, and that
Speaker 1: was where he needed to find a little bit more
Speaker 1: consistency with the rest of his offerings. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what he's done now with mixing and a cutter that
Speaker 1: is been really effective for him and I think is
Speaker 1: turned into an average third pitch just being able to
Speaker 1: mix in twenty percent of the time a third look
Speaker 1: that is solid when you have two plus or better
Speaker 1: pitches and fantastic command. All of a sudden, Henderson instead
Speaker 1: of looking more like a back into the rotation five
Speaker 1: and I've got he looks like a middle rotation type
Speaker 1: of arm.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Unfortunately the next guy also on the il much
Speaker 2: like Logan Henderson, but a fun name to see rise
Speaker 2: this much. Previously at ninety five, now at twenty seven,
Speaker 2: Argin Namala of the Toronto Blue Jays. Namala is a
Speaker 2: top thirty prospect in baseball according to ARM and it's
Speaker 2: just baseball dot com. Uh. Argin Namala is a guy
Speaker 2: that was opsing under seven hundred last year. It's north
Speaker 2: of eight hundred this year. He got up to double
Speaker 2: a in his age twenty season. That's where he got hurt, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: But Namala is a guy that I know you have
Speaker 2: long been high on and it's just fun to see
Speaker 2: him slug a little bit again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're seeing him really get into that slug now.
Speaker 1: And that was the fun part about updating the rite
Speaker 1: up is I mean, the uptick in quality of contacts
Speaker 1: for them all is crazy and I think it still
Speaker 1: wasn't even fully translating into that uptick and slug that
Speaker 1: I think we would have seen. And we'll see if
Speaker 1: he was available and didn't hit the il there. But
Speaker 1: the approach has gotten better. The quality of contact in
Speaker 1: terms of the evs is just I think it's one
Speaker 1: of the bigger jumps we saw in minor league baseball
Speaker 1: so far this year. The swing decisions are better, he
Speaker 1: continues to develop into what looks like an above average shortstop.
Speaker 1: Everything you look at is encouraging. The biggest thing for me, though,
Speaker 1: is seeing that and what we always liked about him
Speaker 1: in the early going of his pro career was, man,
Speaker 1: he can move that that fast, and now we're really
Speaker 1: seeing that shine through. Average bat speed this year north
Speaker 1: of seventy four miles per hour. I mean that is
Speaker 1: comfortably in the plus territory average EGXA velocity of ninety
Speaker 1: one point five miles per hour, which is up three
Speaker 1: miles per hour from the year power and ninety percent
Speaker 1: telex of LOSSI I believe I remember correct, He's up
Speaker 1: to like one hundred and eight miles per hour this year.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, crazy stuff there. So there's still some things
Speaker 1: he needs to show her up. I think the hit
Speaker 1: tool is ultimately always gonna be fringy, but he's proven
Speaker 1: that he can hammer fastballs. He's recognizing spin better, but
Speaker 1: he needs to i think, be able to drive it
Speaker 1: a bit more consistently, kind of leaves it sometimes and
Speaker 1: can pull off of it. But we saw improvements I
Speaker 1: think across the board this year that, hopefully, if he's
Speaker 1: not out for too long with the injury, will really
Speaker 1: validate what is an improved season. This is not an
Speaker 1: easy jump from High A to Double A, and he
Speaker 1: started the year in High A again like they repeated
Speaker 1: him there for a second. Then he quickly proved that
Speaker 1: he's just much better and too good for the level
Speaker 1: gets up to double was holding his own there before
Speaker 1: the injury. I'm very excited to see what Namala can do,
Speaker 1: assuming he comes back relatively quickly and it is healthy,
Speaker 1: because this is better than plus raw power that he's
Speaker 1: still warning to tap into. But I think he's getting
Speaker 1: closer and closer to doing I'm.
Speaker 2: Going to clump the next two together for the sake
Speaker 2: of timing and also for the sake of a league conversation.
Speaker 2: Travis Bozana, The Guardians makes the jump from forty six
Speaker 2: to twenty two. Ryan Walschmidt the Diamondbacks makes the jump
Speaker 2: from forty four to twenty one. Do you feel like
Speaker 2: you could push Bizana higher and higher by the day,
Speaker 2: because what that guy is doing at the tippy top
Speaker 2: of the Guardian lineup has been outstanding. Meanwhile, Walschmid has
Speaker 2: had a really nice start to his major league career too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the challenging you know, I think juggle with
Speaker 1: these two is is Bizan I think has proven that, like,
Speaker 1: this guy's gonna hit at the big league level, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's we always love the floor with him.
Speaker 1: I think where and why we him a little bit
Speaker 1: lower maybe than others is that I feel like from
Speaker 1: a war perspective, which you've talked about a little bit
Speaker 1: in the last few episodes, is Bazana has got to
Speaker 1: be like a one thirty WRC plus to get to
Speaker 1: that three plus war because I think the second base
Speaker 1: defense is a little bit limiting there and maybe it
Speaker 1: gets better as as time passes. I just I just
Speaker 1: am not entirely confident in that from watching him over
Speaker 1: the years. So if you're gonna be you know, in
Speaker 1: if he second baseman we've seen within Brandon low like
Speaker 1: he's got to really really hit, Like he's got to
Speaker 1: really really really hit to eclipse to war totals that
Speaker 1: he he you know, if you want to get to
Speaker 1: three four war because the defense isn't very good, Like
Speaker 1: that's kind of where I think it's gonna be for Bazana.
Speaker 1: So I think he's gonna really really hit, and he
Speaker 1: gives you value with his legs as well, and so
Speaker 1: there's other aspects that I think are encouraging. And he's
Speaker 1: got the work ethics, so maybe he can improve defensively.
Speaker 1: The reason why he climbed so much, though, is because
Speaker 1: we saw him improve I think across the board this
Speaker 1: year too. There was some question of like, okay, is
Speaker 1: this hit tool gonna be closer to average, Like there
Speaker 1: was a lot of whiff in the early going of
Speaker 1: his pro career, and he started to wonder like maybe
Speaker 1: was it Pac twelve competition that he just wasn't seeing
Speaker 1: as good of arms And maybe he's gonna be still
Speaker 1: a really productive player, but maybe it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: little bit more of the three true outcomes professionally. And
Speaker 1: then this year just shows up and better bat to
Speaker 1: the ball also, I think balancing still that desire to
Speaker 1: destroy base balls without it coming with the whiff that
Speaker 1: we saw kind of uptick, and then he has translated
Speaker 1: that immediately to the big leagues, where, if anything, he's
Speaker 1: actually been better in that regard. I think he's a
Speaker 1: guy that more information at his disposal, more scouting reports
Speaker 1: that helps a guy like Travis Bizon, and I think
Speaker 1: we're seeing that. And for the strikeout rate to be
Speaker 1: right at just below twenty percent in his big league debut,
Speaker 1: when last year at Triple A or just last year
Speaker 1: overall in the season it was twenty four percent and
Speaker 1: at Triple A was twenty seven percent, we're seeing a
Speaker 1: really solid improvement from a guy that was always going
Speaker 1: to have the plate discipline, was always going to give
Speaker 1: you at least average power. But now when that hit
Speaker 1: tool is comfortably above average, I think you feel a
Speaker 1: lot better about his ability to be that twenty to
Speaker 1: thirty percent above average bat that whole need.
Speaker 2: To be to be the three plus war guy got
Speaker 2: you and then Walt Schmidt real quick.
Speaker 1: Wald Schmidt. For me, the offense has been more of
Speaker 1: the same, which is what we kind of expected. Three
Speaker 1: true outcome bat that can really get into it to
Speaker 1: the pole side what I And it's interesting that he
Speaker 1: has not yet left the yard though, in thirty games
Speaker 1: so far this year, and that's something that you know,
Speaker 1: we'll have to wait and see. Remember this is a
Speaker 1: long term projection, not just what you've you done for
Speaker 1: me lately, but for Walshmint the defensive improvements where you've
Speaker 1: got a guy that you know, went from being shaky defensively,
Speaker 1: or at least that was the perception in college, to
Speaker 1: now being able to go play a viable center field
Speaker 1: for you from a war perspective, that's obviously going to
Speaker 1: give him a little bit more of an advantage. He
Speaker 1: also gives you similar value on the base paths. I
Speaker 1: think there's a little bit more power potential to dream
Speaker 1: on though we're not seeing him get into it right now.
Speaker 1: And then the play discipline is comparably great. So there's
Speaker 1: actually a lot of similarities with these guys offensively. And
Speaker 1: I think then with of course Bizana being a little
Speaker 1: bit more high floor because of his back to ball skills,
Speaker 1: then the other exchange is that wals Schmidt is going
Speaker 1: to give you more value with the glove, where it's
Speaker 1: either going to be an above average corner or a
Speaker 1: solid at center field. So I'm really interested. It's like
Speaker 1: kind of choose your flavor type of situation. I think
Speaker 1: Bizana's floor offensively is comfortably higher, but wald Schmidt's maybe
Speaker 1: overall floor from a war perspective, maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: higher because of the defensive value that he brings you.
Speaker 1: I could see this one going.
Speaker 2: Either way, though, and that's why you're splitting hairs here,
Speaker 2: all right. Before we get to another minor leaguer, I
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this's a fun one. Liz has been doing some
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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's get to another guy here in
Speaker 2: a Yankee prospect George Lombard, Junior Lombard one of the
Speaker 2: bigger risers on Just Baseball's Top one hundred update, he
Speaker 2: goes from fifty three to twenty. What about Lombard and
Speaker 2: his season in the upper minors has you most encouraged
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: I just keep thinking about every time I talk what
Speaker 1: we talk about him, is that that the pump fake
Speaker 1: like call up, like promotion from Double A A.
Speaker 2: Big you know you're going to Scranton, baby Electric City here,
Speaker 2: I come.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't be filming, uh, promotions from level to
Speaker 1: level like that in the manager's office just can't happen.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean that though, like the fact that
Speaker 1: he has been so good that he you know, in
Speaker 1: a year like in the year prior where he understandably
Speaker 1: kind of battled a little bit at the once he
Speaker 1: was quickly pushed a Double A. It just seems like
Speaker 1: he gathers the information, he returns there and he just
Speaker 1: gets better, and I think that's what what you kind
Speaker 1: of just love about George Lombard another player where I
Speaker 1: think I think the floor and ceiling get confused with
Speaker 1: a guy like this because you see him and say,
Speaker 1: oh man, this guy can be's trying to like, look good,
Speaker 1: look how good he is already? I think the reason
Speaker 1: why he's so good already is because the floor is there.
Speaker 1: There aren't even though he's got a little bit of
Speaker 1: a bigger frame, and maybe you can always grow into
Speaker 1: more power, but there isn't anything that jumps off the
Speaker 1: page to me when it comes to the tools. But
Speaker 1: there's also you're hard pressed to find a deficiency in
Speaker 1: his game. He looks like a solid defender on the
Speaker 1: left side of the infield, and you know has all
Speaker 1: the ingredients to ticket short. He's a good runner, superb
Speaker 1: plate discipline, So maybe that would be what jumps off
Speaker 1: the page, but that's not really something that you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: look at the plate discipline. That's gonna be something that
Speaker 1: you see over time and in the field of hit
Speaker 1: is good. I think that's the other area where it's
Speaker 1: gonna be interesting to see how that continues to develop.
Speaker 1: But it's hard to assess because he has been so
Speaker 1: aggressively pushed and he has battle battle battled, and then
Speaker 1: settles in and then is great. And I think we've
Speaker 1: seen that each time. Right twenty twenty four he gets
Speaker 1: twenty nine games at high A eighty seven WRC plus.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty five, he starts a season for twenty four
Speaker 1: games and completely obliterates it. Twenty twenty five, he finishes
Speaker 1: the year at double A for one hundred and eight
Speaker 1: games and starts slow, finishes strong, and then in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six starts the year again at double A, obliterates it,
Speaker 1: gets up to triple A. And right now we're in
Speaker 1: that working through it phase. I think you can kind
Speaker 1: of guess what's probably gonna happen here is gonna get
Speaker 1: better and better and better is your progresses. And then
Speaker 1: if he will see if they get crazy, calm up.
Speaker 1: I don't think they'll do that. If he returns next
Speaker 1: year to triple A, I bet you he torches it.
Speaker 1: And that's a big reason why this guy keeps climbing,
Speaker 1: is you just know that he is going to get
Speaker 1: better and better and settle in and just maximize his abilities.
Speaker 1: He's rarely going to get himself out in the box.
Speaker 1: He's rarely going to make an unforced error relative to
Speaker 1: other players his age in the field. He gives you
Speaker 1: value on the base pats and you still have the
Speaker 1: ability to dream on more impact. And you know him
Speaker 1: growing into a bit more power, which I mean if
Speaker 1: he gets to that average or above average pop. I mean,
Speaker 1: the sum of his parts here is just an above
Speaker 1: average every day shortstop.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Next guy that we want to talk about here
Speaker 2: staying in the American League East, THEO Gillan of the
Speaker 2: Tampa Bay Rays. You've got Gillan up from seventy five
Speaker 2: to nineteen, you were already one of the high guys
Speaker 2: on Gillan. Now you are so far and away the
Speaker 2: highest guy on THEO Gillan. It seems like Gillan is
Speaker 2: making his case for Minor League Player of the Year
Speaker 2: right now. I mean he's hitting three twenty two and
Speaker 2: forty six games in High A with ten homers, twenty
Speaker 2: two bags and twenty five attempts and an ops over
Speaker 2: one thousand right now as a twenty year old in HYA.
Speaker 2: If the season ended today and it couldn't be Jacob
Speaker 2: Gonzalez is THEO Gillan your minor league player of the
Speaker 2: year right.
Speaker 1: Now, Hey, he might be unless there's somebody off that
Speaker 1: like that. I'm just forgetting off the top of my
Speaker 1: head right now.
Speaker 2: Like Serota's hitting three thirty seven with ten homers.
Speaker 1: He's also gotten in base like forty six straight games.
Speaker 1: That guy is unbelievable. But I think Theo's got a
Speaker 1: strong case because we're gonna look at a player here
Speaker 1: that when you start to the stat queries of like
Speaker 1: who's hit twenty homers and stole fifty bags, I don't
Speaker 1: think that's gonna be anybody other than potentially THEO gilling
Speaker 1: who's got ten bags. And it's not the high volume
Speaker 1: high like you know, just spamming it getting thrown out
Speaker 1: bags last year was thirty six for thirty nine, and
Speaker 1: this year it's twenty two for twenty five. In the
Speaker 1: stolen based department, the raw power, and this is why
Speaker 1: we were talking about him LA last years, like he's
Speaker 1: just scraping the surface, which is crazy to say about.
Speaker 1: I get that had a one fifty one WRC plus
Speaker 1: last year. He's just scraping the surface, Like he's hitting
Speaker 1: the ball so hard. Just wait till Gillan starts elevating
Speaker 1: more and settles in a little bit more and is healthy.
Speaker 1: And he's healthy this year, and we're seeing the uptick
Speaker 1: in game power now all of a sudden. He had
Speaker 1: five homers in seventy three games last year. He's doubled
Speaker 1: that in forty six games this year. And the peripherals
Speaker 1: are just ridiculous. He's hitting the living crap out of
Speaker 1: the baseball. So you pair the plus raw power comfortably
Speaker 1: with I think there's a little bit more swing and
Speaker 1: miss in there. Maybe then people are are giving him
Speaker 1: credit for at this point, But I don't see it
Speaker 1: as like a liability. And I still think he's going
Speaker 1: to get to that, you know, average ish hit tool.
Speaker 1: It's hedged by the superb plate discipline, the plus power,
Speaker 1: and the field to be able to pull the ball
Speaker 1: in the air at a pretty consistent clip. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to pull up where his EV ninety stacked up to,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the other guys here, and I
Speaker 1: mean one hundred and eight mile per hour ninetieth percentile
Speaker 1: eggs of velocity for a guy that is twenty years
Speaker 1: old and really is only played entering this year. It
Speaker 1: only played eighty professional games, there's still more room for
Speaker 1: strength in that frame. He still flies and the biggest
Speaker 1: thing for me was the defensive video with Gillan. He
Speaker 1: still got some ways to go. But remember this was
Speaker 1: a player that was in the that was an infielders
Speaker 1: as a high schooler, dealt with a lot of injuries
Speaker 1: and made the move to centerfield immediately. The put him
Speaker 1: straight out there and has gotten better and better and better.
Speaker 1: And to me, with the speed, he looks like somebody
Speaker 1: that can develop into you know, at least an average
Speaker 1: center field or maybe above average and with all the
Speaker 1: aforementioned tools, that could be a superstar.
Speaker 2: So host sway Depaula another guy with star potential. I
Speaker 2: don't know about superstar potential like Gillan, but Hostwaid Depaula
Speaker 2: through fifty five games in double A mindview. He just
Speaker 2: turned twenty one years old two weeks ago. Depaula in
Speaker 2: fifty five games, hitting three fourteen, with thirty extra base
Speaker 2: hits and sixteen bags, already walking more than he's punched out,
Speaker 2: and he's got a nine to fifty four ops. Depaula
Speaker 2: has fluctuated a bit on the top one hundred, but
Speaker 2: he hasn't really fallen below like sixty or seventy. He
Speaker 2: was at forty one on the preseason update. He's at
Speaker 2: eighteen now. I mean, this guy, is he close to
Speaker 2: untouchable at it? At the trade deadline, like I'm thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 2: the Dodgers make a move for Schooble. If Scott Harrisks
Speaker 2: is asking for Depaula, you probably say no. If they're
Speaker 2: asking for Hope, you probably say yes. That's where I'm
Speaker 2: at right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not far off of that. And it's crazy because
Speaker 1: at the start of this year I was completely in
Speaker 1: a different, different camp there. And the big reason why
Speaker 1: is I had two clear cut concerns with him last year,
Speaker 1: and one, you know, the most definitive being his ability
Speaker 1: to stay back on secondaries. He makes a mechanical adjustment
Speaker 1: and is able to now not only stay back with
Speaker 1: his weight but his path. Man, he's in the zone
Speaker 1: so much longer now. And it's kind of a funny
Speaker 1: feel that he has found where you see the way
Speaker 1: that he set up, it's like the bats kind of
Speaker 1: draped or just kind of resting just below his back shoulder.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like the barrel is like it looks
Speaker 1: like the barrel weighs an extra ten pounds or something
Speaker 1: like that, with the way that he's kind of letting
Speaker 1: it dangle behind him. But that's clearly a feel to
Speaker 1: be able to gonna get the barrel working behind him,
Speaker 1: and then he's made the adjustments to be able to
Speaker 1: stay back with his weight, and we will get a
Speaker 1: guy that I was very concerned about his ability to
Speaker 1: hit spin and the quality of contact against spin. He
Speaker 1: went from seven to eight oh ps against breaking balls
Speaker 1: last year to nine to ninety one this year. Mind you,
Speaker 1: this is at the double A level, whereas it was
Speaker 1: both levels last year. The other aspect is the underlying
Speaker 1: quality of contact. Went from an eighty five point eight
Speaker 1: miles per hour average ex of velocity against breaking balls
Speaker 1: last year ninety three point five this year. He's pillaging spin.
Speaker 1: Same thing with changeups and splitters. So you take that,
Speaker 1: you take the fact that his overall contact rates up
Speaker 1: eight percent, and it's not just the breaking balls. He's
Speaker 1: better against fastballs too, it's just better against everything. He's
Speaker 1: up to his contact right against heaters by seven percent,
Speaker 1: and that's produced a nine to ninety seven ops against those.
Speaker 1: I think, looking back, I was too harsh on a
Speaker 1: hitter that was twenty years old getting up to double
Speaker 1: A and even just like just seeing in the past,
Speaker 1: like you struggle with the spin, struggle with to spend
Speaker 1: the same kind of frustrating swings. But he's never really
Speaker 1: faced adversity and he's been such a productive hitter at
Speaker 1: every single stop, so I think that, you know, and
Speaker 1: putting him at where where he had him before, closer
Speaker 1: to the middle of the top one hundred, was probably
Speaker 1: a little bit harsh. I just felt like there was
Speaker 1: so much pressure on the bat, given that you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get a ton of value beyond the bat, but
Speaker 1: he's still now showing that he can give you some
Speaker 1: value on the base paths. I think he's gonna be
Speaker 1: it won't be a liability in the outfield, and that
Speaker 1: in itself is helpful. But it just has been amazing
Speaker 1: to see him make that mechanical adjustment and just tap
Speaker 1: into this power on a different level. He had twelve
Speaker 1: twelve homers last year in one hundred and two games.
Speaker 1: He's got ten and fifty five this year. So I
Speaker 1: think just looking at it last year and seeing the
Speaker 1: struggles at high A with spin, I thought man this
Speaker 1: might really really it's set at double A and it's
Speaker 1: the complete opposite that the peripherals are way better and
Speaker 1: overall everything is better. And it's just it's been amazing
Speaker 1: to see he's walking more than he's striking out.
Speaker 2: If you're not tapped into Tulsa Driller Baseball, that's the
Speaker 2: best outfield in minor league baseball. And it's not close.
Speaker 2: It's insane with Depaula, with Hope, with Sarota and Kendall
Speaker 2: George obviously hurt, but Kendall George at the beginning of
Speaker 2: the year too, Like that is must watch every single night.
Speaker 2: So tap into your Driller Baseball, get a T shirt?
Speaker 2: Why don't you Ralphi Velaskiz We've talked about a lot
Speaker 2: over the last couple of episodes, but why is Ralphie
Speaker 2: up forty spots from fifty seven to seventeen?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just such a sound power profile, like
Speaker 1: we've talked about, Like, it's just it's just so easy
Speaker 1: to buy into what this guy is going to be offensively,
Speaker 1: and I think him and to Paula now are quite similar.
Speaker 1: And you know, I can understand people making the case
Speaker 1: for Depaula as well, but I think the fun part
Speaker 1: here is that, you know, you've got a guy in
Speaker 1: Ralphie who turned twenty one years old two weeks ago
Speaker 1: and is already at Triple A and just hit his
Speaker 1: first homer the other day at the level and starting
Speaker 1: to settle in pretty quickly there. But as decimated made
Speaker 1: a mockery of Double A twenty eight games in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five one eighty eight WRC plus to close out
Speaker 1: the year, and then thirty six games to start the
Speaker 1: year this year at Double A a one to sixty
Speaker 1: one WRC plus. It's just wild stuff from a guy
Speaker 1: that for a power, you know, first base prep profile,
Speaker 1: you'd think that it would be more station to station.
Speaker 1: It's been anything but that. And there's been a shift
Speaker 1: since the second half of last year that just has
Speaker 1: been continuous where this guy it's good back to ball,
Speaker 1: it's great power, it's great angles, it's improved swing decisions.
Speaker 1: And this guy, I think is i'd one of the
Speaker 1: more just sound power profiles that you've got in the
Speaker 1: minor leagues that has been able to get into it
Speaker 1: much eat more easily than most twenty year olds now
Speaker 1: newly turned twenty one year olds due you know, in
Speaker 1: the upper levels.
Speaker 2: All right, we are going to get to the final
Speaker 2: five guys that we have to talk about that are
Speaker 2: inside the top fifteen. But before that, I do want
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Speaker 2: a Z. If you're chasing the call, control what you
Speaker 2: can control. Time to talk Duno Alfredo Duno with the
Speaker 2: Cincinnati Reds is showing off the high level thump that
Speaker 2: he had last year. The big difference between last year
Speaker 2: and this year is the walk to punch out was unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Last year he walked ninety five times as a nineteen
Speaker 2: year old catcher Alfredo Duno, but this year hasn't walked
Speaker 2: as much. He's punching out a bit more. But Duno
Speaker 2: hitting two fifty with an eight to eighty ops in
Speaker 2: Dayton and he doesn't turn twenty one until next January.
Speaker 2: Alfredo Duno up from forty two to eleven, even though
Speaker 2: the standard numbers would indicate slight down turn as he
Speaker 2: climbs in level. What has you most encourage about his
Speaker 2: starting hya?
Speaker 1: He's hitting the living crap out of the baseball and
Speaker 1: it's just you watch this guy continue to develop as
Speaker 1: a hitter. And yeah, I know he's whiffing a little
Speaker 1: bit more, but it's important to remember, I mean, Duno
Speaker 1: missed out on a fair amount of reps at the
Speaker 1: lower levels. Last year was the first full season he's
Speaker 1: ever really played, and he had the year that he had,
Speaker 1: and then Musa him the airs on a fall league
Speaker 1: where there's a lot of reasons to be encouraged by
Speaker 1: what he was doing out there. The ability to hit
Speaker 1: the ball as hard as he does consistently and in
Speaker 1: the air consistently is just ridiculous. I mean, we're already
Speaker 1: seeing him hit homers, you know, four hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: feet like it's just it's nuts. The power that this
Speaker 1: guy has and seeing him get into it with better
Speaker 1: mechanics and the athleticism in the box and developing defensively,
Speaker 1: and that's gonna be a little bit more of a process.
Speaker 1: But I think he's getting better and better as you
Speaker 1: check in. The makeup is just so ahead of his
Speaker 1: years as well, and you hear nothing but great things
Speaker 1: about the way he goes about his business. Skid was
Speaker 1: nineteen years old at the start of the season and
Speaker 1: has gotten up to hia and has been able to
Speaker 1: get to his power at a clip even more ridiculous
Speaker 1: than he was, you know last year. Eighteen homers one
Speaker 1: hundred thirteen games is great. The fact that he's already
Speaker 1: got twelve and fifty and is look. I think some
Speaker 1: of the strikeout up tick is the fact that he's
Speaker 1: so willing to go deep into these counts, but the
Speaker 1: ability to recognize spin, the ability to still spoil, I
Speaker 1: think is impressive too. When he's getting you know, an
Speaker 1: a swing off geared for airpole, he still has a
Speaker 1: little bit of that adjustability. It's not too rigid if
Speaker 1: the catching can continue to develop when you've got the
Speaker 1: plus arm that he's had that he has and the
Speaker 1: athleticism that he has behind the dish. The fact that
Speaker 1: you can dream on you know, thirty plus homers and
Speaker 1: then a guy that can stick behind the dish with
Speaker 1: the ability to walk three true outcome with thirty plus
Speaker 1: homers as a catcher is you can sign me up
Speaker 1: for that. And also, by the way, he can sneaky
Speaker 1: run too, even if it's not going to turn into bags.
Speaker 1: The fact that you have a catcher like that that's
Speaker 1: not going to clog the base paths for you is valuable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, immensely valuable. Another catcher that we get to talk
Speaker 2: about arm why is Ethan Sallas up from one hundred
Speaker 2: to nine on Just Baseball's Top one hundred update. By
Speaker 2: the way, happy belated. He turned twenty years old last week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even though it feels like he's been around for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. Because and I know he's slowed down a
Speaker 1: little bit, to be expected, he missed all last year
Speaker 1: and he's catching a lot this year, but tangible adjustment
Speaker 1: in the box, the mechanics of better tangible like physical change.
Speaker 1: He looks so much stronger, healthy, and the results have
Speaker 1: just been ridiculous. Whether you look at the surface level
Speaker 1: stats as a guy that was nineteen years old at
Speaker 1: the start of the season producing you know, above average
Speaker 1: numbers at double A, or you look at the underlying
Speaker 1: which is a guy that is hitting the ball way
Speaker 1: harder than he ever ever has. I mean, had never
Speaker 1: posted an air ev north of one o eight and
Speaker 1: we've seen multiple one to twelves already this year, and
Speaker 1: I think five or six cvs already north of that
Speaker 1: one oh nine one ten threshold. There you see the
Speaker 1: contact rate leap, and that's probably the craziest part is
Speaker 1: like you see the uptick in power and the uptick
Speaker 1: in the ability to like get into that power in games,
Speaker 1: but to also pair that with a five percent increase
Speaker 1: or excuse me more than that, to pair that with
Speaker 1: an eight percent increase in zone contact where he's parting
Speaker 1: a ninety one percent in zone contact rate and an
Speaker 1: eleven percent overall improved contact rate. That's the biggest thing
Speaker 1: for me. The out of zone contact rate is up
Speaker 1: sixteen percent. To me, before he was kind of getting
Speaker 1: out onto that front side, drifting and waving at the
Speaker 1: ball a little bit more of like that shallow swing path,
Speaker 1: and now it seems like he's got all day. He's
Speaker 1: using the ground so well. The path is better, and
Speaker 1: he can adjust, he can move, he's more athletic in
Speaker 1: the box. And you pair that with hitting the ball
Speaker 1: harder to also being able to hit all different pitch
Speaker 1: types better and get to pitches in different regions better,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a much better hitter. And then, of
Speaker 1: course he's the best defensive catcher in the minor leagues,
Speaker 1: so at least in terms of value and what you
Speaker 1: can project, he's the best defensive catcher in the minor league.
Speaker 1: So if he and we've talked about this, if he's
Speaker 1: a ninety WRC plus, he's gonna be a starting big
Speaker 1: league catcher for a really long time. And now with
Speaker 1: the improvements that we've seen as a nineteen slaw twenty
Speaker 1: year old, he looks like he could be a one
Speaker 1: to twenty WRC plus maybe he'll be somewhere in between that,
Speaker 1: but if even as a chance to be that, the
Speaker 1: upside is one of the best catchers in Major League Baseball.
Speaker 1: So that's why he is regarded as the best catching
Speaker 1: prospect in baseball for US now.
Speaker 2: So Freddy Fermen has had a pretty good last week,
Speaker 2: So you could probably trade Sallas for school Blitt the
Speaker 2: deadline if what if you're aj Preller, But we shall see. Uh,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you a little exercise to tee up
Speaker 2: the next guy that we got to talk about here
Speaker 2: post COVID Minor League strikeout leaders. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: Cade Cavali punched out one hundred and seventy five guys.
Speaker 2: He did it in the upper miners. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: Brandon Fott punched out two hundred and eighteen guys. He
Speaker 2: did it in the upper miners. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: Drew Thorpe punched out one hundred and eighty two. He
Speaker 2: did it in the upper miners. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: Quinn Matthews climbed a whole bunch of levels. He finished
Speaker 2: in the upper miners, and he had a two hundred
Speaker 2: and two strikeout season. Last year, Jonah Toong did it
Speaker 2: in and trip Ala for the most part, punched out
Speaker 2: one hundred and seventy nine guys. Your minor league strikeout
Speaker 2: leader right now. Glaring difference he's doing it in the
Speaker 2: lower miners is Seth Hernandez or the Pittsburgh Pirates. Seth
Speaker 2: Hernandez makes the climb from forty nine to six. It's
Speaker 2: kind of unheard of what Seth Hernandez is doing right
Speaker 2: now from a strikeout accumulation perspective in the lower levels
Speaker 2: of the minor leagues. And it sounds a little similar
Speaker 2: to a Pirate from last year. When we talk about
Speaker 2: unprecedented production in the lower levels of the minor leagues,
Speaker 2: Connor Griffin comes to mind, and now Seth Hernandez comes
Speaker 2: to mind in twenty six.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's just crazy stuff. And he in
Speaker 1: a little bit of like an adjustment period a couple
Speaker 1: like starts there in high A and then by the
Speaker 1: last one I just watched him, he looked so much
Speaker 1: more comfortable and settled in there. I mean, the strikeout
Speaker 1: numbers are just ridiculous, and it's funny because I think
Speaker 1: sometimes we just kind of expected because loway was such
Speaker 1: a joke for him that, oh, he's just gonna mow
Speaker 1: through and hi, alb a joke too. Hey, baseball's not
Speaker 1: that easy. And he's had this slight adjustment period, but
Speaker 1: even through that, he's still striking everybody out because the
Speaker 1: stuff is so freaking good. And again, I think the
Speaker 1: last couple outings it's looked much better. And even then
Speaker 1: nine innings over the last couple outings he's struck out
Speaker 1: fifteen and walked four. It's just such electrifying stuff. And
Speaker 1: as we talked about, like this is the highest ceiling
Speaker 1: of any pitching prospect in the minor leagues, and we're
Speaker 1: already seeing that not twenty years old yet, sixty four
Speaker 1: to two hundred pounds and averaging ninety seven with the fastball,
Speaker 1: but we've seen him, like we know that he can
Speaker 1: get up to one oh one, one oh two. This
Speaker 1: has been a seth Hernandez. It's focused on building the workload,
Speaker 1: staying healthy, and you know, for a guy like him
Speaker 1: that it's it's not even about like how many bats
Speaker 1: he can miss in terms of trying to get to
Speaker 1: the big leagues as soon as possible. It's about showing
Speaker 1: that he can handle the workload. It's already at fifty innings,
Speaker 1: and I think the focus for him has been that.
Speaker 1: And so just to see Seth be able to continue
Speaker 1: to get stretched out and continue to hold his v
Speaker 1: LO deeper in outings and be more focused on that
Speaker 1: side has been really exciting. And as I talked about
Speaker 1: going into this year, the two questions with him, which
Speaker 1: were the splitting hair questions were, you know he throws hard,
Speaker 1: and you know he has elite change up. What's the
Speaker 1: fastball shape going to look like? And what are the
Speaker 1: breaking ball is going to look like? Fastball shape has
Speaker 1: been good and the breaking balls have been really good
Speaker 1: compared to what we were expecting. Like the curveball looks
Speaker 1: above average. I think this lader looks like it's not
Speaker 1: least average pitch will probably develop into an above average offering.
Speaker 1: You pair that with a plus plus change up, and
Speaker 1: you've got one of the more electrifying pitching prospects in
Speaker 1: major league baseball or minor league baseball.
Speaker 2: If there's one thing that I know about you, it's
Speaker 2: that you are a huge x FIP guy who cares
Speaker 2: if your number five prospect in baseball is an Elra
Speaker 2: over five. The x FIP looks pretty good at three
Speaker 2: point four to six. In all seriousness, Ryan Sloan to
Speaker 2: the Seattle Mariners is up from twenty eight to five.
Speaker 2: You look at the era north of five, you say, oh,
Speaker 2: why is he ahead of Seth Hernandez? But then you
Speaker 2: see that he's punching out eleven and a half per nine,
Speaker 2: he's walking fewer than three per nine. He's keeping the
Speaker 2: ball in the ballpark as well. In Double A. I
Speaker 2: I guess I don't want to brand it as why
Speaker 2: is slowing up twenty spots? I want to brand it
Speaker 2: as why is he ahead of Seth Hernandez at number five?
Speaker 1: You know that only five months apart, Ryan Swan is
Speaker 1: only five months older than Seth Hernandez.
Speaker 2: It's amazing because obviously.
Speaker 1: We had a whole season, the whole coming out party
Speaker 1: from Ryan Sloan last year. Swan's pitching in Double A
Speaker 1: right now, and he is striking out a lot of
Speaker 1: batters and he's not walking a lot of guys. And
Speaker 1: he had a couple of rough outings in a very
Speaker 1: hitter friendly Texas week to start the year, and he
Speaker 1: just continues to pound the zone He's not gonna nibbles.
Speaker 1: He's just gonna continue to fill it up. And we've
Speaker 1: seen Swan get better and better and better as he
Speaker 1: is settled in. I know that the last time out
Speaker 1: was was not the best for him. It was in
Speaker 1: one of the worst places to have to pitch and whatever.
Speaker 1: Before that, it was six perfect with eleven strikeouts. So
Speaker 1: it's just about kind of stringing them together. But I
Speaker 1: think if you look at the last five starts as
Speaker 1: a whole, he has just been better and better and
Speaker 1: better as you watch this year. But again, reminder, five
Speaker 1: months older than Seth Hernandez, who is kind of having
Speaker 1: his own little adjustment period in High A, Sloan is
Speaker 1: doing it in Double A right now. And the biggest
Speaker 1: thing with him is he's getting burned by the long
Speaker 1: ball in the Texas League. I think that's where you
Speaker 1: look at the X fIF The NEXS fifth actually might matter,
Speaker 1: It actually might be relevant there. But with Sloan is
Speaker 1: the floor is just so high. I like the delivery
Speaker 1: more too. At this point it's just a lot more repeatable,
Speaker 1: the arm actions cleaner, and the ability to just spawn
Speaker 1: pitches for him is just wild. That he could just
Speaker 1: pick up a two seam grip and just make it work.
Speaker 1: And it's been a huge part of his arsenal here,
Speaker 1: the ability to mix ground balls with with I like
Speaker 1: everything about what Ryansom makes it. But the thing is
Speaker 1: is like Seth Nanders is a slightly higher ceiling or
Speaker 1: maybe have a little bit higher ceiling, but Swoan has
Speaker 1: I think a comfortably higher floor and still has this
Speaker 1: exorbitantly high ceiling as well. And I think when you
Speaker 1: look at it that way, that's where I just slightly
Speaker 1: lean towards the kid that's only a few months older
Speaker 1: and doing it at double A right now and projects
Speaker 1: to have plus command. And when you look at the
Speaker 1: individual pitch grades, I just think you get a little
Speaker 1: bit of an edge there too, right or like the
Speaker 1: other aspect to us saying, oh, well, the fastballs, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, Seth throws so hard. Ryan Swan is
Speaker 1: averaging ninety six five with the fastball this year. Seth
Speaker 1: Hernandez is averaging ninety six eight with the fastball this year.
Speaker 1: So and I know the shape is maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit better with Sets, but Seth's shape has taken a
Speaker 1: little bit of a hit since getting a high A
Speaker 1: and Swan off sets it with better command of the pitch.
Speaker 1: So this is the ultimate splitting of hairs. And these
Speaker 1: guys might just kind of like surpass each other every
Speaker 1: time you check in and might go back and forth,
Speaker 1: back and forth. But right now with the strike rate,
Speaker 1: with the improved pitch mix, and I think being able
Speaker 1: to add that Sinker just added a different level to
Speaker 1: Swoan that It just gets me so excited. And the
Speaker 1: cleaner delivery that and that's probably the biggest thing. I
Speaker 1: think Seth's our action can get a little bit long,
Speaker 1: and I think that creates some shape variants. I lean
Speaker 1: on the floor and ceiling combination of Ryan Sloan dig it.
Speaker 2: Last Ky, we got to talk about rises from thirty
Speaker 2: nine to three on Just Baseball's Top one hundred list.
Speaker 2: He's twenty years old. For the entirety of the year,
Speaker 2: he is mashing in double A right now. Franklin Arius,
Speaker 2: the Boston Red Sox, is your number three prospect in
Speaker 2: baseball through forty eight games, thirteen homers, A, nine to
Speaker 2: ninety ops. Why do you love Arius? And why do
Speaker 2: you have Franklin Arius ahead of Leo Devrees.
Speaker 1: That was going to be the area that I was
Speaker 1: just going to focus on there, because I think why
Speaker 1: I love Arius is going to be the same reason
Speaker 1: why everybody loves Arius. He's he was a high floor
Speaker 1: guy entering this year that has performed as one of
Speaker 1: the youngest players at each level and now has added
Speaker 1: all of this power, and I think that's just the
Speaker 1: most incredible aspect of it. I don't think there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of players that we can remember, I can
Speaker 1: think of in recent memory that have been so hit
Speaker 1: tool oriented and added such a significant amount of power.
Speaker 1: Where it was eight homers in one hundred and sixteen
Speaker 1: games last year, he's got thirteen in forty eight games
Speaker 1: at Double A this year, and it was eighty seven
Speaker 1: games at High A last year. You look at the defense,
Speaker 1: he's always projected well because he's so shorthanded, and you
Speaker 1: know the range is good. He looks now comfortably like
Speaker 1: a well above average, potentially plush short top. He's gotten
Speaker 1: so much better to the backhand and thrown from these
Speaker 1: different angles, he looks fantastic. And I just think pairing
Speaker 1: that with the fact that you have a hit tool
Speaker 1: oriented guy that is now providing average power and maybe
Speaker 1: above average power, like I think you could. Trying to
Speaker 1: project the power was really hard because from a guy
Speaker 1: that was below average to now uptick across the board,
Speaker 1: and I mean average game power present right now for
Speaker 1: Arius is like two notches up from where he was
Speaker 1: last year. So the some of those parts are just
Speaker 1: so so exciting where I mean, you just don't you
Speaker 1: don't see guys jump four and a half miles per
Speaker 1: hour in their average eggs of velocity in twenty percent
Speaker 1: in the hard hit rate department and a mile per
Speaker 1: hour and a half in the average bat speed department,
Speaker 1: Like everything is better everything. His average launch angle is
Speaker 1: up three and a half degrees. Like, you hit the
Speaker 1: ball harder, you hit the ball in the air more,
Speaker 1: you're consistently moving the bat faster, and you are the
Speaker 1: same hit tool guy that you were before. Arius is
Speaker 1: just a slam dunk. And when you compare him to Devrees,
Speaker 1: I was really it was one of the latest switches
Speaker 1: that we made Defrees. Maybe as he grows more he
Speaker 1: has this raw power uptick as well. But Arius is
Speaker 1: hitting the ball harder, he's presently more advanced defensively at shortstop,
Speaker 1: and he's better about to ball wise, And so it
Speaker 1: was like where is the where's the edge for Devrees.
Speaker 1: I an say I'm a speed he's a switch hitter.
Speaker 1: That helps too, But I couldn't really find the area
Speaker 1: that Darese is better than Arius, especially now because Devrees
Speaker 1: has the angles the batterball angles right, and that's why
Speaker 1: he's always able to outslug the eggs velocities, but especially
Speaker 1: now that Arius has the raw power and the angles.
Speaker 1: Presently there's just not a tool right now. I think
Speaker 1: that that Devrese has over Arius.
Speaker 2: Can get behind that. That's our program, folks, those are
Speaker 2: our biggest risers.
Speaker 1: We're going to do more of the newcomers coming up
Speaker 1: later in the week. We also have an interview with
Speaker 1: Corson mill Brandt, who is one of the newcomers we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about as well, and well up into
Speaker 1: the list here in the top fifty, so keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for that. As always, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: We'll talk prospects with you. Mar