Speaker 1: Welcome in everybody to Fantasy Bros. This is the Fantasy
Speaker 1: Baseball Podcast. It would be Joey Joe Pisapia, and it's
Speaker 1: time to continue our series of the ultimates. We did
Speaker 1: the infield, we did the outfield. There's only one thing left,
Speaker 1: and that's the Ultimate Pitching Guide, and you have to
Speaker 1: say it that way. We're contractually obligated, and of course
Speaker 1: the Welsh also contractually obligated to be here every single
Speaker 1: show along with me. We're getting closer and closer to
Speaker 1: baseball and meaningful games actually being here and speaking of
Speaker 1: meaningful things, Nick Pollock always full of so much meaning,
Speaker 1: so much purpose. Uh why is everyone holding baseballs up?
Speaker 1: And I'm not.
Speaker 2: It's a cutter. It's devastating cutter.
Speaker 3: You have to get up more on the seam over
Speaker 3: here with You can't just do it straight over like No,
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: Have it straight over right here. This is my cut
Speaker 2: You haven't seen the cutter yet. It's coming. Circle change,
Speaker 2: circle change.
Speaker 1: Oh no, we're a minute into the show and I've
Speaker 1: already lost control.
Speaker 4: This is the Ultimate.
Speaker 2: Pitching Show, Joe. We have to show off the pitches.
Speaker 1: I'm going to show off. Speaking of the picture list.
Speaker 1: Nick Pollock, it's so great to see you, one of
Speaker 1: our favorite people. By the way, what's what's the uh?
Speaker 1: What's the grip on the slutter? Because that's a pitch
Speaker 1: which a lot last year on.
Speaker 4: How deep you go into cutter or a slider and
Speaker 4: you're going.
Speaker 1: Boy, for a second there, I thought this was gonna
Speaker 1: go way off the track. Let's I thought it.
Speaker 2: Was gonna be like a really deep circle change.
Speaker 1: Whoa, whoa? Nick? Nick Pollock, you know you are the
Speaker 1: pitching guru. You're the guy. I gotta ask you this question.
Speaker 1: I guess I've never asked you this before. Who is
Speaker 1: your favorite all time pitcher? I feel like everybody has one.
Speaker 1: Maybe there was that guy that like caught your imagination
Speaker 1: when you were a kid. Was there somebody pollocked that way?
Speaker 3: Guess my guy, let's guess my answer is going to
Speaker 3: be who was my idol growing up?
Speaker 1: Okay idol growing up? Where were you born? Nick Pollock?
Speaker 4: Maybe if you don't know the information, you're already behind.
Speaker 2: So it's gonna be East Coast Joe and Nick is
Speaker 2: probably nobody.
Speaker 1: He's not from Brooklyn. I'm from brook he just lives there.
Speaker 1: Take a guess, am I right nor raised in Brooklyn. Yes,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that you have zero trace of any
Speaker 1: accent whatsoever.
Speaker 2: My guess is Greg Maddox. Joe, don't tell us yet,
Speaker 2: Nick minus Greg Maddox. You pick one, and then Nick unveils.
Speaker 1: I think he's a I don't think that's sexy enough.
Speaker 1: I think he's a Pedro Martinez guy. Nick Pollock, what
Speaker 1: are you?
Speaker 4: Okay, hold on a second.
Speaker 3: So you think that I just told you I was
Speaker 3: born and raised in Brooklyn and my idol growing up
Speaker 3: would be Pedro Martinez, Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I gotta be honest with you. I'm a
Speaker 1: lifelong Mets fan and he's still one of my all
Speaker 1: time favorites. He was, Well, I mean, if you there's
Speaker 1: you're not old enough to love Dwight Gooden like I am.
Speaker 3: So okay, you're getting there, Okay, So it's David was
Speaker 3: the one that I would actually model my wind up after.
Speaker 1: David Kohn. Okay, good story.
Speaker 2: Also, by the way, Nick, during first Pitch Arizona, he
Speaker 2: made an example of me by doing a trick pitch
Speaker 2: when we were playing a whiffle ball game and Nick
Speaker 2: was just he Nick was just having fun with everybody.
Speaker 2: Welsh gets up here and he does this thing.
Speaker 1: What did you do?
Speaker 2: He like pretended he threw and it flicked underhand.
Speaker 3: I've never seen anything like he really describe it over
Speaker 3: a podcast, but it was magical that I still want.
Speaker 1: To do our charity event where I get three at
Speaker 1: bats against Nick Pollock because I still feel great.
Speaker 3: I haven't actually thrown properly off a mountain for a
Speaker 3: very long good.
Speaker 1: I haven't properly hit off a guy with a rag
Speaker 1: arm in a while, so it'll be fun.
Speaker 4: I just get you, have ice in advil with you.
Speaker 1: That's all. I always travel with both of those Nicole
Speaker 1: hit you.
Speaker 2: Don't worry.
Speaker 1: Get to the names on the list. We're gonna break
Speaker 1: down the sp ones through five kind of bring you
Speaker 1: where we are in terms of the ADP the ECR
Speaker 1: over on Fantasy Pros, which you can see a Fantasy
Speaker 1: Pros dot com. We're gonna pick out some names that
Speaker 1: we're gonna debate a little bit and also just get
Speaker 1: some deeper dive on before we do though too real quick.
Speaker 1: The winner of the Bling Ring the Fantasy Championship Ring
Speaker 1: Cursey of Trophy s Mack is Craig Harris, congratulations, Craig Harris,
Speaker 1: you're the big winner. Get in touch with us a
Speaker 1: customer support. You can hit us up at mail Bag
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Speaker 1: with your mailing address, proof of your subscription to Fantasy
Speaker 1: Pros YouTube channel and we'll get that shipped out to
Speaker 1: you. You can also tell us your favorite picture if you
Speaker 1: want to. Again, Craig Harris, congratulations, you're the big winner,
Speaker 1: and now we're giving away an autographed that's right, Jazz
Speaker 1: Chisholm Miami Marlins Jersey Welsh is not eligible to win
Speaker 1: this courtesy of Bettingpros dot com, so you start placing
Speaker 1: your bets smarter and not harder at Betting Pros. All
Speaker 1: you need to do to win the Jazz Chishom Jersey
Speaker 1: is subscribe to the Fantasy Pros MLB YouTube channel right now.
Speaker 1: Comment below on this video. That's it. Subscribe comment ring
Speaker 1: the bell to li it goes ding because we're announcing
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Speaker 1: those notifications are set up so you know when new
Speaker 1: episodes of the show drop. And of course you can
Speaker 1: claim your prize, gentlemen, Let's get to the sp ones
Speaker 1: coming in at number one consensus right now, Spencer Striider
Speaker 1: at one, Garrett Coole at two, Corbyn Burns at three,
Speaker 1: Zach Wheeler four, Gossman, Luis Castillo, Pablo Lopez, George Kirby,
Speaker 1: Zach Gallon at nine, Tyler glassnew to reschoogl and Yoshinobu
Speaker 1: Yemen Mu two, Which is how I say it every
Speaker 1: single time. So I want to start here towards the top.
Speaker 1: Let's start with Corbyn Burns. He's in a new spot,
Speaker 1: Nick Pollock. How does that move to Baltimore affect him
Speaker 1: positively or maybe even potentially negatively in your mind? And
Speaker 1: is he worthy of this number three spot that he's
Speaker 1: currently occupied.
Speaker 4: Where did you grow up in Brooklyn?
Speaker 1: I grew up in Mill Basin. Yeah, Crime Family Block.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I played.
Speaker 1: I got some stories.
Speaker 4: I coached that that field too, Did you really?
Speaker 1: I played in Parks Play there you go? Anyway, two
Speaker 1: guys from Brooklyn with no accent.
Speaker 2: West coast, West coast.
Speaker 3: If you want me having an accent, that can do that,
Speaker 3: if you want me to do that. But anyway, I
Speaker 3: know no one will never want nobody does. In fact,
Speaker 3: Corvin Burns going to Baltimore helps him. Obviously, Waltimore is
Speaker 3: a good thing for him. It's just a better situation overall.
Speaker 3: I do think that there are simple changes that Burns
Speaker 3: can make across his entire arsenal from last year that
Speaker 3: aren't asking too much. And it's always funny when we
Speaker 3: think about down seasons when it was still such a
Speaker 3: good performance. Yeah, if you rostered Corn Burns last year,
Speaker 3: you'll know it was a lot of ebbs and flows
Speaker 3: of disaster and all of a sudden he was great
Speaker 3: and then disaster and it was very stressful. And I
Speaker 3: think it's pretty simple for him to say, Okay, kurveball
Speaker 3: was thrown a little bit worse than it usually is.
Speaker 3: Let's get that more in the zone than he used
Speaker 3: to have a focus of that, maybe changing the cutter slightly,
Speaker 3: usage of the slider change. There are these little tweaks
Speaker 3: that in retrospect are pretty easy I think to change.
Speaker 4: So he is my SP three now.
Speaker 3: He was SB four before underneath the wheeler, but to
Speaker 3: Baltimore and just just looking into that more, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this should be a really good fit for him.
Speaker 2: I was really curious where you were going to go
Speaker 2: with this if the slider usage uptick in Baltimore might
Speaker 2: be something that would change.
Speaker 4: I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: So do you think the team context in Baltimore contract
Speaker 2: you know contracts, the one as versus pitch mix, like
Speaker 2: what which pitch mix change or whatever they could tinker
Speaker 2: like their offense and defense was Yeah, like it don't actually.
Speaker 4: Think as an organization, doesn't really lean on it.
Speaker 3: But it's really two words. It's ADLEI Ritchman. I actually
Speaker 3: truly believe in the morale that he brings to starting
Speaker 3: pitchers and he does make an impact and it's only
Speaker 3: going to help Burns.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, it's a positive impact on pitchers, certainly from
Speaker 1: the catcher position. We've seen it with you know, everyone
Speaker 1: from Pad Rodriguez to Gary Carter back in the eighties
Speaker 1: to what he did for a very young Mets staff.
Speaker 1: Even you know the years of Yadi or Malino, twenty
Speaker 1: years of Cardinal pitchers who all just swear by it.
Speaker 1: Catching does matter without a doubt. I want to keep
Speaker 1: going on this list too, because we've got two guys
Speaker 1: here pretty close to each other, Zach Gallen and Tarik
Speaker 1: School just had one hundred the other day in a
Speaker 1: bullpen session. I was reading that this morning. And then
Speaker 1: Zach Gallen, who Look, it's hard to find holes in
Speaker 1: Zach Gallen from last year. However, Welsh, I want to
Speaker 1: start with Gallen for a second set these two up here.
Speaker 1: If he got the board to yourself and he can
Speaker 1: only pick one. My whole thing with Gallen is, you know,
Speaker 1: he had the two hundred and ten innings, but then
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty three when you factor in the
Speaker 1: sixty more that he had, you know, throughout the playoffs
Speaker 1: there actually say it's sixty more than his previous high.
Speaker 1: Pardon me, but two hundred and forty three total for
Speaker 1: Zach Gallen. That's a big number for Gallon. Do you
Speaker 1: think there's any potential lag there? And then on the
Speaker 1: other side, we're talking about School, who did not have
Speaker 1: nearly that amount of innings and we're worried, Okay, does
Speaker 1: he hit a weird wall when he starts to get
Speaker 1: up to one hundred and fifty two or he might fatigue?
Speaker 1: So School or Gallon? Who would you rather have in
Speaker 1: this sp one tier?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean not like being a Homer, but it
Speaker 2: is Gallon. But I don't think I need to be
Speaker 2: a homer to be able to pick zac Gallen.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: The Diamondbacks have already discussed openly about the usage of Gallon.
Speaker 2: That's going to be something important, which I think one
Speaker 2: thing that's gonna materialize is probably a lesser spring. And then,
Speaker 2: as he mentioned in conversation, this might literally just be
Speaker 2: about not pushing maybe one more inning or one more
Speaker 2: batter and trying to save where you can. They really
Speaker 2: built up their bullpen, but Gallon. To me, it's not Kirby.
Speaker 2: But there are these guys is that don't have these
Speaker 2: really awesome, sexy strikeout numbers that I know we're all chasing,
Speaker 2: but we know we have innings. You have defensive support,
Speaker 2: you've got offensive support. The strikeouts are still there. There's
Speaker 2: no big major walk issues. I also have always loved
Speaker 2: about Gallen, the way he's comfortable pitching behind, starting up
Speaker 2: with change ups. I think he is such a smart pitcher.
Speaker 2: I think it's impossible to bet against him. But obviously
Speaker 2: Scooble was in his short sample size one of the
Speaker 2: best pitchers in baseball. Best expected dra and eighty innings
Speaker 2: last year, huge monster strikeout numbers, But I think you
Speaker 2: might be looking at a difference between thirty to maybe
Speaker 2: even fifty. More realistically thirty to forty innings of difference.
Speaker 2: I think the team context is a little bit better
Speaker 2: with the Gallon, So to me, this is clearly Gallon.
Speaker 2: But I understand the chase for Schooble this year, and
Speaker 2: I'm dying to know Nick where you sit on these two,
Speaker 2: because I think these two are probably close in close
Speaker 2: in relative costs, and close in what type of team
Speaker 2: construction you would want.
Speaker 3: Man, I have so many thoughts about these too. I
Speaker 3: don't think I'm going to have either of them roster
Speaker 3: on any of my teams. Personally, when it comes to Schooble,
Speaker 3: it's fascinating to me how we care about his eighty innings,
Speaker 3: but we don't care about Cole Reagan's, which makes no
Speaker 3: sense to me because Cole Reagan's is a better pitcher
Speaker 3: and Trek's scoobl You just.
Speaker 1: Said that so effortless.
Speaker 4: It's easy. I want to talk about throwing hard.
Speaker 3: Reagan's SAT ninety six and I talked to him in December.
Speaker 3: You can check it out on our YouTube channel, This
Speaker 3: wonderful hour and a half interview with him and he's
Speaker 3: throwing a little bit harder apparently, so yeah, he's really good.
Speaker 3: And he has five pitches as opposed to Schoobol really
Speaker 3: just has like two where it's a four seamer that
Speaker 3: performed as well as any in the game. But all
Speaker 3: the indications are that it's command and it's uh in
Speaker 3: pitch shape are not actually elite. It was really the
Speaker 3: two tick velocity increase that really helped it. And obviously
Speaker 3: throwing ninety six one left side is a very good
Speaker 3: thing for scoobl So I'm not saying that School is
Speaker 3: gonna be bad. I don't see him as the eleventh
Speaker 3: starting pitcher. Him hitting one hundred in the spring, that's fine.
Speaker 3: I never care about hitting, always care about sitting. He
Speaker 3: was sitting around ninety six last year. Hitting in one hundred, though,
Speaker 3: does show to me. One concern I had about school
Speaker 3: was that it was adrenaline focused the end of last
Speaker 3: year and he wouldn't be able to maintain that for
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. Hitting one hundred implies that you are
Speaker 3: not sitting ninety three ninety four now, So that is
Speaker 3: a good thing for schoobl It makes me a little
Speaker 3: bit more encouraged that he can't still be very effective
Speaker 3: this year, but until he gets like a legitimate number
Speaker 3: three pitch, because right now it's just four seamer, changeup,
Speaker 3: schooble sliders more like a cutter, which apparently he's working on.
Speaker 3: I need to see that to really believe in that one. However,
Speaker 3: Zach Gallon, I've obviously been a Gallon gal for a
Speaker 3: very long time. And the interesting thing about Gallon to
Speaker 3: me is he does not really have this overpowering foreseamer.
Speaker 3: He has a whole approach that I call the Gallon method,
Speaker 3: which is low called strikes with four steamers and then
Speaker 3: a curveball and change up that are so deceptive that
Speaker 3: look like that fast of his hand that he gets
Speaker 3: all of these chases out of the zone on it. However,
Speaker 3: there's this new stuff that we have called striker, which
Speaker 3: is strike minus ICRR. You probably don't understand it. It's fine.
Speaker 3: All it says is that does this pitcher throw strikes?
Speaker 3: And when they do throw strikes, are those strikes that
Speaker 3: get hit hard. It makes sense as a pitcher always
Speaker 3: trying to do is throw strikes and then hope that
Speaker 3: you avoid damage, right, And Zach Gallen does not do
Speaker 3: well at this In fact, the aces are all up
Speaker 3: there in all the top ten or top twenty. The
Speaker 3: names that Gallen is around from last season, I'm not
Speaker 3: even kidding. Right above him are Bryce Elder, Patrick Sandoval,
Speaker 3: David Peterson, Brandon Williamson, Zach Gallon, Rich Hill, Tony Gonsolin,
Speaker 3: Dylan Sees, Charlie Moorean, Tyler Anderson.
Speaker 4: Not a fun crew.
Speaker 3: And what that tells me is he squeezed enough out
Speaker 3: of his fastball and his secondaries at the right times.
Speaker 3: I am a little worried because I think that it
Speaker 3: was a little bit more fortunate in that regard. I
Speaker 3: think the innings totals, as you guys mentioned, will affect him.
Speaker 3: It's hard not to and it's a little bit more
Speaker 3: precarious than I want for a top ten pick.
Speaker 2: Who would you pick if you had to pick between them?
Speaker 3: Though, if you're I currently have Gallon at nine, I'm
Speaker 3: probably going to lower that, and I have Scooble around
Speaker 3: twenty four. I'm going to raise that.
Speaker 1: Whoa well Scooble.
Speaker 3: For me, it's again about the fast one is not
Speaker 3: going to be as good as it was and the
Speaker 3: change up.
Speaker 1: No, it's all fair, but.
Speaker 4: He was so good last year.
Speaker 3: It's just like that's not a large enough sample of that,
Speaker 3: and also a really bad schedule. It's going to be closer,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to go for a gallon just because
Speaker 3: of the historical showcase of him doing well with this,
Speaker 3: and last year he did go through a moment where
Speaker 3: he tried to go high four seamers that didn't work,
Speaker 3: and then he got it back going downstairs, so it
Speaker 3: should be good. Also, the A zone Diamonbeck's defense better
Speaker 3: than the Tigers, and that certainly helps him.
Speaker 4: And Meryl Kelly, well, do.
Speaker 1: You think that Pollock's is just making up stats now
Speaker 1: like we did last year to.
Speaker 4: Year he tried to get at me. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 4: I have a hard line.
Speaker 1: It's actually been acknowledged.
Speaker 4: By so many people, so you should too.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, can you believe by the way that
Speaker 2: we threw a fake stat at all of the people?
Speaker 2: Why did you do it? Why did it was that
Speaker 2: of Pollock the person that we threw X plug at.
Speaker 1: One of the first ones.
Speaker 2: We're not gonna throw that past stats all the time,
Speaker 2: BP fastball of staf.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the newest toy in Dodger Land. It
Speaker 1: is Yoshinobo Yamamoto. Welsh and I have talked a lot
Speaker 1: Nick about Yamamoto, and it's funny because if you go
Speaker 1: back and look at you know, about a month ago,
Speaker 1: ADP was very different. Now it has moved up into
Speaker 1: that s P one tier, Nick, do you feel comfortable
Speaker 1: with drafting him there? I know some people are concerned
Speaker 1: a little bit about the size of Yamamoto, and I
Speaker 1: could see you're shaking your head, so you are not comfortable.
Speaker 2: That's where I was going to jump into it because,
Speaker 2: like I had, I had this conversation about size of
Speaker 2: pictures with many best friends justin Steel and we were
Speaker 2: talking about the size of you know, like the under
Speaker 2: five foot ten guy. And I saw Yamamoto and camp
Speaker 2: and he is one of the smallest pitchers I've seen
Speaker 2: in person. But like can a guy with elite extension
Speaker 2: can he overcome? Like is the is the intangible the
Speaker 2: thing that can overcome what literally doesn't really work in
Speaker 2: baseball is pictures his size holding up.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give a very very quick basic understanding
Speaker 3: of pitch shape and what matters because I essentially went
Speaker 3: through this this offseason a ton and I hate myself
Speaker 3: for waiting as long as I.
Speaker 4: Did to really have my enlightenment with it.
Speaker 3: Huge props to Kyle Bland creating our Pictureless Pitches app
Speaker 3: that allows me to actually visualize this and understand it
Speaker 3: better and give like averages and percentiles. So there are
Speaker 3: four aspects that really matter outside of location. Okay, for
Speaker 3: really just for fastball shape, it's velocity. We know that
Speaker 3: one throw harder, it's better awesome. You have extension, and
Speaker 3: I generally around like six inches six like point two
Speaker 3: or six point four is average, So when you get
Speaker 3: close to seven feet extension that makes such a big difference.
Speaker 3: Gavin Williams his fastballs as good as it is because
Speaker 3: of the velocity and the extension. Everything else that I'm
Speaker 3: going to talk about actually isn't that great with Gavin Williams.
Speaker 3: It's because he gets so close to it. Teleglass now
Speaker 3: is the same thing. And a lot of fastballs that
Speaker 3: you know that are really hard are not as effective
Speaker 3: as you think it is because they don't have good extension.
Speaker 3: Hunter Green's bad extension right was SCREENO back in then
Speaker 3: a bad extension or bruiser gatterol doesn't get as many whifs.
Speaker 4: Bad extension.
Speaker 3: However, Spencer Strider has the lead extension and this velocity
Speaker 3: and it's stupid good.
Speaker 4: There you go. The other two aspects.
Speaker 3: Are things that you're hearing a lot and you might
Speaker 3: not really understand, which which is vert IVB. You don't
Speaker 3: really have a reference point for it. I certainly didn't.
Speaker 3: And when you hear that IVB and vert are the
Speaker 3: same thing, it's just induced vertical break.
Speaker 4: It's just better understanding of, like, this is the actual
Speaker 4: movement of it.
Speaker 3: When you get above sixteen inches, that's where it's great.
Speaker 3: Seventeen and above, oh boy. So when we talk about
Speaker 3: TODs Bradley's fastle being elite, his is eighteen vert.
Speaker 4: Okay, unreal.
Speaker 3: The thing is, if you have good VERT and you
Speaker 3: don't have good extension and you don't have the next
Speaker 3: onech is VA. I'll get to that in a second,
Speaker 3: it's not going to be as good. So you essentially
Speaker 3: need to have velocity and you need to have like
Speaker 3: two of the other ones for everything to be really good.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you can get by with just extension and velocity.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: The last one is height adjusted VA, which is oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, that's a mouthful. All that means is where
Speaker 3: you release the ball, does it come in at an
Speaker 3: angle that matches the batter's bat path. So like, if
Speaker 3: you're going to swing at a ball, how long does
Speaker 3: it stay where the bat is? And the flatter it is,
Speaker 3: the less time it is with the bat right. So,
Speaker 3: because that's not flat, the bat is going to be
Speaker 3: a like angle when you throw it upstairs. So if
Speaker 3: you have a really low angle like Paul Seawald, that
Speaker 3: pitch upstairs is so hard to hit because you can't
Speaker 3: match where the ball is coming in. That's called via
Speaker 3: height adjustin one means just like not base on where
Speaker 3: it's actually located.
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter when I say this.
Speaker 3: I say that if Yaalamoto has excellent extension and he
Speaker 3: throws ninety five plus, like that already is you're in
Speaker 3: the front door.
Speaker 4: You know, you're in the.
Speaker 3: Door of like, this is going to be good unless
Speaker 3: it's terrible V and it's terrible verts, which I don't
Speaker 3: from my understanding it's not. So I'm not worried at
Speaker 3: all about Yamamoon in this regard, and I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: utilizing those two things a little bit later. But really
Speaker 3: that's like when we talk of pitch shape, that's all
Speaker 3: it is for sliders.
Speaker 1: And doesn't matter that much.
Speaker 4: Like you know, if it's filthy, he moves a ton
Speaker 4: or not.
Speaker 1: So after all that word you have run.
Speaker 4: Yeah Yamamoto, Well I don't think he's going to pitch
Speaker 4: a ton. He's not. He's a six man rotation. Uh,
Speaker 4: it's going to be.
Speaker 3: The Dodgers are just going to make sure that happens
Speaker 3: because they're just preserving for the playoffs because we all
Speaker 3: know they're going to be there, so they're not going
Speaker 3: to be pushing all these guys so innately, I don't
Speaker 3: want to take a guy who is already capped at
Speaker 3: like one fifty already that's the ceiling.
Speaker 4: I don't want that in my top all of this collaboration.
Speaker 1: Actually want to go bet nouelve Marte and yeah that's
Speaker 1: curio rookie, and that's all this is done, honestly.
Speaker 3: Right, And so with Yamamoto, the skills actually do believe.
Speaker 3: I see a guy that has four pitches that are
Speaker 3: going to get strikes. Really it's three of the curveball
Speaker 3: and not as big of a deal I think, but
Speaker 3: still he gonna be very effective. It's gonna be nice.
Speaker 3: You want to pitch for the Dodgers, He's going to
Speaker 3: help you. But pushing the needle, I don't think it's
Speaker 3: gonna be as much as we want it to be.
Speaker 3: And there are other guys that I wanted to even
Speaker 3: say Bradish was gonna be better before the injury than
Speaker 3: Y'aomoto just because he's gonna get you would have gotten
Speaker 3: more innings and still be very effective, winning ball club,
Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff. Right, So I'm out on Yawamoto,
Speaker 3: especially at this price. I still think he's gonna be great.
Speaker 3: I have him at inside my top fifteen right now.
Speaker 3: I'm actually timing to push him back, But yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: fine with it. I just I think you can do better.
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Speaker 2: MLB season. All right, Back to the episode.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the SB twos here, Starting
Speaker 1: at thirteen, Logan Webb, Aaron Nola, Freddy Peralta. Then you
Speaker 1: have Franbervaldez, Max Free, Blake Snell, Code I sing at nineteen.
Speaker 1: At twenty Logan Gilbert Grayson Rodriguez, Zach Efflyn, Eurie Prize,
Speaker 1: and Bobby Miller Welsh. Grayson Rodriguez, a pictuer that struggled
Speaker 1: early on last year, got sent down, came back, started
Speaker 1: to show the flashes. This is a big time prospect
Speaker 1: now he gets to, you know, sit behind Corbyn Burns.
Speaker 1: I think that's such an important impact on a young
Speaker 1: pitcher in a rotation. You know, we've seen it time
Speaker 1: and time again when these guys, Garrett Cole, whether it
Speaker 1: was Max Scherzer, ironically both those guys were Verlander ahead
Speaker 1: of them at the time. That's when you really saw
Speaker 1: them grow. Do you see that growth in Rodriguez this year? Welsh? Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the opportunity is absolutely their big way of
Speaker 2: so would love to see him throw the slider a
Speaker 2: bit more. Innings are probably a little bit less of
Speaker 2: an issue with him. It is weird that we've got
Speaker 2: these three young pitchers that I think are being clumped together,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna talk about one of them in a second.
Speaker 2: But you know, I struggle with Uri versus Grayson. I've
Speaker 2: actually put Bobby Miller kind of above the tier of
Speaker 2: Grayson and Uri Perez. But Uri Perez we talked about
Speaker 2: this at first pitch. We're gonna talk about Bbby Miller here,
Speaker 2: But like Grayson versus Uri Perez, I think Grayson actually
Speaker 2: has an opportunity to push the innings. But I still
Speaker 2: worry about the command. Even though he got it together
Speaker 2: in the second half where Uri Perez is like a
Speaker 2: high percentile every pitch he throws with type of guy's
Speaker 2: it's I mean, it could get into high end elite
Speaker 2: strikeouts if he continues to mature. And I would love
Speaker 2: to also see some of that working of more of
Speaker 2: that change up, you know, working with Sandy last year
Speaker 2: and this team just in general with their change up.
Speaker 2: So I have a little bit more optimism for a
Speaker 2: guy like Uri Prez. I'm drafting Grayson I think is
Speaker 2: in a solid spot, but I don't know if Grayson
Speaker 2: is going to take the jump into being like an
Speaker 2: elite pitcher because there are still some command things I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know Nick, if you feel any
Speaker 2: different about Grace, especially like I know we're doing another
Speaker 2: verses in a second, but like quickly, Grayson versus Bobby Miller,
Speaker 2: Grayson versus Ury Perez, do you think that is a
Speaker 2: really close tier or one stands above?
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm with you that Bobby Miller is above
Speaker 3: both of them for me, and Grayson is Actually I
Speaker 3: think it's way closer Bobby Miller and Grayson than it
Speaker 3: is Uri.
Speaker 4: I'm Uri in my shiny squirrels tier.
Speaker 3: And that's going from Rob Silver giving me some criticism
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen that I still take the heart of
Speaker 3: It's fun. It really is, but there's a lot of
Speaker 3: polish left to be added. I see think more so
Speaker 3: with Uri than it is the others. And I say
Speaker 3: that because I don't think that he utilizes his fastball correctly.
Speaker 3: It gets hit far too hard because he's keeping it
Speaker 3: too low, and it's a pitch that only really works upstairs.
Speaker 3: His slider and his skurball are not the philth McGee
Speaker 3: pitches they are. You watch these and you don't go whoa.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: His slider is actually not really the most aggressive moving slider,
Speaker 3: but based off the fast ball is where he gets
Speaker 3: its effectiveness, which can be a little more startling for
Speaker 3: me because it can't He can't just carry himself only
Speaker 3: with that slider, I believe. But like Grayson the polish
Speaker 3: I am gonna I'll get to Grayson in a second.
Speaker 2: It's well, I was just going to say he had
Speaker 2: a three forty average against his fastball last year, but
Speaker 2: he had a high wift rate, so right.
Speaker 3: So I also want to emphasize that I don't like
Speaker 3: quoting average for pitches just because of how they're utilized
Speaker 3: is defining how what their average is going to be,
Speaker 3: like if it's a strike up pitch, if they have
Speaker 3: to throw it more In like two accounts, one accounts,
Speaker 3: Bailey Freeman had a fantastic video about count changing stuff.
Speaker 3: All right, but at the same time, you're right about
Speaker 3: the Grace Rodriguez fastball. It's ICR that is the contact
Speaker 3: allowed being favorable for the batter super high, like forty
Speaker 3: eight percent at times, and that scares me. That said,
Speaker 3: I think the elements of that for Semer are really good,
Speaker 3: and how he used it was because his slider and
Speaker 3: his changeup. We're not acting in the ways that he
Speaker 3: wanted it to. And I see more promise in Grayson
Speaker 3: Rodriguez's change up in a slider than I do in
Speaker 3: the rest of the repertoire with Eury Perez. I also
Speaker 3: think the team context is way better for Grayson Rodriguez
Speaker 3: to go a full season while Euri pei is. The
Speaker 3: Martins already said they're going to still be limiting him.
Speaker 3: So what you have, in my view is Grayson who
Speaker 3: has a more complete arsenal with an easier path to
Speaker 3: just being consistently good, also on a better team than
Speaker 3: eury Perez, and it's a clear divide for me.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I want to talk about Bobby Miller because you
Speaker 1: kind of perked up there about Bobby Miller. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's throw him out there, a young pitcher, a great
Speaker 1: team with the Dodgers. Certainly, you know, again, another guy's
Speaker 1: going to benefit for other guys in the rotation. But
Speaker 1: then you have a guy like Blake Snell coming off
Speaker 1: his second so young, who hasn't have a team yet
Speaker 1: as of us recording this, still we're still waiting on that.
Speaker 1: So would you rather have Snell, who's going obviously at
Speaker 1: least a round or two even potentially before, or would
Speaker 1: you rather have Bobby Miller? And wait, you think that's
Speaker 1: a better value?
Speaker 2: Next call it, you know, real quick when you have
Speaker 2: this to be yeah.
Speaker 1: Right, you know, can come on another time in debate.
Speaker 4: You know what was funny is that we did that.
Speaker 3: That was who else was referring to is in first
Speaker 3: Pitch Arizona. We were doing the Live on the Corner podcast, right,
Speaker 3: me and Miles, and we were talking about Blake Snell
Speaker 3: at the time in October, I think I had Snell
Speaker 3: at like thirty three or something like that, and now
Speaker 3: I think I have him around like twenty eight. And
Speaker 3: Ano came on to protest and I said, well, where
Speaker 3: do you have him?
Speaker 4: Goes twenty eight?
Speaker 1: What is this?
Speaker 3: And so actually I found myself at the end of
Speaker 3: the day. I didn't even think of that when I
Speaker 3: was doing the ranking. It's like, okay, cool, where is it.
Speaker 3: He's at twenty eight.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, there you go. But the problem with
Speaker 4: Blake Snell.
Speaker 3: To me is he what he did last year was deserved.
Speaker 3: And I've said this time and time again, off he
Speaker 3: deserved the cy young You see the high walk rates.
Speaker 3: We have another SAT that we just unveil. These are
Speaker 3: the two favorite stats we just did. One is so simple.
Speaker 3: It's called mistake rate. Essentially, we have our pitching model
Speaker 3: and we say, all right, these are pitches in the
Speaker 3: zone that have two times the chance of allowing a
Speaker 3: hit that's clearly a mistake that you just threw it,
Speaker 3: double the chance of allowing a hit. Blake Snell through
Speaker 3: the fewest mistakes of any pitcher in the majors last year,
Speaker 3: and not even just like by this much. It was
Speaker 3: nearly fifty percent better than the person in second place.
Speaker 3: That's such an amazing thing, and it's by design, right.
Speaker 3: He does not give in, and he will walk that
Speaker 3: tightrope of making his right pitches eventually and trusting that
Speaker 3: he's going to do that. Do I think that can
Speaker 3: sustain for a full year. No, because he didn't sustain
Speaker 3: for a full year last year. It took him about
Speaker 3: seven weeks or so to get to that point in
Speaker 3: the first place, and it was rough those seven weeks
Speaker 3: he could not throw his curveball or a slider for
Speaker 3: a strike whatsoever. He got fortunate that he found his
Speaker 3: change up. I mean, Blake Snell did not like his
Speaker 3: change up in previous years. All of a sudden, the
Speaker 3: curve andslider were gone and he had to do it.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, this is actually working. This
Speaker 3: is great, finally awesome. And I just don't think that
Speaker 3: we're gonna see that same performance.
Speaker 4: I mean, we can't.
Speaker 3: It was a one twenty array over what nineteen starts
Speaker 3: or something ridiculous like that's not gonna happen again. Oh
Speaker 3: and by the way, it was still a one nineteen
Speaker 3: whip over the way too, Like it wasn't as if
Speaker 3: he did this method with the higher walks, and it
Speaker 3: was such a dramatic drop in hits that he had
Speaker 3: a good whip too, he didn't. It was just the
Speaker 3: array and obviously the strikeouts that we care about. So
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, he's not an innings guy.
Speaker 3: He's not an a fishing pitcher to go six constantly
Speaker 3: or even push that mark. He had to do exactly
Speaker 3: the right stuff in a contract year to make it
Speaker 3: work for him to be the guy he was.
Speaker 4: And while on the other side you have Bobby Miller,
Speaker 4: who was so good.
Speaker 3: He has all of his pitches are amazing and his
Speaker 3: slider is going to be better. If I have to
Speaker 3: make one bet this year, it's that Bobby Miller slider
Speaker 3: improves because it should be so much better. He was
Speaker 3: missing just the hair outside of the zone down in
Speaker 3: a way, which is where you want to be. You
Speaker 3: just got to like it a little bit closer. And
Speaker 3: it's not like a shotgun blast of missing. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's just a little tweak I need to make. And
Speaker 3: it's such a good context with a team honestly, like
Speaker 3: Yamamoto and Bobby Miller, they're gonna look super similar at
Speaker 3: the end of the year, and the fact that Yamo's
Speaker 3: going so much higher is that's you know why hight
Speaker 3: I go for Yamamoto when you got Bobby Miller at home.
Speaker 1: That's the most interesting thing. Who has more innings at
Speaker 1: the end of the year.
Speaker 4: Honestly, Bobby Miller.
Speaker 1: That's what I would say too, because I.
Speaker 3: Think the Dodgers are going to say, you know what, Yamo,
Speaker 3: we have for ten years, is your first transition over
Speaker 3: while Bobby Miller was prepped for this year last season, right.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense to be real quick
Speaker 1: before we get out of this tier is lightning round.
Speaker 1: Zach Efflin last year revelation another one of these guys,
Speaker 1: Tampa Bay raised. They find a pitcher, they fix it
Speaker 1: pitcher and he's great. Do we get better, worse or
Speaker 1: same out of Zach Eflin next year Welsh better worse
Speaker 1: or same your expectations for him?
Speaker 2: I think slightly better.
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm in the camp of like the
Speaker 2: insane projections of like I think it's like atc or
Speaker 2: bat whatever it was was like eleventh pitcher, auction calculator
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean the rays
Speaker 2: tend to make these guys better. He's going to be
Speaker 2: a workhorse. I'm but I don't think he's going to
Speaker 2: take an exponential jump where he is SP ten or
Speaker 2: twelve or something like that where projections are So I'll say,
Speaker 2: slight boost Nick.
Speaker 1: How can he be better?
Speaker 3: That's the thing is, like I look at that last
Speaker 3: year and I see Zach Eflin squeezing everything out of
Speaker 3: what he had to the fact that even his for seamer,
Speaker 3: which is by all metrics horrific, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: was effective for him because he threw seventy five percent
Speaker 3: of the time and two strike counts upstairs and he
Speaker 3: got swinging strikes on that and got some strikeouts.
Speaker 4: Like he found a way to make that pitch work
Speaker 4: for him.
Speaker 3: So I see a season of a guy finding a
Speaker 3: cutter that the race taught him doing the most he
Speaker 3: could possibly get out that there's no way there's another level.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess maybe the e ar a could
Speaker 3: be more fortunate than a three to five. But I
Speaker 3: think that you're gonna see a worst season. That doesn't
Speaker 3: mean he's gonna be bad. I actually like e Flyn
Speaker 3: more than Uri Peiz, for example, I have him around twenty.
Speaker 1: I thinkstand because you're also getting a guy with who's
Speaker 1: gonna give you more innings potentially, and as you said,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more polish the.
Speaker 3: The ATC thing that you're seeing or the high projection
Speaker 3: that I get, because they don't seem they see him
Speaker 3: going every five days and averaging six six a game.
Speaker 3: You know that's a getting that on a winning ball club,
Speaker 3: and your good picture means you shouldn't get ten wins,
Speaker 3: you should get closer to fifteen, right, and that's gonna
Speaker 3: push up all of those player raiders, all of those
Speaker 3: auction calculators a ton because just the difference of one
Speaker 3: win is such a massive boost.
Speaker 4: So that's why you have that you on here, Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's good.
Speaker 1: To the SP three group here starting at twenty five,
Speaker 1: Hays Loose, Lozardo, Joe Ryan, Justin Steele, your new best Friend, Welsh,
Speaker 1: Joe Muskrove, Cole, Reagan's Tanner byby Dylan Cees, Sonny Gray, Walker, Buehler,
Speaker 1: Justin Verlander, Chris Bassett, and Hunter Green at thirty six.
Speaker 1: So let's start Reagans because that's the guy that you're
Speaker 1: super excited about. So he is all the way right
Speaker 1: now being drafted as SP twenty nine according to fantasypros
Speaker 1: dot Com. Again, you can go check it out there. Also,
Speaker 1: why you're there, you might as well check out the
Speaker 1: draft kid, it's free. So tell me about why this
Speaker 1: ranking is so wrong.
Speaker 3: Cole Reagan's is a unicorn. He throws five pitches that
Speaker 3: are all fantastic. He throws through ninety six.
Speaker 1: So why was he traded? I guess that. I guess
Speaker 1: that that's.
Speaker 4: Kind of whatever. Okay, So there's two parts of it.
Speaker 4: Two parts of it.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, there's an organization that could use some
Speaker 1: young pitching. I understand they went only in they won
Speaker 1: the World Series, Like, I get that. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, if he's you know, and I know it when.
Speaker 3: You see guy traded, if I'm gonna try my best
Speaker 3: as a as an analyst to say that all organizations
Speaker 3: are making the smartest moves for them, then like we're
Speaker 3: not gonna have a good time.
Speaker 1: Of course not that.
Speaker 4: And for James Shield, he also I did.
Speaker 1: Not have very young at the time, and it was
Speaker 1: very projectable at the time. It was still very down
Speaker 1: the road. We're talking about a guy that they traded
Speaker 1: and went off. So went off to an extent that
Speaker 1: Nick Pollock is so excited about.
Speaker 2: Him right now that might just be a developmental thing though.
Speaker 2: That's that's the tough part. Like that actually might be
Speaker 2: a criticism to how.
Speaker 1: A few starts in season. It's not like they have
Speaker 1: him for a year in the organization and turned him around.
Speaker 2: For a Rangers team to look at him and then
Speaker 2: a Royals team to get a hold and unlock four
Speaker 2: miles per or Velo and have him be and be
Speaker 2: able to utilize, Like this guy needs to start showing
Speaker 2: throwing a slider that maybe shows something to the hands
Speaker 2: on pitching development of maybe hey, let's just let these
Speaker 2: guys who have the stuff do it instead of let's
Speaker 2: get this guy into the best place.
Speaker 1: I'm playing Devil's Advocate, but I'm doing it for a
Speaker 1: reason because we've seen this before work. I gets traded
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden he pops for a short
Speaker 1: period of time, but then it doesn't follow up. It
Speaker 1: has happened many times, so I want to know why
Speaker 1: this is different.
Speaker 4: Okay, we need to.
Speaker 3: There's so much misinformation game thrown around here. I need
Speaker 3: to I need to correct a lot of things.
Speaker 1: What is the misinformation.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Of course someone say things that you would think we're
Speaker 3: not we're misinformation. So first and foremost, the story of
Speaker 3: Cole Reagan's is pretty simple. He was thrown two in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two with the Rangers, worked with Treid Athletics,
Speaker 3: who actually already had started to unlock his velocity in
Speaker 3: the off season. The talk of the town in Texas
Speaker 3: in spring training was Cole Reagan's because he was throwing hardy,
Speaker 3: he was looking really good.
Speaker 4: It's exciting.
Speaker 3: Then he actually made some appearances in as a reliever.
Speaker 3: I remember one specific one. If you follow my sp
Speaker 3: round up during the season, you'll go back and look
Speaker 3: at this blurb where he had an opener. He came
Speaker 3: in and he threw four innings, sitting at ninety six
Speaker 3: and actually being on the top of his zone as
Speaker 3: a ranger. I believe back in April he didn't do
Speaker 3: well in that start because he didn't have a slider
Speaker 3: yet and he was still kind of raw with figuring
Speaker 3: this out and he had not essentially gone the time
Speaker 3: in the development to get to that place. So then
Speaker 3: he gets traded to the Royals, and even before then
Speaker 3: he started thinking I need something to get lefties out,
Speaker 3: and when he went to the Royals, he was able
Speaker 3: to then not be in this relief role with the Rangers,
Speaker 3: but actually began as a starter again and considered getting
Speaker 3: adding a slider, worked with Tread, had a conversation with
Speaker 3: the Royals, Hey, is it okay if I can throw
Speaker 3: my slider? They said yes, again, it's in that interview.
Speaker 3: You can go check it out, and he started to
Speaker 3: throw the slider, which all of a sudden not only
Speaker 3: was a lefty killer, but it became a major strikeout
Speaker 3: pitch for righty's too. And it wasn't necessarily the Royals
Speaker 3: being like, cool, we're amazing and we figured this out.
Speaker 3: It wasn't necessarily the Rangers being like, oh, I didn't
Speaker 3: know that he had all this stuff and we didn't.
Speaker 3: It was him on his own going to Tread and
Speaker 3: figuring this out, and then the Rangers not having a
Speaker 3: situation where they could push him as a starter to
Speaker 3: then get to that point of saying, hey, look, we
Speaker 3: should maybe develop a slider with you.
Speaker 4: So it just happened to work in that way.
Speaker 3: Should the Rangers have maybe been a little bit more
Speaker 3: invested in Reagan's before the trade I think so. I
Speaker 3: was very intrigued by him before the trade. The long
Speaker 3: story here is that you see Reagans do well, and
Speaker 3: you can do this two ways. You can do it
Speaker 3: as well. Here are the numbers, and that just doesn't
Speaker 3: seem sustainable because because he wasn't as good before and
Speaker 3: now he's this, and that just feels like it's not real.
Speaker 4: Or you can be like me who watches.
Speaker 3: Every single Cole Reagan's start live streamed with my community
Speaker 3: and breaks down every single pitch he throws. And as
Speaker 3: someone who has watched a lot of pitching in my day,
Speaker 3: I see this guy and I go, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: this is so good and so real and it's amazing.
Speaker 3: He throws at times it's ninety nine one hundred miles
Speaker 3: per hour from the left side, with a cutter to
Speaker 3: debilitate right handers inside when they want to stand in
Speaker 3: that fastball, and a legit cutter he trusted in three
Speaker 3: two counts, and a gyro slider that beats him back
Speaker 3: foot and a kerbolly goes for strikes, and of course,
Speaker 3: as I mentioned, he has this tool against lefties. Now,
Speaker 3: I don't think all of a sudden we're gonna see
Speaker 3: Cole Reagan's just not have these skills next year. If anything,
Speaker 3: I would actually suggest it's more sustainable. You're going to
Speaker 3: see the walk rate that is nine to ten percent,
Speaker 3: nine point seven I believe it is for Reagan's last year.
Speaker 3: But then you also remember that you had these starts
Speaker 3: that the Royals should have pulled him. Where he walked
Speaker 3: three Jay's batters in a row in the sixth inning.
Speaker 3: How you do that over ninety pitches and you're not
Speaker 3: out by the second batter you walk is beyond me.
Speaker 3: Then you have the start against their astros. They did
Speaker 3: the same thing again and they didn't pull him, And
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, wait a second, in a small sample,
Speaker 3: six walks like that, that's gonna make your walk rate
Speaker 3: look at nine point seven percent, it said like seven
Speaker 3: or eight percent.
Speaker 4: That's the difference.
Speaker 3: So I think anyone that's looking overlooking Cole Reagan's and
Speaker 3: wants to go after other risky guys and just saying like, well, no,
Speaker 3: it's still not over for this small sample, I think
Speaker 3: this is this is one of the guys I look
Speaker 3: at and I just go, no, this is the real deal.
Speaker 1: Is he gonna be anything? Every single time.
Speaker 3: No, but this is the kind of guy that I
Speaker 3: absolutely want inside my top twenty. I actually have him
Speaker 3: at fourteen right now, and I feel very good about that.
Speaker 1: I guess I guess the point I'm making is that
Speaker 1: no one's overlooking him. Number one, number.
Speaker 4: Two is a twenty nine.
Speaker 1: They are at twenty nine so far on the ADP.
Speaker 1: But if you, you know, out there in the streets
Speaker 1: right now, on the fans face, come on, baseball can
Speaker 1: be It's the same with the football. We talk about
Speaker 1: a guy, talk about a guy. The next thing you
Speaker 1: know that twenty nine becomes nineteen. It should in two weeks,
Speaker 1: and maybe and maybe it should. But I guess the
Speaker 1: whole point I'm making is it is a smaller sample,
Speaker 1: and if we're gonna kill guys sometimes on smaller samples.
Speaker 1: If you go back and look at the minor league
Speaker 1: track record of this guy who won a three seven
Speaker 1: to two ERA over two hundred and sixty innings, hold
Speaker 1: all the way way wait, I'd let you go on
Speaker 1: the diet tribe for like twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: I get like.
Speaker 1: Five, I get five four point one walks per nine
Speaker 1: right in his minor league career. So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: a guy can't go on his own and get better.
Speaker 1: I can't say a guy can't go and learn new pitch.
Speaker 1: But we all knew what Randy Johnson was, you know,
Speaker 1: when he was in Montreal before he went to Seattle,
Speaker 1: and then you know how things evolved and changed for
Speaker 1: him and he came with the greatest pitches of all time.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that he's Randy Johnson, he's gonna become
Speaker 1: that either. I'm saying is I feel like we're in
Speaker 1: a tenuous spot here and Welsh, let you be the
Speaker 1: guy in the middle here, because where Reagan's is currently
Speaker 1: being drafted. To me, it feels like a spot where, yeah,
Speaker 1: he still kind of has to be the guy. Uote
Speaker 1: unquote that you think he is going to be in
Speaker 1: the top thirty pictures because he's going right around guys
Speaker 1: like Joe Muscrove who have already shown you you know,
Speaker 1: they were in the running for Cy Young two years ago.
Speaker 2: It really is going to also depend on risk management
Speaker 2: versus what you're trying to do in constructing. I think
Speaker 2: from a fantasy construction standpoint, I mean, I won't speak
Speaker 2: on Cole Reagans, Nick Proof, we're not allowed to speak
Speaker 2: on Cole Wagans. We're misinformation. We don't know what we're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 1: Well, we can't get a school about col Rag And
Speaker 1: I like, not that I don't like him. You've got
Speaker 1: an amazing information about him. However, it's it feels like
Speaker 1: at the same time, like all we want to see
Speaker 1: is the positives. And I'm saying, whenever a guy gets
Speaker 1: dealt and all of a sudden, you know, pops off
Speaker 1: like that. To me, it's one of those things, Well,
Speaker 1: that's very surprising when you see a young picture or
Speaker 1: anybody get dealt in season and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: become a guy like that, I think he's well worth
Speaker 1: the risk. Very odd that they make a mistake and
Speaker 1: it happens like that that quickly.
Speaker 2: I think he's well worth the risk in what you're
Speaker 2: doing in fantasy, getting outside of all the minutia about
Speaker 2: the picture that he is and how good he's going
Speaker 2: to be and all of the inner workings, Like from
Speaker 2: just the pure fantasy perspective of like roster construction, I
Speaker 2: think he's wildly underrated. And you have to take shots
Speaker 2: in what you're doing and constructing a rotation, and I
Speaker 2: would absolutely want him, And I'm a George Kirby like
Speaker 2: zach Ef Flynn, low walks, not chasing strikeouts type of
Speaker 2: guy in fantasy this year, and I love the idea
Speaker 2: of pairing Reagans with him. I don't have him at fourteen.
Speaker 2: I think of Reagan's at twenty or twenty one. I'm
Speaker 2: not looking at my ranks right now, but like it
Speaker 2: is multiple pitches that look like they are continuing to progress,
Speaker 2: and that slider's awesome, the fastball is awesome, the royals
Speaker 2: has done great that he has obviously done great things
Speaker 2: in the offseason. So I am I'm down. He is
Speaker 2: just he is criminally underrated.
Speaker 1: I do agree.
Speaker 4: Right, let's move on before let me leave me.
Speaker 1: Let me pitching guy, not the ultimate Cole Reagan's guide,
Speaker 1: now many other guys.
Speaker 3: All I'm gonna say is that you say that small
Speaker 3: sample of Reagan's and then there's all these other small
Speaker 3: sample guys that everyone's jumping on and said, trek School,
Speaker 3: why are we not doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: I agree, he's I'm but the same thing, you're killing Schooble.
Speaker 1: But then you're saying right and I understand the same
Speaker 1: to each other and you probably and and you're right
Speaker 1: they should be closer to each other. I agree.
Speaker 2: I think also you're arguing against us like we are
Speaker 2: the twenty nine. I'm not the twenty nine.
Speaker 4: Like the the ECR.
Speaker 2: The consentous ranks that has it at twenty nine all agree.
Speaker 2: It's all around agree it's too low. I don't think
Speaker 2: Reagan's is far from Lizardo. I don't think I think
Speaker 2: too many people weren't having the Reagans schoobl conversation. I
Speaker 2: completely agree we are not the ECR.
Speaker 1: So we are with you on that.
Speaker 2: Sh anybody listening and understanding that.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I'll take Justin Steel over all of them. But
Speaker 1: let's move on to the next grouping here. Walker Buehler
Speaker 1: versus Hunter Green. Let's keep this simple. Walker Buehler, Hunter Green.
Speaker 1: They're both on the board. Need a picture, Welsh, Who
Speaker 1: do you want?
Speaker 2: Oh God, a catcher. I would rather go a catcher probably,
Speaker 2: So I think I'm I think I'm out on Bueller.
Speaker 2: I think I'm out on Bueller. I can't mess around
Speaker 2: with it this year. I'm optimistic about Hunter Green adding
Speaker 2: the was it the curveball? And I think at the
Speaker 2: splitter just trying trying to get hitters off the fastball
Speaker 2: a little bit, making a little bit more efficient. That's
Speaker 2: what he did with a slider, So I'm down with that.
Speaker 2: I don't love Hunter Green, but I really don't like
Speaker 2: the injury stuff, with not only everything we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: with the six man rotation and guy's not getting innings
Speaker 2: but him not starting. I can't do the Walker Bueler
Speaker 2: stuff this year, So I guess I would pick.
Speaker 1: Hunter Green Bueler of Green Pollock well under thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got you.
Speaker 1: Don't worry.
Speaker 4: You're not gonna listen to it anyway.
Speaker 1: I do listen to it. I listened to it. I
Speaker 1: love to understand that he had been working all season
Speaker 1: on it and then he got to show his toy,
Speaker 1: and now the league's gonna see it and they're gonna
Speaker 1: adjust to him. I get it. I've been around a
Speaker 1: long time.
Speaker 4: Walker Wheeler's Hunter Green. It's pretty simple.
Speaker 3: If the Dieters are actually putting Bueler on the ael
Speaker 3: one Bueler, I don't know. Actually, this is something I
Speaker 3: was thinking about, is concidering he's still not back technically
Speaker 3: from Tommy John. Is it actually going to be an
Speaker 3: eyel stint. If it isn't, yes, I'm so in. If
Speaker 3: it's not, that means that I need to actually have
Speaker 3: him on my bench, which is terrible. I don't want
Speaker 3: to have a stash for six weeks or something like that.
Speaker 3: That we're also spot is so valuable. On the other side,
Speaker 3: Hunter Green is your perfect example of a high stuff
Speaker 3: guy who does not have good command, and in my view,
Speaker 3: those are what I call cherrybombs, and you're never going
Speaker 3: to get up to a place as a fantasy manager
Speaker 3: where you feel confident in Hunter Green every single start,
Speaker 3: it's going to be really good, then really bad. They're
Speaker 3: really good, They're really bad, and I hate those guys.
Speaker 3: I don't know what to do with them. Those are
Speaker 3: league killers in my view. So I actually have Hunter
Speaker 3: Green so far down my rankings just because I can't
Speaker 3: believe it and whatsoever. And there will be amazing, sparkling starts,
Speaker 3: but I'm just not going to do it. So I
Speaker 3: guess just in the chance of dealers in the AL,
Speaker 3: I'll go with him.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some pitching one year wonder. Some great
Speaker 1: names on this list here, Mike Foltonevitch, Brian Maddis. Oh,
Speaker 1: these are like the guys of yesteryear. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to see, like the guys, maybe they kind of popped
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. We'll see, we'll see what they are.
Speaker 1: Daniel Norris, remember the Daniel Norris. Wow, that was some fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's continue on here with the next grouping,
Speaker 1: the sp four's. We've got Chris I at thirty seven,
Speaker 1: Merle Kelly our boy Merle, and then thirty nine. Jordan
Speaker 1: Montgomery is still looking for a team. I don't know
Speaker 1: why Jordan Montgomery so low on this list. I just
Speaker 1: don't understand. Michael King my favorite thing ever at number forty,
Speaker 1: Bailey Ober at forty one, Mitch Keller, Carlos Rodon Welsh's
Speaker 1: best friend, Shane Bieber, Gavin Williams, Hunter Brown, You, Darvish,
Speaker 1: and Jose Burrio. So let's start with Michael King, Nick Pollock, Welsh. Look,
Speaker 1: Welsh and I have talked about Michael King a lot.
Speaker 1: I feel like Nick, I like you to I'd like
Speaker 1: you to talk about Michael King, and I'd really like
Speaker 1: you to say nice things because if you don't, you're
Speaker 1: gonna make us very depressed. Well, I love Michael King,
Speaker 1: So yay, see we can all be friends again.
Speaker 4: Of course we can. And Michael King is nothing makes
Speaker 4: me happier when you ask the command pich.
Speaker 1: It's such a cute upset face. I love it. It's
Speaker 1: my favorite thing.
Speaker 4: Oh no, that's a terrible thing for you to like.
Speaker 3: Michael King has a phenomenal slider that he improved when
Speaker 3: he actually went into the rotation. Has change up is fantastic,
Speaker 3: really good singer. The biggest question mark is our are
Speaker 3: you going to do well enough against lefties? When you
Speaker 3: think about pictures is just about all right? What are
Speaker 3: your weapons against right is? If you're a sinker sweeper guy,
Speaker 3: that means you do not have a whip weapon against
Speaker 3: the lefties. So the change it really helps the four
Speaker 3: seamer can help against lefties. It's gonna be a little
Speaker 3: bit worse. And that's the biggest knock I have against King.
Speaker 3: I also am a little worried about fatigue, considering that
Speaker 3: he has dealt with injury before and he hasn't really
Speaker 3: showcased he can go every five days consistently. That said,
Speaker 3: it's a good team context I think for King, and
Speaker 3: he has a really stable arsenal. It's a higher floor
Speaker 3: as far as the skills go than a lot of
Speaker 3: other guys in this way. I mean Jordan Montgomery I
Speaker 3: don't want to touch as someone who just did super
Speaker 3: well in the postseason, was able to finally have a
Speaker 3: good command for a second, but his arsenal is far
Speaker 3: worse than Michael King.
Speaker 4: So I want Michael King there.
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on King? What if that's on
Speaker 2: Bailey Ober, because I'm a huge Michael King by the
Speaker 2: King guy. By the way, it also very reminiscent of
Speaker 2: like Brendan Fought. Brendan Fott has like the little bit
Speaker 2: heavier stuff, but it's a mix and then moving on
Speaker 2: them out it's sweeper fastball change up. He added the
Speaker 2: sinker to the exact same pitch. Maybe they're used to
Speaker 2: utilized a little bit differently, and.
Speaker 4: Vilo's are very similar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I love those guys. But coming back to
Speaker 2: Bailey over what is really attracted about Bailey over comes
Speaker 2: back to my type of pitcher this year, it's like
Speaker 2: the low walk you know, mid strikeout type of guy,
Speaker 2: the command pitcher. I mean, lo low five percent walk
Speaker 2: rate K minus walk percentage really solid this year. He's
Speaker 2: pretty a popular sleeper. Is he in the you know,
Speaker 2: breakout sleeper territory for you this year?
Speaker 3: Well, it's hard because he's at forty one here to
Speaker 3: say that, it's pretty much well there goes king in
Speaker 3: and over as our sleepers, right.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean but forties, like I mean, do they
Speaker 2: have top thirty upside? I guess Kim King and over?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I call it the over the Bailey special last year
Speaker 3: anytime that Bailey pitched, because it was essentially six innings
Speaker 3: like two three on runs with like six seven base
Speaker 3: runners and it was just like yep, like clockwork.
Speaker 4: He would just do that.
Speaker 3: And he's someone who throws surprisingly soft for being as
Speaker 3: large as he is. It's like ninety one miles per
Speaker 3: hour and so like ninety five concerns like sixty seven
Speaker 3: or something. But he has a good extension because of that,
Speaker 3: and he hits the top of the zone super well.
Speaker 3: That he's Bailey Ober Rizzy, if you remember, Jacotorizzy would
Speaker 3: do this constantly, and that's my name for Bailey, so
Speaker 3: I dig it. He also pairs it with an amazing
Speaker 3: change up and actually our repeal v Pictules's projections have
Speaker 3: Bailey ober inside the top twenty of starters because of
Speaker 3: how much it loves his change up in four seemer
Speaker 3: So that's fun and I'm a fan of it. I
Speaker 3: do question the ceiling for ober I don't think he
Speaker 3: has a true incredible put away offering. That's the biggest
Speaker 3: problem for the strikeoutside. But I think he does a
Speaker 3: great job of inducing wee contact and I think he's
Speaker 3: going to be a consistent guy for the twins. Also,
Speaker 3: I hope it's one hundred eighty innings, but he hasn't
Speaker 3: really shown that he can do that. He had fatigue
Speaker 3: last year and he got removed from the rotation by
Speaker 3: the end for a moment because of it.
Speaker 4: But I like Bailey Obert.
Speaker 3: I just don't want to have to pay super high
Speaker 3: for I don't want to go like inside the first
Speaker 3: ten rounds if I can avoid it.
Speaker 1: What about Carlos Rodin Welsh is very in on him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand the roll of the dice in the upside here,
Speaker 1: but to me it's still a little too rich for
Speaker 1: my blood? Is it too rich for years? Nick?
Speaker 4: Well at forty three.
Speaker 3: It's my philosophy is you have to get four pitchers
Speaker 3: that you trust they are going to not be dropped
Speaker 3: throughout the year, and not by injury, just by by
Speaker 3: essentially saying like, if they are pitching, I'm happy they're
Speaker 3: on my team, and that means I'm not a risky
Speaker 3: thing and you can get four of them, especially if
Speaker 3: you jump a little bit in those in those rounds
Speaker 3: like seven through ten, which I like to do. I
Speaker 3: think that's where the best value lies for starting pitch hitter.
Speaker 3: So that means I can get four guys. If I
Speaker 3: can get four guys before I take Rodan, then I'm okay,
Speaker 3: because that's one of the greatest risk of war picks
Speaker 3: you can think of, where it's either going to work,
Speaker 3: where he's going to be healthy. He had a forum
Speaker 3: stream last year, which always scares me. So why I'm
Speaker 3: a little bit lower on Max Freed as well, and
Speaker 3: I hope that's healed properly. The word right now is
Speaker 3: that his velocity is higher than it was last year.
Speaker 3: You're going to see a lot of hitting things. No
Speaker 3: matter about hit again, it's about sitting. If he's sitting
Speaker 3: ninety five ninety six in the spring, that's what we
Speaker 3: want to see. Ninety four is not good enough, that's
Speaker 3: ninety six is really where he starts to soar, and
Speaker 3: if Rodan can do that, great. Understand that even if
Speaker 3: he's doing well in April does not mean you've won.
Speaker 3: It's about him actually surviving a full year. That's the
Speaker 3: scary part about Rodin. So I like taking the chance
Speaker 3: because this is an impact play and you will also
Speaker 3: be able to know if it doesn't work early, if
Speaker 3: his velocity is still down at the beginning of the year,
Speaker 3: and if he's hurt rephrased.
Speaker 1: Would you take that risk? I understand taking it in
Speaker 1: you know, snake draft. Would you do it in the
Speaker 1: salary cap league?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a little more dangerous.
Speaker 4: It depends on where the dollar value is on that.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I would be more hesitant to go after it in
Speaker 3: those because I think there are a lot of really
Speaker 3: good value starters that you can get and that you
Speaker 3: would normally be able to get in a snake draft.
Speaker 1: Right, let's do a versus year at SP four Mitch Keller,
Speaker 1: who was fantastic for the first half of the season
Speaker 1: and then the wheels came off, but the strikeout rate
Speaker 1: did stay. Or you Darvish who we've seen the terrible
Speaker 1: bounce back for a great year. Well, shoul, would you
Speaker 1: rather have Mitch Keller? You, Darvish.
Speaker 2: I you know what always stands out to me. When
Speaker 2: I was getting to hang with Corby and Carroll, he
Speaker 2: had said we'd asked him, like, who is.
Speaker 1: The nastiest pitcher? Pick up this name you dropped?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't have the accolades of some on here, but I
Speaker 2: can mention a couple of names. Is Carol. We asked him,
Speaker 2: who is like the nastiest picture you faced all year?
Speaker 2: And he thought about it for a second and then
Speaker 2: he was like, you know what he's like, Mitch Keller,
Speaker 2: He said, Mitch Keller. He's like his performance wasn't great,
Speaker 2: but you didn't know what the hell was coming at
Speaker 2: any point. All of that said, I would go with you, Darbish,
Speaker 2: because I just didn't if you want to it just
Speaker 2: it just stood out to me. But Darvish, I just like,
Speaker 2: I have a hard time betting against him. The health
Speaker 2: was weird last year. I kind of want to buy
Speaker 2: back in. I think he's like really cheap, so I go, Darvish.
Speaker 1: It's the age that concerns me. It's like he's this
Speaker 1: guy keeps getting off the mat time and time again.
Speaker 1: You Darvish, and you know I've been fooled before, and
Speaker 1: I almost feel like I'm gonna get fooled this time.
Speaker 1: But Nick, I mean, when the age starts to creep in,
Speaker 1: maybe there isn't a bounce back here.
Speaker 3: It's kind of funny you say you don't know what's coming,
Speaker 3: and you weren't talking about Darvish like he's the king
Speaker 3: of how many pitches does he throw? What's actually interesting
Speaker 3: about Darvish to me is I've been being the drum
Speaker 3: a lot about Hey, Darvish, you have these ten pitches
Speaker 3: in actuality, you don't need to learn anything new.
Speaker 4: You have elite pitches inside of this. It's just about
Speaker 4: four of those.
Speaker 3: And I very much believe there is a blueprint with
Speaker 3: Darvish's arsenal that is elite. What we saw last year
Speaker 3: was him figuring it out and acting more like a
Speaker 3: canvas of just kind of what do I have to say?
Speaker 3: I'll figure this out and try and go from there,
Speaker 3: leaning too much, kind of sinker sweeper. And there were
Speaker 3: starts where Alfson was furs, he was upstairs. It was
Speaker 3: a cutter for strikes. It was a gyro slider and
Speaker 3: the sweeper and then the sinkers at the right times,
Speaker 3: and it was glorious and that is still there. And
Speaker 3: also the injury that he had was removing I believe
Speaker 3: it was bone spurs from his elbow, which is the
Speaker 3: best thing to hear. That is always good. That is
Speaker 3: not damage that you want back. That is him making
Speaker 3: himself better instead of like the UCL tear, which is
Speaker 3: you're going to get a worse version of the standard
Speaker 3: now that it's broken. So I am a huge believer
Speaker 3: in Darbish. I have him side my top thirty five,
Speaker 3: and I think he's someone that I trust the entire year.
Speaker 3: So I'm on the other side. It's Mitch Keller with
Speaker 3: literally one of the worst fastballs in the game. It
Speaker 3: doesn't matter the velocity of it. Its shape is what
Speaker 3: we call dead zone fastball, and it gets destroyed. Now
Speaker 3: the cutter, when he's able to locate it, is great.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the sinker can set up well, and there are
Speaker 3: many times the slider is filthy. But I don't actually
Speaker 3: see Keller as a consistent command guy. I don't think
Speaker 3: his approach is that great. I don't have as much
Speaker 3: faith in the Pittsburgh Pirates to really figure it out.
Speaker 3: Maybe his work with tread is going to help and
Speaker 3: bring it over. We did see an improvement last year
Speaker 3: from Mitch Keller, but there's still too much to fix
Speaker 3: in a worst team context, and that has me favoring darbish.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the sp fives. Here. These
Speaker 1: are the guys going outside of the top fifty. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna run through the names, which is gonna highlight
Speaker 1: a few. I want to start with the Monaga because
Speaker 1: Shutdow with Minaga is going at the sixty first pitcher
Speaker 1: off the board, and Nick you mentioned before the show
Speaker 1: that you're high on him, and so am I. I
Speaker 1: look at the difference between Yamamoto and Imanaga, and I'm
Speaker 1: looking at not the I think they're close in terms
Speaker 1: of stuff quote unquote, but I think in terms of
Speaker 1: what you're getting in your turn on investment, I think
Speaker 1: it's a no brainer. I think I'd rather in redraft.
Speaker 1: I'm Minauga, So you tend to agree with me here,
Speaker 1: not even close.
Speaker 3: The Cub's got the greatest free agent signing of this offseason,
Speaker 3: and it's not I don't understand it.
Speaker 4: Actually, you say.
Speaker 1: Quote a little fanfare too.
Speaker 4: I feel like it's absolutely bonkers to me.
Speaker 3: I the WBC, you know, sorrys the stuff plus everyone
Speaker 3: the pitch then that Yamamoto was number two and stuff
Speaker 3: plus and Minaga was number one, And that's not in command,
Speaker 3: that's just in stuff. And the reason for that is
Speaker 3: I was talking about those fastball shapes. Yeah, vert, super high,
Speaker 3: VA excellent, extension, excellent, and Minaga has it. And guess
Speaker 3: what he has command? The market inefficiency is command. We
Speaker 3: talk so much about stuff, but those that actually have
Speaker 3: above a threshold of good enough stuff with command are
Speaker 3: the ones that are actual ases. And in Monaga, we
Speaker 3: know has stuff and he has good command. This is
Speaker 3: a guy that is just set up to succeed. And
Speaker 3: you're gonna say, oh no, the flyball rates the home runs.
Speaker 3: That's where we're terrified of. Lance Bezowski has a fantastic
Speaker 3: chart of where his four singers were located. And in Japan,
Speaker 3: it's not actually that you're as incentivized to go high
Speaker 3: with four seemers. You actually, because they're not home run guys,
Speaker 3: you can go around the zone much better. In the
Speaker 3: majors here you want to go upstairs and his four
Speaker 3: seamers made for and he can do it. It wasn't
Speaker 3: like he located differently because he didn't have the command
Speaker 3: of it. Like he just had a different approach. And
Speaker 3: Minaga is gonna sar four pitches. It's just get him everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's it. I agree, Brendan Fopp is your guy Welsh
Speaker 1: in this grouping. You saw enough last year, especially down
Speaker 1: the stretch into the playoffs, where you felt like this
Speaker 1: kid turned a corner. Do you think it's sustainable though,
Speaker 1: because last year it was a lot of valleys when
Speaker 1: it came to Faud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the valleys were a lot smaller. Once Strom
Speaker 2: moved him on the rubber. We saw that full mix
Speaker 2: of sinker being able to come on the outside. You
Speaker 2: got the change up, you got the sweeper, you got
Speaker 2: the fastball, four pitch mix that he felt more comfortable with.
Speaker 2: It was a Diamondbacks camp two days ago and just
Speaker 2: a unique thing that happened. I get the yap with
Speaker 2: him right after through a session to Katel, Marte, Heraldo
Speaker 2: Perdomo and Christian Walker, and during that session we did
Speaker 2: not hear one bat on a ball and we asked
Speaker 2: him about that and he didn't He just smiled. He
Speaker 2: just smiled. He's like it was a good session. Nobody
Speaker 2: was on his stuff. I think he's primed. I don't
Speaker 2: think he's gonna be some ace or anything like that,
Speaker 2: but I think they made the proper changes for him
Speaker 2: to utilize the guy that went one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: and the miners lead the minor leagues in strikeouts, and
Speaker 2: he can be a really good like SP. I think
Speaker 2: he can be an SP three in fantasy, which is
Speaker 2: along those lines of being like, you know, an SP
Speaker 2: twenty five thirty. I think he can get there, but
Speaker 2: it could fall apart because he's got home run problems
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Just at a curiousity, I was looking at this one
Speaker 1: Year Wonder picture list. It's not from picture list, dude,
Speaker 1: but actually you should put a picture list together the
Speaker 1: one year Wonders. Were you a Danelson lamette guy back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one? Oh?
Speaker 4: That was so fun?
Speaker 3: Him twenty twenty was just I mean, we always knew
Speaker 3: that he had the best slider, but then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, going from like ninety six to ninety nine
Speaker 3: was stupid. I wish I knew all these things about
Speaker 3: fastball shape and we had that data back then which
Speaker 3: we didn't have.
Speaker 1: You gone back, and that'd be fascinating to go back
Speaker 1: and look and see where these guys really as well.
Speaker 3: All Right, That's actually one of the fun parts for
Speaker 3: me of this is understanding my assessments of these guys
Speaker 3: and seeing like what I missed and what I didn't
Speaker 3: and how shape has changed and stuff.
Speaker 4: Also sticking was a big part of it.
Speaker 3: Keep in mind, so like Walker Bueler is forcing her
Speaker 3: used to be elite and now it's not, and that
Speaker 3: has really more worried to I want.
Speaker 2: I want to see you about one guy because I
Speaker 2: talked to him the other day. It was Brian Wu.
Speaker 2: Everyone's made a big deal about the fastball and I
Speaker 2: asked Brian, I said, are you going to add any pitches?
Speaker 2: And he went no, He's like, I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 2: I'm like, you're not gonna do anything. I said, what
Speaker 2: about the splitters. I'm like, all the dudes. You got
Speaker 2: Kirby and you got Gilbert. And he looked at me
Speaker 2: and he goes, I'm not joining the splitter mafia. And
Speaker 2: then we had a little bit more conversation and I
Speaker 2: loved that quote. The splitter Mafia a lot has been
Speaker 2: made because splitter is kind of the new splitters, this
Speaker 2: year's sweeper in the new edition. So I'm just curious
Speaker 2: if you think WU is fine enough in that no
Speaker 2: addition to what he's doing with the fast.
Speaker 4: I mean, okay, are you saying this because of my
Speaker 4: whole stance on splitters?
Speaker 1: Is this the no?
Speaker 2: I mean, just everybody's adding and it was just my
Speaker 2: favorite quote.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I love that splitter mafia is great, and I love
Speaker 4: Wu more.
Speaker 1: Funny, I do get to make that one Welsh though.
Speaker 1: Don't let him make that teacher that's arm.
Speaker 4: Don't worry. I can come up with my own things,
Speaker 4: thank you. H No.
Speaker 3: I actually just did just an episode of The Craft
Speaker 3: with the end of before this, and we talked about
Speaker 3: Wu in and Bryce Miller throwing splitters or not right,
Speaker 3: And actually I do think that WU could benefit from
Speaker 3: a splitter, but it's not in a necessity. I see
Speaker 3: splitters as a they fill a certain need and what
Speaker 3: that is generally against opposite handed batters. It gives you
Speaker 3: a potaway pitch, that's what they do. They are not
Speaker 3: strike earners, and if you are a pitchers that needs
Speaker 3: strikes against opposite handed batters. Splitters are not it, Sorry,
Speaker 3: Bryce Miller, Okay, it's it's they think of like Tyler
Speaker 3: Glas not trying to throw a change up or a
Speaker 3: splider back in the day. That wasn't the answer. It
Speaker 3: was a slider in the zone to throw strikes. That's
Speaker 3: when he needed. So with Brian Wu, yeah, he has
Speaker 3: all the tools he needs. He has a four seamer
Speaker 3: that works against both rights and lefties. His biggest need
Speaker 3: is he doesn't have anything else currently that is working
Speaker 3: against lefties. And you could say, maybe that could be
Speaker 3: a splitter. Maybe, But he also has a cutter and
Speaker 3: he locates it low and down and no, you have
Speaker 3: a slider for that.
Speaker 4: The cutter is already there and good.
Speaker 3: He just needs to get it upstairs and actually in
Speaker 3: on left ease. He can even surprise if he wants
Speaker 3: with an upstairs sinker too, which is great. But right
Speaker 3: Andrews destroys. He has all the duels against Right Andrews.
Speaker 3: I love Brian Wu. I think they star them every
Speaker 3: five days, And when I think about innings for the
Speaker 3: year ahead, I just think about it, is this team
Speaker 3: going to let this guy start every five days? And
Speaker 3: the answer is yes, then we say, great, at the minimum,
Speaker 3: that's five times thirty, so that's one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 3: And then let's say he goes to six innings a start,
Speaker 3: that's one hundred and eighty, and that's thirty starts.
Speaker 1: And that's how you should think. He's seventy five guys right.
Speaker 4: Now, right right now, wo and like which is it's
Speaker 4: an overall top seventy five?
Speaker 1: He's fifty four fifty. I'm sorry, WU is fifty four.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm a big fan of I have WU around
Speaker 3: thirty five, so I'm very much in. I don't think
Speaker 3: you're gonna drop Brian Woo at all. His four seamer
Speaker 3: has more whiffs than Bryce Miller's guys. He's a better
Speaker 3: command pitch pitcher than Bryce Miller, and I trust command
Speaker 3: pitchers who have good stuff.
Speaker 1: So the question, Nick, who is the best in that
Speaker 1: Seattle rotation in terms of fantasy return on investment? You've
Speaker 1: got legitimately some really good guy in the rotation that
Speaker 1: we all like. Is the best?
Speaker 3: I enjoyed George Kirby. I'm a believer in that. I
Speaker 3: thought that I was gonna be able to get him
Speaker 3: like much later, but now all of a sudden. Everyone
Speaker 3: is in on that, and okay, I blame Welsh. I
Speaker 3: mean I had him in October at like seventh or eighth,
Speaker 3: but I didn't think like that would actually influence things,
Speaker 3: and I don't think that's what happened. Looking Gilbert, I'm
Speaker 3: not in on because I don't actually think he is
Speaker 3: a good command guy gets strikes, but he doesn't he
Speaker 3: doesn't know how to locate his fast but he just
Speaker 3: chucks it and then sometimes he got a slighter better
Speaker 3: but then it's just weird with Gilbert. Castillo is awesome,
Speaker 3: but he's going Zach where he should. And between Bryce
Speaker 3: Miller and Brian Wu, Brian was going way later and
Speaker 3: Brace Miller is going too early.
Speaker 1: Fair enough. Last question for you, Nick, and fantastic stuff.
Speaker 1: I love every year when we were to you on
Speaker 1: the show. It's my favorite things. And you know you're
Speaker 1: so good rating for us all the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: well we'll yell about things all the time. Alex Pass
Speaker 1: isn't here to yell with us today. We're missing from
Speaker 1: this show. But last question, outside of the top seventy five,
Speaker 1: who's that guy for you? They keep saying this is
Speaker 1: well target, this is my dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, okay, if the twins actually say, like
Speaker 3: Louis Viarland is starting, go get Louis v Island, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't look like that's happening. Cutter Crawford is someone
Speaker 3: that just keeps popping up in our models. He finally
Speaker 3: improved his cutter, thankfully, so now he has his namesake.
Speaker 3: But the way they use the lot utilizes his slider
Speaker 3: as well is way better. Now. His four seamer is excellent.
Speaker 3: He has a lot of those good metrics we were
Speaker 3: talking about too. For fastball shape. He's in that situation
Speaker 3: in Boston. He's locked in that rotation every five days
Speaker 3: and he's going to get a good amount of wins
Speaker 3: and he's going to go like six innings and get
Speaker 3: you twenty five percent. Plestrike, it's a week. Hold on
Speaker 3: a second, we want this Cutter. Crawford to me, is
Speaker 3: that guy, and I'm ensuring I have him everywhere.
Speaker 1: You know. It's funny Welsh Pollock mentioned TODs Bradley. That's
Speaker 1: my guy outside of that top seventy five that I
Speaker 1: just think was just rushed last year. He was literally
Speaker 1: like Dante from Clerks. He was not supposed to be there,
Speaker 1: and he got thrown in a little bit before he
Speaker 1: should have been and he wasn't quite ready. And I
Speaker 1: think with the proper mindset this offseason to work out
Speaker 1: that he can get to that high level. He's a
Speaker 1: very talented young man.
Speaker 2: Cutter disappeared. He lost his cutter. He lost his cutter
Speaker 2: and he had to go back to the miners. And
Speaker 2: when he was down there, I remember.
Speaker 1: I was doing that and he wasn't gonna He went
Speaker 1: back there too.
Speaker 2: But me and Nino talked about it for like I
Speaker 2: think three weeks, because he stopped throwing his cutter down
Speaker 2: there because he and he said he lost it because
Speaker 2: he got to talk to him that he had lost
Speaker 2: his cutter, and then we were just all speculating what's
Speaker 2: it going to happen when he comes back. So that
Speaker 2: was kind of an.
Speaker 3: Odd It's a the race said like, hey, cool, we're
Speaker 3: going to make you focus on fastballs and that's why
Speaker 3: he lost this cutter.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a raising wow outside the ras though, because the
Speaker 1: rays continuously get the best out of every picture that
Speaker 1: they touched, So you know, I trust the process there. Well,
Speaker 1: she was your guy outside top seventy five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just quickly. Pavetta is not outside the top seventy five,
Speaker 2: but he's just one of my guys highest. He had
Speaker 2: the highest K percentage from July first on and he
Speaker 2: had the best year over year with percentage change of
Speaker 2: any starting pitcher. So I love Pavetta this year, and
Speaker 2: I love body going there and doing stuff. So I'm big,
Speaker 2: big on him. And if I had to pick somebody
Speaker 2: outside the top seventy five, actually and that twins, I'm
Speaker 2: going to look at back at Chris Paddock, you know,
Speaker 2: like Chris Paddock is going to push on some innings.
Speaker 2: I'm interested to watch him in speculation hate him.
Speaker 1: Because he was a two pis pitch pitcher all these years,
Speaker 1: isn't that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I also want to see, like what happens
Speaker 2: in spring?
Speaker 1: Did we fix that?
Speaker 2: Like I'm saying speculation at this point, I don't know
Speaker 2: if I have, like most of the guys i'll side
Speaker 2: the top seventy five, I probably have in the ones
Speaker 2: that I really like. Nick Povetta would be one that
Speaker 2: I like, I have really really high and that I'm into,
Speaker 2: but I don't know that's one that his peak mates.
Speaker 2: I will also say Michael Waka By the way, Michael
Speaker 2: Walka through a session yesterday two days ago against the Royals.
Speaker 2: He made Bobby Wit. He just had Bobby just flinging
Speaker 2: around two strikeouts. No one could get any contact. He
Speaker 2: was setting up change ups.
Speaker 4: For like free, I got, yeah, drafts doing sleeper guys walking.
Speaker 1: I don't understand, like I get there in Kansas City.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like guys, these guys were
Speaker 1: tremendous last year. Like for free, I'll take a shot
Speaker 1: on them for free.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean they're they're bordering what I call it, Toby,
Speaker 3: which is do they push the needle enough? And is
Speaker 3: it worth it in your drafts to go after them?
Speaker 4: But if you take both of them in one of
Speaker 4: them works then sure, I mean what is working though
Speaker 4: right like it.
Speaker 2: More than a streamer, probably probably someone that's not want
Speaker 2: to take that chance As a flyer.
Speaker 3: I'd rather go for DL Hall at the end of
Speaker 3: my drafts and maybe that works out in Milwaukee. That's
Speaker 3: a bigger impact of it works out. But Walka looked great.
Speaker 3: He looked great, and also Chris Paddock I looked up
Speaker 3: on the whole cool. He must have had a really
Speaker 3: good fastball before, especially last year when he came back
Speaker 3: terrible fastball, and it's actually not nearly as good as.
Speaker 1: I want to be.
Speaker 3: He's throwing harder it was in the pen, but as
Speaker 3: a starter, I'm very worried because I think the fastball's
Speaker 3: Philossy's going to drop and then it's a vulcan change,
Speaker 3: which is not consistent. It's curveball was always terrible, so
Speaker 3: I am interested to see what he looks like. I'm
Speaker 3: not as in on that one, but bit better with
Speaker 3: the Worldly Birds sweeper. Oh, he's in my top forty.
Speaker 1: I love him all right, Great stuff, Nick Pollock. As always,
Speaker 1: it's so fantastic to have you on the program. Make
Speaker 1: sure you go to picture lists dot com and check
Speaker 1: out the amazing work. I mean, nobody breaks down pitching
Speaker 1: better than Nick and his entire team there. We're always
Speaker 1: so grateful to have him on the program. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: we tried to get to as many pictures today as
Speaker 1: we thought. We're really the controversial ones, as you could tell,
Speaker 1: or the guys that we really think needed conversations, and
Speaker 1: there's nobody better to have those conversations with than you. Nick.
Speaker 1: You're the best. We love you around these parts Welsh,
Speaker 1: I love you too. It's a lot of love today
Speaker 1: at the show. Don't forget subscribe to the channel, drop
Speaker 1: your comments below. You go in to Jazz Chisholm, Jersey.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for us, but the story of the
Speaker 1: game goes on for the Welsh and Nick Pollock, I'm
Speaker 1: Joey P. We'll see you next time. Kids,