Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1879: Me and Julio Down By the Ballyard

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley are joined by FanGraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen to banter about what accounts for the variability in how quickly prospects acclimate to the majors and detecting holes in swings, discuss (10:50) which teams have the prospects to trade for Juan Soto, review (22:59) impressive performances from the Futures Game […]

I read the signs, I got all my stars aligned My amulets, my charms, I set all my false alarms So I'll be someone who won't be forgotten I've got a question and you've got the answer. Hello and welcome to episode 1879 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Well, we are taking a break from anniversary celebrating today to catch up on current or almost current events.

Meg just flew home from L.A. and boy are her arms tired, etc. And just in case her voice is tired, too, we've got a guest also recently returned from the L.A. all-star scene. guest, also recently returned from the LA All-Star scene, Fangraph's lead prospect analyst, Eric Langenhagen, who is here to end Grant Brisby's one-episode reign in sole possession of first place on the all-time effectively wild guest appearance leaderboard, and also to talk about prospects and All-Star stuff. Hello, Eric. Hey, how's it going? It was very tempting yesterday to be.

I was working on writing day two and three draft stuff up in the hotel as Meg was on with you and Grant and Jeff and took every ounce of self-control I had not to just yell a few things, get on that episode one time. So the Effectively Wild Wiki, you know, curators. Yeah, I know that's very important to you it's important for me to be nadal and for grant to be jokovic yeah right i guess that makes russell carlton roger federer

i know grant was was taunting you on twitter earlier which you probably didn't see because you probably were not looking at twitter nope Nope. Haven't tweeted since March, buddy. Way to check on that, Grant. Your taunts are for naught if the taunty does not see them. So we have a lot to talk about. We want to talk about everything that went down in LA from the Futures game to the Draft to the All-Star game to the Home Run Derby. I do have a couple non-All-Star Week related

or at least not explicitly All-Star Week related, or at least not explicitly All-Star Week related questions for you, Eric. And one I've been wanting to ask you for a while, because we've seen a ton of top prospects promoted this season. It's been kind of cool to see them all come up. And the range of results is really wide. And in a Jason Stark article earlier this season, Mariners AGM Justin Hollander, who has been on the show, suggested that what Bill James called the transition tax, basically how long it takes prospects to adjust to the majors, is as high as it's ever been. I wonder whether you think that's true, but I also wonder what you think accounts for the variability in that transition tax among players who have major league ability and are judged to be big league ready. For instance, you have guys who started slow but subsequently turned it on, like Julio Rodriguez, who we will be talking about

later, or Bobby Witt or Adley Rutschman. And then you have guys like Jeremy Pena or Nolan Gorman, who hit the ground running and started hot. Then you have someone like Kelnick who has so far flamed out or say Spencer Torkelson, who I believe was one spot below Julio on your preseason rankings, albeit with a lower future value, and then got sent down recently after putting up a 68 WRC plus and almost 300 plate appearances. So I guess you would expect some players to start fast and others to start slow just by chance. But beyond that, what factors might make someone acclimate more or less quickly than someone else? Yeah, I think the big leaguers making adjustments, if you have a hole or something,

there's something about you to which I can adjust and start to exploit, then I believe that's a key variable. And then, of course, you know, we've seen this. Sometimes it is just a smaller sample. But you think about some of the guys who have had huge beginnings to their careers. Think about how hot Reese Hoskins was at the very, very beginning. Think about how good Chris Paddock was. And then just over time, these things tend to play out where, oh, you only have these two pitches. Well, now that I've seen you, I can eliminate them. Or I think I wrote about it in the Astros prospect list.

Here's where Jeremy Pena's issues are. If there's going to be a regression here, it's going to be for this reason. It's a guy who's running a 5% walk rate. Wouldn't surprise me. Michael Harris is running a three and a half or so percent walk rate. They lowered his hands, changed his swing upon entry to the big leagues. He already had kind of a hole at the very, very top of the zone. That's the type of thing that over time you get not just big league advanced scouts, but people looking at heat maps and data and swing and approach angle intersection data. And they start to find ways of going at you that makes a huge difference. And maybe it doesn't make a huge difference for the first four or five innings of the game, but the relievers that face you start to change

and the way you're approached starts to change. And so there's some of that. I think that that's a Nolan Gorman thing. I think that's a Juan Yepez thing where you start to learn, oh, this guy just kind of swings, doesn't he? Why don't we just dump sliders out of the zone? And Juan Yepez goes, oh, well, I guess I'm going to have a sub 300 on base and not have any defensive value.

And sometimes you can see that stuff coming, which was like the case with Yepez, where even though he began so hot, his profile is what it was. He's just more likely to be the guy that he's been his whole career than he is the guy he was for the first month of his big league career. And so I think some of it is that, but I also think that there's just something about the difficulty of major league baseball that some of them can't do. Like I can't consistently win on all Madden. I can't do it. I've never been able to do it. I can score 100 points on All-Pro, but I cannot consistently win on All-Madden. It's just too much for me and my 33-year-old brain to do anymore. And so the GameCube beats me.

But I think it's the same. Sometimes it takes a really long time for these guys to adjust. Go look at Byron Buxton was up and down. Remember how bad the swing and miss portion of Byron Buxton's early career was against sliders. And like, sometimes it just takes a really long time. And I think we tend to underrate just how difficult major league baseball is because it's all most of us watch. But when I start to branch out, put on a D one1 game go to a college game or two and you start to see the drop off and uh it's pretty extreme these guys are really incredible and yeah we were lucky to see the cream of the crop doing it over the weekend and watching like the

group of you know on friday we watched high school kids take BP. And then on Saturday, the Futures game, guys took BP. And then Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton took BP. And it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same. None of them were the same. Except for maybe Francisco Alvarez. Francisco Alvarez and Yon Kenzie Noel did do some Stantonian stuff during BP. Kenzie Noel did do some Stantonian stuff during VP.

Just to clarify, are you still playing Madden on GameCube or was that a generic term? No. So I still, yeah, when Jill got the PS4 or whatever in the divorce, so I have my GameCube and I just fire up Madden or MVP 05 when I want to unwind and play something that's not magic. Yeah. Classic console, classic games. I don't blame you. Although I guess you're not going to get any better if you haven't at this point. No, no. If I can't win on all Madden with like 24 year old Ed Reed, I'm not going to win. Paul Madden with like 24-year-old Ed Reed, I'm not going to win. So do you always know that someone has a hole?

Like does the team that is promoting a prospect know that he has a hole? And they're just like, well, hopefully if it's exposed, that will be a wake-up call for him or that will encourage him to make an adjustment that maybe he can't or won't make at AAA or AA? Or does the team not necessarily even know about the hole because the hole was not exploited by minor league pitching? And then suddenly they get up there and it's like, uh-oh, maybe he has more work to do. I think there's something about major league velocity that is unknowable and the way that a hitter is going to interact with it. And it's true of the guys coming over from Asia or from Cuba as well. You just don't really know. Carter Keboom's numbers in the minors, Keston Hura's numbers in the minors were basically unassailable. And then when you start facing guys who are throwing 93 plus and that's all you see, there's just no way of accounting for that when you've mostly faced double and triple A guys for the year and a half two years preceding that so so that's one thing i don't think you can account

for i don't always know my the tools that i have been able to play with since the pandemic we we reallocated travel budget to synergy sports which is like an app that breaks down video i can pull up all of michael harris-bats from AA and above, and there are pitch locations. I can see what he's swinging and missing at. I have chase rates for minor leaguers. I don't have a leaderboard or anything like that. I got to go individual by individual, but I can start to break some of this stuff down in a way that I couldn't do before. So yeah, it is getting to the point where I'm starting to see on film and through some of the heat map stuff that Synergy gives me access to for a not small fee

that yeah, I can start to say like, all right, this is what this guy's issue is, or this is what his core competency is. It has really helped and augmented some of the way that I've done everything for the last couple of years. And so, yeah, like Michael Harris and Jeremy Pena and some of those guys, like for sure using synergy was a key part of why entering the big leagues, there's already a thing that you know, okay, this might be something that is exploited. That was my prospect call-up question. My other question is Juan Soto related. So Soto won the home run derby, but he was already the biggest story in baseball because he is seemingly actually on the trade block as opposed to earlier this season where it seemed like ESPN was kind of creating a Juan Soto news cycle. Now the Nationals have, by it would appear, leaking the news that he had rejected a 15-year, $440 million contract extension, which is a lot of millions of dollars, although it is less on an annual basis than players of Juan Soto's caliber, of which there are very few, have received of late.

Obviously, it's a very long-term deal and the Nationals would be taking on some risk, et cetera. So we don't know what will happen here. Maybe the Nationals will up their offer. Maybe not. Maybe they will trade him in the next couple of weeks. Maybe not. Could go either way.

But the rumors are flying fast and furious here. And you probably haven't, like the rest of the baseball internet, been on baseballtradevalues.com trying to come up with some package that equaled what Soto would be worth to a team that's acquiring him. But I have seen some people jokingly question or suggest that, like, could this team trade its entire farm system for Juan Soto? Like is every prospect in this team's farm system worth Juan Soto? Like pick your team with a not very good farm ranking here. And you recently updated the farm rankings at FanCrafts where people can find those.

We will link to them. But like what's the practical limit, I guess? I have two questions maybe. Like one is if you have an opinion, like maybe which systems are best positioned to put a compelling package together for a player like that. But also just like if you don't have the blue chippers, is there any like bulk approach that could work? Or is it like if you're trading someone like Juan Soto, you've got to get like a few of the very best players of baseball back. It's not like you can just like pile on mediocre prospects and hope that like one of them will pan out. Cause like at a certain point, it's like,

could the angels just give the nationals their farm system or something? It's like, well, how would they fit their players players like would they have to like assume the teams and have multiple affiliates in the league like there's gotta be some practical limit there where like maybe if you took an entire team's farm system even if it wasn't a good system like just sifting through all the fool's gold there like someone would turn out to be good probably but like how could you roster all of those players in the meantime yeah i don't think you could i think that your minor league your minor league roster limitations would be a barrier for some sort of crazy branch ricky type thing where you're

just like yeah we we bought an independent league team and right these are going to go play there. I do think that there are some teams that I do think are positioned to do it. I have to do the 40-man crunch piece here in the next couple of weeks. And the Nationals are such a 40-man vacuum, both because their system is not very good and because they have, I want to say like eight guys who are coming off the books from the big league roster. Yeah, it's a meaningful number. That some of the teams like Texas and Cleveland, who off the top of my head, I believe have a pretty heavy crunch. Tampa Bay typically has one just because of the way they go about building their farm system.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Dodgers do as well. Those are teams where they can say, look, we have only six 40-man spots. We've got 10 guys who have an argument to be put on the 40-man at the end of the year. So we can afford to hit the gas based on the context and throw many more of these guys in there. And Washington has the space to take all of them on and not expose any of them to the rule five. You know, I think that we're obviously a lot of us were talking about this with one another over the weekend. Who was in position to do it?

I think that St. Louis is very interesting because they have Dylan Carlson. They have Gorman. They have Libby. They've got Brendan Donovan, they have Juan Yepez. They basically have a lot of guys who have four or more years of control remaining who are good young players, versatile. Basically, Mike Rizzo could collect, Jordan Walker could headline a deal as the monster prospect in a trade like that. Absolutely, they have the horses to do something like that. I believe St. Louis does. Gordon Graceffo, Mason Wynn, those are guys

towards the back of my top 100 as well. And St. Louis has done this before with Ozuna and with Goldschmidt, right? So there's some precedent there for that with Arenado. So I think St. Louis is very interesting. The Dodgers obviously could do it. They have the deepest, if not one of the deepest, the deepest farm system in baseball. Some of what makes their farm system so deep is their player dev machine. But there are some guys in their org who are awesome. And then they have guys like Gavin Stone, who probably needs to get a bump on the Dodgers list and stuff like that. They have, you know, Edgardo Henriquez was barely on. You know, if you have an arbitrary endpoint to your prospect list, there's a chance that the teenager throwing 96 to 100 in a ball wasn't on there.

The Dodgers have a guy in the DSL named Ronaldo Yeen who's sitting 96 to 98. He's an 18-year-old, right? Like they just crank these guys out. So they're an interesting fit as well. I think Boston too. Boston obviously, I don't know if John Henry cares to spend money to try to win baseball games or if he's just trying to make money by owning baseball teams or sports franchises or whatever. But I think that they, over the last handful of years,

have also built a pretty robust farm system under Heinblum, including some guys who I was light on at the time of acquisition. And so I think they're in a position where they could move. Maybe they don't have quite the same number of really young, good big leaguers to do something like that, like quite in the same way that the Cardinals would. If I'm Mike Rizzo and you tell me, I'm going to give you these four plug and play big leaguers, Jordan Walker, and here are two or three other prospects who you like from the middle to bottom of my farm system. That's more interesting to me because I feel like

I have a better chance of saving my job by making the Nationals good again soon. And then you have like the Patrick Corbin contract. Right. And maybe Strasburg's contract that could get offloaded. And then you'd think that the Dodgers,

Karl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, et cetera, like have a history of doing that. The Red Sox certainly have the financial might to do something like that. But I don't, you know, what would it take Verdugo, Jaron Duran, if you like him, some of these good young Bo Sox pitchers like a Houck or a Bayo, and then you start getting into the farm system and, you know, do you like Nick York? I think he's fine. Do you like guys like that? So

Marcelo Meyer, I certainly would be the first name out of my mouth if I'm Mike Rizzo talking to the Red Sox about a trade for Juan Soto. But I think there are a couple different avenues to explore, a way that teams could get there. And I think the handful of teams is probably – I'd be surprised if anybody else was in the mix. I think the Giants could maybe do it too, but I think that they just know that they can make a move that's close to as big

without trading prospects over the winter, if you know what I'm saying. Mariners, Yankees? I guess the Yankees could do it. I mean, the Yankees' farm system is good. The Mariners, I struggle to figure out how you can put together a deal without giving up Julio. I would just twist the Mariners' arm until they gave up Julio. I would just twist the Mariners arm

until they gave up Julio if I were Mike Rizzo. You can't convince me, I'll just fix Jared Kelnick. It'll be fine. No. And I like George Kirby as much as the next guy and Logan Gilbert, but pitching is pitching, man. That stuff can go at any moment. It is such a... You're just playing Russian roulette with your elbow every five days. So that's not, I would not, if I were the Nationals, want to make the foundation of the return pitching at all.

I would try as hard as possible to stay away from that. That just seems fraught. Like imagine, imagine if we were going to make a similar trade four years ago and it was just like, yeah, Forrest Whitley would be a great... Brent Honeywell, awesome. He's so good. Even if the Orioles wanted to trade Grayson Rodriguez a couple months ago, I would have said... I mean,

the guy was in the top five of our overall prospect list. Great. I love him. And then his lat goes and he's done for the year. And now who knows what will happen? This is just what happens with pitching. It's a horrible, scary, terrifying thing. So I want hitters, hitters, hitters. I want volume. And if I'm Mike Rizzo and the rest of his brain trust, I'm trying to put a competitive team on the field relatively soon

or else it's my ass so i think that you know the cardinals and nodders i guess if i'm looking at the yankees let's take a look at that i haven't i haven't looked to see if the yankees might be a fit for that yet you know maybe if the twins were willing to pay carlos correa for this year they could consider doing something for future years they don't have like the headliner like a jordan walker type of guy but they could say like here's alex kirilov and here's trevor larnik and you know like they have a handful of really good big league bats as well all right so yankees so yeah so like the yankees have all these these minor league shortstops right like they've got Peraza and Volpe. Volpe's not really a shortstop, I don't think, but Austin Wells, they obviously develop a ton of pitching, and so you could

supplement it with that. Jason Dominguez seems like he's going to be okay, but he's not switch hitting trout or anything like that, so he's not a headliner, but I would probably be interested in him if I were thing. Roderick Arias. Yeah. Maybe you want to go like down to the DR and get eyes on Roderick Arias, or you want to wait for them to sign Brandon Maia. Maybe, I don't know. Like Maia sounds like he's going to be pretty good, but that's what we thought about Dominguez as well. So I'm looking at the Yankee system. It's obviously deep. I like a lot of these guys, but I don't think it quite holds up to that Cardinals group that I mentioned before.

There just seems like so many guys. The well is rich, I think, in St. Louis with some of the guys that make more sense for Washington. Soto's younger brother is what, committed to the Nationals, but not signed signed I don't even know what will happen with the international draft he's 16 right or was as of early this year I don't know if he's actually a big prospect or if that was just news because he's won Soto's brother and yeah we're signing him so I don't know if that's a factor in whether Soto would want to stay at all any of those verbal agreements are so flimsy up until the time that they are signed. For what it's worth, the folks I've spoken to are unsure

if there's going to be international draft. I would say that people should pump the brakes if they're assuming that that's going to happen based on the way teams are behaving with verbal agreements still two, three years out, overcommitting pool money that they don't have, and then breaking verbal agreements during the process with players who they think are regressing or not progressing at the rate that they hope. There's still a bunch of skeezy stuff going on internationally, same as it ever was. So when the Angels group went from there to the Mets, a bunch of the players that the Angels were attached to a couple years ago signed with the Mets. So all that stuff is very fluid, and I don't think that Juan Soto's brother is holding up – I don't think he's going to hold up a trade or anything like that. that maybe that is a good transition point to talk about the Futures game, because maybe we saw a couple of the guys that could inevitably be in a Juan Soto trade package. It's a weird thing,

because it's not as if your only context for these prospects is the Futures game. You are familiar with these guys, but I am curious, and I know some of this answer because I was there, but Ben doesn't, and neither do our listeners. No, nothing. Yeah, let's say a peacock. I'm curious if there were guys who kind of shifted your opinion of them based on their performance in that game or in batting practice for that matter.

So I don't know. Let's see. Did anyone really move the needle for me? Francisco Alvarez is just the second ranked prospect. He had the best BP for the second year in a row. Yeah, it was pretty incredible. Jordan Walker mentioned before, Jordan Walker took BP. This is not a knock on him. It's totally fine. He wasn't trying like some of the other guys were trying. Like young Kenzie Noel was trying to hit the ball as far as he could out of Dodger stadium yeah and jordan walker was not and so for jordan walker to do the things he did in bp

effortlessly was pretty nuts but again like this is one of the better prospects in baseball so totally expected there yuri perez the marlins this is a freakish guy. We already kind of knew this, but seeing him in person was different. I think the only pitcher I've ever seen who is this big and this athletic and powerful and balanced and elegant at this size is CeCe Sabathia. I think that what Yuri Perez might be is very, very special. And he's in the midst of like a four tick velocity bump and he was already really good last year. The Marlins have a pretty good track record of developing these guys. And so I think that Yuri Perez is, he's a different kind of cat. So that's definitely one. Everybody else, like it was nice to see Curtis Meade looking svelte,

which is not quite how he looked during fall league last year, even though he was mashing. He didn't really care. Like this guy is in the middle of the top 100 during the offseason. But some of the Australian guys, like they come over here, especially when they're young, and they're getting their feet under them in terms of being like a pro athlete. So that was going on.

Obviously, everyone knows about how hard Mason Wynn can throw now, which is nice. I was going to ask you about that because that was like everyone was obsessing over O'Neal Cruz with his 97 point whatever it was. And then Mason Wynn just blows that away with 100.5. And then Mason Wynn just blows that away with 100.5. I know he was drafted as a two-way guy, although he's been a position player in the minors this far for the Cardinals and shortstop. But I had to watch that clip a few times because I thought it skipped a frame or something or I was watching it sped up. And it was funny, too, because he didn't have to gun it over there like that because the runner was out by, like, several steps. And it was just like, I am showing off for the scouts and the fans here, which, hey, good for him. But, like, if you could do that and granted, like, he had time and he took a few steps and he gathered himself.

But, like, if you could do that, what can you do off a mound? Like, should he be pitching? So I was sitting with a GM and an AGM and a pro director during the Futures game. And they looked over at me and they were like, is he still pitching? And I said, no. And they all scoffed. So Wynn was actually kind of tough to scout during his showcase summer and part of it was because he wasn't really pitching and so there might have been some

injury stuff there it wasn't really clear he was drafted basically as a shortstop so i haven't done work retroactively to see what was going on there but when he was pitching you know on the mound as a 17 year old he was a ridiculously athletic 3-6 with a hammer breaking ball. He's just a wee guy. So I think there were durability concerns. And the fact that he didn't throw very much at times was feeding into that. Or maybe there was something that was causing it. But his end zone contact rates and his chase rates are

very good he's a disciplined hitter he's still in terms of like the measurable power like you know his high his peak exit velocities are like a 30 on the scale but during bp it's closer to like 40 45 looking raw but uh you know he's like he's a baby in double a so maybe that's part of why the the exit belos are not nuts so he is a obviously you can see what he can do at shortstop having an arm like that will cover up some other ills for some guys this guy doesn't really have anything like that going on he's rangy and athletic and all that other stuff so you hardly need range if you can throw that hard it's just like you can stand back i I think off the top of my head,

there are like four or five guys on the board who have 80 arm grades entering the year. So it was O'Neal Cruz, Mason Wynn, Yoelke Cespedes, who Meg has seen, like really aired out. Yeah, geez. Meg and I were at a Mariners-White Sox spring training game,

and he hosed the runner tagging from second to third from the warning track and basically dead center field. It was pretty spectacular. It was one of the better throws I've seen. And then one of the guys who the Royals called up as part of their 10 unvaxxed, you know, going to Canada trip. So Nathan Eaton, who I've seen play like third base and right field. I think that guy's got an eight arm as well. So people should be on the lookout for that guy.

Nathan Eaton, he's an interesting kind of utility type in the Royal system. Anybody else in the Futures game really blow me away. I mean, Yonkenzi Noel in the Guardian system, 21-year-old, third base, first base, probably first base. He's had some of the bigger eggs at VLOs and minors for a little while now, but he's also been much more physical than the players he's typically played against at the lower levels of

the minors. And this year he's finally reached the upper levels. His batting practice was kind of ridiculous. Bobby Miller, the guy who started for the NL team, Dodgers prospect, was sitting 100, plus plus change-ups, through one really good curveball at 80 miles an hour a bunch of good sliders at 86 fastball shape is not the best it's never really been the best but there's just enough going on there that he's quite good i want to say that that's about it i gotta figure out what i want to do with taj bradley with Tampa Bay. He's in that Spencer Strider area where I believe in this fastball. It's mid to upper nineties with huge carry. His delivery is super athletic and easy. He's just pumping fastballs past everyone. And then he's got this like upper eighties cutter

thing, which sometimes is pretty good at other times sucks. And that's basically what Spencer Strider was until basically two or three starts after I saw him here in Arizona when all his secondary pitches got harder by about three miles an hour. I don't know if he's just throwing the crap out of them or if they actually made a change. It was just one of those things where, you know, this guy's been dominating, even though in essence to grade his pitches in a vacuum, he had one elite pitch and everything else was just okay. But the fact that big league hitters have to kind of cue themselves for that elite pitch probably impacts how the other stuff plays. And so trying to drill down on that for Taj Bradley will be interesting. I'm still not totally sure what I think. I only saw the guy for an inning. Mason Wynn's middle name, by the way, is Blaze, which seems appropriate. That's fantastic.

Seemed like there should have been flames coming out of that ball as it was traveling across the infield. So just a few impressions about the All-Star Game, the Home Run Derby. You were both at the All-Star Game. You watched the Derby like the rest of us out here across the country. And I won't say that I saw every second of each of these events, but everything I saw was fun. I enjoyed myself. I feel like these events are a force for good baseball-wise. I feel like MLB has figured out some stuff as far as nailing the, this is an exhibition, it should be fun. We're just promoting the stars, be they young, be they old. I think they've really kind of gotten the hang of that and stopped insisting that it means something from a competitive standpoint.

It's just how do we make it most fun? How do we make it a platform for the players? The week was kind of the Julio show, even though Soto ended up beating him in the home run derby. He was sort of the star of the derby. He hit the most homers. It was kind of like a 2019 Vlad type situation where he didn't win, but everyone will remember his performance and the display that he put on.

And it was just a lot of fun, I think, just to see the generational aspect of it with Pujols and Soto and Julio, like the wizened 23-year-old veteran Juan Soto coming down to the 21-year-old Julio in the finals, but then having the ancient Pujols and just like everyone being totally into his presence there and having it be like a Ted Williams at the 99 All-Star Game situation. Well, he's not that old. But he did look like he needed to sit down and maybe take a breather for a while there. When he maybe upset Schwarber, it was like, wait, I have to go again? I'm kind of tired. But no, it was just a lot of fun.

I think both events were fun. So what was it like in person, or what were your Home Run Derby thoughts watching from not as far afar? I mean, my main Homer and Derby thought was that I'm just really jazzed that Julio Rodriguez is a mariner. That was an incredible performance. I enjoyed, there were several moments

during the Schwarber-Pujols first round where it started to become clear that Schwarber was not going to pull it out. And Pujols is looking at us and he's like, oh God, I got to keep hitting home runs now. Yeah. It started to become clear that like Schwarber was not going to pull it out. Bowles was looking at Swiss like, oh, God, I got to keep hitting home runs now. Yeah. So that was kind of funny. I mean, I think that any time that the final in one of those things comes down to two of the brightest young stars in the game, like you said, it's just good for baseball. said it's just it's just good for baseball you know you have this 21 year old phenom who i think had a high enough prospect profile and has been on a team that has won like 14 games in a row that

you know people probably have some sense of who julio rodriguez is if they are baseball fans but like people know who julio is now like he's he had he had quite the you know coming out party the whole weekend so that was very cool and yeah like it was it was cool to have pools and and cabrera in the in the game and you know they didn't really do much but like we got to see john carlo hit like a tank a tank of a home run felt that one in my chest from the from the auxiliary box yeah the auxiliary box which was in orange county yeah in another state aka like out and left and so we had a very we had a very cool vantage on that home run and it because it looked like it was gonna hit us emphatic in a way that was pretty

incredible but yeah it was just like the the energy at dodger stadium was amazing i will say the following you know dodger dogs they're just okay they're just hot dogs guys they're just normal ballpark hot dogs well they're bigger than normal but okay they're long ballpark hot dogs look for it hasn't already run there's there's a sports illustrated story that's gonna be good yeah it's great the futures game was the best attended futures game that i've ever been to and it made me realize maybe it was because bad bunny was in the the celebrity soft game afterward. I did not realize how much young women like Bad Bunny, but they like him a lot.

But I'll tell you what, like the Latino people in LA, they showed out for all of this stuff. If there's anything that's going to prevent baseball from going the way of like boxing and horse racing in our country, it's going to be them. I could way of like boxing and horse racing in our country it's going to be them i could not believe how packed it was for the futures game it was awesome it was very cool and that's it was and again like bad bunny is like puerto rican elvis i guess like they were screw i've never heard women scream that way.

And then even when his swing, when he swung the bat, I was like, for sure. Now everyone is like out on off of this. Right. But no, they were just like,

yeah, you got a hit. And I was just like, all right, fine. I guess you guys don't really care how that looks, but, but yeah, like best attended futures game

i've ever been to the home run derby takeaway was boy it's hard to hit a ball out of dodger stadium left-handed yeah which made soto all the more impressive in my opinion like yeah and i love the contrast in styles too where julio was hitting every ball to the same spot basically and soto was just spraying them all over the place, which is something that Acuna will do too. Like, they'll just hit them opposite field. Like, they'll go straight away. Some guys are just, like, dead red, pulling everything.

And other guys, even in the home run derby, they can't turn off that, like, hit-to-all-fields approach, and it works for them. But mostly, I don't know, Juan Soto, to look at a 23-year-old guy guy who's a year year and a half older than all the college players who we just talked about in the draft and already feel pretty strong resolve that that's a hall of fame player yeah uh that's nuts so that was a big thing for me too where I was trying to make like a visual – every time I see that guy from here on out, like I'm trying to make a visual memory of it. Let us know how often you see that guy.

Well, yeah, because – well, he's – they're here in Arizona next. So I'm going. Yeah, they're coming through soon. Well, you will literally see him then. But maybe not that many people like him because they're just not that many. I think Kiebert, I want to see Kiebert Ruiz too. But yeah, that was a big one. And then the day, the All-Star game itself was, it was about Kershaw.

It was about Pujols. It was about Cabrera. It was about, you know, the Shark Week blimp being threatened by Giancarlo Stanton. Yeah. Byron Buxton cleaning out 93. Yeah. Giancarlo Stanton. Yeah.

Byron Buxton cleaning out 93. Yeah. Well above the zone, which I love when he goes up and gets one that's like eight inches above the zone. And wham! Like, that's the best. Yeah. So satisfying to watch him do that. And then just watch, you know,

there's a deep, deep part of my core that when Kyle Schwarber's got his Philly Zuni on, and there he is in the box against immanuel class a and it's a one run game and i'm just like come on buddy like cheat on one and just try to rip it out of there like come on it's been like a decade since you guys have won one what the hell yeah nine in a row now right yep for us to be in the auxiliary box and see how late he is on class a classes cutter and just be like, these guys got no chance against him. Like there was a part of me that felt, you know,

depleted just knowing that this was going to happen again. And if I have any regrets from the weekend, it is that I did not, I'm a snob or whatever about going on the field for futures game BP. Cause like, it's hard to watch BP from there you're around other people you're you're conversing you're blocked by large human beings who are in front of you between you and the cage but like Jimmy Rollins was down there you know like I

didn't go down and and tell Jimmy Rollins stuff about growing up watching him play baseball and Michael Bourne was at the draft and I didn't like stop working to be like hey I was at your big league debut and you know you were my favorite Philly for a while I've got like two custom Michael Bourne jerseys from being at your big league debut and like following your career and the way you played was is like a bygone style of play but you were the best at it for like five years you didn't get to say that to those two guys and so you know folks listen to this if you have the opportunity to do something like that just get over yourselves and do it yeah it does frustrate me just still the variability in the home run derby pitcher

performance which i feel like it's just like it's such a huge factor in who wins these things. Like I want it to come down to who is just best at hitting homers, but then it inevitably seems to come down to like, not just who has the best control and can just put it where they want it, but like who is rushing, who seems to like feel the urgency

and realizes that like picking up the pace is pretty important. And like there are bragging rights and there's actual money at stake and everything it just seems like some guys like they don't get briefed on the fact that like no you have to hurry like it really it does matter i almost wish like i wouldn't want to take away that element of like you know players can choose their own pitchers and sometimes it's a family member someone who's like has some special sentimental significance to them. But also like I just want more consistency.

Like I'm not saying replace them all with like a pitching machine or something. But like I don't know, just like make the pace more consistent or like impress upon these pitchers that like, hey, you got to go here. Like this comes down to just like how many opportunities they have to swing. Although I guess there's some value to like having more of a breather between swings. But still, I think that just like picking up the pace is more advantageous. And I enjoyed just like the meme-ification of Pete Alonso who cares about winning the Home Run Derby more than anyone cares about anything else. And it's like meditating and doing deadlifts like kind of oddly, like not heavy deadlifts, but still. He has this whole home run derby prep routine.

Ben's out here like, do you even lift, bro? I just, I mean, like, I'm not saying he should have lifted heavier for this. I'm like, why is he lifting at all like in the middle of the derby? Yes, it was weird. For sure. Part of where that comes from is the juxtaposition with Julio's effervescence. Yeah. And like this wasn't really – Pete Alonso has been this way the whole time. Right.

And it was only a thing that the culture seemed to grab onto when he stood in contrast to julio yeah yeah that's us that's us that's not pete alonso and just because you probably didn't get to see the broadcast there were a couple things i enjoyed one was the ump cam right i think we need more ump cam like there's there's been some ump cams like college baseball i know that they have that or they do like the gopro style yeah yeah yeah like this wasn't even like the total fisheye lens type thing that i've seen before like this was more clear and i just i enjoy that perspective like i like getting to see the ball launched from from that angle so if umps are willing to wear these things then I welcome that in real games.

But also, I think the mic'd up pitcher-catcher combos. Now, I'm still staunchly opposed to in-game players mic'd up on the field in actual games that count. But in exhibition games, I love it. And in this case, so Alec Manoa was miked up. You had Nestor Cortez and his regular battery mate, Jose Trevino, was miked up here. And it was kind of cool. Like it seemed like it could be a disaster. It seemed like it could be my worst nightmare because I just I feel scared for everyone who is miked up on the field. And are they going to be distracted? And it seems like, I mean, with a with a pitcher too it's like you don't want to distract a pitcher while he's pitching like is it going to affect his command or like his reaction time and all of these things and

I don't know whether there's any future for that in real games and I kind of hope not but it was pretty fun like once they got over the initial awkwardness and smoltziness of it and Manoa was probably the perfect person to have do this because he's outgoing and charismatic and he really got into it and when you could hear him like saying what he was going to throw and like vocalizing his thought process about pitch selection and location and like how he's going to go after these hitters like that was fascinating to hear that in real time, even in an exhibition game. So on the one hand, like, yeah, it's more intrusive than at any other position with a pitcher.

But the benefit is much greater than if you have a first baseman or an outfielder mic'd up where they're not really like thinking that much or doing that much between pitches, whereas the pitcher is really like focusing and just giving you a window into that thought process, the most important part of the game. So definitely don't want this in real games still for multiple reasons. But in an exhibition, I was surprised by how well this worked. I thought it was great. I mean, in a real game, you'd have pace of play issues. You'd have safety issues.

If the pitch clock comes in, you just won't have time. Like, you know, you need to let pitchers like catch their breath and recover between pitches and everything. But in this case, I thought it worked really well. And that was sort of an upset for me who is usually opposed to these things. Did Liam Hendricks swear at all when he was mic'd up? He did not. But that is also another possible positive outcome. And you get the grunting and everything, which is kind of fun, too.

And Minoa was, like, taunting the hitters and, like, talking about the punchies he was racking up. And it was pretty great. And, like, asking the booth for the scouting report on this guy because he was, like, facing people he'd never faced before. So I enjoyed that. Again, just, like, leave it in the All-Star game. Leave it in spring training and everything, I think. Yeah. on this guy because he was like facing people he'd never faced before so i enjoyed that again just like leave it in the all-star game leave it in spring training and everything i think yeah but it was pretty cool so let's talk about the draft which i think was uh a tough draft for millennials like us just in terms of like confronting our aging and mortality. The 04 birthdays. Yeah, becoming a column of salt and dust.

Yes, and just watching every son of every player I grew up watching get drafted, including like Andrew Jones's son. And I remember watching Andrew Jones as a teenager and now, oh no. Anyway, I guess we could start along those lines maybe with the Orioles, who will not have the number one pick next year. I think it's safe to say they are now a decent, semi-respectable baseball team. But they do have one more number one pick, or they did, and they used it on Jackson Holiday, son of Matt Holiday. And this was a big draft for the Orioles because they had five of the top 100 picks. So this is big for them, including the number one, and they had the biggest bonus pool. And, you know, you've got to feel good about that as an Orioles fan, probably because the team at the major league level is looking up. You've got a good farm system. You've got some top tier prospects who were kind of close. And then now you're also seeding your system with a bunch of guys that you're getting in the draft now.

So how did they do? Did they make the most of those picks? Was it what you would have done at number one? At one, I would have done Tremar Johnson one, not basically like and cut a deal with him. This draft class, I think, is really, really good. The Orioles for the last handful of years have had among the best draft classes. Jackson Holiday is incredible. Him, Drew Jones, and Brooksley and Tremar Johnson were my top four. Jackson Holiday performed from a

bat to ball standpoint about as well, if not a little bit better than Tremar Johnson did. Just if I'm looking at balls in play play ratio to swinging strikes he was actually better than tamar on the summer showcase circuit a year ago against the elite pitching in the class the other high school kids in the travel ball circuit who aren't throwing 75 on a random tuesday night during spring varsity play like you'd see if you walk to your local high school feel like these are prospects he's playing against and he really really performed and had of this high school class and really of the entire draft class as good a shot to stay at shortstop as anyone.

Like is a high probability shortstop. And then over the winter, Jackson got big and strong. And during his spring break, he came to Arizona and with his high school team, his little brother's on the team too. And during his spring break, he came to Arizona with his high school team. His little brother's on the team too, and his little brother's really good too. But came to spring training, worked out for teams. And I saw a bunch of him as I was running around doing list stuff. He would be taking BP on one field while the Royals prospects were playing an intra-squad on the other.

And this first day I saw him was like blustery, windy, early spring, Arizona day. And this kid's putting balls out into the teeth of a headwind of a big league backfield. And I came home and if KG were still alive, he could vouch for this. That I was like, this guy's going in the top five and we need to move him right now. And he's like, come on, you saw one BP. And I was like, no, this is different. This guy's for real. I believe you. So Jackson, all of these were really good. Termar Johnson, also really good. Just in terms of like getting the most out of your whole class, I think the gap between Drew, Jackson, and Tamar is close

enough that if Tamar can cut a favorable deal that gives you one or two more big time prospects in this draft, that you should do that. I think Tamar Johnson's ability to handle the pressure of being an over one pick is like a dead lock. I don't know if you watched it and like have seen this kid just be a person at all on, on television, but I don't know if I've, if I've ever wanted a young man to be my son as much as Jamar Johnson. And so,

you know, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of pressure and attention that comes with this. And it has undone other young men in all the major sports to just have that put on them, whether you're Ryan Leaf or whatever. So I think Tremar Johnson is very capable of handling that. Not that Jackson Holiday is not.

Just that Tremar Johnson is special in this way. But the Orioles draft class as a whole, it's really good. I think everyone they took in the first five rounds, which is I think like seven players, is a good prospect. Holiday's incredible. Dylan Beavers from Cal who they took in the first competitive balance round. His swing is weird. It will be interesting to see how that evolves he is one of the tools your high school or college players in in the whole draft just like six foot four 215 plus run plus power

still has room for uh you know muscle on his frame without losing any of the speed his swing is just weird talk about holes in the swing this guy cannot catch up to velocity up and away from him swing just does not allow him to get there so can they correct that we'll have to see but there's huge ceiling if they can then the second round they took max wagner from clemson wagner did not begin the season as a clemson starter he entered a game as a replacement and kind of got hot and just never let go of a job. And he had some of the best numbers in all of college baseball. He's got really good hitters timing. His tools are more like closer to average. Where did I have him

ranked? I wonder. I gotta double check that. But I thought he was an okay second round pick. I think he's a good prospect. He's probably not who I would have used like a second round pick quite that high on, but he is pretty good. Judd Fabian, who out of the University of Florida, power, speed, center fielder, a lot of strikeouts, was drafted by the Red Sox last year, didn't sign, went back to Florida, ended up falling a little bit actually. He was picked here 67th. Third rounder Nolanolan mclean is a two-way guy from oklahoma state i like him better on the mound i think they announced him as a pitcher only it was huge power and a ton of strikeouts as a hitter relatively raw as a pitcher but it's big velocity and occasionally the slider is nasty too obviously maybe a tip of the iceberg

guy and then silas arin, who they took in the fourth round, a catcher out of Texas, just can really play defense. He's a really well-rounded prospect. I know people who think that he has a chance to just be an everyday catcher eventually, just be someone's everyday catcher. I think he's more in that high probability backup with a non-zero shot to be like a low-end regular but still for a fourth round pick like that's really good so even some of their their like down ballot guys adam crampton who they took in the ninth round out of stanford that guy can really play shortstop he's little and i don't think he's ever gonna hit for any kind of power or anything like that but it's not like stan Stanford doesn't have a weight room.

But he can really pick it. So I'm excited about him too. And I don't know if they're going to get some of these late day three guys done. Carter Young in the 17th round out of Vanderbilt. He had a great underclass career and then was really bad this year. Fell that far. He might go back to school. He's actually transferring to lsu like everybody

else and then andrew walters from miami in the 18th round i cannot figure out why this guy fell that deep huge he's like a 90 fastball guy at miami was walters but it's like 95 to 98 with huge carry he's got the quarterback like six foot four 220 pound big square shouldered guy just needs to find a secondary pitch and he is a big league reliever i i don't know what you know why this guy was there in the 18th round so i'm trying to run that down i'm not the only one who had this guy ranked high but i don't know if something happened here that i don't know about why he was there in the 18th round i don't know but if they can sign him that that would be good so there was going into day one a good deal of murkiness about who would go first overall because you know

baltimore was playing things so close to the vest but i think the perhaps biggest surprise of draft night was who went third overall for our listeners who did not get to enjoy you getting this piece of scoop and then sharing it with people. Like, talk about Kumar Rocker going to the Rangers. I'd like your thoughts on the rest of their draft because they picked him third and then did not pick again until I think, what, 109th when they got Brock porter and just sort of how he has changed from his days at vanderbilt yeah so i almost thought that people were lying to me at first like the first text that came through that was like it's kamar i was just like no come on but then text two and three came through and i don't know i think his deals for like two and a half million under slots

it helps them have more of a robust draft class than they were otherwise going to have because they lost comp picks for Semyon and Seager and Gray. Right. And I hope that Rocker is great and it's so fun that he and Jack Lighter are

in the same org. And certainly this is the type of guy who you want to get there fast because you don't know how many bullets are left and the Rangers want to be good relatively soon. Certainly in talking to folks about deadline stuff here coming up, the Rangers do not seem likely to sell. I don't even know if Martin Perez is going to move. Like the Rangers would like to be good soon so that people don't get fired.

So that helps serve that goal. This is an older guy who's been in the spotlight, who can handle himself in those moments. This is a College World Series and postseason hero and all that stuff. So there's that. At the same time, I had him ranked down close to 60th. I still have an impact grade on him as a 40 plus. I'm basically saying I'm scared, but there's upside. I have him evaluated like I would most of the fun two plus million dollar high school pitching prospects in a draft

just because there's so much risk in that demo. And I think that there is for Kamar as well. And I know that he was throwing hard in an indie ball, but it is terrifying to me that the guy who had shoulder surgery has come back with an arm slot that is almost literally 90 degrees lower than it was when he was kamar rocker like perfect game

sorry duke go home you know prep boys kamar rocker had a vertical arm slot and that's not this is a cross-bodied low arm slot now so you can't tell me that this guy's fine when he's literally changed everything that he's doing. That, yeah, like there's nothing to worry about. Everything was fine. He was totally healthy this whole time. And we just had the most dominant, famous college pitcher of the last, you know, this century, fundamentally change his delivery after college to now. Like, that's weird. So I want him to do well because he does not deserve to have been, you know, Tim Corbin's PRP voodoo doll, you know, which it sounds like is what he was. But he deserves to have a career that we've been hoping he would have since he was 14 years old, 15 years old, where it was like,

wow, look at this kid. And he was that more or less for most of the last half decade. And then for it to be taken away from him through no fault of his own would be terrible. I just hope that the Rangers hit the gas. Like, let's go. Let's see it because I don't know how long it's going to last. I thought the rest of their class was good. I did not expect them to do Porter. Yeah. I thought the Rays were going to do Porter. When the Rays were on the clock in the first round, there are times when the people in the draft rooms who I'm talking to,

to try to ascertain who's about to be picked so I can woe-jit on the fan graphs chat you know they get it wrong or someone in their room gets it wrong I had someone text me that that I was beating the AGM in their room and like they were getting some of the stuff wrong and like the GM was like you gotta tighten it up fan graphs guys the other thing but I thought that you know when the Rays were on the clock in the first round, I had multiple people going like, we're hearing that this might be Porter. As in Brock Porter, a high school pitcher from Michigan, who it's pretty violent delivery, but it's three plus pitches right now. I am the second ranked high school pitcher in the draft. And had him juiced more than I am typically comfortable juicing a high school pitching prospect, especially one whose delivery looks like this. 14th overall for you on our draft rankings.

And then the Rays took Xavier Isaac, who's like a husky high school first baseman. It seemed almost certain that he was going to be way under slot. They didn't do anything else with what we thought would be over slot money the rest of day one. And so I thought, okay, they have a deal with Brock Porter. They, they will pick him here on day two. And that is where that text was coming from is that people found out there was a deal,

but the razor just doing it in this order. But then Brock Porter goes pick one Oh nine to Texas here. So almost all of that, you know, so if they did rocker, I think, was it 5.2 million, I think is what it's been reported. So that was 2.4 below his slot. Brock Porter's slot was 500k, 560,000. So add, you know, the 2.4 to that and you get close to $3 million. And that's probably about what Brock Porter's bonus is going to be. And it wouldn't surprise me if every other prospect

in this draft class gets signed before Brock Porter does so that every cent of the Rangers bonus pool without them incurring a penalty ends up going to Brock brock porter at the very very end so i look forward to seeing him for at instructs i would assume uh rather than here on the complex just based on when he's going to sign and when the complex league ends here in arizona it's like a two-week window so i don't think he's going to be hot already to to be here and be hot in a different way and pitch on the complex in surprise i would guess that we just see him get lathered up during instructs, but for them to get two first round talents when they didn't have a second or third round pick,

that's pretty good. And some of the other guys that they took, I have skepticism around for one reason or another, like Chandler Pollard and Tommy Specht in the fifth and sixth round, two high school hitters who I, you know, I just don't, I'm skeptical about their hit tools, but Specht actually, as I went back and looked at how he did from a bat-to-ball standpoint on the showcase circuit, was better than I would have guessed. He's a really physical left-handed hitting outfielder, like 6'3", 2'10", or something like that.

Chandler Pollard, pretty interesting as well. And then Luis Ramirez in the seventh round, he just carved at long beach state and dealt with injuries he's a little pitch ability righty with four distinct pitches coming out of long beach he looked really good at the beginning of the 2022 season i think it was mississippi state who he and the other long beach kids i think they might have swept them or they at least took two out of three mississippi state the defending college world series champions. Like they kind of took it easy over the off season. That seemed like they did not have a great year, but Luis Ramirez can do some stuff too. I really liked him as a seventh rounder. If he's healthy, I think he's a backend starter moves pretty fast. Rocker was one of the top picks who is not the son of a major leaguer. He's the son of an NFL

player. Everyone is the son of someone or related to someone in some way. This was the first draft ever where the top two picks were sons of major leaguers. One was Holiday. The other was Drew Jones, son of Andrew Jones, who went number two to the Diamondbacks and is also a right-handed hitting center fielder with power and good defense. So I wonder whether this means anything. And we got a question from Zachary Levine, former baseball prospectus, writer, frequent former guest of the show. And he wrote, as much as I find a good father-son story to be heartwarming, I find the recent prominence of them concerning as well. I'm a horse racing fan. And one of the

problems that sport has is that when young people do get prominent roles, whether as trainers, TV analysts, etc., they very frequently are the children of people already in racing. It's a sport that takes specialized knowledge and equipment, long hours in certain facilities. And maybe just as importantly, it's not a sport with mass appeal that would lead to a lot of competition for spots. So it's understandable that children of racing people would be better set up to move into the racing world and that they'd be overrepresented in who's interested in doing it. That's what worries me with baseball. The people best set up to get good at baseball are the children of baseball players. That part has always been true. But I wonder if the phenomenon we're seeing isn't more and better children of big leaguers, but the gradual disappearance of everyone else. I don't think baseball has a nepotism problem in the playing ranks where

players are getting chosen too often because they are children of big leaguers. But I wonder if you think part of the cost and youth participation problem is that children of big leaguers are just going to overrepresent more and more, or if this is even a problem at all. And I haven't done the math to figure out like the percentage of legacy picks or anything, but anecdotally, it certainly seems like a lot of them. So Zach's wondering if this is a symptom of something like are too many kids priced out of baseball? Like you have to specialize too much. You have to be a person of means and sons of baseball players are just better positioned to do that.

Yeah, I think that that touches on most of what I think are the driving variables. You have – obviously, you have the genetic component. Like the same reason I have hair on my back is because I'm my dad's kid, you know? because I'm my dad's kid, you know? So it's just, if you're Andrew Jones' kid, I don't know that you have like a genetic memory that gives you center field feel, but I bet you're going to be big, strong, and athletic. You're certainly more likely to.

And then there is absolutely the financial component of it, which is a huge driver, especially in baseball, where so much of the scouting part of it is done on the travel circuit where you have to fly to fort myers every six months and stay in a hotel and your kid's growing so he's got to have fresh spikes every six months and break in a new glove and like these travel ball tournaments they cost money just to play in you know it's a couple thousand bucks per team and uh folks are pitching in to do that and they require wood bats which are not cheap and and they break and so there's all sorts of like the financial component of it i think is is a gigantic one there is the being

around baseball variable where sure the the game just becomes more intuitive to you because you're around it from birth. No one has to tell you when you're in high school procedurally, it's first and third. This is what you need to be thinking. There are less than two outs. These are things that just are known to you. It's not a thing that you have to be – I mean, you have to learn them at some point. But it is just more likely that when everyone else is still trying to level up from a baseball procedure standpoint, you have that foundation already. You can just kind of go out and play. And so I think that that's probably part of it too. I'm not sure what the future holds for some of this stuff.

probably part of it too. I'm not sure what the future holds for some of this stuff. I think that we have, you know, between Perfect Game and Prep Baseball Report, we have a couple of titans of this. Even Under Armour couldn't hack it as far as baseball showcase stuff. And I don't really think they're doing any of that stuff anymore. Like they haven't had a big Under Armour All-American showcase game in Chicago at Wrigley Field for the last couple of years. I'm not sure that that's even a thing anymore. You do have some of these, people know that it's an opportunity to make money, which is why people have tried to get into this business in the past. Prep Baseball Report did it and has really succeeded. And now they're kind of in bed with Major league baseball they're running like the draft league and the appy league and you know you you have to have a huge network of like cheap labor basically interns who sit at when i

go to a perfect game event at one of the team's complexes here in arizona they are often taking place on the quad on the backfield so there are four games going on simultaneously on like the cloverleaf quad and there's a person or two sitting keeping score at each game they have like gopro cameras that they're setting up so that families who haven't made the trek can like pay for access to sign in and watch them sort of live stream and like these are mostly young people who are just trying to get their foot in the door in baseball to some extent. It's a lot of junior college players or high school kids. And they work at an event like this a couple of times a year. And that's the extent of it. And like

Prep Baseball Report, Perfect Game have that employee base baked into their operation already. And so when Major League Baseball wants to run stuff like that, they've outsourced the logistics of it to these companies who have experience doing it. And yeah, it costs a lot of money. But I do think that the emailer did touch on enough of the variables. I'm just not sure what it holds for the future. This is not going to end this is going to be like this for the foreseeable future i think some of it is just geographic it

is just much easier to go outside and have a catch or take bp here in january or in florida or in georgia than it is basically everywhere else. And there is something, I haven't like really drilled down on this in my own skull yet, but there's just something about the Southeastern part of our country that really cares about sports. And that's Georgia and Florida and Alabama and Mississippi and the Carolinas.

They crank out most of our baseball talent. Southern California is kind of slipped and the southeastern part of the country is where it's at now. I'm not sure, I mean, that's true for basically every sport and I'm not sure why that is. Well, I want to make sure that we touch on Drew Jones because you had him as your top prospect in this class. I

think that you were not alone in that opinion and thinking that he was just the best guy. And he fell to Arizona and now joins what is going to be a really great outfield eventually for the Diamondbacks. So what should folks know about Drew Jones and what should they sort of anticipate when it comes to Arizona's trajectory here? Yeah. I do think he's the most talented player in the class pretty easily. I don't know if he's going to be the best. I first saw Drew at 14. He came to the Breakthrough Series or sometimes it's been the Dream Series here in Arizona. It takes place on Martin Luther King weekend.

That is a popular weekend for all these travel ball organizations to have an event here in Arizona because it's a long weekend for the kids from school. So Perfect Game will often do an event. Under Armour used to do stuff, but that's sort of gone away. And then Major League Baseball, Team USA, like the RBI program, does a workout. It's just like bullpens, BP, infield, outfield, not really any games for minority prospects for whom they foot the bill and have like the interface with ex-big leaguers, the Troy Hawkins, Junior Spivey, like the ex-Big Leaguers who are part of RBI initiatives come here, Tom Gordon, and it's great. It is almost always the best event that weekend. And so Drew was at that event at 14. Obviously, Drew didn't need the help to get there. But at 14, it's a

skinny little thing. He was putting balls out of Tempe Diablo during BP. And so was Elijah Green. Like the roster from that event, I still have it in a cardboard box that sits under my desk and is ostensibly my filing cabinet. The roster from that event one day is going to be hanging in Cooperstown.

I think because of everyone. Tamar was there. It is every good draft prospect of color from like the last four years was at that thing. And so now he's a young man now. And he's like 6'4", 190. And he is a black hole in center field. And he could probably play shortstop if they really wanted to try it. But he's just so good in center field that they're not going to.

And all the power that's there. And there's still more to come because he's got room for another 30 pounds or so. His swing is... He didn't pull the ball at all during the showcase circuit. Not in the air. All the damage he was doing was center field, right of center field. There's something going on. It's hard for me to articulate.

You'd think I'd be able to do it after being in baseball for 15 years. I'd be able to see this and be like, why is this not cool? There's just something about how long his entry is, but it's not even. He can flatten out at the top of the zone like there's just something that he gets tied up on the inner third and still has to work away and there are times when like that is fine and i think you could argue that it is a better foundation than if he were only pulling the ball. But it was still like weird to see his spray charts from the last two summers, basically like 690 pitches or so and no airborne pull side contact.

And so it was scary enough for me. I mean, he's going to rank like 10th on the pro list. But there is something weird here that if the Diamondbacks can fix it or whatever, maybe that's not the right verb to use. But if that can be polished, then fine. He's just going to be Byron Buxton with a better hit tool in in all probability but boy yeah he's he's just so gifted I don't think he's without risk but in a vacuum I would absolutely take this guy first in the draft of course it's not in the vacuum you have a bonus pool system and all this other stuff but I cannot wait until it will be we will be obsessed bill mitchell and i will as soon as

he puts pen to paper and is officially a d-back we will be bugging somebody with the diamondbacks every day until he gets added to their complex level roster and then we will be there. I remember how many people were there because it's here, right? So when Tukey Toussaint was drafted, it was a big deal. Tukey was famous. And when he made his pro debut, it was the best attended complex level game I've ever been to. Roland Heman was there rest in peace luis gonzalez was there there were a lot of people there and it's just the the d-backs backfield is just open to the public people are gonna come and it's gonna be a zoo and i cannot wait it's gonna be unlike any environment you know that any of the complex kids have experienced at

this point it's gonna kind of be weird because they're playing now and it's a you know it's desolate. It's their families and a couple scouts at most. And but when Drew Jones debuts I'm sure it's going to be an absolute zoo. Yeah. So you know I'm always interested in the oddities and the outliers. and the outliers. So with their 13th round pick, the Orioles drafted a seven foot tall pitcher, Jared Beck, who is one of a couple draftees who played for the Savannah Bananas. The twins took a part-time knuckleballer, Corey Lewis, with their ninth round pick. And then, of course, the Brewers took an ambidextrous pitcher, Gerangelo Sanja, in the 18th round. And it

seems like he has better stuff than Pat Venditti did. So is Sangia actually, I mean, he's obviously interesting, but is he interesting as a prospect beyond the ambidextrous angle? And is there anyone else who really stands out or like any realistic two-way player candidates? You know, I'm always into those guys, anyone who was drafted as one and might actually stick as one. So anyone who breaks the mold a little bit, who comes to your mind? Yeah. So Gerandulo Sanchia is good.

I've seen him a handful of times now. Which hand? Both. Projectable. He was at the combine. It's not always me that does the jokes like that. Sometimes it's Ben. You know, he was at the combine. It's not always me that does the jokes like that. Sometimes it's Ben. You know, he was at the combine.

He's projectable up to 95 from the right side, sitting closer to 90 from the left. The breaking ball has good shape, doesn't have a lot of power right now, but there's enough length there that it's a promising pitch and you want to project on him as an athlete physically, like all that's there to do that. Obviously guys like this are probably relievers. I think that he'll go out as some sort of starter. I don't know if he's going to sign

just because of when he was drafted, but I think, you know, in college ball, maybe he'll start. It's just, I think he could use the reps with the secondary stuff. And so I think it'll be good. Jared Beck, I didn't know about until he was picked, but yeah, he's like averaging 88. He's been up to 92. He is another like overwhelming fastball guy. You know, it's like 85% fastballs. You know, for Savannah, that's fine. Like, I don't know what the quality of indie, of, you know, campy indie baller hitter is. Yeah. But I assume that he did pretty well there. It is kind of crazy that he's also left-handed.

So it's not like he's got this beautiful down mound delivery, but his arm action is really clean for a seven foot guy. Who else did you mention? Oh yeah. Corey Lewis. Corey Lewis. I tipped you off to from UC Santa Barbara. He rarely throws the knuckleball. He's more like a, you know, three or four pinch pitch ability college junk baller, but he does have a knuckler. You know, know he's he's probably an upper level org guy as far as the two-way guys are concerned yeah there were a couple of them who were announced as two-way players including a first rounder reggie crawford out of yukon who i assumed was just going to be a pitcher he blew out and did not play at all during his junior year but he was the talk of

team usa last summer because he was sitting like 97 to 99 and had huge power in in bp so giants pick he's yeah he's a giant's pick at 30 the giants are are pretty incredible at at dev they've really since the new regime has come in, not just what they're doing from a dev standpoint, but how quickly the infrastructure for them to implement all this stuff was installed is pretty incredible. So I've been a Reggie Crawford skeptic. Sure, there's all this arm strength, but who doesn't have that nowadays? This is the most cynical version of my skepticism, by the way. This guy can't land his slider.

His delivery is a mess. Can he really hit? I didn't think so, and I just assumed he was going to be a pitcher. But now that he's in this org, I may just eat crow on this one eventually. Did they have? All right. So the draft tracker on MLB.com does have two-way player distinction. Yeah.

Jack Branigan at Notre Dame is another one who I just sort of assumed was going to be a pitcher. He's pretty standard mid-90s with a slider reliever prospect on the mound. But the Pirates in the third round announced him as a two-way player. And then I don't know anything about Dylan Phillips, who the Angels took in the eighth round and announced as a two-way player, even though I for sure have seen him because I've seen Kansas State each of the last two years. I don't have anything off the top of my head about him. And then in the 20th round, I assume he will not sign, is Austin Charles, who 6'6", 215, Southern California shortstop. 45 to 55 overall area that had like boards fallen a certain way that they might have gotten creative with their draft class in a way that Austin Charles would have been picked in that range. Specifically, the Padres seem to be kicking the tires on him. The Cubs seem to be kicking the tires on Austin Charles in that like, you know, early second round late uh comp area but Dylan Lesko ended up

going to the Padres in the first round and so I think that that probably like if the Padres maybe would have been able to like cut a deal in the first maybe that would have happened um I think that most folks prefer Charles as a shortstop third base prospect at 6'6", rather than on the mound. But there are some teams who, just from speaking to his camp, that, yeah, are like, we want to announce this guy as a two-way player. We think he could do it.

So he is one to watch as he matriculates to school. I forget where he's committed, but I know I've got it listed here somewhere. UC Santa Barbara. So that'll be pretty cool. So folks, if you're in the... I know it's a trek listed here somewhere. UC Santa Barbara. So that'll be pretty cool. So folks, if you're in the... I know it's a trek for some of you guys who live in Southern California proper,

but Santa Barbara is where he's going to go to school. Oh, and I got one for you too, Ben. This guy from Central Arkansas named Tyler Cleveland. I think of anyone who I've ever put on the board before a draft that this guy throws the least hard. He's like 84 to 87, super athletic, submarine, above average slider, above average changeup, plus command.

Just like if Nick Sandlin didn't throw quite as hard or like he's like in that C-sheck, you know, that mold, he just commands the crap out of it. I just really think he's going to be something. If he can be made to throw harder, which might be a little bit more difficult for, you know, the sidearm submarine type guys, then maybe he could be really good. But his numbers are ridiculous. And that was just one of those where I was like, you know, I flagged this guy because of his numbers. And I start to do real work at nailing down, like, exactly what I think about him.

like exactly what I think about him and through this was through film study because of synergy I wouldn't ordinarily otherwise be able to just like watch pitch by pitch video on a guy from central Arkansas and you know obviously Gavin Stone and what we mentioned earlier in the Dodgers system comes out of central Arkansas and there was developmental meat on the bone there that the Dodgers took advantage of I think this is an interesting thing that teams are doing is what college programs are not good at developing pitching, who is regressive in terms of pitch data usage and pitch design, because those are the ones who have the biggest gap between what they are and what they could be. So you see teams like Cleveland taking pitchers from Arizona State. You see smart teams taking pitchers from Virginia because those are the programs where pitchers get worse. I think that Central Arkansas, nothing against – there are so many mid-major programs in that part of the country.

Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech, they get really good at developing baseball players. Central Arkansas, I'm not really sure. Gavin Stone made huge leaps and bounds in pro ball. And so I was kind of interested to see how this Tyler Cleveland guy is going to pan out. I think he was definitely drafted by who? Oh, the Mariners took him. Great. That makes me feel very good. I am confident that they, based on their recent track record, will get something out of him. So it is always a mistake to try to grade a draft like a couple of days after it is complete because we will not see these guys even hit the complexes

for a little while, let alone make potential big league debuts. But you have opinions about the players in this draft and sort of their relative merits. So which teams had classes that you really liked and which teams did you think did either a less good job or a more befuddling kind of job? I thought Atlanta's class was really good. I think as terrified as I am of high school pitching,

that the depth of it that they got in this draft is pretty exciting. And they're another org where I feel confident in the dev group. I don't know anyone from them, not on the dev side anyway, but just what they've been able to do with guys like Spencer Strider, certainly like Kyle Muller and some, you know, and Tukey and Kyle Wright. Kyle Wright kind of found it eventually, but it has been mixed. But Owen Murphy in the first round, high school pitcher from Illinois, J.R. Ritchie in the first competitive balance round, high schooler from Meg's neck of the woods in Seattle. Both prototypical high school pitching prospects, big athletic, High school pitching prospects, big, athletic, fastball carry, breaking ball.

Great. Give me that, and I want that raw material, and then we will polish up the rest. Cole Phillips in the second round, blew out during the spring. Another high school kid, this one from Texas. Up to 100, 94 to 98 for the most part, below average secondary stuff. So arm strength only flyer. Spencer Strider specifically, I know, reworked his slider while rehabbing from TJ. So I think that the Braves, that happened at Clemson, but I think the Braves have some experience at doing pitch design stuff during the latter part of the rehab process. So that'll be interesting.

And then Blake Burke halter from Auburn in the, like the second sandwich round pick 76 overall, this guy's from Auburn late season explosion in the college postseason, you know, flashing three above average or better pitches average, like 93 during the course of the year, but was bumping five to seven when the adrenaline was pumping in the college playoffs. So like him. And then Drake

Baldwin in the third round, really athletic, offensive oriented catcher from Missouri State. I really dig him. He was not on the board before the draft. And I dug in after they took him where they did. And I love love him he should have been on there from i just missed him uh he's good and he'll be you know like i'll just correct that and he'll be on the braves list here in short order and then unc charlotte he's really a first baseman david mccabe 6-6 guy with like a seven percent swinging strike rate or something like that. Like just freaky data and size. So he's kind of a fun sleeper. And then I like their sixth rounder, Seth Keller as well.

Another just athletic two-way guy. They drafted him as a pitcher. He was 92-95 at the combine. Secondary stuff was, you know, but the delivery and athleticism are right. And he hit a ball 105 at the combine. Just good athlete. They like these two-way guys who they do stuff with.

Michael Harris is one of those. Milwaukee's draft I loved. I love Eric Brown Jr. from Coastal Carolina. Ben, if you haven't seen his swing, you should go find it. It is, I'm sure that it is a derivation of somebody else more cleanly but there is like some justin turner elements to it once once the weird like his bat like comes in front of his face as he sets up it's not like council where it's that high i'm trying. For sure in my mind's eye. There's someone who is similar to this. But once he gets moving.

And his hands start to load. It is more like Justin Turner. Really athletic second baseman. Played shortstop at Coastal. But I don't think he's got the arm for that. But a lot of contact. Jason Mizorowski. Their second rounder.

From Crowder College in Missouri. I had him ranked in the back of the first round. This is another freakish 6'7", 190, huge power balance in the delivery. Just what he was doing at the combine compared to a bunch of the Division I pitchers who were there was not normal. I would absolutely have taken this guy over,

Connor Prelip, et cetera. Just freaky size, arm strength up to a hundred, got to polish the command. But, but, you know, Milwaukee took a bunch of these types of guys that I like either left-handed hitting or switch hitting compact, short levered contact first up the middle players. Robert Moore from Arkansas. He's Dayton Moore's kid did not have a good year. I'm taking the long view with that guy. I had him stuffed still towards the back of my 45 future value tier. I just don't want to move off of him too much.

That was sort of an overreaction by the industry to do so. Dylan O'Rea, a Canadian shortstop who was, I forget, he went to some some school but I saw him with like a Canadian travel team called the Langley Blaze who come to Arizona every spring to play some of the junior colleges down here he's another one like lefty lefty hitting up the middle probably second baser center field can really run a lot of contact uh Matthew Wood from Penn State lefty hitting catcher a lot of contact. Will Rudy in the fifth round, they took a bunch of junior college pitchers, did Milwaukee. In addition to Mizorowski, they took Will Rudy from Cal Poly Pomona, really athletic, projectable, good delivery,

all of that stuff they're going to teach the rest. So I really liked Milwaukee's draft as well. Obviously, some of the teams who just picked high or had a lot of pick, like the Reds. The Reds had a good draft. Cam Collier, 17-year-old junior college player who played on Cape Cod this summer. I can't believe I'm saying that, but it's true. He's Lou Collier's son. He's quite good. Sal Stewart, Vandy commit third base, well-rounded, hit power blend in the first comp round. Logan Tanner from Mississippi State, one of the better defensive all-around catchers in the draft, performed for three years in the SEC. Then they cut, I'm assuming, a huge underslot deal in the comp B round with Justin Boyd, who I think is an org guy.

like the Comp B round with Justin Boyd, who I think is an org guy. Kenya Huggins. Kenya Huggins from Chipola Junior College in Florida. He's another one who's like 6'4", 240, 96 to 99, some plus sliders. Develop the rest. Cade Hunter, lefty hitting catcher from Virginia Tech in the fifth round. Physical power, relatively inexperienced for a college catcher. I was behind Carson Taylor. So not a lot of playing time for Kate Hunter until the last little bit. So it might be more ceiling there. I had him probably over-ranked. He got him in the

fifth round. I had him towards the back of the first. That's probably not right. Probably should work on that. Who did weird stuff? The Rays yeah xavier isaac in the first round i don't want to like you know he's a high school kid yeah you don't want to like pick on this young person because you happen to be a first rounder who and he is a prospect yeah he he is a prospect like he'll be on the raised list just towards the bottom like in the 35 plus tier somewhere it's huge lefty hitting first baseman power over hit it does sound like there was one other team who had him at least in their top 50 or so but other folks were saying that like the Rays are the only team on this guy they're the only ones whose decision makers rolled through to see him some of it is just is maybe biased because like this is a 240 pound

kid but you know the profile at first base is tough and to take high school kid in the first round where that's probably all he's going to do you'd like a little bit better of an idea than most of the industry seems to have about this particular guy and you do that by playing a lot of showcase ball and for the last couple years that has been hard in part because of covid but this isn't a guy who there's like a lot of at least that i have access to data and looks and then brock jones in the second round i don't think he's gonna hit tooled out you know built like a college football player because i think he was gonna to be one for a little while. Performed in the Pac-6 for three years, but I just do not see this guy's swing as it is currently constituted ever, ever, ever getting on top of those riding fastballs at the top of the zone that you just have to get on top of and i think the same is true of ryan surmack who's another like freakish physical specimen taken out of a small college illinois state like all when i was at the pac-12 tournament and talking with scouts and executives

about all of these pac-12 hitters who were like, where it's like, boy, this guy's got huge tools and he chases a lot or his swing is weird. There was something about him where the hit tool felt flimsy. Of that entire group, Dylan Beavers was the only one who I liked. But Brock Jones and Ryan Cermak were two of the other ones. And I don't think either of those guys are going to hit. I'm sure that the Rays will tell them both that. Chandler Simpson, who they took in with the 70th pick, he is fun and weird.

I like him. He's an 80-running second baseman who just doesn't swing and miss, just can really run. He's got no power. He just puts the ball in play and then hauls ass to first base and i kind of dig him but like most of the rest of their oh and their sixth rounder gary gill hill uh projectable high school pitcher from uh john f kennedy high school in in new york i like him as well but oh and then kate they took kate halimano to well move their classes okay i so i like some of these down ballot raid guys like i like you know kate halimano from hawaii his change-up is great and his velo popped at the beginning of the year and then kind of fell

off later but i just like what he's got to work with from like a frame athleticism the change-up's good uh for a 10th round pick i dig that but you know what? What Tampa Bay did at the very, very top was not really for me. Uh, Detroit, Detroit. No, Detroit was okay. I'm not a Troy Melton guy who they took in the fourth round. Drafting Troy Melton out of San Diego State is like, you know, you're misunderstanding fastball shape stuff. That guy gave gives up a lot of contact.

I don't really know who else's draft I didn't quite like off the top of my head. Man, the Mets draft was good. The Yankees draft was pretty good. Oh, the A's draft. I liked their first round pick, Daniel Susak. Fine. Catcher out of the University of Arizona. The track record for the U of A hitters

is not very good. It's a... Pac-12 pitching is typically not great. Tucson, as a hitting environment, is just favorable toward the hitters. And the way guys have come out of there and performed, rather, for the most part, not really performed,

it's a little bit concerning. I mean, Kenny Lofton's good, and Austin Wells is hitting. But, like, you know, Kevin Newman has been okay. Scott Kingery didn't do anything. Like, we might overvalue U of A hitters because they perform a little better on paper than they actually are. Susak is going to be interesting. His chase rates are really high, but he doesn't swing and miss a ton.

So like there is feel for contact there. He just has an expansive approach. He's an okay defensive catcher. He's huge. At his size. Yeah, he's huge. Yeah, you've seen him. Yeah, he's huge.

He's 6'4", 220. So, you know, how he develops physically is probably going to dictate how mobile he is back there. It's going to be interesting. I don't know that they're, I'm trying to think off the top of my head, like, what would I have done picking in the first round if not take Susak? I had Susak ranked like closer to 30th. It's not like it was a huge overdraft or anything like that. He just felt risky. And then so did a bunch of the rest of their class, like Henry Bolte, California high school outfielder. I watched this kid break a dormitory window at area codes last summer. Like he hit the ball so far at area codes that it hit one of the dorms and he busted a window. It was, it was, you know, most of the time area codes have been at Long Beach and they were at San Diego last year. So I never seen anything quite like that before.

I just don't know. Here's another one where I don't know if this kid's going to hit. His bat to ball skills scare me. And that's kind of, that's true for a lot of this A's class. You know, Clark Elliott, comp round B. He's fine.

You know, well-rounded, kind of generic, lefty hitting outfielder. He's okay. Clark Elliott, comp round B, he's fine, well-rounded, kind of generic, lefty hitting outfielder. He's okay. We'll see. It's more like a part-time, maybe he's a fourth outfielder, platoon outfielder type guy. He's a prospect. It's just like, he's okay. That's sort of the way I feel about a lot of the A's drafts. Jacob Waters out of West Virginia, drafts. You know, Jacob Waters out of West Virginia. Yeah, velocity, breaking ball is pretty good. He looks like a middle reliever. Okay. You know, yeah, the A's draft was not necessarily for me. Let's see if I can pull one more here because the Blue Jays draft I dug, I don't know. Washington's was okay. St. Louis's was fine. Mariner's fine. Yeah, we don't have to pick any other weird ones if there aren't any that's fine

yeah I don't think so maybe people did a good job good for them Philly's is a you know Philly Justin Crawford in the first round maybe he goes way over slot because based on the rest of the guys they took maybe they cut a deal

like Philly's another org where i'm not sure that fastball shape is a thing that they care about alex mcfarland in the fourth round is big time arm strength and it just hasn't super duper played in college he's been prone to contact and orion kirkering ermagerd orion kirkering in the fifth. He's got a plus slider, but again, it's a hittable fastball, even though it's like 93 to 97 on good days. So Philly was some of these mid-round picks. It's like, yeah. But yeah, I think that's an okay rundown.

I have one last draft question, and you could give us the capsule version of this answer. But how has the Comb version of this answer, but how has the combine made an impact if it has in the second year of its existence? Yeah. Well, that's a good question. Oh, Colorado's draft was also ick. And I like like Gabe Hughes. I like him. I just didn't like him 10th. Jordan Beck. I like him. I just didn't like him 10th uh jordan beck i like him i just didn't like him you know in the comp round i had him you know 15 20 spots below that etc jackson cox sinker oriented with a big curveball those don't work together great everyone should know that now so colorado all right so combine some

of this i don't know mlb will not share the data with me. Sorry if I'm putting you out by saying this MLB liaison, but like when I applied for combine credentials and they were like, sure, let us know if you need anything. I said, can I have the data from last year's combine? And then from this year's combine, when you guys collect it, and then I never heard anything from them. So I don't know if there is anything from force plate testing or any other of the biometric stuff that they are doing where we could look and see trends in who is interested in what. It became clear at certain points, like we don't have really enough track record with some of this stuff. Maybe some of the teams do internally, but ideally you want this data to be generated and then you want these guys to go have some amount of a pro baseball career. And then let's just run a simple regression analysis, right? Like what does some of this stuff

correlate with success at the pro level? If it does, and then start to make decision making like our processes around these metrics the same way that nfl teams have around some of their combine stuff like oh it turns out pass rushers short shuttle is pretty important and so certainly some you know every eagles fan who knows who chris gokong is knows that that's not always true, that your shuttle time doesn't mean you're going to be a good pass rusher. That reference was for like eight people. But, you know, we don't know that for baseball players yet. But I will say that if there's anything

that is important immediately, it is the interview process. The combine was fantastic. I had a great time. And I mean, it was me mainlining baseball for six hours every day for like four days. So of course i had a great time and i mean it was me mainlining baseball for six hours every day for like four days so of course i had a great time but the thing that the baseball folks liked most about this year's combine compared to last was because it was at pepco every team just got a suite in the ballpark where they could have home base and then all of the players would come through

and just run an interview gauntlet with all of the teams and it was super easy and convenient for all the parties involved even the kids who didn't participate in any of the baseball activity at the combine often still came to talk to the teams in the room. And that's the type of thing that wasn't really done before. You know, you'd have an in-home visit with the kids and often it was just the area scout meeting with the kid in his house with his family. Sometimes the college kids, you know, you take a 21-year-old college kid, you go have a beer or lunch or, you know, coffee with the kid and size them up and like be out in the world with them as a young adult. But this is more of like a formal interview setting where the GMs and president of ops and

they're not the ones who are going to go have coffee with the college kid. So they get to size up the individual players a little bit more first person than in the past. I think the combine was maybe not good for some of the players, especially some of the pitchers who didn't look very good. You know, like that's the last impression that you leave on the teams and like to come to the combine and look worse than you did at college a couple weeks ago during your bullpen is kind of terrifying. I know there were a couple pitchers who I saw and left like, you know, I don't think I'm going to put this guy on the list, even though I knew his name before he showed

up here. So there was some of that stuff. And I think like the date of the draft has made it so there's a subset of player who gets to go to Cape Cod or to the Northwoods League or whatever, and play better than they did during the season and you know boost their stock a little bit it's not the con line but it's you know a different it's a it's with the draft being when it has been for the last little while basically since the pandemic there's a longer a wider window of time between when the college season ends and when the draft begins and so that's given some guys enough time to go play for the Savannah Bananas and be seen.

And I think that's been good for a handful of them. Nick Nostrini in last year's draft, who was just excessively wild, not effectively wild, at UCLA, went to a Woodbat League in California and was nails. And his track man data was off the chain. And the Dodgers were like, let's do this guy. And yeah, he's last fall. He was like, how, you know, the scouts were like, how did this guy not get drafted earlier?

And well, it was, you know, not everyone saw him in a collegiate wood bat league in California right after the draft. They were scared of his track record of walks at UCLA or whatever. But yeah, I think the combine, I would like to see what they've collected, if only for my own reference. I don't need to publish it, guys, but come on, give Eric a taste. Because I just want to map what is being tracked data-wise to what I'm seeing with my eyes on the field just to compare and try to recognize patterns with combining data and visual evaluation

to try to see if I can... You can see fastball carry if you're looking for it. If you are primed and paying attention to it, you can see it. You can see extension if you know that you should care about it. And any of that stuff, it's true. And so I wish that we had – I wish that MLB was a little bit more transparent with that, the way the NFL Combine is. And so I wish that we had – I wish that MLB was a little bit more transparent with that, the way the NFL Combine is. All right. So you can find Eric's breakdown of the first round of the draft at Fangraphs Now.

The board will be updated with everyone relevant. I'm sure there will be more draft content to come. Yes. And I won't even tell you where to find him on Twitter because he would not be tweeting. You pay attention. That's good pattern recognition. But you can often hear him on Fangraph's audio. Thank you, Eric.

Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me, guys. Suck it, Grant. All right, so one consequence of All-Star Week coinciding with Anniversary Week is that we've built up a big backlog of stat blasts. We'll get around to them, but I want to give you one today along with a past blast. So let's start with the stat blast. That's an interesting tidbit, discuss it at length And analyze it for us in amazing ways Here's to day still past

Okay, I noticed the other day that the Yankees' Isaiah Kiner-Falefa Has zero home runs this season in 306 plate appearances. He's no slugger, but he had eight last year in 677 plate appearances, and so that seems somewhat notable. He does play in Yankee Stadium, after all, and yes, the ball has ennui, but it's not dead. Just for context here, the last player to get 500 plate appearances in a season without hitting a home run was Ben Revere in 2012, pre-juiced ball. Michael Bourne, whom Eric just mentioned, came close. He hit zero home runs in 2015 when he had 482 plate appearances. Oh, and by the way, you know how I just got that fun fact about Ben Revere? I used the baseball reference stat head tool. Barely even

thought about it. It's like a reflex. And it just so happens that stat head powers the stat blast segment. So you too can instinctively, almost unthinkingly, gain knowledge about baseball like that. Just go to stathead.com. Use the coupon code WILD20 to get a $20 discount on an $80 one-year subscription. They don't just do MLB. They do other sports too. They're constantly improving the tool and adding functionality.

You've heard me endorse it before. This time, take me up on it. It's a cool tool. Anyway, back to the stat blast. I noticed that Isaiah Kainer-Falefa had not hit a home run yet this year. What I did not notice was that Cesar Hernandez has not hit a home run this year either. And that is even more notable. Partly because he has 404 plate appearances already.

He's actually leading the National League in at bats And also partly because he has a track record of hitting home runs He hit 21 last year And it wasn't a complete fluke He hit 14 the year before that 15 the year before that If you've wondered why Juan Soto has 43 runs batted in on the season And maybe you haven't wondered that

It's RBI and this is effectively wild after all But a big reason for that is that he has often hit right behind Cesar Hernandez, who not only hasn't hit home runs, but hasn't gotten on base at a great clip either. But here we're focusing on the lack of dingers. So this question was actually posed in the Effectively Wild Discord group's Stat Blast channel by a member who goes by Asian Brave. He noted that Cesar Hernandez had 21 homers in 2021 over 637 plate appearances. This year he has zero over 404. If he ends the year with zero home runs, could he become a stat blast? Something like the most home runs hit in a season that was followed by a zero home run season given X number of plate appearances the following season? Well, he has become a stat

blast subject already, courtesy of frequent stat blast consultant Ryan Nelson. Find him on Twitter at rsnelson23. And what Cesar Hernandez has done, or not done, is already historic and unprecedented. So, Ryan determined that for players who hit 20 or more home runs in a season, the most plate appearances it has ever taken them to hit their first homer in the next season is 264 by J.J. Hardy in 2014. Again, pre-juiced ball. In 2013, Hardy hit 25. In 2014, he ended up with nine, but took 257 plate appearances to get the first. Again, Hernandez is at 404 and counting. So no one who hit as many homers as he did last year has suffered as severe a power outage to start the succeeding season. So that's a fun fact, or unfun for Cesar Hernandez and the Nationals. Presumably he has been a victim of the debtor ball, or being 32, or some combination of both or other things. He's

going for even more history here because the fewest homers ever hit by a qualified hitter in a season following a 21 plus home run season is five. And that's happened six times. 1988, Wade Boggs went from 24 to 5. That was after a juiced ball 87 season. That Wade Boggs 87 season is a really fun what-if, kind of in the vein of could Ichiro have hit homers if he tried to? Well, Wade Boggs did for one year. 1971, Burt Campanaris went from 22 to 5. 1978, Al Cowens went from 24 to 5. 1984, Gary Gaiety, 21 to 5. 2007, Jock Jones, 27 to 5. And 1988, Keith Moreland, 27 to 5. So unless Hernandez ends up with five homers, he'll be atop that leaderboard or at the bottom of that leaderboard too. A few more facts about power outages. The most homers hit in a season followed by a zero home run season with at least 100 plate appearances was 2009 to 2010 Ken Griffey

Jr. He went from 19 in 2009 to zero in 2010, only 109 plate appearances in the zero homer season. If we set a minimum of 300 plate appearances, it's 1990 to 1991 Von Hayes. He went from 17 to 0. Minimum 400 plate appearances, a bar that Hernandez has already cleared. That would be 1945 to 1946 Snuffy Sternweiss. He went from 10 to 0. Of course, that was post-war. The good players came back. That's also the record for a minimum of 502 plate appearances, which would be qualified now. Hernandez is currently on pace for 672 plate appearances, according would be qualified now. Hernandez is currently on pace for 672 plate appearances according to Zips. The record for that many plate appearances would be 1932 to 1933 Billy Rogel with nine. He had 674 plate appearances in his zero homer season. In the expansion era,

it's 1983 to 1984 Marvell Wynn with seven, and he had 702 plate appearances in his zero homer season. Marvell win with seven, and he had 702 plate appearances in his zero homer season. So as Ryan notes, we are in truly unprecedented territory right now. Lastly, the biggest drop in home run percentage as a percentage of plate appearances was 2003 to 2004 Javi Lopez. He went from 8.3% of his plate appearances to 3.61. That's a decrease of about 4.7 percentage points, but he was descending from a high of 43 homers. If we look at players who had a maximum of 30 homers in the first season, the record drop is 1938 to 1939. Ivo Goodman went from 4.6 percent to 1.23 percent. Hernandez has a 3.3 percent rate last year.

So even if he went down to zero this year, he would not top those players. But he has already made history and might make more, much to the Nationals' dismay. Thank you, Ryan. Speaking of history, today's Pass Blast, courtesy of Richard Hirschberger, historian, saber researcher, author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. This is episode 1879, the Pass Blast from 1879. He cites a rule here, Rule 4, Section 2. The batsmen must take their positions in the order in which they are directed by the captain of their club.

And after each player has had one time at bat, the striking order thus established shall not be changed during the game. After the first inning, the first striker in each inning shall be the batsman whose name follows that of the last man who has completed his turn, or time, at bat in the preceding inning. This rule from 1879, Richard writes, has a few interesting things going. Note that there is no pregame exchange of lineups. These are set by the order the captains send men up to the plate the first time through the order. This opens up some strategies not available today. But what interests me more is the second half of the rule. The writer can't make up his mind whether a batter has a turn or a time at bat, but

that is not the interesting part. Who bats first the next inning? We have here essentially the modern rule. It is the guy who comes next in the lineup after the last guy to bat the previous inning. This is new in 1879. The previous rule was that it was the guy who comes next in the lineup after the last guy put out the previous inning. So consider

a runner at first with two outs. The batter hits a routine ground ball. The fielder has a choice whether to throw to second or to first. Under the modern rule, it doesn't really matter, so he will take the easier throw. Under the older rule, this choice determined who came up first the next inning. If the fielder throws to second, putting out the runner from first, it will be whoever was next after that runner. Suppose the runner was sixth in the lineup and the seven and eight guys flied out. Would that fielder rather the next inning start with the leadoff batter or the guy in the seven hole? Think before you throw the ball. The new rule was intended to reduce incidents of players batting out of order. It was easy under the old rule to get confused about who should bat first. They

needed to keep a careful scorecard to keep this straight. Sadly, however, it also removed a point of strategy from the game. This is on my short list of old rules I would restore in my If I Were Commissioner fantasies. I can think of a few that would probably come before that on my list, but I see why Richard liked it the old way. An extra decision to make. Think fast. I will leave you with the news, because I know you've all been on the edges of your seats. Shohei Otani won Best Athlete Men's Sports at the ESPYs, which means that he also won Best MLB Player. Condolences to Jorge Soler. This is a callback to a previous episode where I marveled at the fact that Jorge Soler was nominated as Best MLB Player. Hey, it's just nice to be nominated. And another callback to a previous episode where I noted that it seems like a lot of superhero movies have a scene where an ascendant superhero throws a baseball and it's a sign that they are fully coming into their power because they can throw a baseball with superhuman strength. We talked about various examples like The Boys and Invincible and Superman Returns. Well, there is a new entry in the genre. I was alerted to the fact that there is a movie coming out on Paramount Plus next month. It's called Secret Headquarters. It looks like Marvel meets Spy Kids. It stars Owen Wilson as essentially Tony Stark, it seems like. Generic brand Iron Man. And it appears to be a baseball movie. It is certainly a baseball trailer. Owen Wilson's son in the movie is shown throwing a baseball as a pitcher during a game at non-superhuman speeds.

It is lined right back up the middle and he's hit on the chest. But then later in the trailer, he uses some advanced alien technology apparently that powers his dad's suit and he attaches it to his arm. And suddenly, not only can he throw harder, he throws through the glove, through a fence, through a brick wall, and a bystander says, now that's fast. So I'm pleased to report that this trope is alive and well. Baseball continues to be overrepresented on screen and superheroes continue to chuck baseballs, much more so than implements from other sports. As previously noted, we will be bringing you one more episode this week, a bonus episode. But in the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild.

The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going. Help us stay ad free aside from our stat head sponsorship and get themselves access to some perks. Elon Kriegel, Brad Comer, Colton Williams, Forrest Fortescue, and Mitch. Thanks to all of you. Comer, Colton Williams, Forrest Fortescue, and Mitch. Thanks to all of you. Our Patreon supporters get access to the aforementioned Effectively Wild Discord group, plus monthly bonus episodes, discounts on t-shirts, playoff live streams, and more. Anyone, of course, can contact me and Meg via email at podcast.fangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system. If you are a supporter, you can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. There's an Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. But if the devil still Talk to you then. Rodriguez Still I'd sell my soul If I could only be

Rodriguez Just one night