Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2054: The Prospect-Call-Up Countdown

Episode Date: September 2, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a new browser game called Homer Hindsight, where all the players placed on waivers ended up, the White Sox promoting Chris Getz and the continued comeback of the ex-player GM, Brandon Lowe’s Yankees trash talk, whether load management has diminished the grind, updates to the strike zone and […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2054 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Igrelia Fangraphs, and I am joined, as always and once again, by a kind of froggy Ben Lindberg. Ben, how are you? Answer briefly. Ribbit. It's not great. It's not the best. Oh, buddy, I'm sorry. Never know what sound is going to come out when I open my mouth these days, but thanks to everyone for bearing with me and tolerating these sounds. I am making some sounds because A, we are talking to Eric Longenhagen later on this episode, so you will be free. You will have a respite from this voice for a while because we're going to talk about a bunch of top prospects who got called up recently. Usually we do the meet a major leaguers for more obscure guys

who would not normally get a ton of national attention, but a whole lot of exciting prospects came up all at once. So we thought, package deal. We'll just get Eric on to tell us about all of them. So if you're a top prospect who made your major league debut in August, we will probably talk about you with Eric later on. For now, I must say, I am obsessed with Homer Hindsight. HomerHindsight.com.

You know I'm not an immaculate grid guy or generally any sort of daily words or puzzle game guy, but Homer Hindsight, which I believe is a new website. It's been making the rounds recently. It was created by one Connor Callahan. And it's this game you play in your browser where you have to assess whether it was a Homer or not. So it shows you a probably not randomly selected clip, probably selected in some way that makes this difficult to do. And it shows you the contact, you see the pitch, you see the swing, you see the ball come off the bat, and then it cuts off the clip. And it's just a gif that plays

over and over again. And you just have to say, was it a homer or was it not? And the goal is just to get the longest streak that you can. Now, I don't think I'm very good at this, I've learned. This is difficult. I would have thought I'd be decent at this, but I'm now questioning myself every time I select one because I've been wrong often enough. It feels like to get a very long streak, you really feel accomplished, or at least I do. I'm looking at the leaderboard right now, and there are people who have like in the 20s and then in the 50s.

Wow. I can't imagine. Maybe that's got to be – that's a bot. That's Connor Callahan himself. I don't know. I don't know how you could do that. But I rarely get very far in my streaks. But I'm extremely entertained by this game.

I enjoy this, I think, more than Immaculate Grid, which wouldn't take very much because I like you. Not an immaculate gritter. But, yeah, this is pretty cool. It's got a nice little interface too. I like a well-designed button. Yeah, very snazzy. And you can play it for very short bursts. Like if I'm waiting for someone to answer me or I'm waiting for something to load or whatever, I can pull up Homer Hindsight.

Just play for a minute or two, Probably feel bad about myself for missing some. And then come back for more. Yeah. So I will link to this on the show page. I imagine our listeners will like it too. Check it out. This is not SpawnCon. I just happened to see it.

I thought it was fun. I think you'll all think it's fun. Yeah, you sent it to me and I had not spent any time on it. And now I imagine I will spend more time on it. Yeah, you sent it to me and I had not spent any time on it. And now I imagine I will spend more time on it. So there you go. So sorry for inflicting that on everyone, or you're welcome if you enjoy it as much as I do. I know Sam has said he doesn't like home run highlights because the outcome of the play isn't really in doubt. So there's not a lot of suspense, but this has made me suspect that the outcome is in doubt more often than we think. Also, I just heard back from Connor, who created it and who turns out is an effectively wild

listener. I asked how he picks the homers that show up, and he said he started with some hand picked homers from a stat cast search, about 200 of them, but he didn't like seeing repeats. So now he has every home run from the season up to a few days ago. For the non-home runs, he has a distance that has to be greater than for pulled and opposite field batted balls and another minimum distance for balls hit to center. He doesn't know the exact split between homers and non-homers, but he thinks it leans non-homers. That's been my impression too. Although the fact that these aren't all borderline wall scrapers makes me feel worse than I already did. Anyway, cool creation, Connor.

makes me feel worse than I already did. Anyway, cool creation, Connor. We talked about the waiver situation last time. You want to talk about how that was resolved? Seems like almost everyone went to Ohio. And also our wish came true and Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Chialito got packaged together again. Why don't I talk about it?

Yes, you. And you can take a beat. Well, I think you were right to say that pretty much everyone went to Ohio, although don't sleep on Dominic Leone making his way back to the Seattle Mariners. No, but of the notable guys who went on waivers, a quarter of the Angels big league roster, and then also most notably Harrison Bader from New York. They've, for the most part, found new homes. So as you mentioned, they're all going to Ohio. It'll be Gialito, Ronaldo Lopez, and Matt Moore

headed to the Cleveland Guardians. And then Bader and Hunter Renfro heading to the Cincinnati Reds. Randall Gritchick went unclaimed. And then a couple of the other guys who had found their way to waivers from other teams, so Carlos Carrasco, Mike Clevenger, etc., appear to have gone unclaimed as well. And Dan Zimborski ran the numbers for us. And these moves moved the needle a little. More for the Reds than the Guardians. Neither a lot. So prior to the Guardians adding these pitchers, Zips had their playoff odds, sort of their total playoff odds, so division and wildcard at 4.1%. All of that is coming in the division race. After these moves, Zips has their playoff odds at 6.1%. Again, everything coming in the division race because they are quite a bit out

of the last AL wildcard spot. And then on the Cincy side of things, Zips had their pre-edition playoff odds at 8.2%, the bulk of which was concentrated in the wildcard. They are one and a half games, or at least they were starting today, one and a half games back of the third wildcard spot. They are currently playing the Cubs, so things might shift around a bit here. And following those additions, their playoff odds sit at 12.1%. So it moved them some. Dan noted that that boost in playoff probability for Cincy would have ranked the Reds in third place at the deadline in terms of added playoff odds of acquisitions. But he also notes, and this is something we talked about when discussing sort

of the strategy here, that if this is how it can move things around for those teams, like imagine if they had added good players a month ago where they might be sitting. And I think that, you know, you can make a persuasive argument for either team in terms of the relative urgency there. I mean, the AL Central seems quite winnable, and the Guardians more long turn than aaron savali but like he's not really helping cleveland this year so their their deadline was underwhelming and they've seen some of the guys they've traded away be good and impactful for the clubs that they are now sitting on and then from cincy's perspective like all they did was add sam mole from oakland which isn't too terribly much and this allows them to add some depth and flexibility, particularly given some of the injuries they've had.

You know, they have Matt McClain and Jonathan India and Jake Fraley and Joey Votto all hurt right now. And now they have, you know, a gold glove caliber center fielder in Bader. His bat's been underwhelming for a while, but like he can really go get it in center. And then Renfro, whose bat is arguably better. He's sort of a defensive, whatever in the corners, but I've never been a big Renfro gal, you know? And I know that he,

he at times has had some defensive highlights, but he's sort of, he's a corner guy, you know, he's not a center fielder, but useful to these reds. So I think where I've landed on the whole waiver wire question, Ben, is here. If we are creating a continuum of concern between, say, the, I think, well-put and well-argued arguments that, say, Craig and Patrick over at BP have made, and then, like, Ben's perspective on it for us at Fangraphs, I'm, like, sitting kind of in the middle in terms of how urgent and alarming I find this. But I do think that it's probably within the best interest of baseball for the league to just like nip it in the bud. You know, I don't know how pervasive or impactful this strategy would end up being kind of on either side going forward. But as we talked about last time, like you don't want to give clubs an opportunity to be cheap and squirrely because they love that so much. So just that's like their

favorite little mode to sink into. So I think putting the kibosh on that is probably a good idea, even if I'm skeptical that the incentives are so strong that this would become a big problem like it could be. So let's just nip it. You can just nip it in the bud. That's a gardening term, right? You can just nod your head and say, yeah, Meg, you're so smart. No one else can see me nod. Even you can't see me nod because we don't do this on video.

We don't. Which is good because you don't get to see me struggling to force words out of my mouth right now. Oh, Ben. because you don't get to see me struggling to force words out of my mouth right now. But yeah, I guess it turned out to be much ado about probably nothing in this specific case. Amusingly, after all that, it turns out that the Angels may not have actually ended up under the competitive balance tax threshold because Gritchik didn't get claimed. Fangraph shows that they barely did. Other sources say they barely didn't.

But the concerns were more about the precedent that it said, or will someone take this even further in the future? I guess you could say that this goes to show that maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal most of the time because the players wouldn't actually get to the teams that are likely to make the playoffs. At least that's what happened here, right? teams that are likely to make the playoffs. At least that's what happened here, right? Like a lot of teams put in claims and these players got claimed by worse teams, teams that probably will not make it. Although if they do, I guess these new players will have been part of that success. But odds are these players will not be playing in the playoffs

just as they would not have been with their old teams. So it probably amounts to more or less nothing. And maybe that would be the typical pattern that teams just on the fringes of the race would be the ones to make the claim. And more often than not, much more often than not, those teams won't end up making it anyway. So it won't really have that much of an impact.

Maybe, but I think that the fact that two of these players made their way to the Reds probably underscores the scenario that people are most keen to avoid, which is they sat out the deadline in large part and they're a fun, exciting team and they're on the edge of a playoff race. They're not in playoff position right now,

but they didn't do anything and they did reap some benefit from this. So again, you know, that NL wildcard race is crowded. There's a lot of competition for that third spot, but I do think that while this isn't sort of playoff field altering in all likelihood, it's fine to say, let's just close the door and make sure that it isn't. I also think that like, and we talked about this last time, my sense is that there are fairly easy structural fixes that could be put in place here to prevent this kind of behavior.

And that's nice because some of the problems that the sport faces are like really big and monumental and you don't know exactly the right way to do it. We still can't get reliable baseball, right? faces are like really big and monumental and you don't know exactly the right way to do it we still can't get reliable baseball right but like this like the waiver order seems and you know sort of waiver process generally that seems like we could probably yeah we can probably crack that nut we talked about some some possible solutions last time or it could be maybe you're only allowed to place so many players on waivers at this time of the season at one time or claim so many. Maybe after you make one claim and you get that player, then it resets or something. So you don't get the lump sum.

You get all the players. You can claim them all if you want to. But yeah, I guess you wouldn't want teams saying, I will sit out the trade deadline because I know that three weeks from now, a team will just leave all its players out on the corner to be collected. And that's when I will swoop in. It's like when I'm walking around Manhattan with my wife, she's like, constantly I can see her seduced by the trash piles. And she'll be like, oh, that's a good find. There's some good stuff over there. And it's like a couch that is probably bed bug ridden. And it's like, no, we cannot get the bed bug couch or it'll be some sort of appliance that is almost certainly non-functional or it wouldn't

have been left out there in the first place. So I'm constantly having to talk her out of raiding the trash piles. Occasionally we will actually find something good like in our buildings, trash rooms, if someone's getting rid of a lamp or something, we might take a lamp. But usually I have to try to talk her out of those things. But it can get to the point where it's like, well, maybe we won't buy something

because we'll just find it out on a trash heap sometime soon. You wouldn't want a team to act that way at the trade deadline if it could benefit from getting good players sooner who probably don't have bed bugs. You know, Ben, I know that bed bugs exist other places besides New York, but can I tell you something? Since I moved from New York, I haven't worried about bed bugs even one time. And they occupied a lot of brain space for me while I was, while I was living in New York. Like I was constantly afraid that, you know, someone, these are just like, you know, the, the vagaries and risks of apartment living. And for whatever

reason, um, they really, they're big characters in the, in the New York rental scene in a way that I have not experienced in other places where I have rented, including Arizona. But boy, I used to, I really fretted about bedbugs. They were a convenient thing to be anxious about when my anxiety was flitting and had to land on something. Sort of like a bedbug, you know, on that couch. Yeah. Another reason not to go to movie theaters. Occasionally that will happen in my nearby theater. Yeah. I've been fortunate. I have

not had the bed bugs to my knowledge. And I assumed that I would know. I think you would know. I don't think that's one where you're like, you know, not to like bring up a painful subject right in this moment, but you know, I think we've all had times in the last couple of years where we've had, you know, we've had a cold and we felt, we felt bad. And then we wondered like, I tested negative on the home test, but was that COVID? You know, I don't think that, I don't think bedbugs are like the various variants. I think, you know, I think you really know. Although I'll say that when I got COVID, boy, did that test light up like a freaking Christmas tree. So I knew. I was like, oh, I have COVID. Wow. Even not having had them, they have still loomed large in my imagination and my fears despite their tininess. that the White Sox hired a general manager who was the most obvious candidate

to be their general manager in that he was their assistant general manager. And that is Chris Goetz. So Chris Goetz made some comments to the media, as did owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who I think most White Sox fans would like to be fired by Jerry Reinsdorf. They don't actually hear that often from him,

but they would definitely like him to play a less prominent part in the organization. He plays the most prominent part. He hires and fires people. He owns the place. So Getz, it's funny, I was looking, this is really a time capsule. I vaguely recalled that Bauman and I had had Chris Getz on the Ringer MLB show. And he was pretty early in his tenure, about six years ago. And the title of the blog post that went with that podcast was Developing the Stacked White Sox System, which it was at the time. And we talked to Chris Getz about how he and the rest of the White Sox front office

planned to turn baseball's best farm system into a winning major league team. And I guess they did do that for a while, but not nearly as long as they would have liked to and as people expected them to. So people have been critical of the Getz hire, A, because he was just there and they didn't interview anyone else. No minority candidates, no other candidates, period. Forget about diverse candidates. There was literally one candidate.

It's the least diverse search that you could do. Also, he's been overseeing their player development, their farm system, right? Which has not been a recent strength of the White Sox. They have had all sorts of depth issues. There have been other things, too, about how he praised Omar Vizquel as a positive influence when Vizquel was dismissed, I guess, before all of the ugliness about Vizquel came to light, but when it theoretically could have been known to get through the organization anyway. So various reasons why White Sox fans seem not thrilled about that,

but largely just not thrilled that Jerry Reinstorf remains the owner of the White Sox because that seems like maybe the root problem. Like when he came out and said, we're not going to be in any Otani race, I'll tell you that. Now, I don't know that anyone expected them to be in any Otani race, I'll tell you that. Now, I don't know that anyone expected them to be in the Otani race, but still, to come out and sort of brag about it, announce that you are not going to be going after the best player available, even if he is not at his best currently,

it's not how you get people psyched for the offseason or the upcoming season. A reality of every baseball team is that the owner really puts, at some point, is the ultimate sort of ceiling on how much money a club is going to spend, how transparent it might be, how committed to sort of innovation and advancement it might be. Like, it's hard to escape the owner as a central figure there. But I do think that there are clubs that have arguably bad owners who have managed to sort of punch above their weight when it comes to their success as a franchise.

And I think that for a lot of those teams, they have been open to the idea that other people know a lot about the sport and might have interesting and innovative and useful ideas for them. And I don't feel particularly qualified to opine on Getz as a person or as a baseball thinker. like, oh, Pine on gets as a person or as a baseball thinker. But I do think from a process perspective that you don't know what you don't know if you don't look around, right? And the idea that they have sort of made this a theme of their hiring in the last couple of years where it's like, well, no, let's just like go with this guy we know isn't necessarily confidence inspiring. And I know that Reinstorf sort of bristled at that suggestion and touted Tony La Russa's record as a manager on his most recent stint when he was asked about sort of the decision not to look externally.

But I think that you can't feel confident that you've seen everybody you need to see. And that doesn't mean that the result would have ended up being any different. I don't know. Maybe they would have interviewed a bunch of people and done that in like an earnest effort to see is this our guy and come away being like, this is our guy. You know, it might not have had a different result, but I think that this is, you know, the idea that you would sort of be given a waiver given how little historical turnover there's been in the ranks there. I don't know. I feel like it's fine for them to just have to always consider diverse candidates because I don't think that we're going to arrest the sort of inertia around that hiring if we don't just make orgs do it every time. Yeah, I'm sure in this case, it would have been pro forma anyway, right? Because they would have just hired the guy they already wanted to hire. But still, maybe even if it is just for appearances, perhaps it's better. I mean, it's not better for the candidate who's getting interviewed and has

to do the prep and is just, you know, being jerked around, right? But I guess it also doesn't send such a great message to say, oh, you hired some an organization that has not done well lately. And, you know, their hands are tied and they only oversee some portion of the organization. Although I guess the portion that gets us overseen has not been a strength of late. But other than talking to him six years ago on the Ringer MLB show, But other than talking to him six years ago on the Ringer MLB show, I couldn't tell you other than what everyone else knows, whether he is a good choice or not here. But I think it is just part of the pattern, right? And the pattern is kind of concerning because if Jerry is just going to go with the first choice of his, then that doesn't speak to change. It obviously is change and gets to saying this is

going to be a new different White Sox. And the fact that he is from within the organization would argue otherwise, but who knows? It might not be a Rocky's situation where every time there's change, it's internal change and it seems not to actually change anything. Time will tell if that's the case here or not. It is of interest to me just because it furthers the trend of former players and former major leaguers even becoming high-ranking executives and leaders of baseball operations departments. Of course, Kenny Williams was one, although he was not lately the head of baseball operations. He was the team president, but for years he was one of the only ones. And now there is a younger generation of those guys. We've talked about this before. Sam Fold with the Phillies, who is not at the tip top of that organization, but he's the GM. but he's the GM. Brandon Gomes, also the GM with the Dodgers. Chris Young is running baseball operations with the Rangers.

Jerry DiPoto, of course, with the Mariners. Now Chris Goetz. You have some minor leaguers or indie leaguers in the mix as well. Ross Atkins, David Force, et cetera. So it looked like that was just going to be extinct, that everyone was going to be from finance and from Harvard and some kind of quant and all exactly

the same sort of background. And now player GMs and president of baseball operations are making a comeback because there is this younger generation of recently retired players, Getz is what, 40 years old, who came of age in a post-money ball, more sabermetrically savvy era, and are on board with that aspect of things. And so now it's not a given that, oh, the players are old school and the non-players are new school and everything's favoring the new school. Now you have a blend of both and you also have plenty of players who are new school and that's only going to be more true as time goes on.

So it's just interesting to see how that seemed to be endangered or extinct. It receded dramatically and now still a minority, but making a comeback. Yeah, yeah. And just a couple other things. I just wanted to shout out this comment, which I meant to mention earlier. This was, what, a while ago now. This was August 27th. But got to tip my cap, got to hand it to Brandon Lau of the Rays for his trash talking of the Yankees. Now, I'm not a Yankees hater. I grew up a Yankees fan. I'm a Yankees

neutral these days. But I just appreciated the technique here because he just totally trashed them in the most withering way, which was by being completely condescending and dismissive. Because the Rays and the Yankees, they had some benches clearing shenanigans going on. The benches and the bullpens emptied. No actual punches. It was just, you know, baseball. And Brandon Lau said, looking at it in a different view, it's a last place team. We don't need to worry about it. We need to focus up on what we need to do down the stretch. If they lose a guy, it's not going to be quite as big of a deal as if we're losing one of our guys.

We're focused up on kind of a bigger picture, which is just like Don Draper. I don't think about you at all. It's just like, wow. That is, I mean, if he had been angry and had said, I hate those guys and made it sound like they were under his skin, that would have been so much less punishing and demoralizing than just being like, oh yeah, last place team. Like, you know, we can't even get into it with them because we actually have something still to play for. I go back and forth on trash talk, you know, Ben, I can tell that this is a place where the gap between me and like a professional athlete is most keenly felt because I'm given to understand

and my sense is that like, it's an important part of the psychological ecosystem, right? This is the soup that you're swimming in when you're soup that you're swimming in. Mike, what is that even? But anyway, sometimes I think like it's fine. And sometimes I find it too mean, but I also love, and i don't think this is unique to the yankees fan base i respect a man who delivers the trash talk in a pitch that you know is just gonna make them go absolutely freaking nuts right like this is like a sound that only a high-pitched sound that only dogs and yankees fans can hear. And it's just designed to make you go nuts. Yeah.

Nuts. What can the comeback to that even be? Like he just, he nailed it. Like he's right. Yeah. Yeah. You just, you really do have to hit to them there. I could just see the steam coming out of the ears,

just like the speechless, like, wow who are how but but yeah i think this was the perfect approach and i you know i know this because i saw it some on the old twitter.com that a lot of the response was like well yeah this year but once you get to the point where you feel like you have to cite championships from at this point decades ago decades been it's been decades you are arguing from a losing position and i don't i don't have a horse in this race to be clear i like you know my response to al east teams and fan bases kind of sending barbs to each other is very much a let them fight. Because I'm just over here hoping that the Astros social media account doesn't land a punishing blow to the psyche of Mariners fans, which they've been known to do. So, like, you know, I get it.

But also, from a distance, is it not nice? I mean, it's arguably not nice. Is it funny? It can be both things. You know, it might be both things. arguably not nice. Is it funny? It can be both things. You know, it might be both things. And wanted to shout out a piece of research that Russell Carlton, friend of the show, did for Baseball Perspectives. And it's about the dog days and the grind, which he's written about before. He wrote about this several years ago, looking at data from 2010 to 2014.

And he found that over the course of the season, players' swing decisions seemed to get worse, or at least a higher percentage of pitches become strikes, which he attributed to the grind. Everyone's worn down, right? And maybe you're swinging at some pitches that you shouldn't, or you're not swinging at some pitches that you should. And it did slowly and steadily decrease. It's a small effect, like maybe a couple extra strikes per week or something per team. It's small, but it seemed measurable.

And he revisited that and he ran it for, I think, 2018 to 2022, excluding 2020. And that effect seems to have disappeared. There's now no grind effect on plate discipline. It doesn't diminish over the course of the season. And he attributes that to the fact that guys are getting more rest. That on average, you're just getting more off days and fewer plate appearances per regular. We've talked about how there are fewer qualifying pitchers. There are also fewer qualifying hitters. It's just more expected that there's going to be some load management. And if this is causation and not correlation, then that seems to be paying off. So

I guess you'd have to do some more in-depth analysis to see if it's worth resting your first stringers because they will be fresher and better. There's got to be some break-even there where sometimes it's better to play the tired guy because he's still going to be better than the fresh guy who's not as good to begin with. But it seems like there might be a league-wide effect of the rest. It appears to be paying off potentially, which is really interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. Hmm. I don't love that there are more days off because this is more of an issue in the NBA where there are only so many guys on the floor and you're going to see certain guys and then very often they will not be playing because the regular season is even longer than it needs to be relative to MLB to decide who the good teams are.

There are not nearly as many games. There are like half as many games, but it takes far fewer games to get a true talent reading in the NBA than it does in MLB. But that's a bummer if you plan to go to a game and then your superstar is out. In MLB, I guess it doesn't matter that much unless it's like Otani or something, unless it's the one guy that you're going to see. But most of the time, because any single player is not going to get as much of the spotlight as your star NBA player is in any given game. It's probably less deflating when you see that so-and-so is out of the lineup today. Yeah, I think that that's right. Although if that's like the one so-and-so you want to see, sometimes you're like, but I

wanted to see that one so-and-so. It could still be disappointing. And also, did you see the announcements about the tweaks to the strike zone and the pitch clock in AAA. I saw that it was a thing that was happening. Indeed. So for the remaining month or so of the AAA season, first they're tweaking the strike zone so that it will be based not on percentages of a player's height, but on actual Hawkeye visual tracking of limbs and body

parts. Because just doing a percentage of a player's height wasn't ideal because some players' height is distributed differently. Some people have bigger upper bodies relative to lower bodies or vice versa. And of course, there's crouching and different stances that goes on. So this solution purports to be able to account for that. All of these different variations of the automated zone that they've used over the years have had a lower top of the zone than an MLB because they're experimenting with trying to cut down on high fastball strikes as a way of maybe minimizing strikeouts. But this seems like an advance. I wonder how precise and accurate it will be, but it seems like it would certainly be an improvement over a one-size-fits-all solution. And then the other change is that they're changing the pitch clock, which has been 14 seconds with no one on base and 19 seconds with runners on base.

So slightly more stringent than it is in MLB where you have 15 and 20. They're changing it to 17 seconds between every pitch. And they're doing that, according to G.J. Cooper's Baseball America article, in response to feedback from hitters who said the switch between 15 to 20 seconds, depending on base runners, was disruptive to their pre-pitch rhythm. Interesting. So they're doing it based on response from the hitting side, not the pitching side. Yeah. Interesting. I find that interesting. That's what it says. The pitching side.

Yeah. Interesting. I find that interesting. Because I think the people who we have thought of as being the most keen to maybe alter that stuff are the pitchers. Have you seen Passon's reporting about this question on the MLB side of things? No. the MLB side of things? No.

So, according to one Jeff Passan, this is from about half an hour ago, the pitch clock rules used throughout the Major League Baseball season will remain the same during the 2023 postseason. 15 seconds with no runners on, 20 with runners on. Players had expressed hope for more time. He continues,

on Friday, MLB's owner-led executive council told the competition committee a joint effort that includes players the league would not propose any changes to rules before the postseason. The upshot, same rules currently in play as Tom Verducci first reported. Fine with me. As we have said before, I'm okay with the status quo, at least when it comes to keeping what we've seen in the regular season in the postseason. keeping what we've seen in the regular season in the postseason. Although the change to just having the same number of seconds on every pitch is kind of compelling.

I can't say that I noticed this or that this bothers me as a spectator. I can see why it might, as a hitter, you got to be set by a certain point, right? But I don't really notice it as I'm watching the game. It doesn't distract me or mess up my rhythm as a viewer that sometimes you have 15 seconds and sometimes you have 20. It's not a big enough difference that I'm like, oh, he pitched already or what's taking so long? This is slower than the last one. I don't really notice that enough to mind. Yeah, I generally don't either. You know, I think I generally don't.

And lastly, this is kind of a tough one for me. I knew that when Shohei Otani got hurt, that people were going to come out of the woodwork. There were going to be some doubters and some naysayers who were going to say that he should specialize because this has been the case at every stage of his career, whenever he has struggled in any way. And sometimes even before he has struggled in any way, people will come out and say he should specialize. I did not expect the first person to say this, that I have noticed to be one of my favorite players of all time. But that is what has happened. My favorite player as a fan is Bernie Williams. And Bernie Williams, of all people,

has come out and suggested that Shohei Otani should specialize. I don't know why anyone thought Bernie Williams would have particular insight into this question, but he was being interviewed and he was asked about this. And he said, I think at some point, he's going to have to make a decision and pick one, the one that he probably feels the most comfortable with. Obviously, at some points, probably he will have to make that decision. He continued to say, being on top of your game in both disciplines, pitching and hitting, it's kind of showing up. It might be the beginning of a

trend where you have a guy that is taking such a toll on his body by hitting and pitching at this level. Pitchers do one thing for a reason. It's not unreasonable. And I'm sure that many people are thinking that and maybe also saying that, but Bernie, E2, Bernie, my fave, Bernie Williams, two of my guys here, it's like Ben's favorite on Ben's favorite crime. At least you guys just play ball. You guys be on the same side here. I hate to have to choose between them or for two of my faves to be opposed. This is tough. Not that this was the most aggressive way that he could have put this.

It wasn't unreasonable for him to suggest this either. When he says pitchers do one thing for a reason, I think the primary reason is that they are not good at hitting. That would be the number one reason. It's very difficult to be good, major league good at both of those things, even more so than remaining healthy and available while doing those things. But yeah, potentially he has a point, but I'm just saying, Bernie, I don't want to have to disagree with you. And I don't want Shohei, one of my favorites, to read something that one of my other favorites said and get sad about that. Although I'm sure that Shohei is used to tuning out the peanut gallery when it comes to

this question. How do I want to put this? Because I don't want to hurt your feelings, especially in a vulnerable state. I mean, I think that he is good at tuning out the peanut gallery. I imagine that he is having, and I think I maybe said this at the time when the news of his injury came down, that like, I think this is a time for appropriate sort of introspection on his part. And I don't think that he has to decide anything right now other than whether or not he needs Tommy John surgery. And I think that he is lacking, even assuming he has TJ, critical information about the necessity to pick one versus the other, right? Because he doesn't know how his next rehab is going to go. I imagine it'll go well because he has experience doing this and seems like a competitive focused guy. He's going to crush his rehab as they like

to say, but he might have to make some decisions. I don't think he's at that point, but I bet he's thinking about it more than he did. And that's okay, Ben. You know, he's got to ask the question. We all come to points in our lives where we're like, I got to contemplate my relationship to this thing, to my sense of self and my abilities. You know, I can't drink three IPAs anymore, Ben. I can't do it. You know, that's done for me now. And that's fine. You know, I'm arguably better for it because they knock you flat.

But, like, I had to be like, you know, I'm in my 30s. I'm in my late 30s, Ben, you know. So we have to, we have those moments. Yeah. It's, it's a reasonable conversation to have, or at least for him to have with himself. Sure. I don't know that I have anything to add to his decision. I don't know that any of us looking from afar necessarily knows something that is of value in making that decision. I. It kind of comes down to how he feels, whether he wants to continue to put himself through that. So what I'm saying is, I'm certainly not going to be making any preemptive calls that he should specialize,

because from a spectator standpoint, I certainly don't want him to. And unless he feels like he is incapable of it, or that it is actually affecting his ability to stay on the field and I guess it's possible that he might be biased there that he's too close to the situation that he might not be able to mutually impartially evaluate what the actual effect on him is because he wants to remain a two-way player and maybe he might take the short view instead of the long view but I don't know that any of us is qualified to weigh what the impact is on him either so I'm gonna still say fingers crossed until proven otherwise that he can't do it anymore that I'm gonna suggest that he should still try if he wants to and that there's a reason

to think that he can continue to do it until he fails to. I guess you could say this was an example of him failing to, but the evidence of that is not strong enough for me to say that the two-way play was the culprit and that therefore he should specialize. I think that that's fine, Ben. I think that that's fine. Bernie, come on, Bernie. I still have your jersey. Probably the only two player jerseys that I have are Bernie Williams and Shohei Otani. I did not expect Bernie to be weighing in on Shohei's future.

Oh, tough for me. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be right back with Eric Langenhagen to talk about a whole tassel of prospects. C'est effectivement cool Je pense que c'est Effectively wild Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage

Effectivement sauvage All right. We have the pleasure to be joined now by FanCraft's lead prospect analyst, Eric Langenhagen, who's going to do most of the talking so that I don't have to. Thank you, Eric. Yeah, my pleasure. I'm not shy about it when we end up on these calls or pods. Generally, I did a pod for Baseball HQ the other day

where we went for like almost three hours and I feel even my voice was going towards the end of that. Right. Yeah, I have no doubts about your ability to cover for me here. But regardless of the state of my voice, we would have wanted to talk to you because a whole bunch of interesting prospects have come

up recently. It's that time of year where we get at least some roster expansion and the minor league season starts to wind down. And so we get this wave of top prospect promotions. Some pretty sexy prospects have made their debut. So I thought we could just go through the ones who arrived in August. I think there have been eight of them that are currently ranked on your top 100-ish list on the board at Fangraphs right now. And then there are some scattered other guys who are also significant, but not ranked quite so highly. Maybe we can just do a countdown. We can just go from least highly ranked, lowest ranked, to highest ranked. And by that, I mean the highest number to the lowest number, because the first guy would be Noel V. Marte, who is number 67 on your list and is now a Major League Cincinnati Red.

67 on your list and is now a major league Cincinnati red. And I've been very curious about how their whole infield situation will shake out. And now everyone's pretty much in place, right? Because Christian and Conacio and Strand also arrived. And then you have Ellie and you have Matt McLean. So the gang's all here. What have you seen from Noelvi and I guess this infield as a whole? How do you think this infield of the future is going to look positionally speaking? When Noelvi came up, it was interesting to see how Spencer Steer essentially got shifted into the outfield. Like the fact that Spencer Steer, when he was a prospect, mostly with Twins, whether or not he was an infielder was at all was up for debate. I felt pretty confident about it at the end of the, you know, prospect, proverbial prospect day, you know, when it came time for this guy to like basically be

major league ready that, you know, Spencer Steer could be a quality big league infielder. Matt McLean's oblique strain now has made it so that the acquisitions of Harrison Bader and Hunter Renfro slide steer back onto the infield. were higher consistently than even Joey Gallows were. Whether or not that has any long-term impact on his ability to actually be the superstar player that we know his talent would otherwise afford him, that's just going to play out. And because of how talented he is, he deserves every opportunity to let that play out. As far as Encarnacion Strand and Marte are concerned, Christian Encarnacion Strand is freakish in a way just because of his physical strength and his physique. His ability to manipulate the barrel in the strike zone is pretty good considering he's also a guy who had some strikeout issues as an amateur and a minor leaguer as well. out issues as an amateur and a minor leaguer as well. There's so much chase with CES, like his contact rate and his chase rate, both, if we were just going to look at the first base population

at the big league level and, you know, the big leaguers who have had enough at bats to like have a meaningful statistical sample, both of those, his minor league numbers anyway, when he was written up as a prospect would put him toward the bottom of that group, like the very, very bottom of that group. And so in some ways, CES is like overtly big leaguer-y because of his physical stature and his power. And in other ways, he is concerning. He is concerning. And I think over time, if I'm looking at, like, he's so dangerous, and he's going to be a very dangerous part of this lineup. And I do think he's going to be a big league role player. But if I'm looking at the first base population as a whole,

I would expect CES to perform south of average there. You know, like in that plus or minus the 20th best first base hitter in the big leagues during the lifetime of his pre-free agency years. But he's definitely a piece. And then with Noel V, Noel V's body is definitely in a better place now than it was last fall. I think part of why Seattle decided to move on from him and why the Reds kind of pushed him deep into the fall last season is because his conditioning had regressed. And it was not only clear at that time that he was not going to be a shortstop anymore,

but it had become unclear if he was even going to stay at third base. And now things are in a much better place. Like surprise when you're 21, it kind of melts off you if you try for a little while. So that's, you know, I think that Noel V at third base now is definitely in a better spot than he was 12 months ago. Offensively, there's still so much length to his entry into the zone that if you can execute velocity on the inner third, especially down and in against Noel V and like back foot breaking stuff as well, he really struggles to get to it. He's a guy who wants to get extended outer third of the zone and he does almost all his damage out there.

He doesn't pull the ball a ton. It's, you know, just reinforcing what I'm seeing visually here, that this is a guy who wants to work the opposite part of the field. And that's fine. Like that's not a bad thing, but when you are limited by your swing mechanics to like your plate coverage

essentially is, is like limited by them, especially in the post season. If the, if the Reds get there, the guys, guys are going to execute and it's pretty clear how to get Noel V out. So it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out. I do think he's going to be someone who is hitting towards the bottom of this Reds lineup pretty consistently just because that, you know, the ability to execute against this guy and get him out does exist. And if McLean ends up coming back from this oblique strain, obviously it's an injury that the recovery time is highly variable we've seen in the past. So we'll see. But, you know, I think Noel V is the odd man out there. If you're optimizing a totally healthy Reds lineup in the playoffs.

That's the Reds. We might see those guys in the postseason. One team we will not see in the postseason are the New York Mets, but they also have an infield prospect coming up. We're going to hopefully, you know, we're going to lift them up. We're going to lift up the Mets fans listening who are in dire straits. So Ronnie Mauricio, we have 58th overall on the board as another 50 future value prospect. They have their own set of infielders who are established vets. What can Mets fans potentially expect from Ronnie Mauricio

and how he might fit into their infield picture? Yeah, and this is the case with both New York teams, right? Where really letting the kids play down the stretch is more about getting growing pains out of the way now, hopefully, so that you don't experience them in April and May of next year when, especially in both of those divisions, you can't afford to have these guys

even tread water, really, for an extended period of time. And we've seen just, you know, the way not having Fernando Tatis, not having fully operational Machado, like set the Padres, you know, back enough that they're kind of toast at this point. And so, so with like Ronnie Mo, you know, obviously Jeff McNeil, two out of his last three years have been kind of blah. He's a good player, but like on a contender, is he an impact every day? Second baseman? I don't know. I think that's up for debate based on how he's performed the last little bit. And so with Lindor entrenched

at shortstop, Mauricio has moved around the diamond more this season. He's played a lot of left field. He's played a lot of second base. The Mets haven't deployed him in a way that has been, hey, like on Thursdays, you're going to play here. And on Sundays, you're going to play there. It has been long stretches at any given one of these positions for the most part. And so, you know, Mauricio is risky. He's going to strike out a ton. He is kind of a physical freak where he's a six foot three switch hitting shortstop with huge power.

He's hit like 25 bombs and stolen 25 bases at AAA this year. I think, you know, on balance, I have Ronnie Mo evaluated in a vacuum, right? Where he can play shortstop and that's a big part of what's carrying real world baseball weight when you're evaluating this guy, because ultimately only so many guys can actually hack it at shortstop at the big league level. Like it's a very difficult thing to do all weight when you're evaluating this guy because ultimately only so many guys can actually hack it at shortstop at the big league level. It's a very difficult thing to do. Because he's not going to do that in all probability for the Mets, if I'm predicting how he's going to pan out from a value standpoint, it's probably below where I have him evaluated in

a vacuum as a shortstop. He's probably going to be a streaky, somewhat frustrating, but also very exciting. And again, dangerous, like the power element here makes him dangerous. Utility guy for the Mets next year. I think that, you know, getting his feet wet at all those positions a couple of times a week is going to be a big deal.

I think there's a non-zero chance he's a fall league candidate. If they want to see how he looks at third, if they want to see how he looks even at center field, first base, whatever it is, having a low stakes place to sort of spread his wings defensively, I think is going to be a big deal because ultimately on a contending Mets team, this guy is probably playing all over the place,

filling in when guys get hurt or whatever. And that's the type of role that I expect to see him play. Next on our countdown, number 55, Jordan Wicks of the Cubs, big lefty, 2021 first rounder, who is celebrating his birthday today as we speak. I assume he's celebrating. He has a lot to celebrate. He's a big leaguer and also he's 24 years old and he had a pretty impressive major league debut. So homegrown starters have been a bit of an issue for the Cubs until recently. So maybe this is the latest sign of improvement there. Tell us about Wicks and what, if anything, he says about Cubs pitcher development. thing he says about Cubs pitcher development. Wicks is of that lefty with a great changeup ilk where they're very stable prospects. If you have good command, any kind of fastball playability at all, and a good changeup, you're going to at least be Tommy Malone and have a decade-long

career as something. In Wicks' case, when he was at Kansas State, it was, all right, this guy doesn't throw especially hard, and that's still the case. The Cubs have been pretty good about coaxing velocity out of guys, but developing secondary pitches, like good ones anyway, and command and keeping guys healthy has been an issue, even though since the Theo Epstein regime has departed, basically like they have gotten better at pitching development, their inability to do so kind of squadooshed their previous contending window with the young Baez, Bryant, Russell, Schwarber guys. Hold on a second.

Squadooshed? Is that a scouting term? Squashed? Squashed? Squelched? I mean, we're just going to say squadooshed from now on probably. Might as well. Is that a scouting term? Squashed? Squashed? Squelched? I mean, we're just going to say squadooshed from now on, probably. Might as well.

All right. So anyway, with Wicks, you know, a lot of these Cubs pitchers have developed a bunch of breaking pitches, and whether or not any of them is actually good has been pretty variable. Ryan Jensen is another guy like this. He took very high in the draft a couple years ago out of Fresno State. Big time arm strength, and then all of a sudden he's got three different breaking balls but he can't command any of them and like none of them are good in Wicks's case he has found an upper 80s cutter that is like a real big league pitch and even though he's only sitting like 92 he's got that short vertical lefty arm stroke that helps with fastball playability because of

like shape and angle and plane and deception and all those things. And so I've, you know, been a big Jordan Wicks guy for a while. I don't know if I'm the only one who's got him like on the hundred or anything like that, but yeah, like I expect him to perform like a contenders mid rotation starter. And I think if, you know, the Cubs get in that he's, he's going to make their playoff rotation. Like he's, he's that good. So another infielder on a team that isn't going anywhere this season, but hopes to return to contention soon is Mason Wynn, who you have 39th overall. And we, I mean, Ben and I have talked about Wynn lately. You wrote about Wynn and all of the other, at the time you started the exercise, 50 future

value and above prospects on the 100. I think our listeners will be familiar with how strong his arm is, but what else should they know about him both as a shortstop defender and as a prospect overall. Mason Wynn is on the smaller side, but I think that he's so gifted as an athlete that that's not a thing I'm really concerned about. Sometimes with these guys who are very, very small, you do worry, okay, there's not going to be enough power for this guy to actually be an impact player,

and they're more like a glorified utility guy. Mason Wynn had a 31% hard hit rate at AAA, which is all right. But you know, there's, there's just so much back to ball skill here. I think he's a plug and play everyday shortstop. I don't think he's going to be a superstar or anything like that. If he turns into like Raphael for call, that'd be pretty great. I sure miss watching that guy do his thing. And I think, you know, that's like the ceiling for a guy like Mason Wynn, where do I expect he'll run like an 11, 12% strikeout rate over the course of his career? Maybe not quite that good, but he is like,

his skills are tailored that way where it is about speed, athleticism, this all-world arm he has, which still is making up for some of his shortcomings, I guess, defensively. Maybe not shortcomings, but just things about his defense that are not spectacular relative to other big league shortstops. Just the fact that he has that arm to lean on makes up for a lot of things. But he had 18 bombs at AAA this year. I'd be surprised if he surpassed 18 homers in any given big league season, just because we're talking about

a relatively diminutive guy. And he's young. We're talking about a 21 and a half year old. He's the age of a college prospect. And we're also talking about a guy who's like 5'10", 5'11", somewhere in there. And so the long-term physical projection for someone like this isn't big. This isn't someone who I'm expecting will be 210, 220 pounds with all the strength and power that comes from that. This is a guy who's probably always going to be about 5'11", 180 and have relatively mediocre power. But there's enough happening here

that I do think he's the cardinal shortstop of the present and future. The gap between him and Jordan Walker isn't as pronounced as the gap between, say, Aaron Judge and Altuve. But I do like them doing their own version of that photo every time they walk next to each other. It's like, just make those guys get off the bus at the same time, please. Yeah. Well, the Jason Dominguez Aaron Judge photos might be pretty good too. Very good transition, Ken. My goodness. We actually have a few Yankees called up. It's the Yankees youth movement or the throw in the towel, we're terrible this year movement. But Jason Dominguez is the headliner.

Also vertically not a large man, although definitely larger in other dimensions. And he is joined by Austin Wells and Everson Pereira. I, Austin Wells and Everson Pereira. And I guess Dominguez makes up for in reputational stature what he lacks in physical stature and verticality. He's a big name. People have been waiting for Jason Dominguez's arrival for quite a few years. It feels like he's just kind of been coming forever and super hyped forever. coming forever and super hyped forever. And I know he's turned out to be maybe kind of a different player than people envisioned, but still a really promising one.

So you have him 34th right now. Tell us about Jason Dominguez. He's definitely not the type of person who I'd be paying tens of thousand dollars for his one-of-one baseball cards. But yeah, he's 20 years old. He is built like Jose Ramirez. The comp when Dominguez was 15, 16 was Zion Williamson, right? And I've said this a bunch of times,

including on this podcast, where this was just an atypical amateur prospect in that, especially in the international space. For a guy to be this big and strong looking already at that age, it became difficult to project what he was going to look like at age 23, 26. And I think it still is, but I do think it's encouraging that he has kind of kept things in check. He is burly and has like that, you know, Jose Ramirez sort of stocky little bulldog build. I think in some ways that that's a very good thing.

Shorter levered hitters just tend to be more consistent. I think it allows you to get away with what, for like a longer limbed guy would be a long swing. When you're built like Jason Dominguez and you're built like Jose Ramirez, you can just have what otherwise would be a long swing and get away with it. Dominguez in center field is okay. I watched like 60 balls in play this morning before we hopped on just because I knew this was going to be a topic of discussion and he's fine. He's not awesome. Most of the time, big league center fielders, the guys who tend to

end up playing there are awesome. So is this a long-term corner outfielder? I think, you know, the potential for that exists. You know, I sourced some more advanced kind of stat casty metrics, probably going on a month ago. And Dominguez, Dominguez is expected slugging on the year is like a little south of 400 so you know there are still some components to the swing here where he's like cutting down at the baseball and his in-game power I would expect for now to play below his raw physical strength but I do think this this is an everyday player. It's plus switch hitting power. He should get to most of it, especially once he continues to have feel for impacting the bottom of the baseball at the major league level. There should be more slug in there over time. He's only

20. But again, this isn't a long-term deep physical projection guy. The cement is mostly dry on his body, even at 20 years old. And so some of the age relative to level type of thought needs to go away. Like the context for this guy should just be a little bit different because we're talking about a different physical entity than most 20 year olds in a way that doesn't make me want to round up on his power, his raw power long-term. It's in there already. What it is is what it is. And it's just about him getting to it in games by not swinging and missing as much as he might. But I still think that this will be a power-hitting everyday outfielder of some kind. And then among their other promotions. So Pereira, Everson Pereira, I have a 45 plus on him as we're sitting here right now. And I fear that that might be too high.

This is the Estevan Floreal like warning zone type of swing and miss rate player here. I'm lower on both Austin Wells and Everson Pereira. I think if anything, giving them an opportunity at the end of the season where the stakes are low because you're out of it as the Yankees are, can help show your rabid fan base and your team itself that these guys actually aren't going to be long-term pieces. Pereira just swings and misses so, so much. And he does have monstrous power. He definitely has more power right now than Jason Dominguez does at roughly the same age.

But I worry about Pereira's swing and miss rates. They are pretty terrible. So I think there's a lot of bust risk there. And then with Austin Wells, if I thought Austin Wells could definitely catch, then he would be much higher on the prospect lists. But he's allowed, I think at my last check, he allowed 78 stolen bases against eight caught stealing

during the course of the regular season. That's just not going to hack it. And when you've done most of that at Somerset, big league base runners are a different animal. So I'm kind of worried about that. Obviously catchers tend to break late. It is so much more about their workmanship and like whether Tanner Swanson can work with this guy and get into a place of viability. Like all of that is still abstract projection and it might happen have wells valued in an impact future value tier because if he can catch like this kind of left-handed power for catchers is

going to be good but i have some doubts about his hit tool as well and so i'm kind of a round down guy on both of pereira and wells uh which i'm sure yankees fans won't want to hear. And so just tweet at me, just go tweet at me and tell me I'm wrong. Totally fine. Go ahead and do that. But yeah, like especially Pereira, like I am, I'm absolutely terrified about that hit tool and, and think that if I'm going to redo the Yankees, I think the Yankees prospect, this will be pretty early during the off season cycle here.

And these three guys are going to give you a big league look. That should, you know, it should be a pretty solid evaluation here when all is said and done. Because we're just going to see what they are capable of at the big league level. And it wouldn't surprise me if Everson Pereira is at the very, very bottom. Austin Wells looks like he should be on chips. He's got that stash, motorcycle cop stash. Well, we can stay in the East. Live PD Vegas edition. That's Austin Wells. Live PD Vegas.

And we can pivot to the Red Sox who have called up, it's Sedan, right? Is how you say his name? Sedan Rafaela. Sedan Rafaela tell us tell us about sit down this is one of those guys who if you're playing fantasy baseball you should just avoid this guy so much of my evaluation here is wrapped up in his elite center field defense and then whether he will have any sort of viable big league approach or be totally wrecked by big league sliders is just like, this guy's in the Christian Pache area, okay? And sometimes these guys turn into Kevin Pillar and Jackie Bradley Jr. And sometimes they turn into Pache.

Trent Grisham, I guess Trent Grisham's not a good comp because that's like an uber patient guy. Trent Grisham and I guess Trent Grisham is not a good comp because that's like an uber patient guy but you can see how this is the area we're talking about here where it's premium centerfield defense and you hope that there will be enough power to support what will probably be a high strikeout low OBP offensive profile because of how much chase there is. There was a while during the early parts of the season where Rafaela had kind of cut how much chase was happening just through not swinging as much. There are ways you can suss out whether any of these changes are actually some sort of improvement to pitch recognition or just, I'm just going to stand here because the coaches told me to just stand here, which is pretty popular.

And the Red Sox are definitely one of those where the coaches are pretty clearly telling their guys, hey, just stand there. Don't swing for a while. Just like sit there. Because like with teams, not necessarily with me at the ready, like at my fingertips, but with teams, they can look at the swing rates in different parts of the strike zone. So like someone when I was, Roman Anthony is another like

Buzzy Red Sox prospect, right? And he's a good prospect. But if you look at Roman Anthony's heart of the zone swing rate, it is like the lowest in all of professional baseball. swing rate, it is like the lowest in all of professional baseball. And the guy who's swinging the least often at pitches right down the middle, I think pretty clearly is just passive. Like he's not actually discerning because if it's right down the middle, you should swing it. So when you're only swinging it like 33% of pitches right down the middle of the plate, to me, that's an indication that you don't actually, you're not actually seeing that. And so with Rafaela early in the year, all of a sudden it was like, Oh, this guy's not really chasing anymore. Is he? But after I think there were some adjustments,

like other people get to adjust to, right. And so what's going on with that? I don't really know, but there was like a regression in the middle of the season that would indicate that Raphael is still kind of risky from a chase standpoint. All right, we're down to our top two here, or up to our top two. And wouldn't you know it, the Tampa Bay Rays have yet another highly ranked infield prospect. In this case, Curtis Mead, who is a 22-year-old from Australia. Curtis Mead? Tell us about Curtis Mead.

Yeah, so Curtis Mead. Curtis Mead, they stole him from the Phillies backfields, traded Christopher Sanchez, who's like a depth lefty for him. Mead got off to a pretty rough start to the year and then was hurt for a while, but I still think that he's as stable an offensive prospect in the minors as there is.

Where he ends up playing long-term defensively is like really up in the air. This is just one of those guys who looks like he grew up not watching like legit big league infielders throw. Like, you know how when you're a kid and you're like watching pro athletes do their thing, you're kind of mimicking their movements, whether it's like their stance or their swing or the way they throw a football or whatever it is, like Odell Beckham's haircut, whatever.

This is like, Curtis Mead just throws like he never watched anyone throw a baseball growing up. And that has gotten a little bit better. Yeah. But, you know, at the major league level, like this guy might just be a left fielder. He might just be a DH. But I think he's really, really going to hit. He's another one who has been a little overaggressive. But, you know, his timing in the box, the barrel feel, the way his body is unwinding and how much power he has for a guy his size, which is sort of like a medium frame dude.

It's all very, very impressive in my opinion. And so, yeah, I think Curtis Meade has a chance to be a middle of the order anchor. He's a much more stable offensive player than anyone aside from like Yandy Diaz and Randy Rosarena. And I guess like maybe Isak Paredes has proven enough at this point to say that like this guy is a legit plug and play every day infielder. But after those three guys, like Curtis Meade, even Josh Lowe, who I think is deeply flawed, Brandon Lau strikes out a ton. Luke Raley, Lowe, who I think is deeply flawed. Brandon Lau strikes out a ton. Luke Raley, you know, is more like a flash in the pan type for me. Jose Siri is Jose Siri. Oslavis Wasave is extremely aggressive as well and is more like a slappy, slappy hitter. It wouldn't surprise me if like Meade ends up

carving out a role here pretty soon. Yeah. Number 21 overall, that speaks to your confidence in him. Also, I'm learning that his father, Tim, played for the Adelaide Giants of the Australian Baseball League before Curtis Mead did. So I assume that he has, in fact, seen some people throw baseballs, including his father when he was growing up. So that cannot account. It was not that he was just watching cricket exclusively or some other sport, rugby or something, Australian rules. No, he had a baseball-playing dad, so I don't know how to explain that.

Competitive crocodile escape. I bet if there's a first woman who plays domestic-affiliated baseball, it will probably be Australian because like women's baseball in Australia is getting pretty big and they don't have the, you know, no offense, softball players, like, but sexist softball apparatus like wasn't already in place in Australia. They kind of started from scratch and just decided, yeah, let's do,

let's just do baseball for everyone. So yeah, I guess I've probably been on here to talk about, we've talked about Melissa Mayu and other women baseball players on this podcast in the past. And I've said that I thought tennis players or cricket players or she might come from a different sport, but now I just think she'll be Australian. Yeah, I think lots of that seem good. Well, we'll conclude our journey up the top 100 here with the 18th overall ranked prospect,

and that would be Giants pitcher Kyle Harrison, who has had a couple of big league starts, is trying to help get San Francisco back in the postseason as they fight for a wild card spot. So what have you seen so far and what might Giants fans expect from him going forward? Just finding a way to quell his walks is going to be the thing that helps him achieve his ceiling. But when you watch Kyle Harrison, you can see it's rare left-handed velocity. You can see that because of how deep into his legs he's getting throughout his delivery, that this is a low-release height guy who's going to have that shallow, uphill-looking angle on his fastball. And the combination of that angle and his fastball's velocity is going to make that

a dominant big league pitch. Obviously, we've seen guys like Joe Ryan, Bryce Miller, Roy Oswalt, like the guys who have a version of this fastball, even just that on its own, you know, in Bryce Miller and Joe Ryan's case especially, can be enough for you, if it's commanded well, to be a good big league starter. And that's like an adjustment that I probably still haven't fully made. Like I'm, you know, a stingy bastard about,

do you have two or three pitches? Can you actually start? But like Justin Steele's going on his second season of like being a 55 and he's throwing just two pitches, you know, so it's time for Eric to adjust. But in Kyle Harrison's case, his breaking ball has so much movement that it actually might be detrimental to its effectiveness because it is like much easier for hitters to identify and kind of stay on Bryce Harper hit like a monster home run off of a Kyle Harrison breaking ball it's just easy for these guys to track because of how big and long it is And so like the area off the plate where he can actually locate it such that it is tempting to hitters and still like close enough to the zone that they

might want to swing in it. Like it's kind of narrow. So we'll see how that plays out. I still think that he's going to be an absolute monster. Even if this guy, you just look at his walk numbers from AAA and they're not good. But guys like this, their misses tend to get smaller and smaller and smaller over time, Tervik Skubal, et cetera. And I think eventually that this is going to be a big league impact starter. But even if he's not, the stuff he's working with here is enough that he's going to be an elite or close to it late inning reliever. is enough that he's going to be an elite or close to it late inning reliever.

And it's just totally fine for me to value this guy, you know, in this area of the top 100 anyway. Like if you know he's going to be Josh Hader and not start, like, all right, whatever. Like I still would take that guy in the top 30 or 40 of a prospect list. So those are all the top 100 guys who came up in August. There were a few other players of note, not ranked that highly, but had at least 45 or 45 plus future values. Lawrence Butler of the A's, Emerson Hancock of the Mariners, Parker Meadows of the Tigers, and of course, Nolan

Shonuel of the Angels, who came up on this podcast when he came up in the majors. But I am curious about your take on the aggressive promotion timeline with him. And also, I guess, while we're on the subject, Harrison, you have 18th overall. You have Ethan Salas, 15th, right? And that turned a lot of heads. Padres Ketcher, who got promoted to AA as a 17-year-old. So those may be for completely different reasons and timelines. But when a guy gets promoted way faster than everyone expected, what does that mean? Does that make you more bullish on the player? Or does it make you more concerned about the organization? Do you start doing calls like, wow, why did this happen so soon? Or do you reevaluate the player? In Salas's case, during extended, he slid up into that 55 future value tier just because he looked

like, you know, if I'm looking at other 17-year-olds who are this talented, they're going to go in the top two or three picks of any given draft class, usually. And that's kind of like the way to apples to apples, where these guys belong on this top 100 continuum. And then just through, like, graduations, basically, he has moved up, yeah. And I have slid him up past some of those pitchers just because pitching is pitching. And so so like, I do have him ahead of Ricky Tiedemann and Mick Abel and Kyle Harrison and guys like that. And I said this on the HQ pod that I did yesterday, but I'm going to say it again,

because I'm really proud of it. That the, the Padres are kind of like the kids from a clockwork orange driving the car. Like when it comes to the way they handle some of this stuff. Like Ethan Salas is a different cat. And I do think the Padres like to try to pump and dump their own prospects. Like the Padres will happily, you know, anytime I see Padres for an office member who I know like out in the world, within five seconds of us saying hi to one another they will tell me like a prospect of theirs that I'm too low on and it's just like no like I know how Adrian Morihoan's fastball doesn't work and how Ryan Weather's fastball doesn't work

guys like you know do you I hope you do but you know it is in Salas' case, like this is a different kid. He has a chance to be very, very, very special. Do I think that he and they learned anything meaningful about him by leaving him at high A for just nine games? No. No. I don't think they were like, oh yeah, like you hit all our developmental boxes here in a week and a half, like amazing. Like, no, I don't think they were like, oh, yeah, like, you hit all our developmental boxes here in a week and a half. Like, amazing. Like, no, I don't think so.

I just think that they are teeing this kid up. Like, when Austin Nola was your catcher for most of this year, I think they want to put pressure on Campisano and maybe Gary Sanchez to, like, be as good as they can be. I think Campisano plateaued in a way that they, and certainly I as a guy who absolutely stuffed him, were frustrated with at points over the last couple of years. And then Campi was hurt for a bunch of this season too. And so I think juicing Salas' pace might be about putting the spurs to the other guys ahead of him in the org as much as anything else. Sure. I don't think it is just for publicity and I don't think it is only reckless,

but I do think parts of this are reckless. I think, you know, CJ Abrams, they rushed him. And obviously they were still able to trade CJ in a monster deal. And CJ has turned a corner in such a way here that you could argue, and a Padre scout who I was at a game with within the last week or so did argue, that like, look, we didn't compromise his development at all. Look at how he's performing now. And I think you can make a sound argument that that is true. So you are hurting aspects of his roster flexibility and forcing some of these guys to walk a tightrope unnecessarily

when you push in this quickly. You start their service time clock or whatever it is. They start to dwindle with options or whatever. And so like Ethan Solis, they haven't done that yet, but it's interesting for sure. Who else did you ask me about? There was another non-top 100 guy there. Shanuel.

Oh yeah, Nolan Shanuel. I think obviously the last couple of years, the Angels have done things in service of this window that make logical sense. Both in who they've drafted and the shape of their draft class. We talked about the all-pitcher class and all that stuff. How quickly they push Sil Seth and those guys to the big leagues with mixed results, right?

In Shanwell's case, Zach Nito comes from a small college and so does Shanwell, but Nito is a big league caliber athlete, no doubt. That guy belongs on a big league field. a big league caliber athlete, no doubt. Like that guy belongs on a big league field. With Shanwell like walking around, when he's hitting a lead off and Otani's in the two hole, you can see that like FAU's weight room is not on the level of like a D1 school, right?

Like Nolan Shanwell looks like not a major league athlete. His barrel feel is beautiful. I love watching him hit. He does not have prototypical power for a first league athlete. His barrel feel is beautiful. I love watching him hit. He does not have prototypical power for a first baseman. And again, I think like if I'm lining up the top 30 first baseman in the major leagues, like he's going to be south of that median. But I do think he's going to be a useful big league player.

I want to see Nolan Shanwell get after it in the weight room this off season and come to Tampy Diablo next spring looking absolutely yoked and like he is a major league athlete. So I think like that's the thing to focus on there. But, you know, like I get why the Angels did what they did. And I think it was like a worthy gamble to do everything that they did here at the end

to try to, you know, have your dice roll of getting hot and getting into the playoffs instead of everybody getting hurt, which is what happened. But yeah, Shanwell, I think is like, he's fine. But the thing that I want to see from him, progress wise has to do with his physicality and not so much with anything

skill related. Like he's highly skilled. I just want to see what happens when you get on a pro strength and conditioning program for a while. Can you parlay this hitting skill you have into impact big league power or not? Is there anyone else who is an extremely obvious call-up candidate who comes to your mind wondering why so-and-so isn't up yet or you're hoping or thinking, excited to see someone who might still come up over the remaining month of

the regular season. The situation in Toronto is interesting because of Chapman and Bichette both being hurt. And then what they have decided to do in response to that has been pretty interesting. So you see Spencer Horwitz came up. Spencer Horwitz is the type of dude who might replace Brandon Belt next year, where it's like first base, corner, outfield. Excellent field to hit, not a lot of power. But at that shortstop third base mix, obviously Santiago Espinal is a logical guy to move into the everyday lineup

with Bichette and Chapman Hurt. I don't really think Davis Schneider is actually very good. I analyzed Davis Schneider before I did the Blue Jays list and just left him off of there comfortably, knowing that this guy had performed in the minor leagues. Sometimes the honorable mention section of the prospect list is more like

why isn't this guy, why don't I like this guy that you're going to ask about rather than guys I actually like? The Meg asks Eric to anticipate the comment section of the list. Yes. Yeah. Like, and so I'll like end up begrudgingly write up guys who I don't actually like and end up saying like why I think they're bad more than I do, you know, say like, Hey, this

is an interesting sleeper and I don't love that. And sometimes, sometimes I just have to stop, you know? And so with Davis Schneider, I was just like, no way. Like, could this guy come up? Yes. Do I think he's going to be the type of guy who probably has fewer than 600 career plate appearances? Yes. And I still believe that. And I would really ask the pitchers of America to stop throwing Davis Schneider pitches right down the heart of the plate so that I will not look like a schmuck. So please do that. You're asking them to please bring his WRC plus down from the 280 it's currently sitting at after 58 plate appearances. Clearly the Blue Jays think that Davis Schneider can help them more today than Leo Jimenez or Elvis Martinez and Addison Barger.

But that group sitting at Buffalo, I do think is interesting to monitor because they could pull the plug on these guys at any minute. But they brought up Mason McCoy, who they got at the deadline from Seattle. He's like an upper level org guy who can play shortstop. And obviously with no bow on the big league roster, you just need somebody else capable of doing that on the big league roster. Besides Espinel, Barger and Orovis Martinez are definitely not those guys. I think Leo Jimenez might be that guy. So I'm curious,

you know why they didn't choose him and like instead did Ernie Clement and McCoy. So like that was an interesting group. Is there anybody else who really like might come up? I don't know. It is so variable. It is like so out of my hands kind of that like I tend not to care about this sort of thing.

I wonder if Brooks Lee might just be one of the best 25 Minnesota Twins right now if Brooks Lee came up I don't know Brooks Lee might be better than Carlos Correa right now and if you have a monster series with the guardians looming, which the twins do. And the guardians have just like added reinforcements via this weirdo waiver situation. Do you really want like Jordan Luplo and Andrew Stevenson, or do you want Brooks Lee? I think that like, I like the twins players a lot. Their roster is very monochromatic with these left-handed hitting donkeys. And I like a lot of them, but they sure do have like a lot of these guys. And so adding some sort of dynamic component to their big league roster, especially with, you know, Willie Castro on the shelf, who was that

guy for them. And Nick Gordon's been out for, you know, the entire season was sort of that guy for them too. Maybe Brooks Lee is someone who should come up. That would be very, very interesting. And I think I'm probably the high man on Brooks Lee. Like I really, really love him and have him, I think 10th or 11th overall, that one would be pretty interesting. Any of the ways that it can impact a pennant race, basically, I'm, oh, here's a good one for you. Hurston Waldrop. Oh, yeah. Hurston Waldrop was the Braves' first-round pick.

I had him absolutely stuffed. I have a top 100 quality grade on him. Pitcher from the University of Florida who could, I would not surprise me if the Braves feel comfortable with his health. They have already promoted him to AA. A lot of these college pitchers end up throwing more pitches during their junior season than they ever had before. And it is pretty common, especially in the forward-thinking orgs, to just shut them down. that you draft them and then they don't, don't do anything. You know, it used to be common for them to maybe get some innings in during fall instructional league, because it's

a very controlled developmental environment. They're never going to throw more than 20 pitches in an inning. Cause you can just roll the inning, whatever, no big deal. And you can still get some, you know, development in, but with the Braves, the Braves do not mess around. The Braves feel free to just rocket A.J. Smith-Shauver and all these guys to the big leagues. Michael Harris, you barely played, you've been hurt, and if you barely played, whatever, we don't care. You can do it, and they're right.

And so Hurston Waldrop, between now and the postseason, don't be surprised if that guy's in if that guy's in the bullpen for, for the Braves postseason run. Like that's, that's a sneaky name who just got drafted to watch. His Florida Gators roster photo makes him look like the, like emoji when you go, like it's that like the grimace emoji with the wide smile.

All right, I'm going to look now. This is good radio where I'm like, look at this picture. Yeah. He's, he's got the DeSantis smile. Oh, no, that's even worse.

What a cop. I'm smiling. I'm a normal person. Here's something to put on people's radar. This is not an immediate concern, but it's something that one of our listeners and Patreon supporters, Dan, flagged for us. We're about to get an influx of Jacksons in the major leagues

that is really going to cause some problems. There aren't that many Jacksons in the majors right now. I guess there's Jackson Coar with the Royals and there's Jackson Wolf with the Padres, which is an amazing name. But three of the top seven prospects currently, according to Fangraphs, are Jacksons. We got Jackson Holiday. We got Jackson Churria. We got Jackson Merrill. Jackson Jobe. Yeah, Jackson Jobe is down there too.

So we're going to get some serious Jackson action sometime soon here. We just got to get our Jacksons straight. I guess it won't be that hard to keep them straight because they're all like great prospects, but they're all going to arrive maybe slightly different times, but close enough that we're going to go from not a lot of Jacksons to suddenly having a huge number of prominent Jacksons. There had to be some, you know, like, like Sex and the City made it so that there were suddenly a bunch of Aiden's. Yeah. Right. Well, and now like I'm dealing with that where it's like, how many of them do we really need?

We've talked about that with like the, the Tyler's and the Taylor's that have taken over, but, but Dan ran the numbers on that. Our Patreon supporter, he said in Texas in 2003, Jackson was the 61st most popular boy's name in Maryland. in 2003, Jackson was the 58th most popular boy's name. He didn't have reliable name data for Venezuela, but according to one site, Jackson was the 366th most popular name in the country.

So it seems like a disproportionate number of Jacksons. I wish there were either fewer or more so that we could get some Jackson 5 jokes going. Oh, boy. I can name a couple other ones, but some of them are currently controversial. Patrick Mahomes' brother's first name is Jackson. He's a bad guy, allegedly a bad guy, definitely a weird guy.

As long as we don't have any more luis garcias for a little while we need we need the the the mlb filtering process to like work on the garcias or we need to do it like the screen actors guild where they have to all put their middle initial in so that i can i'm louis garcia yeah yeah well and i don't want them to have to i mean their names are their names they don't have to change their names just to make the linker work. But like if they did change their names to make the linker work, you know, I'm not saying I'd add any war to them, but I mentally, I would do that. I'd be like, oh, that guy's a helper, you know. Martin Sheen.

This is like when all the Miller pitchers came up within a month or two of each other earlier this season. Well, we'll have you back to talk about the Jacksons when they all arrive so that we can keep them straight. But this was very helpful, especially because it gave me a bit of a vocal break. Thank you, Eric. Enjoy it as always. Thanks for having me again, guys. I'll talk to you soon. Okay.

Well, we are looking now further into the league's future, eh? Yeah. Okay. And just this group of prospects, that's what we in the biz call a transition. We will look to the future with a future blast brought to you by Rick Wilber. Rick is an award-winning writer, editor, and college professor and has been described as the dean of science fiction baseball. editor and college professor and has been described as the dean of science fiction baseball. And he brings you this blast from the future in 2054 with the long-awaited edition of the Australia-New Zealand division. This is so prescient with our conversation about Curtis Mead.

Curtis Mead will be thrilled. Apologize to all of our Australian listeners for my terrible accent. I take it all back. Featuring three teams from Australia and one from New Zealand, playing off for one representative to the MLB postseason, Major League Baseball's venture into the Southern Hemisphere finally happened. By 2054, there had been 52 big leaguers from Australia over the years, but travel difficulties had kept the ambitious Australian baseball league isolated down under. While there were far fewer baseball players from

New Zealand, a dramatic increase of interest was sparked by the success of designated runner Ayo Mahima, who won the 100-meter dash in the Reborn Commonwealth Games and was then signed by the Chicago White Sox for their farm system in 2047. Wow, we're just, you know, the synergies, man. Sorry, Rick, but they're notable, and I had to note them. Three years later, she won the Golden Spike as the most valuable designated runner and kept her title for the next three years. Aiyo was a national hero in New Zealand, and her success prompted full-season coverage of White Sox games. The New Zealand Baseball League had begun play in 2040 and interest soared by 2050. In the first Oceania Division playoffs, the perennially tough Brisbane Bandits beat the Auckland Tuatara's in four straight to earn a spot in the divisional semifinals against the mighty London Monarchs, taking the Monarchs to the limit before losing 3-2 in the seventh game.

Audience numbers in Australia and New Zealand were impressive across the board in various social media live streams. By season's end, South Africa was knocking on Major League Baseball's door, seeking admission as its South African Baseball League swelled to 10 teams. All of this stemmed from the efforts of Gift Ngope, the first continental African player to make it to the major leagues and later a coach in Australia and the United States. There we go. Well, the Mets' Ronnie Mauricio, one of the prospects we just talked to Eric about, hit a 117.3 mile per hour double for his first major league hit. The hardest hit, first career hit by any player who's debuted in the stat cast era since 2015,

easily surpassing Luis Robert Jr.'s 115.8. So that's a good sign. And more good news for New York prospects. Jason Dominguez took Justin Verlander deep to the opposite field on his first swing as a major leaguer. Also, when asked why he's wearing number 89, he said, I don't know. I think I know what with all

the retired Yankees numbers. They're running out of uniform numbers. Austin Wells is wearing 88, but I appreciate the honesty. Also, if you're looking for other baseball podcast episodes to listen to, once you've had your fill of my mellifluous voice this week, wanted to give a plug to two podcasts made by friends of the show. First, Josh Levine of Slate works on the One Year podcast, which covers a different year in American history in each season with some episodes about surprising or strange or fascinating things that happened in that year. or strange or fascinating things that happened in that year.

They're just starting 1955 now, and the first episode is on the Cannon Street All-Stars, a team of black Little Leaguers from South Carolina who dreamed of playing in the Little League World Series and ran up against a white establishment that wasn't ready to change. Also, Sam Dingman, who joined us on episode 1784 to talk about the podcast that he and his co-host Mac made, The Rumor. He's got a new episode up on the Metal Ark Media Wondery podcast, Sports Explains the World. It's called Good Company, and he describes it as kind of a love letter slash personal investigation into what

makes a great baseball radio broadcast, featuring John Miller, among others. He says, it's the story of my attempt to decode what makes the medium so enduringly vital and what guys like Miller are, or perhaps more accurately, are not doing that keeps it relevant. I will link on the show page to both of those. Check them out. You can also check out 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, and get themselves access to some perks. Brighton J. Swan, Colin Reddick,

John, Casey Shankland, and Jeremy Tice. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Patreon Discord group for patrons only, access to monthly bonus episodes, the next of which we will be recording and releasing as soon as I can speak, without sounding like this.

You also get access to playoff live streams, discounts on ad-free Fangraphs memberships, potential podcast appearances, and so much more, patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. Anyone and everyone can contact us via email at podcast at fangraphs.com.

Send us your questions and comments and your Effectively Wild theme song submissions if you want to join our intro and outro rotation. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join Effectively Wild's Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, hopefully a long one, and we will be back to talk to you, with any luck,

both sounding like our usual selves, next week. How can you not be pedantic? A stab blast will keep you distracted It's a long slog to death But the short to make you smile. This is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild.