Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2268: The 2025 Minor League Free Agent Draft

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Ben Clemens banter about the Giants signing Justin Verlander, a plateau in leaguewide slider usage, and why spending on free agents has exceeded expectations so far. Then (20:55) they continue a cherished podcast tradition by conducting the 12th annual Effectively Wild Minor League Free Agent Draft, in which they select […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2268 of Effectively Wild, a Fangrass baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Riley of FanGraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Screaming, crying, throwing up, et cetera. We are also joined by Ben Clemens of FanGraphs. Ben, how are you? I'm doing well.

Okay, good. Here we are to do the minor league free agent draft. Dun, dun, dun. Here we are to do the minor league free agent draft. It's that time a little later than lately, but early enough, plenty of time, 12th annual effectively minor league free agent draft. When we find a tradition, we just run it into the ground. We will just do it for the rest of time. An enthusiastic endorsement of a beloved exercise.

Yep. No, I always look forward to it. Always slightly dread it. Just high stakes, lots of pressure. Everyone knows how this goes. Stakes are so high. So high. Yeah.

Bragging rights are the stakes, but those are really the most consequential stakes other than maybe money, I guess. But we're not doing money. No, no money. No, we're not that kind of people. We're just doing it to prove that we are the best at assessing minor league free agents and or a little lucky. So we will get to that in just a moment.

Just wanted to ask you two about a major league free agent who has signed since we last recorded. That's Justin Verlander. He signed with the San Francisco Giants. So Ben will have a chance to go see him pitch in person perhaps. Yeah. Excited. Yeah. So what does he have left? That is the question. This is a one-year, $15 million deal. We talked recently about how the old guard, they were all still hanging out on the free agent market. Technically Clayton Kershaw, though one would assume he will sign with the Dodgers sometime soonish, but also Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

And Verlander has had injury issues. He's also had effectiveness issues. And that's why he didn't get more than this. I guess based on his performance last season alone, you might say that this is pretty rich for him, though it's not surprising given everything he's done for the many seasons prior to that. So what will the Giants get in Justin Verlander? What do you think, Ben? Is this a late career Randy Johnson sort of sad attempt at trying to find something a little left in the tank or might Justin Berlander dig deep once again and surprise us. I think it's closer to the second for me. This isn't at the end of a long

downswing in effectiveness. He was very good in 2023 and he was a bit hurt in 2024. It could be the end. He's very old. He's older than me, which I can't say about many baseball players anymore. You don't always bounce back from that. But I think if you look at the people who are signing deals like this, I would definitely take this risk. Like, let's say you're going to be wrong most of the time. I like the, if I'm right more here than I do with say Alex Cobb, like he's Justin Berlander. I think he'll look good in that uniform. Oh yeah, that's definitely true.

Yeah. As everyone has pointed out, he does seem to have a thing for orange uniforms. He has played exclusively for orange uniformed teams. I guess the thing is this, if you're looking at him like your fifth starter, which I imagine that they are, and you view yourself as having room up to the luxury tax threshold, which they do, then I guess you say, like,

why not? I think that they have other guys sort of floating in the upper levels of their system who will no doubt see time to, you know, your Hayden Burr songs and your Landon Roops and the like. So like they have a bunch of other guys at AAA who are on the 40 man currently who they can kind of try out if Verlander gets hurt again or is ineffective. I mean, I don't know, I guess there are still other starters on the market that they might have looked to, but if you think that Verlander has a little something left and you're not looking at him being your like frontline guy, which they aren't, then okay. Like it's, it's fine. It's funny because like when you look at them in the face, you feel like Justin Verlander and Robbie Ray are the same age. And then you're like, no, they're not. They also kind of look like this. They're like versions of the same kind of guy, not like as pictures,

but like, you know, as face people, people in their faces. So, I don't know. I think it's fine. He, of course, famously said that he wanted to pitch to 45. He's turning 42 in February. He will have to pitch better than he did last year, most likely, to get there. And I guess if I had to choose between Verlander and Scherzer, maybe I'd prefer Scherzer. I'm kind of curious to see what kind of deal he gets.

He's been even less available than Verlander, but a little bit better, at least than Verlander last year when he has been able to pitch. So it's a trade off, but I'm just hopeful that he can rebound a bit. I like when he's good. I also am curious. It seems to me that there's like a perception that this says something about Posey and sort of the Posey regime. And I'm curious if it does.

I don't have a good answer to that. I have my misgivings about Buster Posey based purely on things that Buster Posey has said so far, not things that he has done. And he has signed some guys and it's been reported that just his presence, his aura, his reputation has helped San Francisco sign some guys, which is good. They needed some help signing some guys, but he does seem quite old school by the standards of a Pobo and obviously inexperienced, which is maybe a greater concern. We did get an email from a Patreon supporter, Michael, who wanted to know whether this was

maybe motivated by the fact that these guys are kind of contemporaries. And he asked whether Posey was the first Pobo or GM to sign a player whom he has hit off of or gotten a hit off of. And I said, no, it's fairly rare for that to happen, but definitely not the first time. For one thing, it used to be more common for players to become GMs slash Popos, though things are coming back around in that direction again. But there were more opportunities for that to happen. And the first name that came to my mind was Billy Bean, who the day after he became general manager of the A's in 1997, traded Scott Brochess to the Yankees for Kenny Rogers,

whom Bean had batted against in 1989 one time and he singled and drove in a run. And Posey faced Verlander twice, I think, in the regular season, or he went one for two with a double and a sack fly, I guess, and one for two with a single and a strikeout in game one of the 2012 World Series. So, Posey has said stuff about kind of getting the gang back together and Madison Bumgarner and all that. And so maybe he's just like, it's the old guard.

It's veterans banding together. Verlander's considerably older than Buster Posey. Yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. Several years older than Buster Posey, but. Because Posey's younger than we are, devastating. Yeah, that's true actually, yeah. But in isolation, I've got no problem

with signing Justin Verlander for one year. It's just, is it part of a pattern? Is it a disconcerting pattern? Probably too soon to say. Yeah, and I think if you want to find another way to nitpick it apart from the like, is this an indication of I'm signing guys I know, right? It's not an especially bold signing.

And I do think that the NL West is a division that like kind of yearns for boldness. If I do think that the NLOS is a division that like kind of yearns for boldness if you're going to compete against the Dodgers and the Potters and even the Diamondbacks for that matter. But I think it's fine, you know? I don't know that it needs to say anything beyond what it is. We can, it might say something beyond what it is, but I think we can wait to see if it is in fact saying anything. It might be saying nothing, you know, all those whispers are nothing, sweet nothings. I don't know.

I pretty much agree with you, like, on that, that it doesn't necessarily mean anything. It can't be a referendum on Buster Posey because I can't think of any team that could sign Justin Verlander and I'd be like, dummies. Right, yeah, yeah. Like, who's Justin Verlander? What if they're right? Yeah. I guess maybe it says that Justin Ferlander has confidence in the

giants and or in Bustapose. Cause you'd think who knows how long he's going to last. Now maybe he's thinking I've got a few more years ahead of me, but if he's not still dead set on 45, then he must be thinking I got to make these seasons count. I want to get, get rings, get, uh, another ring, maybe a ring that is not an Astros ring. And maybe I could do that here. So I guess, you know, this doesn't seem like the likeliest spot to do that in 2025. It's not out of the question, but yeah, I guess they must have sold him on being a contender.

Or I guess if they stink, they could always flip him at the deadline, which is an option. One thing that I'm curious about with him is just his approach to pitching. And I know that he missed part of last season, but when he's been pitching, he's more or less been pitching like the power pitcher he used to be. He was a power pitcher who had pinpoint control and everything. He kind of had everything. He's one of the best pitchers of the generation, but he hasn't really changed

that much even as his stuff has slipped, even as his strikeout rate has declined. And I was thinking of this in light of something you wrote on Thursday, Ben at FanGraphs about the fact that the slider increase appears to have peaked. It's not that the slider is out of vogue. It's just that we're not seeing the steady increase in slider rate season by season that we've been seeing for several years now. Maybe it's peaked. And Justin Verlander, I guess, is kind of a good example of that where he went up and

up and up. When he was young, he didn't throw that many sliders and then he just doubled, tripled his slider rate in 2020. He was throwing almost 40% sliders. It was, you know, like 30% not long ago, and then it was down under 20% last year. So he's backed off the slider a bit. Whereas I would think that he should, if anything, be relying on it more because his fastball, you know, it's not like he's a soft tosser, but he

maxed out at 97 this past season and he used to touch triple digits and he's lost a tick or two on average. And it's just not that effective a pitch. It certainly wasn't last year. Whereas the slider seems to be his most effective pitch. It certainly wasn't last year, whereas the slider seems to be his most effective pitch. I'm kind of confused or I'm curious if there's some kind of metamorphosis that he could under cohere, if he could do a Kershaw style kind of pitching backwards, conceding that he doesn't have the heat that he used to and maybe just going heavier on softer stuff and maybe that would serve him well.

But it's not a mindset, an approach adjustment that every pitcher can make. Cause you know, you're Justin Verlander. I can beat you with my high heat, except maybe he can't so much anymore. Yeah, it looks like he threw his lowest rate of fast balls ever in 2024, but it was still 49%. Yeah, right.

He's actually added a lot of curveballs and changeups to replace the sliders. And I didn't get a chance to write about this in that article. Maybe this is for another time. But if you consider sliders relative to the population of non-fastballs, I think that's where there's some more interest coming.

Like, throw fewer fastballs. We're not fixing that, I don't think, anytime soon without some major changes. Everyone has just realized that every single secondary pitch does better than a fastball. Yeah. But I think perhaps more interesting is that we're getting better, or teams are getting better,

at learning a lot of different ways to make the ball bend. And maybe that's splitters and change-ups or, like, weird hybrid pitches. All of them have fun names even too. But I think that Verlander could like turn more fastballs into curveballs and sliders, but he seems to like his curveball quite a bit, particularly of late. It's getting slower and bendier and he's using it more. Maybe he's going to be a slider curveball guy, like you said, like Kershaw.

That'd be very fun. Yeah, but I think his change-up is already better than Kershaw's has ever been, so it's not quite the same. Yeah, and it would just take, again, maybe it's a change of scenery, a new organization, maybe it takes the stature, the prestige of Buster Posey, the former catcher, to coach him into that kind of change and kind of massage his ego as one of the defining pictures of the era to say, hey, maybe the fastball's not cutting it anymore because he lost a couple of months to that neck injury. And then when he came back, he kind of got rocked in August and September and he just

wasn't missing bats the second half of the season. And then the Astros left him off their wildcard roster against the Tigers, which they didn't need him, I guess, in a short series. But I don't know that he would have played much of a part if they had gone deeper. So that was just kind of a sign of his standing on that staff. So he's got to make some changes. And I'm very curious to see if he will. But you know, fairly low downside here for San Francisco. Well, and I think that if something is going to be said, right, if there's going to be a statement made

about the Giants and sort of where they find themselves as an organization, that maybe that's the place where we should actually be looking. Like, can there be sort of relevant and good pitch design for him as an aging guy who's coming back from injury? Are they able to help him tweak his mix in a way that is useful to him, that he adapts to, that improves his results, et cetera?

So that's another little, like we can look, but we shouldn't assume because it might not say anything. It could be a completely silent signing in that respect. Has he ever played with a catcher as good as Patrick Bailey? You're dissing Martin Maldonado here. At receiving, not at all of the actions involved in catching. Because Maldonado is an incredible thrower. But Bailey's got to be one of the best.

Yeah, well, there hardly are any catchers that good. Yeah, I was going to say, sort of just by default, he'd almost have to be one of the better ones he's played with. I think that could be interesting. Maybe that's a further enticement to throw more breaking balls if you think that he can kind of get some favorable calls on sliders and curves.

Well, when Gleiber got 115, it blew up your contract prediction spin. But not Verlander's 115. That was in line with expectations. In fact, the median fan grass crowd source completely nailed it. One year, 15 million. That was the prediction for Verlander.

The average crowd source figure and yours was a tad high at 117. And I bring that up just because you did a little preliminary review of the crowd source predictions and your predictions roughly halfway through the off-season and the free agent market in terms of the top 50, though certainly skewed towards the top of the top 50 being off the board. But you confirmed what we've sort of been saying all off-season, which is that guys have gotten more than we expected them to.

Then MLB trade rumors predicted that they would, then you and the readers did, then we did. And he grew, yeah. Yeah. And starting pitchers we've noted in particular, but not solely starting pitchers, though I guess as you noted, if you remove Juan Soto from the equation, then I guess the hitters are more or less in line. But what do you make of the fact that we have all kind of collectively undershot things with the caveat

that as you noted, maybe the less prominent free agents, the guys who are waiting to sign their deal, maybe a great deal isn't out there for them and their AAVs will be lower than the guys who have signed so far or they'll get fewer years, there just isn't as much interest. So those numbers could come down closer to the predictions, but probably when all is said and done, it's still going to be a market that exceeded expectations. all off by too much. The pitcher deals in the call it max freed down to maybe Severino. Just really have exceeded our expectations. I'm guessing. I'm just making up reasons that may or may not make sense.

One thing that I think is the case is that last year at this time, there was a very uncertain environment and dynamically uncertain for TV rights. Not only did no one know what was going to happen, but no one knew whether everyone would get the same hit, whether what's it called, not ballet anymore, I can't even remember, fan duel? Fan duel, yeah.

Fan duel, yeah. Who would negotiate by team, would they do a league-wide thing, were all the rights going to go to the league? You've seen some teams pull back as a result of that this year. The Cardinals have yet to sign a major league free agent. And they are very notably getting less money in the future. They also might have been looking for a convenient excuse to pull back.

Because it kind of felt like their core had run its course. But I think for a lot of teams, it's a little more certain now than it was a year ago. Not that it's good, but certainty is often more important than like, if you know something's bad, hey, you know. I think that a lot of teams, when they're uncertain, they just plan for the absolute worst case.

This is a classic kind of financial paradox, where when you realize the 10th percentile outcome, people are often like, oh, few, and actually spend more. And I think this DSG, Vanduul, Bally's result is better than 10th percentile so far. Also, there are more pitchers this year that are interesting, I feel like, than in recent years. In a lot of years of late, it's been like,

you sign the top pitcher and then, uh-oh. So I weighted my top 50 based on the number of contracts that had been top contracts. Like last year, more than half of the top 50 contracts went to pitchers. And so I kind of stuck with those weights, but the pitchers are a little better this year. And so missing on something like, hey, teams really want to pay playoff starters has maybe hurt my predictions more. Well, I was impressed that you haven't really done worse than the crowd source predictions,

at least depending on the metric, which is, I mean, wisdom of crowds, that should be better than you. It's the wisdom of Clemens. You're just but one person and yet your wisdom seems to be kind of comparable. So that's impressive at least, even if you're both off, everyone's off, but you weren't off by way more. If I can toot my own horn a little bit, everyone else did not do as well relative to the crowd. The crowd, in fact, did quite well relative to a battery of experts that I looked at.

And I think that a lot of the experts, like me a little bit, fell victim to anchoring. And we just anchored it to last year and kind of missed the move. So without getting too into the weeds, the average miss, so I missed by like $2 million of AAV on average, the crowd missed by a little over two. And then if you look at some of the other experts, you got like fives, there's a 6 million AAV miss.

That'll probably get cleaned up when more contracts come in. But this has been a very tough year for predictions. So I would say, Kraude, you guys did worse than in past years, but everyone did worse than in past years. And you guys did much better than you have any right to, given how badly lots of people who spend all day thinking about baseball did. So great work.

Well, bad work by me in the free agent contracts over under draft. Oh no, I heard Meg took soda. Yeah, Meg is completely trouncing me in that competition. And like, to be clear, the first one that came in after we did that was Snell, and I was immediately underwater, and then other stuff has happened. So I do feel pretty good about that, sorry. I'll link to your breakdown of that and you will revisit it at the end of the off season presumably when we have the final numbers in. But I'm heartened somewhat. It doesn't mean that the storm clouds that we've all forecasted are not gathering, but maybe it means

that the storm is not quite arriving yet or it won't be quite as severe as we feared, at least for now. So that's good. Guys are getting paid for the moment. Not so much the guys that we're about to talk about though. We hope that they will get paid at some point, but- Transition. These are not Justin Verlander level names here.

These are minor league free agents. So in this annual tradition, we draft minor league free agents, which is a specific kind of free agent. I always insert this clarifying note here. I don't know whether it actually helps, but there are free agents who sign minor league deals who are not minor league free agents.

So we're going off of the list that baseball America publishes every year, which is provided by MLB. These are the guys who basically have been buried in systems for years. And they've had their six or so years of team control and their contracts keep getting renewed and they just haven't broken through in the big leagues for the most part. There are exceptions to that too. There are always some guys who have regularly been big leaguers, but they end the season

in the minors or something. And so they get classified as minor league free agents. But this is a mechanism essentially to ensure that people don't just get stuck in a system and wither away for their entire career. And if you're stuck behind a prospect or something, there's no opening at that position. This is a mechanism by which you can move elsewhere and hopefully get an opportunity. So these are largely players. These are players who've spent several years in professional baseball, at minimum, sometimes much more than that.

And they're now getting their chance on the open market. And so mostly these are pretty obscure players. There are definitely some, remember some guys type guys here who you're sort of surprised to still see hanging around on a list like this. And then there are guys who are perennial big leaguers, but usually not for that much playing time

or haven't made that much of an impact, just not particularly prominent to players for the most part. But that's the list we're working off, which I will link on the show page as always. And the competition is purely to see who can draft the minor league free agents who end up getting the most major league playing time in the coming season. That is all we are judged by here. Not how good the players are, but how much they play, which is obviously correlated to how good they are,

but not one to one. So we just tally up the plate appearances plus batter's faced of our 10 draftees a piece. We go 10 rounds here. So many rounds. It's a lot of rounds, but we just go hunting for hidden treasure here. Diamonds in the rough,

or not even diamonds. We'll settle for much less valuable, less precious gems. As long as you get to the big leagues, which is quite special, then you're a good pick generally because usually our hit rate is, I don't know, maybe like 50%, 60%, something like that in that range. There is a spreadsheet that has tracked our drafts for years and years, which I will link to on the show page as well. But it's kind of coin flippy. It's hit or miss whether we even get someone

who's gonna be in the big leagues, let alone spends the season there. But I did well last year, so I will take the turn tooting my own horn, which we've done. We've shared these results previously, but I ended up winning last year's competition with a total of 1,080 combined plate appearances plus batters faced. Meg came in second with 690 and Ben came in third with 624.

So, incredible performances by all of us. None of us broke any records or anything. There have been years where one of us has done much better, but also there are many years where one of us does way worse than that. So, the baseline was pretty high. It was like a high floor, low ceiling edition of the Minor League for Agent draft.

How are you two feeling about your draft boards this year? I guess fine. I guess fine. How are you feeling? How are you feeling? I wouldn't say I ever feel confident heading into the draft, but I feel about as good as ever. I guess I did a decent amount of prep.

I got my spreadsheet here with 48 names, which is too many names. I think I've had more names than that some years, but there's no need to have that many names because we have 30 picks here. I don't need close to 50, but sometimes I just can't decide. I feel like I over-analyzed last year and got, I spent way too much time on this, if I'm being honest, and I feel like your guys' analysis was just better than mine. So I decided this year to layer in some vibes as well. And so I've done less preparation in terms of looking at all of their statistics and more preparation and trying to decide how I feel about people, like the ones who I kind

of know. Yeah, that's, I kind of do a pass through the Baseball America list and just jot down players I've heard of or players I'm sort of surprised to see on this list like, oh, he's a minor league free agent. Isn't he usually a big leaguer? Okay. That seems like a good sign. And then I'll do some deeper dives and look at some stats and try to find some under the radar types I might not have picked out of the list, but who actually might be decent prospects here. It's a perpetual not have picked out of the list, but who actually might be decent prospects here. It's a perpetual struggle to figure out what the best strategy is here. Is it to go for the retreads? The guys who you just kind of, they're in the big leagues every year, getting

their 50 plate appearances or something. And you just, you know, it's a gimme almost, you hope at least that they'll get you on the board. Tucker Barnhart. Yeah. Yeah. He's frigid every year and he gets like 60 plate appearances and then everyone's like, wait, this pass is not good. Yeah, which is, again, like if you average that out of every spot, that's probably not going to get you a win, but also so many goose eggs are on the board at the end that you feel kind of happy just to get something basically. So there's that strategy and then there's the shoot for the moon. Like

maybe this guy is an actual prospect quote unquote by minor league free agent draft standards or like if he hits, if he breaks through, maybe he'll actually be a starter and that'd be great, but there's no track record of that happening thus far. And then there's always the wrestling with, well, do I go with like a third string catcher kind of guy? Tucker Barnhart again? Do I want to go with someone who's maybe going to get there, but realistically, how many plate appearances are they going to get you? Or a reliever where you're just sort of limited, played appearances, are they going to get you or a reliever where you're just sort of limited, you max out at not that many total batters face or do you want to go like in the old days, you know, like a loogie who's always there, but obviously

isn't going to face many batters. There aren't so many loogies around anymore in the three batter minimum era or do you want to go for a starter, but also they might just not. There's like a risk reward. Yeah. So, or like a utility guy who may be a good chance of sneaking onto a roster somehow, but then probably isn't going to get any plate appearances. It's tough.

I don't know that we've nailed down exactly the optimal approach to this, but it's always fun. And then sometimes you draft Brent Honeywell, even though he's not on a roster and like two years later, he's not on a roster. And like two years later, he's a world series champion, probably because at some point they were like, Oh, we should, we should send that guy, you know, who had her eye on him early, Meg, no one else. He wasn't a prospect at any point in his career.

Don't worry about it. This year I am bound and determined not to draft anyone who has already signed in an Asian league for Francis. Cause seemingly we do that every year. Sometimes they sign. We do that every year? Yeah. We?

It's not exclusively me, but. It's been exclusively you while I've been drafting in this exercise. I'm just saying. If you say so. I drafted Jonathan Perlazza with my six round pick last year and much to my dismay, I think he had already signed in the KBO. I don't think he had. I think that he signed like the next day. I think you get a pass on that one. If memory serves, he was still uncommitted and then he became committed and not here.

If we counted, KBO plate appearances would have been a fantastic pick because he played in 122 games. He got 522 plate appearances for the Hanwha Eagles, 850 OPS, solid pick by me in the KBO minor league for agent draft. You aimed too high. He was too good. He was too good. Right, exactly.

Exactly. So I'm determined to not waste a pick like that, like, uh, drafting someone who is out for the year with Tommy John surgery or, or, or drafting someone who has signed with a KBO or NPB team. You'd think that would be a pretty low bar and it is, but I'm pretty sure that, uh, I, or maybe others have failed to clear it in the past. You know, I just want to go into the year with my full compliment of 10 picks because I won anyway, even with one bat tied behind my back last year, but I don't want

to do that if I can avoid it. So we'll see. All right. This is fun because it's a test of our wits and our scouting and also our luck. And then it's fun to follow throughout the year because every now and then someone gets called up then it's fun to follow throughout the year because every now and then someone gets called up and there's a little jolt of recognition. Where do I know that name? Oh yeah, Minor League for Agent Drafty. That's nice. And listeners keep track of it and our scorekeepers, Chris Hannell keeps track of it and we can monitor it throughout the year, though often I don't until the year is over and then I'm sort of surprised to see what the actual results were. So I was going to suggest that we snake draft for once, but then I figured, yeah,

cause I've been doing a lot of ringer drafts with, with snake format and it does make sense, but it would be sort of self-interested of me to suggest snaking now because I have the third pick because we're going in reverse order of our finish last year. Then I'll abstain from suggesting snaking this year, but you know, maybe next year. Who knows? Why don't we all agree now to do it next year? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's fine. We'll snake next year. All right. For now, Ben Clemens has the number one overall pick. So have at it.

Oh, fuck. I liked your monologue there because I'm picking the upside guy. I'm going to take Bobby Dahlbeck. Ah, all right. On my board for sure. On my board for sure, too. I have no clue if he's a great pick,

but he is a major league player who signed, well, he is, unquestionably. He has been. Yeah. He is a player who has played in the major leagues. I think it's like president, you keep the title forever. Yes. And he signed with the White Sox. So that's actually all I need to hear.

Yep. Like, no, I like Bobby Dahlbeck. I think that I was too high on him as a prospect. He was a real prospect. Yeah, he was. Unlike- He's a top 100 guy. Yeah, top 100 guy.

Unlike a lot of the people in this are kind of non-prospects made good, he's like a real, he was a real prospect. Now, he's been like super bad, amazingly bad. He's been below replacement level for three straight years for the Red Sox and getting, you know, just progressively knocked out of their plans to the point where they cut him and he's a minor league free agent. But the White Sox are really bad and Bobby Dalbeck has some tools and I am not even sure he's worse,

a worse bet than Andrew Vaughn. And he's certainly a different person than Andrew Vaughn. So maybe they'll just be tired and change things up. I really don't know, but I, God, he's 30. Yeah, he is 30. Yeah, I have him fast. That's wild. It's a more auspicious socks matchup for him though, for sure. He is a utility guy at this point. I don't know if he's a good utility guy, but he plays first and third and left and right and shortstop amusingly.

Are there sub-utility players? It's like the opposite of super? I do think we've been overusing super and we have to figure out whether super refers to the positional suite, the complement of positions that are we saying when we say super utility? Are we saying, will they play a lot of positions or are we saying they're actually good? Because I think that Ben Zobris kind of broke the seal on super utility and he absolutely was a super utility guy. He played a lot of positions and he was one of the best players in baseball for a while, but does super utility, are we just over applying it? Because there are a lot of players who play a lot of positions now. It's just, it's more common to have multi-positioned players because there's

so few bench spots for position players. And so you, you have to have a bunch of gloves to travel. But what do you think that means? Like if we say, I don't think, I don't know that I would classify Papi Talbac as a super utility by any definition, but what do you have to do to meet that standard of super? I think that there's like a baseline level of competence at every position that is included and then you have to, the super to me speaks to the size of the compliment of positions that you're playing, but you do then have to be good enough at all of them for it to make sense.

Like if you're, you know, if you're a 30 at one of those, you can't be like, oh, I'm a super utility at this position. I can't play. It's like, if they wouldn't put you out there in an emergency capacity, you definitely can't. And I think you have to be like a guy they would say, yeah, we can count on him to fill in when the regular is hurt at that spot and it's not going to like cost us a game. You have to clear some sort of bar, but, and then you have to play a couple of different positions. I think you have to play at least three at a like competent big league level for you to really be a super utility guy in my opinion. I think, yeah, you might have to play three just to be a utility guy.

Yeah, that's fair. I don't know. So what, five? If you play like first base and corner outfield, I guess you're technically a utility player. It's just more than one position, I guess would be the basic definition. Yeah, but practically, no. Yeah. But I think, yeah, like maybe a utility player is a sub and a super utility guy is or can be a starter. Is that a useful distinction? I cannot believe that we are on the first pick of the draft and you have introduced this conversation.

It's a very important one. So in my head, there's two types of utility. There's up the middle and corner, and maybe you can put third with second. So it's like second, third, and short, center, maybe. And there's first, left, right. And I think if you can play at least one position from both of those groups, you're a super utility player. As in, you're not like the utility infielder who plays like second, short, third. Yeah. Can you also play center?

Do you play left field and second base? Like Spencer Steer is probably a super utility player, but maybe not because does he really play third anymore? And if he only plays first, left and right, he's not. But, but Bobby Dalbeck. Yeah. Short stop. First overall pick.

First feels slightly aggressive to me, but he's a good pick. You can't put first base in the super utility mix and have it be like the thing that moves a guy from utility to super utility. Because first base is where you put the guy where you don't where you're like, I can't even hide him anywhere. I can't even. I meant first overall.

Oh, okay. Sorry. But he signed like, it's one of these deals. It's not a guaranteed major league deal, but if he makes the majors, he gets like double the minimum. Basically he gets like 1.25 million plus half a million in incentives and he can opt out in the summer if he isn't on their roster, though, if he can't make the White Sox roster, I don't know if it's going to be much better for him elsewhere, but he's kind of become a quad A guy, 816 OPS in AAA last year. Like he can still rake down there or mash, but last year, like he can still rake down there or bash, but he just can't make contact and yeah, I don't know. But White Sox, so yeah, it's funny to see him out there at short, just 6'4", just giant guy. Anyway, Seattle native, so.

Really? Like Bobby Dalbeck? Yeah. Hey guys, without looking, how many different seasons did Bobby Dalbeck play shortstop in the major leagues? Two. Yeah, I'd say two. Oh yeah, he went to Arizona. That's why I got jammed up.

Three? Three, wow. They just kept doing it. Yeah. It's never for very many innings, four, 10, and eight. But every time they're like, how bad could it be? They had a hard time finding a shortstop, So that wasn't necessarily the plan going in. It was more of a break glass in case of emergency,

but there were repeated emergencies, but yeah, still anyway. He was born in Seattle, but he went to high school in Colorado. So it doesn't, it's different. I love Colorado, I'm just saying. Your turn, Mick. My turn, okay. I'm gonna stick with the white socks of it all.

And I am taking Bryce Wilson. He was a right-handed pitcher. He played for the Brewers last year. He threw 104 innings for Milwaukee last year. I have zero memory of him doing that. And like, look, were they great innings? I mean, he had like an ERA just above four. He had like a FIP in the low fives.

He's not a big strikeout guy at a 18.6% strikeout rate. But here's the thing about Bryce Wilson, famously he signed with the white socks. So I'm feeling okay about it, taking Bryce Wilson. It's, it would have been my pick. So I'm mad, but, uh, yeah, he's, he's been in the big league, seven consecutive seasons, he'll be competing for a rotation spot, presumably he's not good. Exactly. He's been with. Braves, the Pirates and the Brewers. And yeah, I mean, he had a sub replacement level fan graphs war last year, but would have been tied for the sixth highest

baseball reference war on the White Sox. And they did trade a player for a player for the White Sox. And he's been with the Braves, the Pirates and the Brewers. And he's been with the Braves, the Pirates and the Brewers. And he's been with the Braves highest baseball reference war on the White Sox. And they did trade a player catcher, Chuckie Robinson to the angels to free up a 40 man spot for him. Feels like a good sign.

Yeah. And he's only 27 or this is his age 27 season because he debuted as a 20 year old, which like, yeah, I know. And you'd think like, oh wow, he must've been really something. And he was a top 100 guy and he was a fourth round pick by the Braves. And he's settled into sort of a unusual range where like big prospect debuted very young, but then has been quite mediocre, but his stuff backed up on him. And then it hasn't been the same sense.

So, but the socks need starts because no crochet, no Eric Fetty, Chris Flexon's a pre-agent. So Bryce Wilson, it's a, it's a fantastic pick. It would have been mine. So thank you. Thank you. Darn. All right.

Well, I guess I'll go with more of a hot shot younger ceiling guy than with my first pick, which is maybe risky, but Bryce Wilson seemed like the safest pick on the board to me. So I'm gonna go with Luis Corvello. Ah! Yeah, at least I got a groan just in revenge for the groan that I just admitted.

Yeah, so Corvello, he was reported by John Morosi back in November. Morosi tweeted, Corvello is quietly one of the most popular free agents at the GM meetings, which quiet indeed, I guess, but most popular obviously meant that a lot of teams were interested, not that they were interested to the degree that like actual major league free agents got interest, but he's got good stuff. He was at AA with the Mariners in 2024. He had good numbers there, 30 plus percent strikeout rate. Langenhagen ranked him 31st in Seattle system in July,

and he was better after that even. And Eric said, big arm strength that plays down due to his fast ball shape and his lackluster command. His bullet spin slider is very nasty and has uncommon depth for a pitch in the 83 to 87 miles per hour range. Disappointing that he does not throw a curve given his name, but he is, he's a slider guy. Eric said he looks like an up and down reliever, hopefully more up than down for my sake. And he signed with the Rangers, by the way, and he signed a major league deal, which reflects

the fact that a lot of teams were interested and Rangers just had a lot of room on their 40 man, more room than the Mariners had. Their bullpen was 25th in Fangrass War in 2024, though it projects to be middle of the pack now. And I hope that Luis Corbelo will be a part of that. So I don't know. I don't love taking a reliever with the number one pick here, but I like the player. So got to go with Corbelo. Good pick.

Cool. All right. All right. I'm going to stick with taking people who you would not expect to be on this if you looked at prospect lists from four years ago. And I'm going to take Cisto Sanchez. Yeah. Oh, all right.

I don't think this is necessarily a great pick, but I love him. And if I'm going to anchor this team with vibes, I mean, I might as well pick a player I like. He pitched 35 innings in the majors in 2024. And you know, he was bad. Yeah. But hey, Justin Verlander pitched innings in the major leagues 2024 and you know he was bad. But hey Justin Verlander pitched in the major leagues and was bad in 2024 and he got 15 million dollars. I don't think Seeksto is going to get that much. Yeah. But no, he did strike out 17 in those 35 and two-thirds innings which is

not ideal especially with the 14 walks but he was there. It's not amazing. I mean, he missed so much time, you know, like he didn't pitch a professional inning, I don't think from basically for like more than two years, nearly three, he only pitched one inning in 2023 in the affiliated minors. So I think he pitched a new winter ball. In any case, like this guy has at his best, like very good stuff. He's not been at his best for a very long time. He's pretty far from his best. Probably will be. But on the other hand, he's about to turn 26. He has turned 26,

but he's going into his age 26 season. Look, if he's good, I think he could be very good. I think he will probably not be, but high risk, high reward pick. Does not have a contract as far as I can tell. No, unsigned so far. Yeah. Yeah.

I was wondering if he might be a flight risk for the terms of the minor league for agent draft in the sense of maybe he'd get a good deal abroad, but, uh, maybe he's too young to go that route. Maybe he'll try someone other than the Marlins in the majors in MLB before he goes elsewhere potentially. Yeah, it's risky. I, in my bold predictions last year, I predicted that he would be the rookie of the year.

Yeah. And he was not. I thought it was that he would get votes, right? Oh, maybe it was that he would get votes. Wait, was it that he, I don't remember what it was. Okay, so like to be clear, equally bold predictions. Yeah, both pretty bold.

And it just amused me that he was even eligible for rookie, because he got rookie of the year votes in 2020. So maybe it was that he would actually win. I don't know. That seems more bold. But yeah, for the sake of this, I guess I have to root against him for your team, but I don't want to root against him because it would be fun if he were good. LSG You can root against all the other guys on

his team and then like root for Sixto and it would be fine. I'm going to take and like I didn't lean as far into vibes as Clemens did here, but I am making this selection in part because I want to read Eric's report, which has a line in it that made me laugh really hard when I edited it the first time and then made me laugh again. So I am taking Carlos D. Rodriguez, who was Carlos Rodriguez on the BA list, but is Carlos D. Rodriguez. He was with the Brewers last year.

He signed a big league deal with Atlanta. He had a 118 WRC plus combined across double and triple A last year. Here's his report. He was a 35 future value prospect in the Brewer system. After tearing his ACL in 2022, Rodriguez slashed 291-359-367 at AA in 2023. He has been pretty much the same player since entering Pro Bowl, one with plus speed and feel for contact, but whose bottom of the scale power and play discipline undermine those skills. Rodriguez still runs well enough to play centerfield coming off the ACL, and looked even better from a conditioning standpoint in the spring of 2024.

His offensive profile is like a serial killer speed dating, lots of slashing, singles only. It's more of a fifth outfielder skillset than a fourth because Rodriguez's centerfield defense is more average than plus. But given the like outfield situation that Atlanta has where like you have guys, but some of those guys, notably Ronald DeConnue Jr. have like been injury prone lately. Michael Harris second has had his issues. He is on the 40 man. He signed a big league deal. You have to imagine that if anything kind of goes awry with any of their, uh,

starters, that he might be someone they give an odd to down in AAA. And also I really enjoyed that line. And so he will now be a Meg. What is my team name? The Megs. Yeah, he was high on my board and it is a non-guaranteed major league contract, but still he's got a spot on the 40 man. He's on the 40 man.

Yeah, Britt Giroli reported that 18 teams had interest in Rodriguez and the Braves offering the 40 man spot was what sealed the deal. Yeah. And yeah, he signed with the brewers as a 16 year old. So he was with them for quite a while. And, uh, even though he's not old now, he's going into his age 24 season, but he was like the second highest ranked Carlos Rodriguez on the prospect list. Yeah.

Eric had him 34th on last year's list behind Carlos F Rodriguez at 19. If you were wondering why Meg said Carlos F Rodriguez at 19, if you were wondering why Meg said Carlos D Rodriguez. Yes. I had to make that distinction. And let me tell you, when we were editing that list, I was like, okay, we got to make sure that we have the right Carlos in the right place. I like him.

He was in AA, AAA. He's got not a lot of pop, I guess, but good walks to strikeout ratio. He walks more than he strikes out. He's, you know, he's got a little speed, 17 steals and 23 attempts, uh, close to a 400 on base in the Venezuelan winter league. Yeah. I like him. He, he's, uh, you know, for a primary center fielder, you

don't have to hit that much. And even in AAA, he didn't really hit well, but he still walked more than he struck out. So, all right. Well, sad that he's off the board, but I guess, where will I go next? All right. Guess I'll take another of the major league deal guys off the board and I will take Elvis Alvarado. Elvis Alvarado, who signed a major league contract with the Pirates and he's kind of interesting. He's a converted outfielder. Yeah. Yeah. Like a late bloomer. He didn't make his debut in

A-ball until he was 19 and then converted to pitching after that. And he was invited to Tiger Spring Training in 2023. He was with the Marlins in 2024. He was mostly in AAA, lots of strikeouts, but you know, like pretty, pretty decent, like two-time minor league free agent. He was good in the Dominican winter league. He, I thought it was interesting that when he was signed by the Nationals, they're director of Latin American operations. Johnny DePuclia said Elvis profiles as a corner outfielder. He's got the potential to hit for power and has an above average arm.

And the above average arm ended up being what, what he really wrote because he turned into a pitcher. He signed for 700,000 his bonus that year out of the DR, the same class that the National signed Juan Soto for 1.5 million. So he's like almost half as good as Juan Soto is what I'm taking away from that. Yeah. So that's good.

That was way back in 2015, but he is entering his age 26 season, right-handed reliever, 64183 from the DR. There's a lot to like there. So, you know, again, I guess I'm going for youth and upside and guaranteed contracts. Makes sense. Did you see his walk rate? I startled a little.

Yeah, it wasn't in previous years. I wonder what happened. It was like 18%. Yeah, that's not good. But it's like, it wasn't that high before that. It was like single digits most years until 2024. That's strange. Yeah.

Too many walks, but he can miss bats. Hopefully the control will improve. And pirates, so that's good. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that you guys are just continuing to not take people I'm taking, which is maybe a bad sign for me. I am- Or a great sign. I am going to take Thomas Panoni'm taking, which is maybe a bad sign for me. I am- Or a great sign.

I am going to take Thomas Pannoni. Oh, he's on my list, yeah. I think according to the baseball reference pronunciation guide, at least it's Pannon, but I did not double check that. Well, in any case, I have never heard his name pronounced to the majors, despite the fact that he's thrown a decent number of innings.

He's very difficult to search on fan graphs, I think because none is in his name. So it freaks out a little bit when you search for him. But he was pretty good in his two-year stint in the KBO. Yeah, not amazing, but low three is FIPS, just overall solid. He came back and barely threw for the Brewers, and then embarked on a minor league free agent journey.

And honestly, it was like pretty decent for the Cubs and Yankees. He threw 150 innings, a 3.5 ERA and a 4.35 in AAA, which is, you know, not bad. And then the Brewers brought him back. I feel like the Brewers do pretty well with these there and back again conversion arms, like, or there and back again foreign arms. And yeah, I mean, he has an invitation to spring training. The Brewers pitching staff has been built, I think perhaps over a haunted graveyard and people always seem to be hurt.

So I don't know, I could see it working. They could trade their four best players just for no reason, like they often do. And then he could be in the major league starting. Maybe, probably not, but maybe. I like it. Yeah. To get someone who threw 150 plus innings in AAA with pretty decent stats with the

Cubs and the Yankees and the Brewers were 25th in starting pitcher fan crafts were last year, though they're projected to be middle of the pack now. I like it. Yeah. I, he was a ninth round pick way back in 2013 by Cleveland. So he's entering his 31, age 31 season, but lefty starter. Yeah. It's, it's good. Didn't get a big league deal, but I like it. Yeah, you're right. They do well with like guys coming back over. They signed a lot of guys out of Indie ball. They like, they have, um, they do a good job with sort of non-traditional talent

acquisition pools and avenues. So it's good. I have a lot of Brewers signees on my list here. I do too. I do every year. I had a bunch of their relievers last year. Yeah. I guess it's, it's not good in the sense that probably they're not all going to get playing

time with the same team, but however the Brewers are evaluating these things, I guess I'm looking at things sort of similarly. Yeah. We pick a lot of Brewers in this draft. I think I had like three last year. Well, you're about to get one more, or at least I am. So it's my turn. And I'm taking Grand Wolfram. Wolfram? Wolfram? Wolfram. Wolfram. Wolfram. He was with Texas last year. He signed a big league deal with the Brewers. He pitched well in AAA last year. It was 3-3-4 ERA, 4-3-1 FIP, left-hander. I feel like there's opportunity in that Brewers bullpen, you know? Like it just feels like they, they have fewer guys than they did. They moved some of them out.

They're going to see what they have with some of these guys. And so that's what I really have to say about that. Yeah. Grant. Yeah. He was high on my list too. He's been with the Rangers his whole career. Yeah.

And, uh, yeah, as you said, he pitched pretty well in AAA, decent strikeout, ground ball rates. The Brewers do have a bunch of lefty relief options, it seems like. So that, that scared me a bit. He seemed pretty far down the depth chart and he has a lot of options left minorly because he's never been on a 40 man before, but he's on one now. He is on one now. He's very large.

Six, eight, 240. Big man. Yeah. Big, big guy. Holland, Michigan. He was a 18th round pick in 2018. And regardless of what he accomplishes this year, he is the first Davenport University Panther to make a 40 man.

So. You did way more research than I did for this draft. I made some notes, just, you know, cause a lot of these guys had never heard of before, so what am I going to say? But that's a D2 Davenport university. He's the first Panther to make a 40 man. Grand Rapids. All right.

Where am I going to go next? All right. I guess I'm going to take Justin Hagenman. Yeah. Hagenman, Hagenman. He was on my list too. Yeah. He signed with the Mets and got a major league deal, though it's a split contract.

He would make $850K in the majors, $225K in the minors. He was in AAA with Boston. He was part of the return for Kike Hernandez. Good control guy, lots of homers, a bit of gopheritis last year, 21 homers in 91 and two thirds innings pitch, but he was a swing man and he's just entering his age 28 season. He's a righty. He could give you a little length. He's a 6'3", 205 out of Voorhees, New Jersey, like the fictional serial killer, I suppose. I was going to say. Yeah. He was a Dodgers draftee, 23rd round in 2018.

And he was effective in 2023 as a reliever, at least ERA wise. I think the, the FIP was not so hot, but he, he did throw 85 plus endings out of the pen that year. So he's been durable and he's kind of funky, I guess. Like, I think he has like a hitch in his delivery. He's got a lot of arm angles. So I don't know whether that's a bug or a feature, whether that helps him or whether they need to help him isolate what works, but you know, we praise the

brewers finding guys and David Stearns used to be the guy who was finding guys for the brewers and he's just doing a a little dumpster dive in to build a bullpen. I guess that means I'm calling the guy just drafted garbage. I don't mean that necessarily, but lower profile picks. So yeah, I like his opportunity with the Mets maybe. But I don't know. I'm going pitcher heavy so far and also I'm going pretty heavy on guys who have no major league service time.

And I don't know how I feel about that strategy. But I like the individuals. So I'm drafting for talent here. There you go. All right, back to me. I'm going to stick with my plan of drafting from the 2019 Top 100 free agents and take Carter Keeboom. Oh, wow.

All right. Carter Keboom did not pan out as a prospect. I think it is fair to say he managed a 65 WRC plus in essentially a full season of work, 500 plate appearances over a bunch of years with the Nationals and never was above replacement level and didn't really look like he was that good, if I'm being honest.

That said. Why would you not be honest with us, Ben? Strategy. Got to hype myself up. Yeah. That said, he remains a competent minor league hitter. I think he's just always average or thereabouts in the minors. He doesn't strike out too much.

He takes his walks and he signed with the Angels, which I like because the Angels famously love third baseman from the Nationals, and Anthony Rendon never plays. So I think that, you know, now their depth chart has Anthony Rendon listed as the starter, and then a variety of people who could handle third base if he were out, which is smart. That's very smart of them. Scott Kingery, Kevin Newman. Like, I just don't think that that's that difficult of a group to beat if it really comes down to that. Probably Carter Keboom will not play in the majors in 2025, but should he be good, I think that he'll just be a starter right away. This roster to me just looks like it's really

begging for someone who can play third base consistently. I think they would, they have a lot of salary now. So I was gonna say they're begging to put Rendon at DH, but somebody's just gonna be hurt all the time, like one way or another. And I think that if Kibum hits league average, then he's gonna be a very valuable piece to the Angels. The evidence would say that he will not hit league average, then he's going to be a very valuable piece to the Angels. The evidence would say that he will not hit league average, but he does have a lot of

tools even still. So I think this is another one. All of my former top prospect guys are like, hey, if this guy works, maybe he'll get 500 play appearances or throw 100 innings. But I'm hoping to hit on one of Dalbek, Keebloom and Sanchez. It would be funny if he succeeded in succeeding Anthony Rendon, but in Anaheim instead of in Washington. That would be a great story. Yeah, how about that? All right, yeah, you're going for like the variance here, you know, just like the low probability high upside types.

We like variance. We like positive variance, the potential for positive variance. Back to you, Meg. Back to me. What will I do? I'm going to make this selection mostly based on the, the nationals are going to cycle through a bunch of guys as they continue to like see if any of the post hype dudes can, can find their way into being useful for them. And I'm going to take Connor Pilkington. Part of that is that I like to say Connor Pilkington, Connor with a K, you know, not a lot of Connors with K's, but this one, he has K's. Now he's hoping to have big league K's, ayyyyy. See how I did

a little joke about him being a pitcher. He spent last year with the Diamondbacks in AAA. And you know, you wouldn't say that he pitched like great. His FIP was right around five and his ERA was worse. And his strikeout rate was sort of underwhelming. So this might end up being kind of a waste, but I also think that like he could be interesting for a team that is looking to see if they can capture positive variants from some guys.

And they sent him to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. He's a lefty. They have a couple of lefties in their bullpen as it's currently constituted. But again, like they're just going to cycle through guys and see if any of them are good. So hopefully Connor's one of them. So Connor, Pilkington, Pilkington. Yeah, good one. Okay.

I will take, I believe the last guy left on the board with a major league deal, which I think there were seven so far, which is, seems like a lot. Usually there aren't enough guaranteed major league deal guys to get through a couple of rounds of this thing. This isn't a guarantee, but Josh Walker is my pick. He is a reliever, lefty reliever entering his age 30 season. So a large man, 6'6", 225 from Otisville, New York. He was a 37th round pick by the Mets back in 2017.

I'm going to be sad when we no longer have 37th round picks hanging around because there's no longer a 37th round, but he signed with the Blue Jays. He signed a major league deal. It's a split contract. He gets the league minimum if he's in the majors and 180k if he's in the minors. He pitched 24 games in the majors for the Mets over the past two seasons. They DF8 him in July, he was traded to the Pirates, then he was DF8 again and released and re-signed. But his past three years, 89 innings in the minors, 3.54 ERA, too many walks, 12.7% walk rate, but 33.7% strikeout rate.

Does have an option year remaining, but the Blue Jays have the 24th best projected bullpen war and they were dead last in bullpen war in 2024, negative two and a half war. So not a tough group to break into in theory. So based on that and the big league deal and also based on the fact that his Instagram handle is skywalker with two Rs, which I enjoyed. And I also enjoyed the rest of his Instagram because got to say good looking guy. He's bringing up the handsomeness quotient on my minor league draft team. Nice hair, nice abs. He's got it all going on. So he's going to be kind of like on the cover of my media guide.

Maybe he'll be, you know, the, the, he'll be like the eye candy on my roster. And hopefully he will also pitch. That would be nice. All right. Now I gotta look at this guy's Instagram, see what's going on. Got a chiseled jaw, you know. Chiseled jaw. Chiseled everything, really.

Oh, he's a... Okay, it's really... You're doing a lot. You're doing a lot over there, Ben. Oh, he's a good looking guy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Recently married? Yeah, he's off the market. He's taken. Sorry, ladies. Sorry, everyone. Sorry to you. You sound upset. I know. Oh, look, he did some international travel. Yeah. He's off the market. He's taken. Sorry, ladies. Sorry, everyone. Sorry to you. You sound upset. I know. Oh, look, he did some international travel.

Yeah. I did get to take him on this team at least. So that's not bad. All right. Well, all the big league deal guys are off the board. So that marks a milestone in this draft. Back to other Ben. Between two people here, I'm going to go with the first of my two choices. That's Ryan Valade, just sticking with fallen star prospects who have landed in better spots. Ryan Valade was a prospect of sorts. I don't think he was ever a top 100 guy,

but more heralded than he has ended up being earlier in his career. He's really not been amazing in recent years. He really hit that amazing in recent years. He's really hit that bounce around phase young. Last year was his age 25 season, and it was his third team in three years. He actually played 50 played appearances in the majors for the Tigers and was bad, but he was fine in the minors. He seems pretty fine overall. He's not super tooled up, but he's got some power and he can hit a little bit. And yeah, he's not ideal in the outfield, but he can play a corner.

And the Cardinals are purposefully trying to be worse this year, much to my chagrin. They've even said it. I'm not breaking any news here. And so- I bet they didn't phrase it quite like that, but- They probably said it differently. I think they didn't phrase it that differently that, but... They probably said it differently. I think they didn't phrase it that differently.

Yeah, it was close. They were like, spending money on making the Major League team good is overrated, so we're going to try other stuff. So I'm going to go with, yeah, another former top-ish pick. He's a second round pick back in 2017. And I just think that there's just not a lot to fight through. Sadly, my one true love Lars Knutbar is always injured. Like Victor Scott is, again, kind of sadly not really a major league hitter.

Jordan Walker has not shown that he can play right field in the majors. And I think they might love to move him back to third if Arnado ends up getting traded. Alec Berlison is not really an outfielder. The outfield situation is just not great here. And so I think, I like Michael Ciani, but he's just Victor Scott the second with a different mask on. Yeah, that might be true. I think that they may need an outfielder who can hit and be healthy every day.

And so I don't think that's necessarily Valid, but I do like his path to production. And he was good enough to play for the Tigers, a playoff team, at least a little bit last year. So I think there's a decent floor as well. Yeah. I think that that is a good choice. And I am going to make what I hope is a good choice. And I'm going to take Adrian Hauser. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hauser signed a minor league deal with the Rangers who we have kind of like middle of the packish in terms of projected bullpen war, which is useful. Like Hauser has gone back and forth between starting and relieving. Last year with the Mets he had

meaningfully better results out of the bullpen than he did as a starter. He had a 328 ERA as a reliever and an 855 ERA as a starter. Those are different numbers. So I'm hopeful that if he gets put in the bullpen, assuming he makes the team out of camp, that he will be useful to the Rangers. So look beyond the top line numbers to Adrian Howser. He's got a great beard, you know? Very good beard. Very good beard.

So yeah, Adrian Howser. Yep. Wow. I was not expecting to see which team had made him a Might Relief Agent. The Orioles? Yeah, he was, the Mets released him in July, then he went to the Cubs, and then he went to the Orioles, but didn't make it back to the big leagues. Yeah.

Yeah. I have been, well, finally I wasn't last year, but for, I don't know, five years in a row, I was irrationally high on Adrian Hauser thinking that he would figure it out. So I hope he does. I will root for him. Okay. Well, for my next pick, I will be selecting Jason Alexander, not the Seinfeld Jason Alexander, not the assistant to the traveling secretary, but Jason

Alexander, who signed a minor league deal with the A's. He was in the big deal with the A's. He was in the big leagues with Milwaukee in 2022. He's from California. He was born in Windsor, California, which I believe is about a hundred miles away from Sacramento. His brother, Scott, was in the big leagues with the A's last year, but is a free agent now.

So the A's need to fill their Alexander brother quota. So that's what I'm hoping for. He is a right-handed pitcher. He is entering his age 32 season, 6'2", 227. He was undrafted out of school. He signed with the angels back in 2017, but he threw almost 140 innings in AAA for Boston last year with a sub four FIP, which is nice. He's got a good ground ball rate, good control. The A's, even after signing Severino and acquiring Springs have the 28th best projected rotation. So there is perhaps an opportunity for a somewhat local kid, not really kids, but local guy. He's

been in a bunch of organizations, Marlins, Red Sox, Angels, Brewers, but hopefully he will stick. And again, I'm really loading up deep, deep pitching staff that I have here. If this were a fantasy draft, I would be screwed because I would have so many other positions to fill. But yeah, I'm just stocking up would have so many other positions to fill. But yeah, I'm just stocking up on pitchers. Not sure if that's a good idea or not, but I just like these guys. So what can I do? I guess I could draft someone else is what I could do. This is what I decided to do. But you didn't.

No. So, yeah. I think I've gotten to the pitcher phase of my picks as well. I'm going to take Nabil Kruisman. Ah, no! Meg thwarted again in her attempts to take Nabil Kruismat. Ah, no! Meg thwarted again in her attempts to draft Nabil Kruismat. God damn it! I was getting, see, I, Ben, this was the debate I was having at my last pick. I was like, oh, should I take Kruismat now? No! Oh, I'm so upset. There was the 2021 draft. I've altered Chris Mott in the sixth round and he gave me 351 batters face, which I guess

I didn't need. I won anyway. All right. But it was nice to have him. Do we need to fixate a little bit longer about how I'm frouncing you in the contract over under draft? No, I mean, geez. Hey, I brought that up with my own accord. So yeah.

Oh, Lord. Tell us more about the current Chris Matt. I have to say, he might be more my vibe than Josh Walker. I like his beard. I like his kind eyes and his hair. And on the field, he's pretty good too. He has a 370 career ERA in the majors. He has a 3-9-7 fit over like a full year of innings. This guy's like not bad. He's always constantly like, I guess we could use him. You know, like he pitched seven innings for the Dodgers in 2024. In 2023, he pitched 11 for the Padres, two for the Diamondbacks. He's kind of bouncing around, but I think he's good. I think he throws 75 different change-ups and like usually 15 at least are pretty good. I think he throws 75 different changeups and like

usually 15 at least are pretty good. I don't know. He's a very weird pitcher. 70% changeups in 2024. But I just like him a lot. And the Phillies aren't like your first like, oh, they need pitching kind of spot. But I do think that the way that their rotation set up, they have a lot of guys who are going to go like four or five innings fairly frequently. They're counting on Jesus Lizardo to pitch a lot, and Ron Herr Suarez, and Christopher Sanchez, and those guys are all like not super heavy workload types. Obviously, he's not like Nola and Wheeler are doing him no favors, but I don't know. I feel like he always finds a way to throw some innings, and I feel like he's like due to get an extended run and be acceptable in a maddening way,

kind of. Yeah. I'm so upset. I'm so, I'm so upset. And a question that I have for you is like, was there any danger that you would have taken Adrian Howser if I hadn't taken him off the board just then? No, I just looked up that you would have taken Adrian Howser if I hadn't taken him off the board just then? No, I just looked up that he was on this list. Oh, I'm so mad. I had him on my board, but I probably would have waited a little longer.

Oh my God. And now the question that everyone is wondering about is whether I will, as I was the last time I lost out, be totally derailed by the loss of Chris Mott, who I couldn't believe you took. I can't believe you, oh my God. It was the sixth round that year, so if you'd wanted to bet that, and this year, I don't even know

what round we're in right now. Well, I felt safe. I felt safe, you know? I felt like surely, surely I can wait. Next year you just got to take Christmas number one overall. Just don't leave anything up to chance. Like you'll be a minor league free agent next year. I mean, that was part of what happened last time, you know? Like, you guys, what do I do? I'm so, I am despondent. I'm bereft. I'm in need of making a pick and so I will.

Do I wanna do something? Man, I'm ready to do something stupid now. Just on tilt. Ben, I can't believe you. I can't believe it happened again. God damn it. Same guy. I've done so many big swears. Do I wanna do something? f***ing stupid now.

My god. No, I'm gonna, okay, I'm making a Sunamental pick. All right, all right, all right. I'm gonna take Davy Garcia. No! Maybe we won't get a trade later. Do we love trades in the minor league free agent draft? Anyway, I'm taking Dav David Garcia, who's still

only 25 somehow. Isn't that crazy? Doesn't it feel like he's older than that? Like he's been around, like we've been trying to figure out if he can make it work. Look, I don't think that David Garcia is good. And I don't know that this will make much of a difference, but like I do believe in the Brewer's pitching dev and the Brewer signed him to a minor league contract with an invitation to know that this will make much of a difference, but like I do believe in the Brewers pitching dev and the Brewer signed him to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. His year last year at the major league level went pretty poorly and I gotta say like his experience in AAA wasn't all that much better. Like he had an ERA over six in the minors with the White Sox last year. His FIP was 49, so like, okay.

But you know, like he struck out 27.4% of dudes at AAA, but the number came down. He walked a lot of guys. He walked, he walked an unacceptable number of guys, particularly when he was in the majors. But I want, I want Davey Orsi to work, you know, I want it to work because he's been this like interesting flash point where he was like underestimated and then people thought, Oh, maybe, maybe it'll be fine actually. And then he was kind of overestimated. And then, you know, he did have like an okay time from an ERA perspective in 2023. The less at about his FIP that year, the better because he had like, this is very

funny. He had a 240 ERA and he had a 626 FIP. And so, you know, like pick your poison. But anyway, it was 15 innings. It doesn't mean anything. So I'm taking David Garcia and I'm hoping that Milwaukee can make something of him. Um, so August, I guess gets at work, but you know. He would have fit my former top prospects team so well. Yeah. Well, I was definitely going to take him.

Like really? Okay. Well that makes me feel that's a funny back to back. Do we allow traits of this draft? I don't know, man. I can't believe I got scooped on Crismont again. CB. Traits might add a fun wrinkle to this. I don't know if we can do it on the fly here, but maybe next time. KS. No, we can't do it on the fly. It needs to mimic- BF. Yeah, let it marinate a little.

KS. Yeah, it needs to mimic the actual draft in that we cannot allow, but then we wouldn't be doing Snake. So maybe we can deviate, but oh God. All right, Ben, you're up. How many players does each of you have? Six. Six. Six. Okay. Six. All right. Okay. I've been loading up on pitchers and speculative plays here without a lot of major league service time. So I'm going to go in the other direction now and I'm going to bring a little balance to my roster with Jake Bowers. This is the all grown round. When you said that, when you said that you were going to bring some balance,

I wrote Jake Bowers in to your draft and I was like, I hope it's not Jake Bowers. It's Jake Bowers. So Jake Bowers is entering his age 29 season. He is a utility player, I guess, but not a super utility player. He's a corner utility guy. He's a first base outfield type. He is yet another brewer. We're just, it's just so many brewers. Excuse me, which is weird because they're not a bad team. Like we are- No, they're- Anyway. Yeah, but it's a problem that we all have just so many Brewers. They can't all get a lot of playing time, but he has played 200 games over the past

two seasons and he only has an 85 OPS plus in those games, which is not great, but he was with the Brewers. He is back with the Brewers. They signed him to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training. He had a couple big hits for the Brewers last year. He had a walk-off single against the Phillies on September 18th, which was the day the Brewers clinched the NL Central. And then he hit a pinch hit homer against the Mets in the Pete Alonso game, game three of the wild card series to break a scoreless tie in the seventh

inning to no avail ultimately, but there's still some residual fondness, fan fondness for Jake Bowers. And I'm just hoping that the fact that he has managed to get this playing time with pretty good teams and contenders, and again, like hasn't really done as well as you would like someone who's somewhat defensively limited like he is to do. But someone who played 116 games and 346 played appearances for a division winner last year and now is back with them, lefty hitter. I'm hoping for another back with them, like, you know, lefty hitter. I'm hoping for another like Hoskins kind of compliment situation. Maybe that'll work out again. Just run it back as far as I'm concerned. You know, Brewer's had a good year. Don't mess with success. Just keep Jake Bowers around. LS. Okay.

CB. He also pitched four games last year. So yeah, there's some, maybe we can call him super utility because he pitches sometimes. No, no, no. I guess probably not. He's just a position player pitcher, but he did that. I'm like totally out of players now. So I'm going to, I've got a few, but I've got a player I want to draft. All right.

I'll take James Karen check. Okay. Yeah. He was on my list as a possibility. Yeah, like, look, is this guy going to pitch in the majors again? Yeah, like, but his stats are all the same every year. He strikes out. Which you're going by vibes,

and you just, you took an anti-vaxxer, but. Look, that's why I said I was out of players I wanted to pick. The vibes are not great here, but the fact that he's just always the same player. You know what he did in the minors last year? I mean, he didn't pitch much. He pitched six innings, but he struck out 40% of the batters he faced and he walked 20% of the batters he faced. And he's like, yep, he doesn't know where the

ball's going and they don't either. Yeah, it could work. I have no clue if he is even going to get a contract. It seems like he's a real headache to have on their team. But I don't know. I think if he wants one, because he missed almost all of the season with shoulder issues, right? But then he pitched in eight AAA games in September, and yeah, clearly could still miss bats and also miss the strike zone. So kind of classic Karen-Chak. I have enjoyed his mound presence of just like looking, you know,

kind of classic reliever, mad Hungarian style, just yeah, absolutely amped up, you know, twitching constantly kind of. I'm a very twitchy person and I do appreciate that about him. Him and Kevin Gausman are the two twitchiest big leaguers, I think, and I do like that. the two twitchiest big leaders, I think. And I do like that. Yeah, but like, okay, so he's got, I haven't spent a ton of time around you in person, Ben, but like you have decidedly better vibes than James Kerenshack.

And not just because of the vaccination stuff, but also because of the vaccination stuff. Like he's got, I don't know, it's not. He's like high key twitchy and I'm like low key twitchy. Yeah, okay. They're different. I wouldn't argue that. I like't know, it's not. He's like high key twitchy and I'm like low key twitchy. Yeah. Okay. They're different. I wouldn't argue that.

I like can't keep my hands still. He is like flinging his arms around. It's not the same, but again, like he struck out 40% of the batters he faced. Yeah. Someone's not going to give him a job. I don't know what the state of his health is. He's unsigned. I don't know.

Yeah. That is, is he holding out for a big deal or something? I have no idea what his status is. I haven't seen any update, but yeah. I assume if he wants to sign somewhere, he'll get signed somewhere. And I wouldn't be surprised if he pitches in the majors. So yeah, it's not a bad pick. Okay. I'm going to take Cal Mitchell. Okay, I'm going to take Cal Mitchell. I'm taking Cal Mitchell because I have, I think, one position player on my entire team. And so it's probably a good idea for me to diversify that a little bit. And here's what I will say about Cal Mitchell.

There are two reasons that I am signing or drafting Cal Mitchell. The first is that he had a 114 WRC plus in AAA last year in 122 games. So that seems interesting. But here's the real reason. Here's the primary reason. He signed a minor league deal with the White Sox. So come on down, Cal. I also think that I'm happy to see a resurgence of the name Cal in, I like the name Cal.

I think that- Yeah, me too. I think, is it short for Calvin? Are they Calvins? Austin? Is he Calvin Mitchell? Calbert, is that a name? Calbert is not a name. Well, hold up, do you guys watch- Someone must be named Calbert.

A man on the inside, the- I have not seen that Michael Sch Michael Schur Ted Danson show. I find it very good. I'm from San Francisco and so it is very city-y, which I appreciate. There's a character named Calvert. That's a very Michael Schur funny fake name. That's kind of classic. His name is Calvin. Calvin Mitchell is his full name. But yeah, I like Cal. I like it as a nickname for men.

I don't know. Something about it feels warm to me. So yeah, I hope that Cal has a great season for me. So there he is, Cal. Yeah, I had him on there too. He's an invite to spring training, former top 100 prospects, second round draftee by the Pirates back in 2017.

As you said, hit pretty well in AAA, though it was El Paso, I guess, but he hasn't turned 26 yet. He's a left-handed hitter. Yeah. He's still young. He's exactly the kind of guy who, candidly, a team like the White Sox should be cycling through their roster, right? Because they suck and breaking news, the white socks,

they're not good. But you know, this is like a good strategy for teams in their position where like, you see if you can get something out of these guys, if it changes scenery, if it whatever. So like, and it's not like, you know, I'm just reminding the white socks, if anyone works for the team that this is, you can just give this guy run the White Sox, if anyone works for the team, that this

is, you can just give this guy run if you want to see what you have. And if in the first month you're like, I think it's not good, double check, you know, just make sure. If it fails, keep doing it. Keep doing it. It should feel familiar to you. Okay. Meg has been working blue in this draft.

I will be working blue it and I will be selecting Scott blue it who has resigned with the twins. This is the second straight off season that blue it has signed a minor league deal with Minnesota. He's pretty good last year. He had a three seven nine ERA in 54 plus innings in the minors. He also had 20 plus innings of a sub two ERA in MLB with a very high strand rate. I'm not saying he's an elite reliever or something, but he is, I think, a major league quality reliever. Obviously one of the best names and also worst names for a reliever.

Hopefully no nominative determinism going on here, but it is very funny that he is Scott Blewett and not, I don't know, Scott's, uh, close the door at or whatever you would want a reliever probably to be close, but- That would be very clunky name as a child though. Yeah, I guess so. But he is entering his age 29 season, readyver, big guy, 66, 245, former second round pick by the Royals in 2014 and a Syracuse, New York native where my wife is from. So I'm often in Syracuse. I've attended Syracuse AAA games back when they were the Chiefs,

I guess, between being the Sky Chiefs and the Syracuse Mets, which is what they are now. So I've got a Syracuse connection and he's not been bad. So Scott blew it. PSA, free advice for you guys. Don't draft Spencer Howard or Elipiris Montero, both of whom are on my list. And I did a quick little check here, both of whom have signed overseas. Yes, Spencer Howard made my first cut of, oh, I know him, and then, oh, he is signed in NPB. So, yeah. Yeah, Eligiris Montero as well.

Similar deal, like not good, but I thought maybe he could play, but no, no. Well, he can't. I mean, you were not alone in that assessment. He and the Rockies. Okay, I really hate that I mean, you were not alone in that assessment. So, yeah. He and the Rockies. OK. I really hate that I'm making this pick. I'm going to take David Bodie.

Yeah. I thought about it. I'm debating about it. Yeah. Look, I don't think this is going to work out. I like David Bodie. I thought it was great that he got a contract from the Cubs. And so I'm going back.

This is like too far into the vibes, because I don't think he he's good and he's on the Dodgers. That's real tough. But he is like, he's a classic quad A guy. He's got a great batting line this year. Yeah, he had an OPS in AAA last year. The guy just hits minor league pitching and maybe the Dodgers will call him up and play the Rockies. I don't know. Yeah. Or he could end up elsewhere, maybe. Yeah, he could end up elsewhere. He fits like a nice borderline super utility vibe.

I know, I was just going to say. Oh boy. He played first, second, short, third, and left, and also pitched. He's not a shortstop. Yeah. But he has played second and first and outfield. And that's Ben Zobristy, right?

Like Ben Zobrist was never like a great shortstop. Bodhi played 300 innings of shortstop in the minors in 2023? Yeah. What? Okay. Yeah. He is a super utility player. Yes.

And the Dodgers love super utility players. When Chris Taylor is bad and Tommy Edmond gets hurt, then they'll bring up David Bodhi to look uncomfortable at many defensive positions. Yeah. If it hadn't been Dodgers, I would have taken him by now. That part is rough. Yeah. Yeah.

But probably the only player from Neosho Community College to make a 40 man. Probably. I mean, I feel like we can be confident. But yeah, he has, you know, you never know. Some guys get hurt and, or he just gets moved to some other organization. But yeah, it's not, not a bad pick. I don't think. Okay. Back to Meg. I'm taking Joey Gerber. The Gerber baby. So Joey Gerber was with the Yankees last year. He signed a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training with the Rays.

And you know what I would tell you is that he was pretty good in limited action last season. He only threw 33 innings. I don't know that he was hurt, you know? We don't have like a, was he hurt? Am I gonna feel silly about this? I mean, he signed- Maybe it took him a while to ramp up.

Yeah, but he's a former Mariners guy. So like I'll always have some affection for him. And I think he was a cold weather player as an amateur. He like grew up in Minnesota. He went to Illinois. But in 33 innings with the Yankees, minor league in the system last year, he had a two, four, three ERA and a three, eight 380 FIP. I mean, his FIP crept up as he climbed and he was admittedly like the least good at AAA. But doesn't, not that the Yankees are a bad pitching dev organization to be clear, but doesn't he feel like he could be the kind of guy where you're like, where in the hell did the Rays get this guy? Why is this guy a Ray now? And he's, cause he's throwing all these innings and he's like really

good and everyone'd be like, Oh, that Meg, she sure knows how to pick them. That's what they'll say. I feel like was on the Yankees is a great, great thing to have on your resume for like a random reliever. Like I think of John Parabia, who was like a good reliever for a number of years and like was on the Yankees. So like they taught him something and then he left and figured out the rest of it somewhere else. I feel like that is good. Yeah, now the fact that Joey Gerber still has two options

remaining is maybe not gonna help my case all that much. Cause you know, he could be an up and down guy, but he'd be an up and down guy, you know? He could go up and then he could go down and then he could go back up again. That would be helpful for me, you know? All right. I'm here by the way, to defend the honor

of Neosho County Community College. Oh. Yeah. It has been impugned, the suggestion that David Bodie must have been the only big leaguer from that school. In fact, he was not the only big leaguer in 2024 from that school. Oh, what? Yeah.

I retract my statement. Who else? David Bodie attended Neosho County Community College in Chanute, perhaps Kansas, the Panthers, the name of their team too. Also the alma mater of Matt Strom. Wow. That's good. And Jonah Bride, who was in the big leagues this past year too, although he also went

to the University of South Carolina at some point. Yeah, I was going to say he wasn't a- Yeah, but Matt Strom did not attend any other college. All right, well, I take it back. The David Bodie, he's in the same boat, Bodie. But there was one prior big leaguer to Paul Lindblad who was in the big leagues 14 years in the 60s and 70s, was in Neosho County Community College. So yeah, it's a powerhouse.

That's actually shocking. Yeah. Yeah. All right. If any Neosho grads are listening, let us know. We apologize. Why is your baseball program so good? Yeah.

Okay. So I have two picks left. Is that right? Three, I think. You have three. Oh, I have three. This is round eight for you. Okay, cool.

All right. Then I will be selecting You have three. Oh, I have three. This is round eight for you. Okay, cool. All right. Then I will be selecting Heriberto Hernandez, who was signed by the Marlins. He is entering his age 25 season. He's a right-handed hitting outfielder. And I'm doing this based on the fact that he's a former Ray and he's now acquired by Peter Bendix who's been stockpiling former Rays, players he's familiar with from when he was on the Rays.

So he was signed by the Rangers back in 2017, he's from the Dominican, he was traded to Tampa Bay and then Nathaniel Lowe deal. He again, like Bendix has been sort of collecting these guys. And that's not always good, I guess, maybe if you're too in love with the players who were good at your previous stop or you're just overly familiar with them maybe. LSW Yeah. CB But in this case, the Rays always have too many players and the Marlins always have not enough.

So I think it might actually make some sense to kind of take the cast offs from the Rays to strengthen the Marlins system. He was 30th on Eric's Rays prospect list last July, and that was 30 of, I don't even like 49 or something, probably. He's a polar oriented hitter. He's vulnerable to outside stuff. He's a corner defender, you know, not great, but not a liability, a three true outcomes hitter, lots of walks, strikeouts, some good pop. And again, he's on the Marlins. And the Marlins right now on roster resource slotted for their corner outfield spots, they've got Griffin Konine, son of the franchise, and Jesus Sanchez with, I don't know, like Derek Hill and Dane Myers on the bench. None of these names really says to me that he is just irreparably blocked. So he reached AAA for

the first time in 2024. He struggled a bit there, but still hit nine homers and 150 at bats. So he can swing it. He's pretty young. He's a Marlin. That's enough for me. Clearly Bendix likes what he saw and still sees. Mike, he used to be a catcher, right? Did he? Am I making that up? Maybe he was just, maybe I'm making up wrong,

but I do remember- No, you're right. He caught for a little bit when he first- I thought he was like a- When he first signed. Listed as catcher and I was like, what the hell? When I was taking data down for all the past top 100s and looking at how those prospects have done,

he was on there so many times. Because he was young and toolsy. He must be great then. Trust me, if we're talking about number of lists you were on, over time, he is way up there. Because I feel like he's always about to arrive and he's never quite gotten there. Big fan. This is the year. Good name. I saw his name on there and I was like, yeah, I like that guy. I'm going to

take someone I took last year. That's probably a bad sign, huh? I'm going to take Dalton Jeffries. I don't actually know if he's ever a top 100 prospect, but a prospect I liked quite a bit. Boy, this guy cannot strike anyone out, but he doesn't walk anybody either. That's what I've got for you. I think that it's not really necessarily enough to be a great Major Leaguer, but I think it is often enough to be a Major Leaguer.

I watched him pitch in the Majors last year. I am a little bit worried that he's hurt, but because he seems to always be hurt. But I do like Dalton Jefferies and the vibes on my team will be very good, if nothing else. Okay. Okay. I'm going to take Luis Frias. And you know, sometimes you take a guy because you've seen him pitch in the majors, you know. He throws hard, he walks a lot of guys, but he has a minor league deal with an invitation to spring training with the Guardians, and I have marginally more confidence in their pitching dev than the Dive Back Packs or ED Packs.

And so, you know, I feel like there were a bunch of guys with Arizona last year who kind of struggled and I don't know if they will ever be able to help Frias like figure out where the ball is going. But if they do, I think it could be good. And so I'd like to see what they can do with them. Luis Frias. CB All right. Well, for my penultimate pick then, I'm going to, Well, for my penultimate pick then, I'm going to go back to the same well as my previous pick and I'm going to take a Marlin who is a former Ray. I'm going to take Ronnie Simone, Ronnie Simone who like Herberto Hernandez is entering his age 25 season.

I think we could have utility, super utility, tough call. He's, he played shortstop second, third, and left last year. He had a 785 OPS in AAA. He was actually the lead home MVP last winter when he hit 323, 432, 494 for the Tauros. This winter, again for the Tauros, he hit 227-312-327, so not the MVP, but he is a switch hater and he has a pretty similar compact swing and results from both sides of the plate. He was in camp with the Reys as a non-roster invitee in each of the past two springs, should have an easier time making the Marlins. I guess he'll be competing with yet another former Ray in Vidal Brujan. So again, Bendix seems to have a type at this point, but pretty good contact, fairly patient. He was actually 19th on Eric's Ray's

prospect list last July. That's pretty high in a deep system. And he was signed by the Cubs initially back in 2018 out of the DR. He was traded to the Diamondbacks and he was traded to Tampa. He has some speed. He can swipe some bags, not the most efficient base dealer. Not a big guy, 5'8", 150, but yeah, I'm going for these mid-20s former Rays who will have an easier time of it with the Marlins. I have a type two.

Okay. All right. So last pick, huh? Yeah. All right. I am going to take, I want to just first say that I think the name Snarlund Evangelista is very good. Yes, I agree.

I'm not going to take him, but I noted that and Rickson Taylor-Wingrove as my two favorite names. After I make this pick, I won't be able to say any more names. So I'm stalling just to say those two names. And now I'm going to take Nick Solak. Oh, okay. Another, you know, former top 100 guy. I think like seven of my picks were on some top 100, some time or another.

I like Nick Solak. I noticed that he transitioned to playing left field exclusively in the minors last year and was a baseball player. The book on him has always been hit over having a position, a positionless bat. When he came up in 2019, he'd really hit and he hasn't fulfilled that promise since then, but he has a 93 WRC plus and a thousand plate appearances. He was, yeah, again, like reasonable in the minors

in 2024 for Seattle, who didn't call him up that, you know, my favorite sign. But I think the pirates have enough, like Josh Palacios, I'm not sold on as a corner outfielder. I could see Zolak doing some work there. I also think the Pirates have enough, like Josh Palacios, that I'm not sold on as a corner outfielder. I could see Solak doing some work there. I also think the Pirates seem good at figuring out what they have in the Miners. So I'm hoping that what they have in the Miners

is good with Solak. Cool. All right, your final pick, Meg? I'm gonna take Jermia Jones. I'm taking Jermia Jones. I know that the Tigers, who Jemai Jones signed a minor league deal with famously signed Gleyber Torres, but their infield situation seems still kind of unsettled to me. So I don't know, he'll be a backup. He's probably better than Javier Báez. He had closer

to league average last year than Javier Báez did. Is he better than Andy Abanhas or Zach McKinstry? Well, probably not, but you know, it's the last pick and I like the name Jami. I think it's a nice name. So Jami Jones, there you go. Okay. So my final pick and the final pick, I'll go for a fun one too. Is it the highest probability pick I could make? Probably not, but it's fun and I'll squeeze one more Milwaukee brewer in here and I will

take Anthony Siegler. Anthony Siegler, he's entering his age 26 season. He is a utility player. He's a switch hitting batter and also a switch thrower. This is Anthony Siegler who came up on the podcast, I believe in 2023, because he in one game caught as a right-hander, like played catcher, and then played outfield as a left-handed thrower in the same game in AA. Yeah. He was a catcher and then he started transitioning to second base in 2023 and became a full-time second baseman or non-catcher,

at least in 2024. Had a 748 OPS in AA, switch hitter, switch thrower, has an invite to spring training with the Brewers. He was with the Yankees and he was their first round pick in 2018. I think like 23rd overall, something like that from Fort Defiance, Arizona, 59198. So I guess he's similarly built, I guess, as yet another former Yankees infielder who he'll probably be competing with to some extent. Durbin, who we talked about.

Caleb Durbin. Caleb Durbin, who went back to the brewers in the Devin Williams trade. But when the brewer signed Anthony Siegler, Matt Arnold said, he does a little bit of everything, catch second base outfield, a little bit of a jackknife. He has really high pedigree and the reports on his makeup were tremendous. So we value the versatility, a lot of different pathways to help our team. Hopefully a lot of different pathways to help our team. Hopefully a lot of different pathways to help my team too. Getting a makeup guy here late in the draft and it's the final round. So we're just having fun here. I wonder if you did a study of our picks over the years, whether the returns on our picks by round would degrade in a predictable way or not really.

When you look at the amateur draft and you look at the returns that you get, it goes down round by round. There's a big fall off from the first round to the second round and then less steep fall offs as you go down. Generally, it's kind of a linear predictable decrease more or less. In this draft, I don't know whether that would be the case. I would guess that the first round is a lot better than the other nine because you get the major leaguers.

Yeah, there's like the Jose Iglesias, the guy you don't expect to be available here. Bryce Wilson. Yeah, but after that, I wonder. I bet it's fairly flat once you get to the second round. I don't know. I'd be curious to see if someone wants to do the legwork there. And then there's the inevitable Meg meltdown because someone else took the fucking crease mod. Okay. Well, I took a lot of pictures at first and then made up for it later and we all took a lot of brewers. I like my team. I like my guys at least. I don't know if I'll do well, but there were a lot of players I liked this year, I guess more so than you, other Ben, because you ran out of guys you

liked pretty early. But I still have guys I like left on my board. But yeah, I was considering, my board. But yeah, I was considering, well, there are a lot of guys in the, you know, retread category like Birch Smith I thought about. Well, of course my man, Joey Meneses, I feel really disloyal not having gone for Joey Meneses. He signed a minor league deal with the Mets. He's entering his age 33 season. He hit well in the Mexican Pacific Winter League. I just, you know, I love him for a guy. I declared the best player in baseball just a couple of years ago.

It's been a pretty steep drop off, but. Yeah. And then like. The biggest decline. Garrett Cooper was in that category for me too. Oh, I didn't even see him. Yeah. Who else?

Brad Keller, Alan Trejo. Literally Tucker Barnhart. Tucker Barnhart, yeah. He's on the draft this year. And I bet you he'll find a way to 50 play of the census. Alan Trejo, formerly of the Rockies. Trace Thompson, multiple-time draftee, I think. Giovanni Gallegos, I was interested in.

Harold Ramirez, he's really dropped off too. Yeah. And Sergi Alcantara, I considered, you drafted him with your last pick Meg last year. Did I? Yeah, he didn't make it. He's with the Giants now, but yeah. Thought about him.

Willie McIver, who is a catcher. He was with the Rockies now, he's with the A's and they're back up, backstop job kind of up for grabs. But yeah, he hit well in Albuquerque last year. Who else? Peyton Henry, who's a catcher, signed with the Phillies. Ben Heller, who's been, he's in that bouncing around the big leagues. Mold, he's with the Cubs now, considered him. Yeah, Michael Chavis, Jensen Junk, Austin Pruitt, Tyler Matzik, Zach Short, JD Davis, Riley Pint, Miguel Diaz, Omar Narvaez, Adam Simber, Brendan McKay. I have no idea.

I think he's heard Brendan McKay. Yeah, it seemed like it. So. DJ Stewart played a lot in 2024 for a guy who has not signed a deal anywhere. And like, isn't bad. He has an above average diversity plus for his career and was great in 2023. But yeah, I'm not sure he's gonna catch on anywhere. He's now turned 31 and wasn't really before. Yeah. I feel like Adam Simber is probably gonna throw 30 innings, right?

Maybe. Yeah. Just seems to. Every time I see Adam Simber's name, I think of that, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Timber song. That's what I think of. I looked at Jared Oliva, another brewer, Signe. He's an outfielder, former Brickley Gortha Pirates. Yeah. Yeah. There's some Hobies. We're abandoning the Hobies. We're leaving the Hobies behind and I do feel away about it, you know? Yeah.

I feel bad. Seth Beers on here? Yeah, Seth Beers on there. I thought about Clay Helvey who signed with the Nationals. He's been in the Giants system his whole career and he's got like a nasty slider that no one can touch. So he was kind of interesting. Rico Garcia who signed with the Mets and led

the international league in saves last year. So Trenton Brooks, who signed with the Padres, he was with the Giants briefly last year, kind of a Mark Grace type first baseman, some walks, no strikeouts, no power. Armando Alvarez, who's a free agent. He made his MLB debut with the A's last year. So a lot of talent out there. Yeah. So many names. Some still unsigned. Okay.

And I have a control group, a randomly selected list of 10 here selected by Wandering Winder, one of our listeners and Patreon supporters. That is Brad Case, Daniel Valohin, Nick Anderson, Jesse Han, Jackson Stevens, Carlos Perez, Drew Maggi, the gift of the Maggi, Fernando Silvera, Michael Ramirez, and Mike Brasso. I wanted to pick Nick Anderson, even though I don't think. He has a showcase coming up where he's going to show his stuff to major league teams and

surely they'll all show up because the guy was very good when he was very good. But I just until I saw his name on there and I was like, well, there's my first round pick. And then I looked at his fan graphs page and man, he's not thrown very many innings. Yeah. Period. Yeah. There's always someone in that category. Like Ken Giles was available last year, I believe.

He was available this year. Oh, was he again? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I guess he was. That's why I noticed, I guess. And I remember kind of kicking myself that I didn't take him last year because he signed with the Braves and then he pitched like 40 innings in AAA and he was not very good. But it still struck out a lot of guys, just very homer-prone.

Ben, if it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure that Nick Anderson was one of the Pride Night holdouts. Oh, was he? Yeah, so it would have interfered with your vibes. You already have one questionable vibe. Karen Tchaik and Nick Anderson. Well, all right. I feel good about this. We'll keep track. We'll return to our results. Thanks, Other Ben again for participating. Yeah. Hope and I will pick it up this year. And other people, feel free to test your wits against us in the Minor League for Agent Draft.

Let us know how you do. Also undrafted by the way, Jose Ramirez and Julio Rodriguez. Both still on the board at the end here. I know. Get on it. Yeah, don't think it's those Jose Ramirez and Julio Rodriguez, but I didn't check. Yeah, I assumed it wasn't. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild as have the following five listeners who have already signed up to pledge some

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We will be back with one more episode before the end of the week, which means we will talk to you soon. Are there any players in your head? Is it a while to repeat them? To all of your indifferent family and friends They'll keep you company, they'll keep you sane On a long bike ride or a slow work day Megan Benwaxing about a playoff race A blues bad's hard

It's effectively wild So stick around, you'll be well-beguiled It's effectively wild Like Nolan, Ryan was sometimes