[SPEAKER_03]: Hello, everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: JJ Cooper, Jeff Ponce, another baseball-america prospect podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are at Daylight this week.
[SPEAKER_03]: We apologize.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the same time, we're going to come to try to explain on today's podcast the reason we were late.
[SPEAKER_03]: Both Jeff and I, I think we were the last two to file our last teams for the baseball-america, 2026 prospect handbook.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't want to admit what times we've been up to writing that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that Jeff beat me, Jeff Younger.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think there was a 3 AM for Jeff recently.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to shut it down around midnight and just get up early, like six AM and start writing again.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's not, there are few better feelings.
[SPEAKER_03]: Jeff aren't there, then when you've hit, you just sinned on that last chapter that you're writing for prospecting.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there are like very few things that are better.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the thing that's funny is the last couple of years I've had circumstances outside of my control like the week that the handbook is due.
[SPEAKER_02]: Last year, my basement flooded in December, which has never happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a sub pump issue and then had to actually drain it, which was a bit of a nightmare.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this year, I got sick.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I lost a couple of days or writing more or less, like, brought in Saturday.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before that, I was actually on pace to probably have everything it turned in by Sunday.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I needed, you know, another day or so after that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But so a couple more days that I wanted it to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a fun process too.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that this to me is like
[SPEAKER_02]: fishing like you're kind of out there by yourself you've you've done all this work you got all your gear which I think is like your scout notes data we have that stuff to support us that's the fish finder you know and your tackle box and you're kind of out there and you're like all right now I'm going to go through synergy you know I'm going to watch you know all of the extra effort plays because I feel like those in particular are like a really good way to
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's also like a microcosm of like what are the capabilities of this player and what types of plays do they have to make those extra efforts on so it's it's it's always very reflective of the quality of that player's defense you know more often than not.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you'll get some some extra effort throws in there just in terms of like, you know, short stops diving one way or the other and having to get up from a knee and make a throw and like that's the difference between a Jefferson Rojas and like a Marrake used it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very clear when you watch those that there's a difference there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: I would all say it's my favorite process because we can really get into it and I think, you know, going through and just watching video of every player before I write them allows me to be just much more clear and focused and descriptive of what that player looks moves in place like.
[SPEAKER_03]: I completely agree with you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm not going to tell you it's not like, but this is what I was doing this morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to bring this up.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's great that there are DSL teams that actually broadcast their DSL games and you, you know, with
[SPEAKER_03]: with basically track mandate and everything.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, again, we're just very lucky that we get to do this, that this is our job, is that we're sitting there and so I'm sitting there watching Tigers DSL videos.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're just again, just to get that little bit more of like, okay, let me paint the picture of the player.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not just getting reports on them, but you're trying to paint the picture to help the story.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is kind of like that to kind of also summarize this.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are recording this, it is 830 on what December 17th.
[SPEAKER_03]: We will have the book sent to the printer next Monday.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we are basically five days away.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we will, the goal is
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a we're not making this an ad, but we are trying to inform you that the idea today is what is the prospect handbook because we talk about a lot obviously it's something it's a coverage that we also use at base by american calm but the prospect handbook is the culmination of all this work we're doing where we're trying to put together
[SPEAKER_03]: Scouting reports on the top 30 prospects in all 30 organizations, and then we also have get into this, but rankings, BA grades, risk, 20 to 80 tools grades on all 900 players.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have position rankings.
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you want to see how the first base of in line up, how the short stop sign up, how the third base of in line up, all that, then we have org talent rankings in there as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's what we put together.
[SPEAKER_03]: that kind of is the culmination.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is our books that you can have in your hand and basically at a minor league game and kind of know who'd, okay, this, you have a little thumbnail scouting report on all the key players who are at that game.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the goal of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And what I would also kind of say with that is, is we filed our last teams on December 17,
[SPEAKER_03]: This will be sent out to the printer in five days.
[SPEAKER_03]: And my goal is to have it if you ordered it through baseball America.
[SPEAKER_03]: My goal, fingers crossed that I can get this done, is to have it sent out a digital version of it to all purchasers through baseball America.
[SPEAKER_03]: before Christmas.
[SPEAKER_03]: So December 23rd, 24th.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always say before that gives you that little wiggle room.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I send it out at 1150 on December 24th, which is probably not good thing I'm doing with my family if I'm doing that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if I did, I still hit that window.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the goal is that you will have it in your hands.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's how we kind of work on this, but we do come down to the wire.
[SPEAKER_03]: found out which ones have 80 grade tools.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are a few in the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then on the flip side of that, which have 20 and 30 grade tools.
[SPEAKER_03]: And learn from that that I'm pretty mean, I guess, because a lot of the 20s and 30s were for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where I kind of wanted to start this way.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I did get it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanted to put this up.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to, you go to storeoveratbaseballmer.com, purchase the book again.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you purchase from us,
[SPEAKER_03]: I will be sending you, and I do me me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will be emailing you a digital PDF copy of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Password protected.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always want to note that for people.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not for sharing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's for the person who purchased it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you will have to enter that password and I do want people to know that too because sometimes someone says, I have to enter this password, so yes, that's all right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's how we do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Jeff, I'm going to ask you, because we're trying to make this where we want this to be,
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome people in, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not trying to use terminology and just say you should know it.
[SPEAKER_03]: 20 to 80 scale.
[SPEAKER_03]: When we talk about that, which we use throughout this book.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm happy to help too, but I'll throw that to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of explain to people what we're doing, why what we're meaning with the 20 to 80
[SPEAKER_02]: The best way to describe it is the measurement scale on which scouting tools and overall player grades right for their actual role is put on this scale and as opposed to it being zero to 100
[SPEAKER_02]: You sort of eliminate that bottom 20 and that top 20 and you stay within within 20 to 80 50 being sort of the pivot point of the standard or average and you move up from there and there's corresponding language that goes with each grade.
[SPEAKER_02]: More or less there's I'll say bigger tiers the majority of the tiers with each of these these areas are by tens and then there's sort of half pivot points in the 30 to 40 range or 35 and then from the 45 to 50 which even the 40 to 50 range at 45.
[SPEAKER_02]: and then from 50 to 60 at 55, we do have 65, there's some debate as to whether that's a standard or not or actually tracks back to the scientific method that this was all sort of founded on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as I mentioned, language that goes along with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So below average is a 40, well below average or poor is a 30, bottom of the scale,
[SPEAKER_02]: or like a non-factor is a 20, and then as we go 50 being average, fringe average would be 45.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just that little bit below the average above average is a 55 plus which is a term that I'm sure most of our listeners are familiar with at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a 60 double plus is 70, and then top of the scale or a leap is a
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna put up another little visual aid here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So Blaine Branch Ricky, if you're like, why is it 20 to 80?
[SPEAKER_03]: Branch Ricky was the basically ran the cardinals and then the Dodgers and then the pirates, but he kind of developed the best we understand, the 20 to 80 scale.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you're looking at this and going, I didn't know that there was gonna be math in the prospect podcast for watching the video version.
[SPEAKER_03]: Throw off some podcast, you're listening to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're showing the standard deviation scale.
[SPEAKER_03]: of our grades are going to end up, you're talking about the massive major leagueers will reside between 40 and 60, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Average is actually where the majority of players, again, we will note here at the major league level, reside, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're talking about a minor league team, you're watching a minor league and there are, there are tens, you know, they don't, we don't use that grade, but
[SPEAKER_03]: There are 10, there are 10 hitters in a DSL game.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are, because what we're talking about, this is all on the major league scale, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: We are projecting out.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not talking about that in 18 year old when you say what they project to, we're throwing what we think they will be eventually.
[SPEAKER_03]: But when you talk about a present tool, if you said what is a DSL, you're one of the Dominican Summer League hitter or you're one of the male Florida Complex League hitter.
[SPEAKER_03]: their tents like if you pluck that player and said, I've got news for you, you are batting, you know, 9th for the Dodgers tomorrow night or the Cubs or whoever.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're saying you're going to give you 500 plane appearances.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're you're not going to hit to 20 to 30.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you're probably going to hit 150 130.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's going to be below the scale.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's the 20 to 80 scale.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we use that.
[SPEAKER_03]: give you a little sneak peek here of one of the players and we've actually already made a change to this.
[SPEAKER_03]: But so we've got Connor Griffin, for example.
[SPEAKER_03]: And Connor Griffin right now, and again, we've got a graphic here that we're still updating for the book, because we just had our beating and we said, you know what?
[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, Connor Griffin has the best overall tools grades in the book, as you might expect, we have them with a 60 hit.
[SPEAKER_03]: So plus hit, 70 power, plus plus power.
[SPEAKER_03]: Originally we had him 70 run, we've gone back to check done more reporting done more analysis.
[SPEAKER_03]: 80 run, so top of the scale run, plus field 60 field, plus plus or a 70 arm, which Jeff, I'll just start by saying, like that's our number one prospect of the game.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're giving away the farm here on the letting you know that like,
[SPEAKER_03]: He will be our number one prospect when the top 100 rolls out, barring something utterly unexpected.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I don't know, I don't know what would happen to happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: For Conrad Riffin, I don't fear what would have to happen for Conrad Riffin not to be our number one prospect.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there is nothing other than that work place, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: There's nothing other than bad things happening
[SPEAKER_03]: When you look at those tools grades there, that is, that's where this gets really fun and it, because that is incredibly loud.
[SPEAKER_03]: When we talk about countergriff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, I think my first handbook was entering the 22 season.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that was the Adley Whaleau Rodriguez group.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if Connor Griffin was, you know, transported, you know, the Marty McFly and Doc Brown's, you know, time traveling machine and plop right there in 2022 at the same age.
[SPEAKER_02]: He would be in the debate with those guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I honestly think that there's a chance that he might have gotten votes over Adley Rushman and might even be the best of that group.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I think he compares to what Bobby would is and going back, Bobby would probably would have been our clear one there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we always said it was a 1a, 1b, 1c sort of situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Griffin is right there with those guys and might even be able to stick a claim that he could be a tad better.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's it's really interesting just because I think he has all the loud tools power and speed and we even have metrics now that we can track back and and sort of say that this is accurate.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has all that part of Bobby Woods game.
[SPEAKER_02]: with a much better hit tool.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he's got a better hit tool than Julio did too.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think you look at a player like this, the fact that he is a plus shortstop like Bobby Witt and can be a better son in field or is good of a son in field or is Julio Rodriguez.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's a pretty good son in fielder?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that says a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is a very exciting prospect and it is some of the loudest tools that we've seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's when you say that it is it's something.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so by the way, I'm working to do this while we're doing this, but to just give a little comparison, we're going to pop another little graphic up here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry if you're listening to this on the podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will describe it, but.
[SPEAKER_03]: There was Mr. Bobby Witt Jr. in 2012, 2022, I should say.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had him 60 hit, 70 power, 70 run, which should have been 80 in hindsight, 60 feels 60 armed.
[SPEAKER_03]: Great comparison.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're basically talking about effectively the same grapes.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, in hindsight, right now we had 70 run on wit.
[SPEAKER_03]: We were saying we had 70 run on Griffin.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a little more data now.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're more comfortable saying 80 in hindsight grip.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is an 80 runner.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the thing about it is isn't that you're like you said.
[SPEAKER_03]: The hit tools tough to project.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the time, Whit looked like a six.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's ended up being an eight.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's ended up being battling for batting title.
[SPEAKER_03]: in 2024.
[SPEAKER_03]: At the minimum, you would say he's a seven hit, and that's the kind of thing we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's what it's also when we talk about this, what's kind of awesome about this is, is that we
[SPEAKER_03]: do this every year.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so if you buy your prospect handbooks every year, you can make those comparisons too, like I just did.
[SPEAKER_03]: You say, well, how does he compare to Bobby with New Year?
[SPEAKER_03]: Grab your 2022 prospect handbook and look.
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, or you're like, okay, and again, this is a little bit further back, we have added to what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But,
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, so how does he compare with Mike Trout who was our, you know, was in the 20, this is the 2012 prospect handbook.
[SPEAKER_03]: Trout was a 70 hit 65 power 80 speed 70 defense 50 arm.
[SPEAKER_03]: So okay, we thought Trout was a little bit better hitter with a little less power and same speed and some and a little bit of defense.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what we're talking about here is you can compare these players.
[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, we had
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[SPEAKER_03]: That's a perfect segue to the other part of this is.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have tools, grades for every player in the book, but we also do BA grades and risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the other part.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the key part that I do think it's worth us explaining to people.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna bring back up Connor Griffin as example here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Connor Griffin, we have as a 75 average.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me again tell you, that is rareified air.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a 75, an 80, we just talked about is the top of the scale.
[SPEAKER_03]: And 80, if we throw an 80 on a player as far as their BA grade, we're saying that they're reasonable, likely outcome, ceiling of the outcome.
[SPEAKER_03]: But an attainable one is to be an eight is,
[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, they're, Bobby would junior, they're Aaron Judge, they're Juan Soto.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there are eights.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a Hall of Fame player.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is a player that like, when we talk about Aaron Judge right now and you say, you don't say, is Aaron Judge a Hall of Fame player.
[SPEAKER_03]: If Aaron Judge stopped playing today with much of his career to go, if Shoeo Tani stopped playing today, Hall of Fame player, that's what we're talking about the eights.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sevens are,
[SPEAKER_03]: There are 70's, you know, seven role seven players in the Hall of Fame.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are absolutely plenty of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are saying that you, I mean, we're really saying with there, with Connor Griffin, we are saying, you know, we're thinking that he's very potentially a Hall of Fame player.
[SPEAKER_03]: But there's the other part of it there, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, that goes down to we have 30s in 35s, you know, 40s in the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: But this is where this gets tricky again, Jeff, and I'll kind of kick it back to you, which is we also have, we have the risk there.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have average risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: We tweak that this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have basically, from the top down, we have extreme risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: Extreme risk player is, is I just wrote up a player for the tigers who is a high school pitcher who was 11th round pick River Hamilton who needs Tommy, well, had Tommy John surgery this summer.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he is a high school pitcher who was projectable, but a little risky maybe who also has a serious injury that he's coming back from.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's extreme risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: You wrote up players, I'm sure in the Dominican Summer League, who have yet to come to the US, who have some really good exciting tools and some flaws.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's extremist.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are saying with those kind of players that they could be really good, but there's also a lot of pitfalls ahead of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a, this is a teeter totter, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: If you said 80, low would be the, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: It's they say 80 miles.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the great them we used them.
[SPEAKER_03]: 80 miles would be that there's a very moderate risk of this player failing to be an 80.
[SPEAKER_03]: That would be as loud as you could get.
[SPEAKER_03]: We just said there that like the great we used back then 75 low for my trout was as we were saying, we think my trout will be a Hall of Famer.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we think it's a pretty high likelihood he will reach that outcome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of the players in the book are in between the extreme
[SPEAKER_03]: In between, we have high risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would say, high risk is the players who are further away, have some kind of significant flaw that they have to solve.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe they are a pitcher with control problems and great stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe they're a hit or who needs to learn to stop chasing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Things like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Average risk.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we get down to the mild.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Jeff, when you talk, when you're kind of balancing this and the funny thing about this is is where you set the be a grade, the role and the risk kind of do go, you can kind of like they kind of like hit and power right when we talk about hit and power.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are players you're like that guy could be a 55 hit 40 power.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or he could be a 40-hit, 55-power.
[SPEAKER_03]: Both of them just depends on which he decides to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a little bit of that when you're setting these b-agrades in risk as well, isn't there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think, you know, there's some balancing at between the two grades and tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as well, like your ability to get to power is very much influenced by your hit tool.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are times where guys have 60, even 70, sometimes even 80 raw power.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they don't make a lot of contact.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they do, it's like bad directionally.
[SPEAKER_02]: So a lot of top spin or kind of like a Dylan crews problem where it's a lot of like center-opo contact.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's more light.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like there's some of that stuff I think baked into, especially now that we have a much better understanding of kind of what makes guys great power hitters.
[SPEAKER_02]: All that stuff is sort of baked into it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, you know, conversely it's the same with a hit tool that a guy who doesn't hit the ball very hard but hits the ball a lot and maybe even walks a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's only so high that hit tool can go.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is some limiting factor where you do at least need to kind of have like averages power and EVs and I think a perfect example is our number two prospect and a lot of other years would have been a slam dunk number one prospect and I think it's a credit to him that we just talked about, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: This is probably one of the best hit tools we've seen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a perfect balance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was gonna let you say that because it's your grade.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a perfect balance of bat's of volatility, swing decisions, and it's, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Passivity outside of the zone and aggressiveness inside of the zone, it's that balance when we say swing decisions, it doesn't mean just not chasing a lot of it is also attacking the right pitches and then his ability to pull the ball and hit the ball hard in the air he sort of can do all the things that you need to be able to do to be a really good well rounded hitter and so his power ability actually is what separates his hits will for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: from a lot of other guys that had very similar plate skills, where it's like, he's got these plate skills and he's still able to do impact.
[SPEAKER_02]: And hit the ball with good angles and all that sort of stuff, which is, there's usually some given take there.
[SPEAKER_02]: In order to hit the ball hard at good angles, you usually have to give up a little bit of contact or a little bit of approach.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is, so the B.A.
[SPEAKER_03]: grade and the risk, we take those and we have kind of an adjustment.
[SPEAKER_03]: that we make.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you see here we have an adjusted grade for Connor Griffin of 65.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this understandably trips a lot of people up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Some people like, so you're saying that he will be a 65, not a 75 dollar.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's not really what we're saying.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not saying he's going to be a 65 hitter because of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, what we're saying here is is every player we just talked about
[SPEAKER_03]: as we try to do this to properly rank role players and risky potential regulars together, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Every good organization has some players in it who, Connor Griffin's example of, that's a close to the Major's potential star.
[SPEAKER_03]: But obviously, very few players in each year are potential stars.
[SPEAKER_03]: Connor Griffin is a star, but you have role players who are very valuable as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: your relievers who are going to pitch the sixth and seventh.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're back up in-fielder who's going to play some second, some short, some third.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't just want to ignore those players and say, hey, we're going to rank every player with a 5% shot in the, you know, coming out of the Florida complex league with a 5% shot to be a regular.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're going to ignore the triple A guy who's not ever going to be a regular.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, those could be a 40 mile.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we are adjustments or a 45 mile, let's say.
[SPEAKER_03]: Extreme means you get a for the adjusted grade you get a 20 point deduction right so if you're a 60 extreme you're adjusted grade is a 40 If you're a 45 mild your role grade is way less we're saying 60 extreme is again the example of the picture who's in the complex league Who has really good stuff but hasn't shown that they can throw 100 innings are close to it yet has it show that they can
[SPEAKER_03]: go through a line up a second, you know, much less a third time, and probably hasn't shown yet that they can really land their breaking ball for strikes where they can throw their fastball where they want it, all those kind of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a really promising teenager with a pie upside, but we've been doing this long enough, Jeff, both you and I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of those guys are the guys who we're gonna kind of shake our head about a few years later.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then there's the guy who's like,
[SPEAKER_03]: not exciting, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: He's just going to be useful, not great, but a useful big leager.
[SPEAKER_03]: That 45 mild can rank above or below a 60 extreme cause they have the same adjust to grade.
[SPEAKER_03]: The vast majority of,
[SPEAKER_03]: top, but not the top five, 10 picks in the draft, but like we used to call it the 50 Highline.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now we've adjusted it, try to make more accurate, just made a great adjustment, risk adjustment this year, 50 average.
[SPEAKER_03]: That means that you have not that you are a 50% shot of being a 50, that would be a little much.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you are the standard, you have a standard
[SPEAKER_03]: to use an old term first division regular.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of those in the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're going to have, that's going to be everyone who ranks from really like 200 to probably 455, 100 of the 900 players in the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's going to be a lot of those.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that 50 average is the same as a 55, or a 60 extreme, or a 45 mile to kind of just give you that idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: All of those players fit within that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then you're going to, so again, what we do with the book, though, is if you want to really, like, hey, I'm really more interested in the high-up side risky guys, well, I would recommend first flip to the Marlins chapter.
[SPEAKER_03]: That'll be a good one for you to go to.
[SPEAKER_03]: But,
[SPEAKER_03]: you can go through each chapter and see who are the players who do that or if you want to see who are the players who are more like which which is the safer organization to produce talent you can do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: The whole idea of it, Jeff Wright, is that it allows us to compare and we've just been doing this ourselves.
[SPEAKER_03]: As we've said, like you don't know how the top 100 exactly is going to come out.
[SPEAKER_03]: You look at the Prospect Handbook, you look at baseballmerico.com where we have the top 10s up now for all 30 teams, you got a pretty good idea because the adjusted grades is what we use as well when we're doing this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's sort of the marker of it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's obviously, but at least gives you the tears, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were to calculate all that out for, you know, to have it all up in a spreadsheet from all the top 10s, you could probably come up with a pretty close to accurate list as to whether our top 100s are going to look like.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've already told you what one and two are.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then it's just a matter of figuring out who's, you know, in that top, the next top tier and so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's useful when I think this year with kind of an expanded risk spectrum for us to pick from really allowed us to have smaller tiers of players even.
[SPEAKER_02]: I noticed that at least as we were going through grades in the 11 to 30 ranges, that it felt like there was more breakup within those and the same when we were doing the
[SPEAKER_03]: So that is the baseball America prospect handbook.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been producing it now for 20, this is the 26th edition, 25, your 2020, 2001.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been doing it basically for the entirety of the 21st century.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have not been involved.
[SPEAKER_03]: Matt Eddie can say he's been involved in every single one of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I missed two.
[SPEAKER_03]: I started, I showed up in O2, but I mean, I could claim O2.
[SPEAKER_03]: I proved some pages in O2.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I can say that there's only one of these prospect handbooks that I didn't have at least touch in the production process.
[SPEAKER_03]: But really is 2003.
[SPEAKER_03]: before I really started doing any work on just been doing it for Wana.
[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, we're sitting there again.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going through the fun part of it, we just talked about going through it and kind of making sure that every grade is right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we're talking granular.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're talking a good way.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that that sweeper grade is a five points off, or I think that he doesn't run that well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that field grade?
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd try to do that for everyone in the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: as best we can, and we try to proof every page of the book.
[SPEAKER_03]: As best we can, I know that there will be something that seeks through.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's got a really anger me when it happens.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we hope you do enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, if you go to baseballamerican.com, I'll have a link here in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you go to baseballamerican.com, you could order a handbook.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you order for baseballamerican, not the other places where you can get it in March.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's when it will be out.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you order it from us,
[SPEAKER_03]: I will send you a PDF, you will have it in your hands, hopefully again, in 2025.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let me just say that to give a little bit of a group, but you will have it this year, and my plan is to send it to you next week.
[SPEAKER_03]: But before we go, we're back to our normal schedule here.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not talking about the rule five.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we've got prospects so box.
[SPEAKER_03]: And
[SPEAKER_03]: Jeff, we're gonna, our rules, we're gonna make it a little tougher for us both today.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've always said that we're not gonna use top 100 prospects, but this is a prospect, handbook edition of the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're not gonna do anyone who's in a top 10, who's been, whose report is already up at baseballamerica.com.
[SPEAKER_03]: The guy be someone else.
[SPEAKER_03]: So who is your non-top 10?
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're going a little bit further down the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who's your non-top 10 prospect that you wanna talk?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm going to talk about Lucas Spence outfielder from the Astros.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll say the Astros system, they were the last team where the top ten was released.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we just did the chat on Tuesday.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, yesterday.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a lot of like how four days ago were the way we're going to know.
[SPEAKER_02]: sort of does.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Spence was a player that, you know, I at least had followed and watched a little bit during the season.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was a non-drafted free agent that they had signed in 2024 out of Southern Illinois Edwardsville spent two years at Black Hawk Jc.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is one of the best parts of writing the handbook is kind of getting to know some of these guys backgrounds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so many
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy didn't have an SEC school, but end up at a bigger D1 school can start at D2s or can start at UCOs or D3, I wrote up a D3, but D1.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of interesting to learn their past.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a two-way guy, you know, was an all-regional guy as a jukeo, had a huge year went unselected, astros end up signing him, and he's really told up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really, really good bat to ball skills.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great on-based, excuse me, great on-baseability, which is,
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of a core tenant of like all astros hitting prospects.
[SPEAKER_02]: They all seem to have pretty good swing decisions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether they can make contact or not as another conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy can, there's good underlying EVs and maybe could get even a little bit better with some cleaned up angles.
[SPEAKER_02]: He did actually add a little bit more loft when he moved up to high A and then got to double A by the end of the season.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a guy that like I said, just signed back for the 2024 draft.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a plus runner, maybe double plus.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did get some like four second run times on him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So technically he could put a seven on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: More consistently a six place center field really good out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was a two way player in college and a pitcher with a good arm, we threw hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got a 60 arm out there and it gets really nice online carry from deep in the outfield keeps runners honest.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's one of those players that is you dig into more and more of the tape.
[SPEAKER_02]: the data, the scouting conversations, but particularly scouts outside the organization, and then just sort of hearing about the makeup and all that sort of stuff internally, I really kind of fell in love with the player and was like, this is a really good player.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a potential everyday regular that they signed as an undrafted free agent.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very rare that you see somebody like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's barely polished and told up.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't kind of see that combination either.
[SPEAKER_02]: but you know, could could have a nice big lead career for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've got one of those too.
[SPEAKER_03]: A little bit, maybe a little bit more prominent kind of coming out, but a John Peck with the Tigers.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could have gone with Jack Petty, another tiger's middle infield prospect, but John Peck basically, 2023 drafty,
[SPEAKER_03]: have had people with the tigers kind of say, you know, like, he's kind of interesting and then kind of got that feedback from the outside and the reporting on this as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, hey, really bear down on John Peck.
[SPEAKER_03]: The funny thing is, is like, if you look at his surface level stats, hit 300 this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you may be like, oh, so this is an offense first middle-end field.
[SPEAKER_03]: I actually think that he may have outperformed his ability.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if you look under the hood, when you talk to evaluators about him as a hitter, there's like there's a little bit of question about his contactability, just draw walks, but like getting to power all that.
[SPEAKER_03]: What really kind of stands out about him is, is that,
[SPEAKER_03]: go back to what you said, like pull up the synergy, watching games of him watching him in the field at shortstop, second base, and third base, and it all three of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: really athletic.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's really got, like, when we talk about, we talk about hands a lot, but one of the ways I would say of hands is, like, I was watching Trey Cruz another middle-in field tiger's prospect.
[SPEAKER_03]: They got a lot of them, but like, Trey Cruz is an infielder, but he went to the outfielder and he kind of plucked a couple of balls out of the air at the wall.
[SPEAKER_03]: where it's like the hands that just aren't normal to see, you know, like the kind of really good hands, penny though, the bank thing of penny's got a really, he's got a good arm, but it's the speed of his release.
[SPEAKER_03]: He goes from balling love to ball out of the hand.
[SPEAKER_03]: So fast that I really do think it's almost like a half grade of an arm because you will see some guys and it's like, yes, they've got a cannon, but you can almost hear like the the winding up is like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how all the tigers, middle and fielders like the tigers have to, I expect them to make trades this off season because to just lay out middle and fielders who would seemingly, you've got labor is the second basement because he signed the tender.
[SPEAKER_03]: Zach McHenstree and, okay, Jake, and let's just say, probably McHenstree, you know, is the main third basement, if you say that bias slash Sweeney is the shortstop, and again, they could be other or maybe it's mechanical at one of these positions or whatever, but then they also have Colt Keith, who, okay, maybe he plays more, but you got to work at first Keith is kind of, you know, Keith's in this mix too.
[SPEAKER_03]: then you've got Jason Young don't forget about him.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then he got how you Lee and then you got Tray Cruz that they just said at the 40 man and then you've got Baganagol and you've got Max Anderson who also is in AA.
[SPEAKER_02]: All these Galensians, Valencia it's you right is also in field.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well he's a but he's us first base in slash catch or slash.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm talking about second base in shortstop third base.
[SPEAKER_03]: And all these guys play those and really most of them don't play shortstop.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's just no room to fit all of those guys at Triple A or a bomb, so it'll be interested to see how they cleared up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I say that because John Pack is basically double A ready, and if you said though of all these guys, like him and Trey Cruz of the guys that were talking about in the minor leagues,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, Bryce Reiner's coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: Franier-Bermonti is coming.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those guys are further away.
[SPEAKER_03]: Angel Dayless Santos even further away.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if you're talking about the short stops, those are the true short stops you're talking about because peck can really, can really pick it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's my prospect soapbox, my little sleeper for the day.
[SPEAKER_03]: We wanted to also give you a little heads up on our schedule.
[SPEAKER_03]: Our plan.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we got holidays coming up, you know, where we're going to try to turn the knob down a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been working until three in the morning, but
[SPEAKER_03]: Our plan is is that we're going to try to record a couple of podcasts kind of in advance that will schedule to go.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're going to try to have one for next week and then the week after probably that initial plan right now is is we're going to look back at 25 in our initial one maybe we'll do kind of an awards of the year or we'll do kind of you know some sort of like that and then our next one will look into 26.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we'll have a lot of fun with that as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: but we do thank you for joining us here on the Baseball America.
[SPEAKER_03]: Prospect podcast, we do hope that you enjoyed our explanation.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to try to pull it back a little bit, explain the process, I can't but explain how we grade players.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will give you one other little sneak peek on the video.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, there you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is what a number one report looks like.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is the Connor Griffin report.
[SPEAKER_03]: As currently constructed, subject to change as we are still editing.
[SPEAKER_03]: but that gives you an idea of what it looks like if you are on the YouTube channel and watching the video.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, for Jeff, I'm JJ.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for joining us, subscribe, like, and leave a comment.
[SPEAKER_03]: So long, everybody.