[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Toolshed, a podcast covering all levels of professional baseball to help give you the edge in your dynasty leagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the MLB draft, all the way to the show, the Toolshed podcast has you covered with rankings, player analysis, and in-depth discussion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, here's your host, Eric Cross.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome into that episode of the tool shed podcast brought to you by Rotobar.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is episode 412.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for joining me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host Eric Cross.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you found me on Twitter at Eric Cross MLB and the show is at tool shed pod.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a phenomenal guest with me in the tool shed this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a senior writer, fan tracks, a writer at Rotobar and cohost of the fancy baseball beat podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: My good, but good buddy, great writer, great analyst, Mr. Mike Carter at MDRC 0.508 on Twitter.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mike, how are you, bud?
[SPEAKER_01]: I never get used to hearing my Twitter handle like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds so terrible when other people say it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, that is just the worst Twitter handle ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a good running joke though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm great Eric, how are you doing, man?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good to be on with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm good man, no Knoke Plains, you know, seasons winding down to a close year, at least the fantasy season, a few more weeks, but still a lot of good, a lot of good baseball to be played.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some fun division races going on, some fun wild car races going on, so still a very fun time of year, obviously.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my, minor leagues are winding down, but we still got the stretch right here, it's a fun time of year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was watching that Cincinnati and San Diego game last night and that was a pretty intense game for a regular season game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a little bit of fun watching that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though my white stocks are playing better, but they're not playoff bound clearly, but it was fun watching that game last night.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really high stakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a good one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, at least your white socks are starting to get some pieces together, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you're getting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You see the arrow is pointing up for the white socks right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, it's, they're fun, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the part that makes it okay to lose is that,
[SPEAKER_01]: they're doing it with young guys that they're trying to see if they can get some of them to drive together, I think, you know, and they are, they are fun to watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're entertaining.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're scoring runs.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're 25 and 25 here, since the All-Siber eggs.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, one eight of their last 10.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I just picked up a chase my draft and one of my home keeper league.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need some some infield help this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had some guys that were day-to-day was a trip there going to play.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, he got me two hits, two walks today.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, I'll take that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's a he's what he's an interesting guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's going to be a player that's better in real life than he is in fantasy But I just wrote about him in my wrote-a-ball or piece today.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's only 4% raster in Yahoo and he's got three position eligibility.
[SPEAKER_02]: He hits and he steals some bases Yeah, you need those kind of like good little Swiss army knife players on your on your teams absolutely so So that's not always about those big sexy names.
[SPEAKER_02]: You guys get the the role the role players so to speak to but
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, so this episode, we are going over some second half standouts.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of fun names that have kind of emerged from nowhere or, you know, out kind of outperform what a lot of a thought they were going to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, well, we'll talk over them seeing, you know, what's going right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do we believe in it or not?
[SPEAKER_02]: All that's, but before we do get the usual housekeeping out of the way, if you enjoy the podcast, please write and review, you find all the mic content on
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[SPEAKER_02]: I know the season is coming down to an end, but still a lot of great content.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still writing, Mike's still writing, a lot of other great people are still writing.
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[SPEAKER_02]: All right, we get 10 names in the docket today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Five hitters, five pictures will be a start on the hitting side.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one of those names that kind of came in a nowhere Jacob Marcy, having a really phenomenal second half for the Miami Marlins.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to get a couple pieces together as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of feel like they're like the nationally
[SPEAKER_02]: version of the white socks right now, kind of a young up and coming team, but Marcy, 164 play appearances so far, 5 home runs, 10 steals, 336 402, 568 slash line, the guy, this has got to had some some prospect hype couple years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: the last couple of years that kind of dulled a little bit and then to the point where I don't think anybody really picked him up for the most part when he got brought up, you know, off of waiver wire, but now he's got us being rostered everywhere and a lot of good metrics under the hood too, so what what have you been seeing from Jacob Marcy so far, Mike, and are you kind of believing in this surge we're seeing right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think so, Eric, I mean, when you look at the stat cast, like you're saying, you see a lot of that really dark red that you like to see in a player that you're going after.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he came up, I rostered him thinking, well, he'll help me with stolen bases.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea he was going to hit the way that he's hit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, he's cool a little bit in September, but he's still hitting like 289, I think, in the month.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in in 336 overall as you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that's really interesting to me about him is in watching the games on TV This guy hits the ball really hard and I was a little bit surprised by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't expecting to see that But you know the hard hit rate is is good the sweet spot stuff is good squared up.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's doing it
[SPEAKER_01]: He's good in a clear opportunity with a lot of runway.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the Marlwyn's have been looking for a guy like this and it's interesting because he wasn't really even the centerpiece of that trade.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now he's looking like he might be the centerpiece of the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, really, really nice player.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that he's somebody is trying to have great success.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I think he's going to hit 336 next year or no?
[SPEAKER_01]: But do I think that he can give you double-digit home runs and double-digit steels?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he's already given you double-digit steels in 164 plate appearances.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know we can't do the math and say, oh, you know, give him a full season.
[SPEAKER_01]: He'll have X amount of stolen bases.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is a guy that really does seem to look like he has the potential to hit, you know, somewhere maybe around 15 home runs and still 40 plus bases with an opportunity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely, and that's kind of what he was looking like, you know, back when that I mentioned that prospect height for him was pretty peak and like I once over the 2023 and then he kind of lost he even though he was still going to rack it up the counting stats even like this year in the minor leagues he did too, but the quality of contact is taking a nice jump like he had a 32% hard hit rate.
[SPEAKER_02]: and triple a and this was up from last year to last year is called if I took was down from what was this year and in the upper miners but this year like a 32% hard hit rate and nothing to really write home about but and now he's up you know well over 40% hard hit rate what is it exactly 44.4% EV over 90 miles an hour on average you know while showing that you know solid approach
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, zone contacted right about 86% over all 82%, he's really just like above average across the board and while still like you mentioned stealing bags like that that was what people anybody that targeted him wanted he's doing that and then exceeding expectations with the bat.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I kind of feel the same way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he's able to start.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't think this is like the next like, you know, top three four round talent or anything like that for fantasy purposes, but yeah, can he give you, you know, he looks like a, you know, 15ish home or guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's pretty fair to say, and he's given you a 15 30 15 30 plus with a respectable average OBP, you know, probably be getting high in that Miami order.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's a lot, a lot to like here.
[SPEAKER_02]: with with Jacob Marcy he hits the ball and deals angles as well sweet spot rate super high probably one of the higher marks in the league at 44.4% so
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, a lot to like here, no major red flags.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have a high chase rate, nothing like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, I mean, again, the guy that we thought he could be a couple years ago, he's finally coming to fruition and that the shows that development, not linear.
[SPEAKER_02]: You see, you see, guys, fall off all the time, bounce back, happens every single year, Marcy, perfect example of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely true.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, so I'm not, I don't think a stud, but pretty darn good ball player will go with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that kind of could be saying same thing for this next guy who's having this absolutely ridiculous second half of the season.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is something I didn't see come at least the power aspect of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second half of the season.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mr. Bryce Carrang, as 12 home runs in 205 plate appearances, 11 doubles as well, 319-377-595 slash line.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before the off-serb break, six home runs in 392 plate appearances.
[SPEAKER_02]: So basically, half the amount of home runs in nearly twice as many plate appearances, slash line, you know, 274-345, but with a 366 slug, that's a zero nine two,
[SPEAKER_02]: ISO, but when you look at quality of contact with race terrain, you know, it's up exponentially across the board last year 2.4% barrel 87 mile an hour average EV 29.7% heart hit rate.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of what he was here before that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can think, all right, this is what he is, but now this year 8.4% barrel rate 91 mile an hour average EV it's a four mile an hour jump.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a 47.5% hard hit rate.
[SPEAKER_02]: 17.8% in jump.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is phenomenal without sacrificing contact.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so at this point, I mean, Mike, the second way spot is not great.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Martin's doing his thing, but you know, a two way still pretty good, but this position as a whole is pretty rough right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So at this point, like,
[SPEAKER_02]: do you think terrain is, you know, first of all, are you buying what you're seeing second half of the terrain and you think he can stick as a, you know, a top tier second baseman for fantasy moving forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think he can and I have to say, terrain was a guy that I really liked watching come up in single way when I was, when we had the single way came county coogers here for a long time when they were affiliated and terrain was on one of the Wisconsin teams.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and coming up and I saw him play and I was like, that guy is going to be a good ball player to no one in particular because nobody's listening to what I have to say, you know, I'm at the base.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, come on, come on, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, well, it was how many years ago, and I just was I was so impressed with his hands, not only at playing defense, but how fast his hands were with the bat.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that's really interesting to me about him is that, you know, one of the knocks against him was, you know, a very very low average bat speed, and even though he's still a little bit below league average on that, he's jumped almost four and a half miles per hour on the average bat speed this year up to 70.5.
[SPEAKER_01]: from 66.2 last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's obviously been a huge key for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He made some swing adjustments.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's hitting the ball as hard as guys like Peter Lanzo.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't believe me, you can go on fan graphs and you can read with Ben Clemens wrote about him a couple of days ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Terran is the real deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to give you steals.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is hitting for a high average, you know, the average has gone up every year that he's been in the league.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's 2018 is rookie year, it's 254 last year, and this year he's in 289, and the XPA is 271, so it's not fluky.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you hit the ball this hard, you're going to get good results.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that he is a guy that is going to be a good player for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's only 25, even though he's been in the league for three years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Potentially there might even be a little bit more there, but I would think that the powers probably about capped out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I 20 home runs seems like it would be a great number for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can get 25 to 30 steals out of him moving forward, you know, he's a he's a top rated second baseman on my board.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was really lucky to get him this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had him, I had him as a middle infield target for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not as my starting second basement, but as a guy that I thought, hey, at the very least, maybe he'll hit 250 and steal, you know, 30 to 40 bases.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, stolen bases are a little bit down from what they were last year at 50 last year, but still a really solid player.
[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously, you'll take that year that he's putting together this year over any year that he's had prior, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think he does have the potential to stay at the top of that pecking order.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, you absolutely will take that trade off.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I never thought I'd see Bryce Hering at, you know, 18 homeruns, potentially having a 20 homer year this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, look at what he did last couple of years, six and seven.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, basically a thousand and was a thousand and 67 played appearances combined, you, I never thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just from seeing him as a prospect, like, I was like, all right, this guy's solid contact skills.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good athlete never thought he'd be more than what he was the first two years of his career.
[SPEAKER_02]: one year, but yeah, maybe that's 20 this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, you mentioned that bat speed has been a huge part of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's absolutely mashing fastballs, you know, 357 batting average in five, seven, nine slug on fastballs, 14 and 18 homeruns are off those, and you know, he's still
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, having good, like the contact sales have run down a bit, but they're still above average contact skills better than the average chase race.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he didn't like, you know, go down to being a below average contact guy just selling up the power or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if he can, yeah, if he can stick his, like, give me mid teams, like 14, 16 range, you know, with the 25 plus deals and then this good average OBP, I mean, that can keep him top five, at least until we get some maybe some of the young prospects coming up and getting up there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this is a very easy position to get into that top five, especially with the skills that terrain has.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's still only 25 years old too.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's still pretty good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Feels like a guy that should be like 28 or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been around a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he said he's had a couple of pretty good seasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he just seems to keep building off of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if this terrain is here to stay, or at least close to it, I think that's top five at least for the short term until someone else comes up and challenges that top tier.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and maybe, you know, tell more days, you know, he's not getting any younger.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, terrain, I think, is definitely in that top tier at this point in time.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, we're going to talk about a couple of white socks guys too, you know, with Mike being a white socks fan and, you know, the first one here, you know, both rookies, the first one, Colson Montgomery.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this guy has come up and hit home run after home run, after home run, a debut on Fourth of July.
[SPEAKER_02]: Took him a couple of weeks to get that first one.
[SPEAKER_02]: First one came on July 22nd, but since then,
[SPEAKER_02]: Montgomery is tied for the major league in home runs with 18 tied with Kyle Schorber, one ahead of Camernero, two ahead of Julio Rodriguez and Shay Langa Lears.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I mean, we don't know Schorber.
[SPEAKER_02]: prolific power bat Montgomery has been home run for home run matching them over the last.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Two two months or so and not even two months.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like six seven weeks or so, but you know, look at the rest of the profile here with the rest of the stat line.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's in two twenty eight sub three hundred WP.
[SPEAKER_02]: But hey, he's matching home runs in bunches.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, kind of a
[SPEAKER_01]: interesting profile so far for Mr. Colson Montgomery Mike now what do you make of it and what have a player do you think Montgomery is going to be moving forward I am super excited you know this is a guy that white socks fans have been waiting on for years to be at the major league level even though he's only 23 years old you know he's a three sport athlete at a high school
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a star basketball player there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The socks took a chance on drafting him with the skills not knowing exactly what they were going to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: My good friend Scott Merkin, who's been on our podcast on the Fancy baseball beat, right as Montgomery was getting ready to come up, had said to me on the show that, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: Montgomery loves the big stage, the bigger the stage, the better he performs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he suggested that Montgomery was going to perform very well at the major league level.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the white stocks did that was interesting here.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had hired Ryan Fuller out of the Baltimore system last year to work with developing their hitters.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was an area that they really needed a lot of work in.
[SPEAKER_01]: The white stocks have been pretty well known in the last five or six years for developing pitchers, but not for developing any guys that are on offense.
[SPEAKER_01]: They brought Fuller in, Fuller actually demoted Montgomery for about a 10 day period down to the complex down in Arizona.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they kind of recalibrated the swing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what they did, and I can't say this for sure, but I think they were really trying to make him a gap to gap hitter and hit for a higher average.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think they went down to Arizona and said, let's scrap that and just let him do what he does well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what he does well is hit for power, as you pointed out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got 18 home runs, Austin's the All Star Break.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got 47 RBIs and like 45 games since the All Star Break.
[SPEAKER_01]: The guy, he can hit the long ball and he hits the ball really, really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at his stat cast data, he's not qualifying yet because he hasn't had enough ad bets, but his bat tracking data, 77 mile per hour swing.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's growing every week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been keeping track of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was at 74 for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's getting better.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one thing that I would caution is that he is not a guy that's going to steal bases.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's probably not going to hit for a high average.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't see any reason why if he doesn't, if he cuts the strikeouts, his strikeout rate is quite a bit high.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's 28.5%.
[SPEAKER_01]: I figured cut that down under 25 so he got that to 24% at a few ticks to the batting average.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're looking at a guy that could hit 24250 and very easily hit 30 home runs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And 30 home run power is there at a premium position.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are not a ton of short stops last I look that can give you 30 home runs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that being said, if you're going to roster him, you're going to probably have to pick up some stuff in other places, because I don't think he's going to be a big base dealer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's going to be like a 300 average, but who knows, he's a young guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's getting this first exposed playing time, and he's playing quite well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for White Sachs fan, the other part of it that's really cool is that they seem to have kind of settled in on the idea that he's going to play shortstop.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we were down in Arizona era, if you and I had talked about that, and there were a lot of people down there that were split about whether he was going to have to play third base or whether he was going to play shortstop the thing that's been kind of cool to watch is that his range is actually quite good at shortstop and his arm is above average.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he can stick there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The white socks really need him to stick there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know that the first guy that they drafted this year was Billy Carlson who was supposed to be the best shortstop, the best defensive shortstop prospect over the last 10 years and MLB, but he's a high school graduate.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they need somebody to really hold that place down and I think it has to be Montgomery if the team is going to be successful moving forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: As a fan, I'm thrilled that he's doing well as a as a pertinent place fantasy baseball.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has really helped me in a lot of leagues because I bought into the power surge and it's been really helpful for my teams.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think people just see those the short stops with no real speed element, this thing that they're going to move off.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, he does have stinky good range.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he absolutely at least stick there like to kind of be, hold the fort down until
[SPEAKER_02]: 2028, 2029, whatever it is, few years from now.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, Montgomery, this guy that has a good head on the shoulders, so I had a chance to talk with him in the NAF a couple of years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've always been kind of rooting for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though I've never been like the highest in my ranking of him, but the power has absolutely been there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not like a leap power, but it's good power combined with good angles.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a great combination to have as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, think of him as like a poor man's seeker like that profile, not nearly as much, you know, average just seekers usually provided and not even as much for a power, but that kind of, you know, power first, you know, short stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can be at 240 and 30, I think that's like a fair estimation for him move forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's not going to be probably not like a top 12 top 15, you know, your starter at shortstop, but that's to be a solid middle in the older.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, if you 30 home runs, you'll probably guy will give you 80 90 RBI a solid amount of runs scored.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like, be good in three categories.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully not kill you in average and obviously you'll get your speed out swear, but yeah, I think you know, maybe it's not this level of homerun Excellence, but yeah, I think a 30 homer bad is absolutely employee.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen that power first and you know a lot of us had that went up to the AFL and saw him out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's some legitimacy here to what Montgomery's doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's one of those young pieces that hopefully get this white talk team back up to being good again, let's see.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this next guy could be another piece of that as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Guy that I know very well coming from the Red Sox.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's Kyle Teele, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who is, who
[SPEAKER_02]: quietly bends one of the better rookies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously Nick Kurt's getting out of the love, you know, Jacob Wilson was getting love, Roman Anthony, you know, seven of the rookie pitchers that are excelling that we'll talk about a couple of them later on.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he'll just spend really good, really solid as he came up, 244 plate appearances, seven home runs, three steals, 29391, 440 slash line, one of the top
[SPEAKER_02]: uh, you never got that, like, wowed with the profile that obviously, you know, good defender and just solid with the bat too, and he's showing that now, you know, average who above average contact quality of context, he was me, you know, contact sales, touch below average and both zone and overall, but guy that also hits the ball that I deal ankle, so that I think the whites I said prioritize those guys that can really get the ball in the air, my gummarese one.
[SPEAKER_02]: and T.L.
[SPEAKER_02]: is another one here, so at this point, as a catcher who's hitting for average, getting on base, give me a little bit of power even thrown in a steel here and there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was questioning, especially with how the catching landscape is getting better this year, all the young catchers that are merging.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't sure, like, all right, I don't know if T.L.
[SPEAKER_02]: can be
[SPEAKER_02]: a starting, you know, top 12, top 15 catcher.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm thinking, you know, he's at least a net discussion.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you think about Teele and do you think he can be a guy that you can rely on as your starter for fantasy moving forward?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's quickly become my favorite player on the team.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the trade, the Garacrochet trade is one of those rare trades that looks like it's really working out while for both teams.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The socks got Teele in that trade.
[SPEAKER_01]: They got my draw through.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we're going to talk about it at some point and we sort of were talking about earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wincoming Gonzalez who has made some contributions to the bullpen and the best player in the deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully for them was Brad Montgomery who has just moved up and Is looking like he's gonna be a good one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's gonna be in the AFL one.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're down there in November Hopefully you chance to see him play a little bit, but here's what I love about Tio
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, he really understands how to play the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's a young guy, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he was he was the red socks number one pick.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe in 20 23, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so, you know, he, he was starting to kind of come around quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: The white socks insisted on having him in this trade because they were, they had a
[SPEAKER_01]: They also have Edgar Cuero, who you did not mention, but he's actually done a really nice job too.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not as good of a catcher as Tiel.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a switch hitter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tiel has struggled a little bit against lefties and has not seen much time against lefties.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a left handed hitter.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he gets on base at a really high clip and that has carried over from Triple A. He's got a 12 and a half percent walk rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and for a young guy to have that type of knowledge of the zone, uh, I think is really impressive, you know, catchers sometimes have that, but a lot of times they do not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think this is a guy that can give you double digit home runs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's going to throw in five or six deals too, which is very useful at the catcher position.
[SPEAKER_01]: The part for me that I really have enjoyed and watching him play is that, you know, the teams that are good are ones that are really strong up the middle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the white socks have made a really constant effort to do that with some of the acquisitions they've made.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Luis Robert, not what's standing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not talking about him tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Tio is you know the type of guy that you want to have a backstop of and I'm not saying he's like this guy But he's demeanor the way he plays the game with joy The now which that he has he reminds me a little bit of like Adley Light Adley Ruchman light You know, he's got he's kind of got that vibe around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like he's in charge You know like he's the guy who's making the calls about what's gonna go on and I like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a little brush
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's got a great energy for the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't see any reason why he could not elevate now.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right and saying that the catcher position right now is as stacked as it's been at any time that I can remember in fantasy baseball and recent memory But Teele could really sneak in there and I think he's going to catch even more next year because I I have a sneaking suspicion that Quiro is going to end up having to play somewhere else a little bit more maybe do some D.A.
[SPEAKER_01]: chain
[SPEAKER_01]: board, plain some first base.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Wysack's brought up Corey Lee a couple of weeks ago and now they have three catchers on the roster because what Will Vanneville likes to do is he likes to bet Queryl and Teal in the line of at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And doing that if you don't have the third catcher and something that would happen to your catcher, he would lose the D-H of the other guy was the D-H, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think Teal is a really solid player.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've really enjoyed watching and played this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as am I, you know, and he's a guy that I had a chance to see in double a last year and he's one of those guys were obviously you know why they got rid of teal and then that trade bringing Gary Corschet, but he's a guy I was like, I'm in that that's going to, you want those guys he's have a good career like I think deals to have a very good, very long.
[SPEAKER_02]: career.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just getting started right now, but he's yeah, he's a guy that I think I think he's to be a really popular in your two catcher NFBC format next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's got really popular like if you want to go on the earlier side of getting your C2, I think he's to be like a really good high-end C2.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe if you want to wait on catcher and
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, wait a little bit past your most teams get their first catcher and then make him your C1.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't think you'll hate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he's solid that he's safe, maybe he doesn't have the upside of, you know, of a bald win or Augustine Ramirez or some of those other younger catchers.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's a really solid catcher.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if he gives you like a, you know, 15, 16 homerons, five, six deals, solid average, good OPP, that that'll definitely play.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, next guy here, not a guy I expected to be talking about at any point of the season on this podcast, but wrote about him a couple of, uh, was it last week, week before in Waverwire article, because I kind of, he kind of was, I was looking at other stats and his name popped up and I was like, man, this guy's having a pretty decent season.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not really been talked about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's Dale and
[SPEAKER_02]: 293 plate appearances, five home runs, eight steals, nice little 286 334 57 slash line and a good athlete 89th percentile sprint speed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's in the ball, you know, solidly to this, you know, above average average EV 80 9.5 miles an hour, 41% hard hit rate.
[SPEAKER_02]: doesn't walk a lot but doesn't strike out a lot either by average contact rates, you know, some some good metrics here across the board.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was more impressed after digging in and I thought I would be any still only 22 years old.
[SPEAKER_02]: So maybe he's a guy that can stick in that Nat's health field and provide some sneaky value moving forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what do you thoughts here on Dale and Lyle Mike?
[SPEAKER_01]: He certainly had a very interesting second half.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they brought him up and I don't know that they knew exactly what they were going to
[SPEAKER_01]: if they even understood exactly what they had, some injury problem sort of necessitated his coming up, maybe a little sooner than what they thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's certainly making a really good run here to be considered in that nationals I'll feel for next year.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they've batted him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if a lot of people recognize this, but he's moved to clean up in that order.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and that order is, it's a pretty good batting order if you think about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the bottom part's not so great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But next year, they're going to have their choices of some things.
[SPEAKER_01]: James Wood is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been fantastic, Dylan Cruz is working back from injury, Robert Hassell.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to kind of figure out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what he can do and if he's a part of the long term.
[SPEAKER_01]: future there, but Lyle has definitely made inroads into being part of that conversation and has worked his way into getting more plain time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is hitting the ball well, and the other thing that I've been really impressed about with him is that he doesn't really strike out, you know, he's at a 16.2% strikeout rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really impressive for a young guy who's learned how to make his market the major league level.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that there is some potential there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that I thought he would do fairly well coming up in steel bases and he's got eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's also surprised me a little bit with the power with the ease, got five home runs, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I think all of those are since the All Star Break.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's something kind of brewing there that could be kind of interesting, you know, I'm not saying he's gonna be a star, but in the leagues that you and I play in in 15 teamers, you know, this could be a really solid fourth or fifth outfit candidate choice for you in 2026.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Lyle was a guy that, you know, when he was drafted back in 2021 and he was a second rounder, he was a guy that in my FYPD ranking is, I was kind of a Lyle guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I probably write them higher than most, and then I kind of fizzled out.
[SPEAKER_02]: He didn't really have like the most illustrious minor league career, but this guy, and he still only 22 years old, he was a high school draft day.
[SPEAKER_02]: four years ago still very young, but yeah, starting to show some skills here across the board where yeah, he could be like that, you know, top 60 top 75 outfield or something like that got to be like you mentioned in your outfield four or five something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wouldn't go much higher than that, but I think there's definitely some some value to be had here, even if it's low end value, that's still value and like, you know, it's legit like this year, what he's been doing is a 309 XBA, which is 23 points above his as average, more 47 X log he's hitting at least 274 on all three pitch types, fastball breaking on off speed is next VA above 27 and all three, so there's a lot of
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, legitimacy here, not a lot of flukiness.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, it might be low-end value, but I think there's definitely something to be had here with Dale and Lion.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, not a guy I expected to be talking about and right mid September on this podcast when this season started, but that's why I love baseball.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the many reasons why I love baseball.
[SPEAKER_02]: These guys can kind of pop up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then give you value kind of out of nowhere and that's definitely like Dale and Lyle and Jacob Marcy being in the same podcast never thought that would happen, but here we are then we are that's that's where we're at right now, but
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, let's go over to the pitching side of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, five pitchers here are starting with cam, a Schlittler with the New York Yankees who just pitched tonight, recording this Wednesday, not tonight's Wednesday Thursday night.
[SPEAKER_02]: September 11th, he just went tonight against the Detroit Tigers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another good outing, six innings, five hits, one run, two walks and seven strikeouts, and really outside of last outing and Toronto where you've forearned in and in and two thirds, in the sense of beginning of July.
[SPEAKER_02]: Slitler was assuming that beginning of August, that month of August, he was absolutely nailed.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, first three outings of July were were so, so,
[SPEAKER_02]: But in August, yeah, it was it's five starts totaling 33 and two or six starts.
[SPEAKER_02]: There were six starts.
[SPEAKER_02]: 33 and two thirds and things.
[SPEAKER_02]: 22 hits allow only six runs.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a 1, 6, 0, ERA.
[SPEAKER_02]: 11 walks, 39 strikeouts and a 0, 9, 8 whip.
[SPEAKER_02]: He went at least five in all six outings.
[SPEAKER_02]: and earn runs were two, two, one, zero, zero and one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So after tonight's outing, ERA now sits at 305 in 11 starts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whips a little higher at 132, but more than a strikeout per inning as well,
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is a guy that, you know, he's absolutely put himself in that 2026, you know, rotation plans for the New York Yankees, they needed him to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've had a lot of issues that rotation this year, a lot of injury issues, obviously Garrett Cole being out for the year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So usually more stepping up for the Yankees has been huge for them and for people like.
[SPEAKER_02]: picked him up off the waiver wire.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got him in one league, thankfully.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's been, you know, a Godson, anybody on you, the pitcher mid-season.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what do you see in the short order?
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you believe in this last, you know, five, six weeks, directly see from him?
[SPEAKER_02]: And is he a guy you think you'll be targeting in 2026?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's going to depend on what the price is.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you always end up having to pay a little bit more for Yankees.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like, but the stuff is there, you know, he's he led their minor leagues and strikeouts last year, just a really phenomenal season.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's got the big fastball like he said Eric, you know, that
[SPEAKER_01]: his fastball is a 60 grade fastball out of 60 and fan graphs, you know, like they love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a lot to love there, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like what he does, too, with the curveball and the cutter seem sort of like almost interchangeable to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: As sort of, you know, people think of cutters as fastballs, but for him, it serves as sort of a secondary breaking ball when you watch him.
[SPEAKER_01]: would pitch and how he tries to set guys up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the one thing that I would like to see him do before a full buy-in is, I think he's got to figure out something a little bit more against lefties.
[SPEAKER_01]: He struggled a little bit with getting lefties out, you know, the ERA and the whip are up a little bit higher when he gets against lefties and I think there's something he will be able to figure out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping that he will kind of fly under the radar a little bit because I would really like to have him on team's next year.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'll depend on how much that's inflated, but you know, for a young guy to come up and have a 26 and a half percent k percentage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a fast ball velocity of 98 miles an hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: The walk rate was a little high, but he seems to be kind of working on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm very interested in having Cam Schlittler.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to be careful how you say that last name.
[SPEAKER_01]: on a family podcast right yeah but there's definitely a lot of potential there he's done a great job for them and they really needed him and he is more than filled that role for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you see the shirt that wrote a word put out I think it was wrote a word that they already have a specific and final I can't remember what the exact oh yeah right here so it's
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't know road aware, go check out roadaware.com, like phenomenal stuff, Kenny got started, runs road aware, absolutely great quality.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have probably, oh, what do I have?
[SPEAKER_02]: Five, six, seven, road aware shirts, something like that, I forget.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say it's a low estimate for you, friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, probably is one of the first ones though.
[SPEAKER_02]: My first one, I'll never forget, was the Seattle Super Kelnik shirt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Lord.
[SPEAKER_02]: the the player that was a fire shirt was the blue in yellow is like mariners colors I love the color scheme was great looking shirt, but obviously that player did not really work out as we all know the people that followed me because obviously I was the biggest coming guy around but
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, wrote a word of great shirt to the total slit shell.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would get it if it wasn't a Yankee player.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm a red sucks fan.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're in a Yankee shirt of any kind, even if it's not like directly a Yankee shirt.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just I feel a little dirty doing so, but it's a fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought what when I saw a wrote a word, you know, can he post the, you know, tweet out about it on Twitter that was something I got a good laugh out of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, Cam Schwitler.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm very intrigued by him as well, but you know, it's kind of odd you mentioned the, you know, the issues against lefties, it's weird to see a guy that has five pitches and none of them are, you know, some sort of like a change up splitter anything like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really no change up in this arsenal and it's not like uncommon for a pitcher in general We see got the two three pitch guys that might just be in like glass now It's just like all fastball curve ball slider, but for a five pitch guy that don't have a change up That is something you don't really see that often, but he's very fastball heavy 56 and a percent on the four seam 20% on the cutter So those two could mine for over three quarters of his pitches throne
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you see a little bit of a tweak there, but even as is, there's definitely some intrigue here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's always going to be a little bit of a higher whip guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you can give you like a mid-3ERA more than the caperaning, I think you can be like a top 50-ish starter in that general vicinity.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, definitely intrigue, but at least some degree here by Kim Schlittler.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep it right in the AL East, Trevor Rogers.
[SPEAKER_02]: what the shit that's gotten into to Trevor Rogers like remember like what was it 20
[SPEAKER_02]: I should pull up his past stats here was that year that draft season where he was a hot commodity, which was a 2022 was that year he was yeah, but 2022 draft season coming off his 2021 year where he had a 264 ERA in 25 starts and well over a caper and in 157 and 133 innings, then 2022 five and a half ERA.
[SPEAKER_02]: twenty twenty three only had four starts twenty four twenty one starts with a mid four year a last year uh... i still in a twenty four almost a five year a excuse me in twenty five starts so he was kind of i mean not off the radar but not really intriguing and now he has a one five one year a in fifteen starts most of which have come in he didn't debut till i think it was like some of them in June
[SPEAKER_02]: this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So 151 ERA is 0.87 whip 87 strikeouts in 95 and 2.3rds innings.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, still not a huge key rate guy, 23.0 percent.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is above average, but not great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But only a five and a half percent walk rate, which is a career best mark for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a guy you talk about like the price tag for a shot or like I am very intrigued to see what the ADP is for Rogers next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: It could be it's probably hired and I even think it's going to be I have no idea just given the fact that he was
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you making of this or are you believing I guess Rogers back like how you value in the sky moving forward?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard for me to say I think when you look at the stat cast I've done some looking at it because I have them in a couple of leagues where I picked them up right at the beginning of the run when he was doing well and I thought I was just going to stream him and I ended up keeping him just because he's been so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: last year he was awful was really struggling to find a feel for anything coming back off of the injury and his velocity was down and for whatever reason this year his velocity has kind of ticked back up so if he looked at his average velocity for his fourth
[SPEAKER_01]: And this year, it's 93.2.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that doesn't seem like it's a huge difference, but it's a huge difference in MLB.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost a mile and a half difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything that he is throwing this year has been a little bit harder.
[SPEAKER_01]: The change-up is a mile an hour faster.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sinker is another mile and a half faster.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something has clicked there, because if you look at the pitch mix,
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not changed it that much right I mean it's he's still throwing primarily of a fastball Change up guy mixing in the sinker You throw on the slider every once in a while putting a sweeper in there But he's done really well this year with with that mix of what he's doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm guessing this is what's gonna happen
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's going to be a lot of helium on him next year because people are going to think that Baltimore is going to be better next year because they can't be as bad as they were this year and there's going to be people that are going to buy in on him and I think it's going to inflate the value so much that I probably won't have any shares of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that I'm willing to bank on a total repeat of what we're seeing here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's going to be tough.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, I fully believe I will not have any shares of Roger and redraft leagues next year because not that not because I don't think what he's doing is legit or, you know, that I think he's, you know, complete boss or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think the price actually way too high for my liking.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there is some stuff to like here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a lot of what you just outlined.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the the VLO's back up to
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of where it was in 2023, though, still down from where he was, you know, peak 2021-22, but, you know, it's a solid fastball, changeups really good, you know, the slider can miss some bats as well, you know, a sinker gets, it helps him get some ground balls, so he mixes well, because he is those five offerings that he throws, again, people that know me, and I love this with
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, he throws all five to both varieties and left these pretty consistently.
[SPEAKER_02]: It gets not like always only a three-pitch guy against varieties or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: He throws all five to both varieties and lefties.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's, you know, five different velocity bands or really four actually.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's low 90s with the fastballs, changeups mid 80s, slider low 80s, sweeper upper 70s.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's good at just mixing speeds, mixing eye levels.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's keeping the hitters off balance.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's not overpowering by any means.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in fact, he's dropped that walk rate to a career best mark.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's obviously not a one five one earray guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Paul schemes is not even a one five one earray guy or a great role, but you know, even if he backs up to what's the X here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, three of six.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it was double earray point about 306 low threes.
[SPEAKER_02]: With a let's say I've got one one one one one five whip and you know 24% K rate that's still at the top 50 arm I think that's kind of where I'll value him I'm sure the perceived value is way higher than that and the 80 people be higher than that next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't see myself having any shares of him in redraft work dynasty, but I think he's he's back to some degree.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think this is this is the total fluke.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he's there.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, go back and turn back into a pumpkin and be a five year eight guy next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I think there's some stuff to like here with Rogers for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next name we got Kade Horton back to the rookies here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next two names are rookies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kade Horton has just been on a really, really good run here in the second half of the season.
[SPEAKER_02]: Before the awesome break.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just fine for 445 ERA 141 whip.
[SPEAKER_02]: For a rookie, I'm like, all right, he's kind of learning on the fly and dealing with the big market in Chicago and on a good team that has high expectations.
[SPEAKER_02]: But in the second half of the season, after the All-Serve Break, 10 starts, he's seven and one with a 0.8 for ERA, 0.79 whip, 46 strikeouts to 14 walks in 53 in a third innings.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's going to get up 28 hits and five earned runs in 53 in a third innings since the All-Serve Break
[SPEAKER_02]: is absolutely phenomenal.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got the game logs and you're looking back here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So going from most recent, which was on Tuesday against the Braves, going back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was 6 and a third, one run, five innings, zero runs, he had no hits allowed in that outing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Five innings, two runs, six innings, zero run,
[SPEAKER_02]: two and two thirds one run and then back to back five and two thirds one run and zero runs five innings zero runs six and a third zero runs five and two thirds zero runs that goes back to midjuly and how many neurons was that like four or something like that so Kate Horton I mean high draft pick
[SPEAKER_02]: back in 20 what year was that 22 top 10 overall pick you considered you know by and large one of the better pitching projects in the game but it's kind of lost a little bit of his prospect shine over the last year or two at some injuries but
[SPEAKER_02]: man like this run has been phenomenal obviously he's not going to keep this run up but you know where do you think Kate Horton kind of settles in as you think he's going to be you know a top 25 30 arm top 40 to 50 where are you thinking with Kate Horton here Mike do you know the thing that gives me pause with him all the time though is
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched him pitch a lot because obviously I'm in Chicago.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got 10 wins this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: The strikeouts are just not really there at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: The despite a really good fastball, good fastball velocity.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's thrown the change at Morris.
[SPEAKER_01]: Change of was actually really, really nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Looks really good from what I've been able to tell the last few weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the one thing that holds him back from being one of the top guys is not having the high octane strikeouts, but to your point what he's doing is really controlling ratios and he's got 10 wins and those are stats that we need to have in our game.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's the Cubs Ace right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if I were Craig Council, which I clearly am not and they make the playoffs, he would
[SPEAKER_01]: They probably will not do that, especially if they're at rig leave, they'll probably go with the lefties with Imanaga and with Boyd.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Horton has been by farther best picture for this last stretch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that there are people who are going to be willing to pay that top 2530 price tag.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that gives me a little bit of pause is wondering a little bit, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: And the K rate doesn't go up, K rate's only 20%, you know, all of a sudden there's more traffic on the bases and those numbers look a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not really going to reach back and strike too many guys out to get himself out of, you know, Indians like some of the lead guys do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that gives me a little bit of pause, but I will tell you, it's really clear when you watch him pitch, that he's got a great feel for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there's a lot to be said for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that we don't talk about the I test very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: This guy really knows how to pitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's done a phenomenal job for them and kept them alive as they've been trying to figure out who's pitching on what days, Horton has been their ace.
[SPEAKER_01]: And going in the next year, he probably will be their ace again, unless they sign somebody's succeed and signing somebody that's better.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he's a terrific young arm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, no, no, not about it and what makes it even more impressive is, you know, for a 24-year-old Major League pitcher, like he has less innings under his belt than most 24-year-old Major League pitchers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he was, you know, kind of a late bloomer, had some injuries, didn't pitch a lot at Oklahoma, you know, really kind of popped up that last year, like that college world series run, they had, you know, in the spring of 2022,
[SPEAKER_02]: to the point where he was a top 10 pick, number seven overall to the covers that year.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he doesn't really have that much mileage on the arm as you'd expect from some of that his age and experience level.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in fact that he is still very kind of, not very robby.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still a little bit on the raw side in terms of his development.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think that the K-Rate can take up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he's a B in a league.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, upper 20s percent K rate guy, but 20% on the dot right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you can see that took up like the 24 maybe 25% range As he can miss bats with that sweeper and change up, you know, 37% with right on the sweeper 49% on the change up.
[SPEAKER_02]: He throws those a combined right around 33 34% on the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's second and third most used offerings and you got you mentioned that fast ball.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, 95, 96
[SPEAKER_02]: pretty good offering as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I do think that that can tick up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I thought I think not a nice, but could he be like a SP23 type for fantasy?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he absolutely could.
[SPEAKER_02]: If if that K rate gets to where I believe it could.
[SPEAKER_02]: If every is going to be around 20, 21%, maybe he's more like SP4 range, just be 5 something that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there's a lot to like here with Kate Horton moving forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, that image that Cubs, they got pretty good one, two, three there with him, Imanaga and Boyd with that good offense, assuming that Tucker didn't actually come back and be healthy again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And PCA rumors out of head again, that could be a really scary Cubs team come post these in time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and Horton will be right in the middle of it for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, next guy who's been taking the baseball world by storm over the last few weeks, no one McLean of the New York Mads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this guy really fun to watch as a prospect and a guy that can absolutely spin it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like spin Ray, he's king here with no one McLean.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, before I get that though, you know, the air the stats five starts 142 ERA 095 whip 8.4% walk rate 27.7% strike out rates.
[SPEAKER_02]: You look at his first start with five and a third shut out eight keys against like a good Seattle team.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyone, you know, on the road in Atlanta, I know they're kind of down this year, but still good line up on the road, seven innings, two runs, seven caves, and then a home tilt with the fillies, eight shut out with six caves, two earned in six against Detroit, and then five and a third, one run against Philly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's faced Seattle, the Braves,
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's all good offenses and four of those five will probably play out to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like he's had Pittsburgh and the Rockies at home.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, like he's had some pretty tough matchups here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he has absolutely dazzled and those spin rates.
[SPEAKER_02]: As I mentioned, the sweeper and the curveball, you know, the sweeper RPM spin rate 2939 curveball 32 61.
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy's absolutely spin.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got six pitch arsenal.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, which he authors at least 6% of the time, sweeper, sinker, curve, foreseem, change up cutter.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that can say with Horton, this guy is another guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a two-way player for a bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he's already been like full-time pitching for like two years or so now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like, but clean a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there's a lot to like here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I don't know if he's a bit ace long term, but I think he could be a really good number two.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I am absolutely
[SPEAKER_02]: on Nolan McLean, where are you at on a mic?
[SPEAKER_01]: How crazy is it to see a guy come up as a young guy who doesn't have a lot of experience pitching like you said, Eric, and realize that he throws his fastball the least of the six pitches that he throws as a guy who's just learning how to do it at the major league level and is having the success that he's had.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I remember looking at fan graphs early in the season, you know, the top
[SPEAKER_01]: three-metz prospects for all pitchers, you know, everybody was high on sprored, everybody was high on Tom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good reason, those guys are really good, but McLean looks to me like he can at the very least be a mid-rotation starter right away and that there is the possibility of him becoming a guy that could be a number two fairly easily.
[SPEAKER_01]: The strikeout rate is what he would love to see for a young guy coming out of
[SPEAKER_01]: his ground ball rate is 65%.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he just is good at getting guys out.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's inducing weak contact.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like what I've seen so far.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that that being said, he is raw.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, you worry a little bit with a guy who has a thrown a lot that maybe there might be some positive wildness or whatever mixed into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my home league, it's a keeper league.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to get him off of the waver wire.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess it was about six, seven weeks ago for 10 bucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's gonna be a keeper for me next year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm willing to kind of ride this and see where it goes with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I love what I'm seeing so far out of a claim.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and when I was talking with the Eric Samolsky on this podcast, but a month ago, I was right around when McLean debut.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe he was after his first start or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was very high on McLean.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he said he liked him more than, I believe you see, there was Chase Burns long term.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was high praise from Eric Samolsky, who obviously is a great pitching mind, great baseball minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, now we're seeing it when McLean like this guy looks, he looks
[SPEAKER_02]: of an impact high impact arm and doing it, you know, on the big stage with the Matt sewer and in a, you know, division push and the postseason push facing all these good teams, no cupcake matchups here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: You mentioned the ground ball right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you don't even see a guy with a ground ball right that high who's also
[SPEAKER_02]: You know 27 and a half percent key rate to yeah, it's just not right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Usually it's like, oh, if a 55% ground, all right, well, like a 21% key rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I should like above 60 to above 25% that this is what really happened that often.
[SPEAKER_02]: So no, it does not lock this up clean.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very, very exciting arm and yeah, I think the metric would be set up real good with him, Jonah Tongg, Brennan Sproets.
[SPEAKER_02]: three really good pitching projects all basically within a month of each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's that's exciting times therefore for the mats and they definitely need it because all of their guys like Sangha's got had a patch and my eyes been hurt and all of a sudden that so it definitely need these guys and McLean is their new ace there and and Queens it looks like here but one more picture to get
[SPEAKER_02]: I got I've always cut him in partial to I've always kind of like this guy Emmett she hand with the Los Angeles Dodgers 12 games 10 starts over all this year got 332 ERA and a one
[SPEAKER_02]: 1 0 9 whip in the second half of the seal.
[SPEAKER_02]: He hasn't been like a stud in the second half, but I've pitched him well at 3, 6, 9, ERA, 1, 10, whip 56 for a go.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the 15 walks.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think the upside, the potentials here, you see a lot of good on the savant page.
[SPEAKER_02]: He can miss bats.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got
[SPEAKER_02]: Or so, you know, a lot of, gets a lot of chase that's had the zone to, you know, the stuff is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: You watch, she had the E-press is the eye test too, but it's the, it's the Dodgers, you know, they've been known to use these guys in.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, different roles.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they've been pretty consistently.
[SPEAKER_02]: She had starting for the most part, but there's not a lot of innings under his belt.
[SPEAKER_02]: So who knows of, but he's like definitely one of their five or six moving forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've so many good names.
[SPEAKER_02]: To kind of mix a match, obviously they're in the glass now is an autonomous and stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: All these guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, that's another one question I have with shihanna.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in on the talent.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this absolutely could be a top 40 SP for fantasy, but I just don't know if he gets to the volume.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what are your thoughts here on Emmett shihanna Mike?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I really like him too, Eric, a guy that I've been really high on the last couple of years.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Dodgers have the luxury of having more starting pitching than just about anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can throw a number of different articles at you and never really get tired of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: She and has been so good that they're using a six-minute rotation and obviously what they're trying to do I think it's the same thing that they did last year, which is figure out which three of those guys are pitching the best at the time of the playoffs and our healthiest And use those guys that there's as their starters, but she and definitely has a role on that team if you look at this bullpen They are going to need to figure out in the next couple of weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is closing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, they're really struggling to get out at the back end.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Tanner Scott is really struggling to locate, um, trying and looks like something might be a little off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he, he got a hold earlier this week, but he lost last week and it looked really bad in the process.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vesia's really not a closer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't know what they're going to do, but I, I could see she and maybe happen into a high leverage role for them in the playoffs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think moving forward though that the talent is really there for him to be a starter.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might not be in Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_01]: He might need to get out of there for that to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the Dodgers look to trade him in the off season.
[SPEAKER_01]: They get something that they feel that they need.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever that might be, they seem to be able to have the purchasing power to go out and get what it is that they need.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't see shihan being a guy that's in the rotation in the playoffs unless somebody gets hurt.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably going to be some combination of the guys that you mentioned.
[SPEAKER_01]: in a very high possibility that he will be, Otani is really kind of rounding into shape and Yamamoto.
[SPEAKER_01]: Personally, I know I've said this to you before and you've laughed at me a little bit, but I would love to see Otani close in the playoffs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that that would be insane.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that that would be hard to do with the way that the DH and everything works and whatnot, but can you imagine seeing him getting the ball in the night, then in a good luck?
[SPEAKER_01]: But she and a guy that has really, really been good for them this year and actually been a lifesaver for them when they've had all these injuries.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's really spelled a lot of really good innings for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got really good stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like him very much.
[SPEAKER_02]: you know who would have thought that you know go back to what you say with the bullpen real quick but you know they brought in Scott Tanner Scott Kirby it's the same month and we are all like bitch and like oh how many relievers do they need and they're still having issues here in mid September kind of finds and yes so yeah consistency the back end of that bullpen
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's crazy, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they've got Yates in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've got Copac, Copac can't throw a strike again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just wild.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they thrown a lot of money around and still could have some problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is one of the wonders of baseball, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can have a 350 million dollar payroll and still have holes on your team, which doesn't seem possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep, absolutely is and they got rookie Zaki working this way back.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was he had another we have outing in AAA Oklahoma City the other day.
[SPEAKER_02]: His VLO looks like it's back.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he'll factor in in some way cheaper form here in the near future.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I just don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like moving forward is she hand in their plans.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, per shot, I mean, he's, you know, on his last ride right now,
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually have coming around to the idea of your autonomy as a closer, I'm going to be pretty fun, actually.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, now glass, now obviously, you know, a lot of these guys have a lot of injury issues, and we've seen that this year.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's how I'm looking at the talent here, and then hoping that it all works out because, like I said, I think she can, could be like a top 40 to 50 arm.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a good SP3 type.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think SP1 or 2 for fantasy purposes, but if he's given you a mid-threasy array,
[SPEAKER_02]: 26, 27% K rate.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty solid arm.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's definitely possible for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: This will he get in a volume to kind of be that top 40 arm.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's still the question, but I still have Mr. Bile, I go in the next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're dying to keep your legs and even next year and redraw.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the price will be reasonable all the way around.
[SPEAKER_02]: drafting him, trading for him, whatever, I think he's still a good target and his crush fingers and hope that he can get you maybe 150 innings or so next year.
[SPEAKER_02]: That might be on the high end, but we shall see, but that's going to wrap us up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mike thinks as always, always a pleasure catching up with you chat baseball with the, uh, thanks again for coming on.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a, this was a fun show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eric, as always, thanks for having me on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, every time we talk, I'm always grateful to you for always helping me out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my career, I guess you could say quote-unquote, in the industry, you've always looked out for me and helped me get on at some really great places and have found success in those places.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I owe a lot of that to you and you putting a good word in for me in the places that we have worked together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I always thank you for that and appreciate everything that you've done for me
[SPEAKER_01]: more than anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate your friendship over the years.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a fun ride being on this for you with you the last four or five years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, right back at you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always good chatting with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And any site that has you is better because of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thanks again for coming on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will see you in about what seven weeks or so out in Arizona.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's come in right up looking forward to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll be back with everybody on this show next week.