H&J 139 - Late-round Lottery Tickets

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3:06That's growthherapy.com slashbooknow. Growthherapy.com slashbooknow. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. What is up, PitcherList family? Welcome to another episode of Hacks and Jacks. I'm your host, Brett Ford. As always, joined by Senior Analyst Scott Chu. We're here talking hitters on PitcherList, going over Scott's top 300 hitters list, talking up, basically figuring out how we're prepping for our drafts this March. It's deep into the thick of draft season. Scott, how are things up your way? Not bad. I've got my first slow drafts of the year starting, really getting into the mix, really putting my own rankings to the test, although frankly, the leagues that have started for me

4:08already don't use the kinds of settings that I write my ranks for. But that's the way she goes. It's fun to be thinking about players in more than just a hypothetical context. Yeah, I just finished my first draft and hold. Probably my only draft and hold, really. And like you say, these formats are completely different. Just so as you go through Scott's ranks, just be aware that not everything is black and white as far as the way Scott's writing it and the way it should be applied. Yeah, and as we talk about all the time, we'll talk about more later during this podcast, there is no vacuum. The rankings exist in a vacuum because I don't know what your team is, right? But the moment you start making picks, it's the moment the vacuum goes away. And especially as we talk about the back end of the rankings, when you're looking in the 200s and beyond, like the vacuum died forever ago.

5:09Now it's very much about what do you need? What is your team makeup? What is it that you want from a player? You're looking for a guy who, if this, if X, Y and Z happens, he could break out and be an everyday starter. Are you looking for a guy who I know for a fact he's going to play? And there will be times I see them. Like in a draft and hold, there's a lot of times when you're like, just in case my first two short stops go down, I need a third guy who's going to play versus, you know, I just want the upside to see if something happens here. And it doesn't matter if it doesn't, right? How much are you counting on these guys? Early in the draft, this isn't really something you have to worry about as much. But the way you go, the more you have to try to figure out how to balance between floor and ceiling. And how willing are you to take someone who might do nothing versus how willing are you to take someone who's ceiling is still really low? Absolutely. And while you're going through those light rounds in the draft, one of the things that can help you

6:09through all of your drafts this season is the Pitcher List Live Draft Assistant. This year our Live Draft Assistant is fully updated and ready. We've completely overhauled it for your drafts. Think of it as having a personal scout and analyst, a master strategist sitting right next to you as you draft. A lot of new features this year, it's, you know, a huge improvement, in my opinion, after playing with it for a couple of drafts, including the draft and hold I previously referenced. It's got fully integrated PLV 2.0 projections, more streamlined system for entering your picks, and new player tagging where you can designate players as sleepers, targets, do not draft guys. It's a lot of fun to use. It's a great prep tool. I found that I enjoy kind of preparing for my drafts by using it and then obviously going through and using the live tool as you draft. But the cheat sheet tab in the draft system has everything you need, including all of our keystone rankings, NixList, ScottsList, Rick Graham's CloserList,

7:10everything's built in there. And it's an awesome tool to draft with. Make sure you can dominate your draft with our Live Draft Assistant using promo code podcast, LDA15. A draft assistant is available with PLPRO subscriptions. If you want to support PitcherList, the highest level lifetime subs are still open for a limited time. And there's, you know, I think something really interesting to just briefly touch on there is this comes up a lot in the PL Discord, like the PLPROs. They ask about this a lot. And mainly it's about this tension between rankings and projections, right? Now rankings are informed by projections. I don't think there's very many people at all who do rankings without looking at projections at all. Maybe Nick, because he's weird. But everyone else, especially doing hitter rankings, you always look at projections because you want a sort of baseline to be like, okay, one, where's the market going to value these players? Number two, what do the projections see that maybe I don't? Right, what do the projections think about, you know,

8:10a heraldopardomo's one-off season? Do the projections buy it or not? Right? Are projections always right? No. And actually the whole point of ranking is sort of going against the projection. Like if all I wanted to do was have projections, my rankings would just be projections. But my rankings aren't just projections. They're often saying, like, okay. How do you know? Yeah, I get it. This guy is projected to be the 15th best first baseman. But I've got him the ninth best first baseman because I think the projections are under rating, you know, I say this about Josh Naylor. I think the projections are severely under rating install and base ability. Right? I mean, I think it's real. So I'm going to go above and beyond what the projections do. Also with projections, you're not getting, but they are trying to consider multiple possible universes, right? They're trying to put them all together. So especially when you get volatile players, like Ellie Dela Cruz and O'Neill Cruz, the projection struggle, because they just give you this like one sort of in the middle outcome. But if you're someone who's like, I don't buy O'Neill Cruz at all. I think contact problems are just going to be too much.

9:10Then you move them way down below its projection. Or you go the other way and you say, I think he's going to overcome this. I've seen him with the good walk rates. I think he can balance it out. You go way above. The projections are trying to do both at the same time. So they end up in the middle. That's the difference. When you're using that live draft assistance, what's great is that you can look at rankings. You can say, okay, Nick really likes the upside of this guy, even though the projections are cool on him. Why does Nick do that? Do I believe that narrative? Or do I believe the projection narrative? Which one do I want to go with? Having both is extremely valuable. Even if you don't use ours, any projection plus a ranking will always be better than just one or the other. Yeah, and using those kind of in concert, like you said, is crucial in my opinion. It certainly helped me even just as the host of this podcast just chopping it up with you on a weekly basis and kind of learning, okay, not just taking the rankings verbatim,

10:12but actually looking at them in context versus projections versus other sources has been super helpful for me. And I think that it's helped me grow as a fantasy baseball manager. So one of the things I'm looking forward to, I love draft season and really looking forward to jumping in on the LDA this year. Let's talk about some news and notes here. We've got a lot of stuff going as the first couple of weeks of spring training is well underway. There's a handful of transactions that probably aren't relevant for fantasy, but we're going to mention them anyway. Scott, I'm just going to run through all of these. And if you hear something that peaks your interest from a fantasy standpoint, maybe you don't, but stop me at any point. Reese Hoskins signs with the guardians. Reese Hoskins with the guardians is extremely frustrating. The reason it's extremely frustrating is because yet again, the guardians have decided Kyle Menzardo is not enough. That's what they've done.

11:12Kyle Menzardo had the ability, he very well could have been the everyday guy. Or at least like the clear 140-ish games guy. And now by adding in this additional first baseman and putting him down to the DH thing, I think it's going to be really hard for him to get back to the 142 games we saw last season. I think now, I think some projections are still at 135. It might be closer to 120. This is another thing to do with projections. Okay, the projection says he's going to be $8, but how much do they think he's going to play? Right, Kyle Menzardo is going to have a really hard time getting to 500 play appearances. Thanks to Reese Hoskins, if Reese Hoskins stays even mildly healthy, because guess what, they're going to platoon in now. They've got the ability to say, okay, Mansar, go down, sit against lefties. And I just wish they'd give this due to chance. Because there's not like Reese Hoskins is a fine player. I understand why they did this. Manzardo is, you know, he's got weaknesses.

12:14But every weakness he has, Reese Hoskins basically has. Right, in terms of like as an everyday guy as a weapon, it's not as though Reese Hoskins is like some guy who throughout his career just mashes lefties. That's also not him, right? Because he's not even like a supernatural platoon partner. Reese Hoskins hits, you know, like 210 or something against lefties sometimes. I think last year was like 230. You know, he's not like this. Oh, I'm going to come up here. I'm really going to succeed against lefties. Now, he's like better than Manzardo, but he's not a world breaker here. I just don't get it. Why don't they like Kyle Manzardo? The guy's going to be going to his age 25 season. And at this point, it's getting this little bit of feel sort of like we had with Andrew Vaughn, where the organization's never just going to let this dude be the dude. Right, it's just not going to happen. I think this to me more than anything says. Yeah, we'll take almost 33-year-old Reese Hoskins because we just don't think Kyle Manzardo is enough. For what it's worth, roster resource has them both projected

13:16in the starting lineup. Manzardo at DH, Reese Hoskins at first base. So they can coexist, not necessarily like a strict platoon. But I mean, throw in guys like David Fry and Angel Martinez on the bench, both Fry, right-handed bat, Martinez, and you're looking at, like you said, Manzardo losing those at bats against left-handed pitching. Yeah, and the young guys they have that might start coming up, like one of their top prospects. He'll be starting in WA with Ralphie Velazquez. They already had CJ Kephis, who they had appear in the playoffs for them last year. He's going to be fighting for time. He's also left-handed, which is, you know, going to make a little tough so as Ralphie Velazquez. But I mean, it's just, it clogs the roster. More than anything else, it clogs the roster. And I get it. This wasn't a super strong roster to begin with. Like they've got George Valera potentially batting second. That's terrifying, right?

14:17But, and yes, I guess they needed another right-handed bat. But, ah, I just, I don't like it. I know he's just a non-Roster invited at the moment, but it really hurts Manzardo's projection if only for playing time. Because now they have another option at first base, a real one. So when there's a lefty, it's easy for them to say, all right, why don't you go down and let's bring up one of the guys off the bench. And we'll keep talking more transactions. It's basically all these transactions are veteran guys signing with teams and creating log jams. Next up, we've got Michael Conforto, signing a minor league deal with the Cubs. Mitch Garber heads back to the Mariners. Elias Diaz signs with the Royals. Infielder Tyro Estrada signs with the Orioles for Infield Depth. Alex Ferdugo signs with the Padres and Randall Gritchick signs with the Yankees. Any of those other signings mean anything to you from a fantasy standpoint? You know, Tyro Estrada coming in almost feels like

15:19maybe the Orioles don't love the concept of Jeremiah Jackson. Jeremiah Jackson plays Alexander, playing second base in the event that holiday isn't ready in time. So that's mildly interesting. He's either going to like make the roster and be in the lineup because they think he'll be better than Blazile, Alexander, Jeremiah Jackson or he doesn't make the team at all, right? I think the only other guy there that really makes the team in any kind of meaningful way is Michael Conforto with the Cubs as a bench bat. Just being, honestly, just being a lefty off the bench, they didn't have a lefty on their bench. They don't have a ton of lefties on this team in general. Just bush, arm strong and moises about Starros or moises, bolestros. So now they get Michael Conforto to be in the outfield and be left-handed. So he'll play, but really it only matters in only leagues as a guy who might get a couple of that bats. You know, if there's, you know, when there's all seven games

16:20all against righties, Conforto will probably play two or three times. Jumping back to Estrada to Baltimore, is there any concern that the Orioles might turn over some of Kobe Mayo's at bats to Estrada? Mayo projected to be the third baseman while Westberg recovers from his injury? I mean, it's, it's possible. I don't know that Estrada's ever really played there much and he's, there's a lot more upside in Kobe Mayo. Do you have a lot more incentive to give Kobe Mayo every day at bats to see what you have in this kid? Can he hit the off-speed stuff and do damage and just be someone who can be the part of the future of your team? Taro Estrada is not part of the future of your team, right? And the way his Alexander is, even if he's part of the future of your team, it's as a bench utility bat, right? Dido Jeremiah Jackson. Yeah, he had a little bit of a hot street class season, but again, he's, he's not a guy that you're like,

17:21oh, yeah, this is, we're planning on this being an everyday starter for us, right? He's got some major plate discipline issues. I think what you saw is about as good as it could possibly get for Jeremiah Jackson last season. Yeah, I mean, you've got a great year overall in 2025, both in AAA and in the majors. I'm not sure we see him kind of repeat that sort of success again, but it was a great run. I think the strikeouts will get a little bit worse, even, you know, maybe he brings back what he, again, what we saw last year in the minors was just this huge improvement in strikeouts. I don't know if that's coming back. Estrada also is a guy. I mean, he's just a guy. So Kobe Mayo is the one of those guys that you're like, this could be a corner infielder for us for the long term. He's got the kind of upside to be a major part of this team going forward. So I think he gets to play. I think the real question is, who's going to be the utility man force in the middle infield? Blaze Alexander, Jeremiah Jackson, and now Tyro Strada in the mix.

18:21I think the one other signing that at least looked on the surface as it could indicate or could have some repercussions is Gritchock to the Yankees. I think if anything, that's a sign that Jason Dominguez is not making this majorly roster on opening day. Oh, you're right. I mean, that's that's all it's something because they needed another like outfield or kind of like they need another hole in their head, right? But they in theory, they've got Jeremiah Jackson or sorry, they've got Jason Dominguez and that was fine, right? That was plenty. They have Spencer Jones down there. He's a guy that could do something. Hey, maybe you kick the tires on Marco Luciano again. He's a guy that can play in the outfield. You've got all these guys who are not worse than Randall Gritchock, right? What, why? What was the, like what you don't think you have enough veteran experience on this team? You need another 34 year old, right?

19:22Like you've already got Paul Goldschmidt on the bench, right? You've already got 36 year old Giancarlo Stanton, almost 34 year old there in Judge, 31 year old Ryan McMan. You didn't need veteran leadership on this squad. The whole bench is over 30. I don't understand what it's like. And again, maybe you say the goal, we need another right handed bat with power. Yeah, except you've got like the two biggest right handed power bats in baseball with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. So what are we doing here, folks? What, what was the point of this, right? Like, and it's not like you needed a guy to play the position defensively because one, he doesn't do it super well at this point in his career. And he already had Ahmed Rosario on the bench who can do that, right? And Jason Dominguez can do that. Spencer Jones could do, you have just, you had so many options and you chose this one. I don't get it. He's not, he's not someone you really want to take in any league whatsoever, because you don't even know if he's actually going to make this team. He's a non-Roster inviteee.

20:22And if he does, it's just like what was the point? What was, you have, you have plenty of other guys. Like maybe your argument is, oh well Dominguez and Jones, they really need everyday playing time down in triple A. And it's like these, especially Dominguez, he's bent down there. There's not, there's not something for him to learn there. He needs to be in the bigs. Yeah, that was, that was the one that, that put up a red flag for me that was disappointed by it, but I mean, leave it, leave it to Randall Gritchock to, to disappoint us, even at this point of his career. Injury news across spring training. A lot of bumps and bruises, a lot of load management, a lot of rest for guys, a lot of noise. Really the only mildly concerning injury that I saw on the news update, Discord channel was Brenton Doyle with a wrist sprain. He's going to miss at least a little bit of time in spring training. And wrist man, we talked about ham a bones, not being a big deal, but the actual wrist,

21:23like muscle sprain, they kind of concerned me as far as, you know, generating power. And swing in a baseball bat. Yeah, at least it's a sprain, right? So sprains can get better just with rest. Doyle had a pretty decent second half last year, although he's, he was up and down then, he'll probably be up and down again. I think you can count on some steals. I think the batting average will be better. I think that, you know, the ratio, again, the ratio is overall be bad, but the batting average should be somewhat useful just because he'll get those games in, you know, in course, I think the stolen bases can go back up and be closer to like 25. He only had 18 last season. He stole, he ran with much more frequency the first two seasons. So I think that can come back. But yeah, I don't, it's not as though he hit the ball that much worse, right? The bail rate was actually higher. The hard hit rate was higher in 2025 than it was in 2024, despite the worst results. The average exit velocity was up like eight tenths

22:24of a mile per hour, which again, doesn't sound like much, but that's a whole bunch for him. It was harder than he'd ever really been hitting it. So I don't, I think maybe it was just like a little bit of bad luck on like line drives versus ground balls. And I do think he can turn it around. But what we're gonna see for now is rest. Maybe he misses the first week. We're starting to get to the point where if a guy is hurt for like two or three weeks, they're gonna say, oh, he might miss opening day. Please don't overreact to the concept of missing opening day. Opening day is just a day, right? It's just a random target, right? I mean, it's not random in the sense that it is when we start doing this, but like guys miss games, right? If you, if you had a guy missing, let's say 15 to 20 games in a season, which is pretty normal, right? You, Brent and Doyle can still get to like 550, almost 600 play to appearances, playing 140 games. If you project the guy to play 140 games, when he misses like those 20 games, just because he misses the first couple of games, doesn't all of a sudden say, oh, I should probably move that projection down, right?

23:25It's like, no, you thought he'd get a little bumps and bruises throughout the season. This is just the first one, right? We, there's no real need to change. So when we start talking about missing beyond the first two weeks of the season, then you really want to start getting maybe worried that, okay, I really am going to have to think about this. What does that going to mean? But for now, if they say, oh, guy might not make it opening day, if you missed the first week of action, who cares, right? Like most of your, the rest of your roster is going to be ready to go. You can cover a guy for a week. You're probably going to have to do it at some point in the regular season anyway. Doing it the first week is just almost easier. Well, that gets us through all of our transactions and injury news. When we come back after this break, we'll jump into the rest of Scott's top 300 hitters list after this. Welcome back to Acts and Jacks. I'm your host, Brett Ford. Here with Scott, you were talking hitters on pitcher list. We're diving into Scott's top 300 hitters list. We're down to tier 18. We covered tiers one through, I don't know, eight, nine. The first 100 hitters in our episode 137,

24:26two episodes ago. Last episode, we took the next 100 hitters or so. We've gotten through 17 tiers. We've got four more to go, but we've got 100 players to talk about, Scott. Let's jump right into tier 18 and leading us off at 198 overall is Harrison Bader, followed by Mikey Stremsky, Zach McKinstree, Ryan Jeffers, Roman Gonzalez, Carlos Narbias, Andres Jimenez, Marcelo Mayor, Evan Carter, Dominant Canzone, Jordan Walker, Victor Robles, Jorge Soler, Isaac Collins, and Cam Smith. In this tier feels like a lot of hope casting, man. A lot of guys whose names have been hot topics, who've we've wanted to be good, and they just haven't been or aren't. I'm thinking of guys like Evan Carter, Jordan Walker, Tyler O'Neal. These are some of the names that have been,

25:27at least hot topics during draft season in years past. This year, they're down in the 200s. Talk to me about some of these guys down in this tier. Yeah, and this tier is a mix of guys who maybe aren't super high ceiling, but when they play, let's use the guy at the top Harrison Bader, for instance. He's got back to back 140 game seasons, and he should be able to get like 15 home runs, 15 steals, with, you know, not great ratios. I think, you know, last season, they looked great, but that's just because he had a Babib spike. He's like a little less than 250 hitter over his career, and his OBP will be around 300. Again, not great. County stats won't be great, because it will be at the bottom of the San Francisco Giant lineup. But Harrison Bader, when he plays a little bit of power, a little bit of speed, and, you know, obviously, excellent defensively, so when he's healthy, he plays. He had a lot of injuries up until the last two seasons. He's played mostly, but he's like a safer pick. He's like, okay, I need now, fielder that's gonna play, do a little bit of power,

26:28a little bit of speed, like, he'll be there, right? So, but the ceiling isn't much higher than 15, 15, right? Maybe it's like 17, 15, you know? That's it, and maybe the ratios will be like less bad. That's it, or like a Zach McKinstree, who had like a great first half, and then a really bad second half, but, you know, 10, something, home runs, 15 steals, better ratios, can play all over the field. It's safe, right? He's gonna play. So, like, there's that kind of player. Yeah, and then there's the Evan Carter, who, like, if he stays healthy, if he's, you know, doing stuff, he could steal like 25 to 30 bases, Evan Carter, with a little bit of pop, right? Double digit pop, maybe a decent batting average, but, like, injuries have kept him out constantly since being called up. Or Jordan Walker, who, that one time was a top five prospect in baseball. It's easy to forget that, but Jordan Walker, especially when he first came up, we were taking him as a starting third baseman in fantasy drafts, right?

27:28He just never has been able to get the ball off the ground. He has plus, plus power. He's, I mean, his average ex-civilosity last year was 92.3 miles an hour. Smokes the ball, elite bat speed, 99th percentile bat speed. But he hits everything on the ground. No matter how hard you hit it, if the ball stays knee high, you're not going to go that far with it. It's either an outer or single. Doesn't really matter how hard you hit it. So he's the kind of guy who, like, yeah, cue the hype train, which is what I say in the article, he went to driveline over the winter. Maybe that does something, but he's the kind of guy where you take him because they're ceiling there, even though the floor is abysmal, far worse than like a baiter. But the ceiling is a lot better, because if he somehow is found a way to get that ball in the air, this is a guy who could hit 25-30 home runs. He's got that kind of power. It's just, we haven't seen him do anything close to that. Or, you know, Cam Smith, who will here won't he be a starter for this team? I mean, I didn't think he'd be the starter coming out of spring training last year.

28:29And he was. Now I think he is going to be the starter and maybe he won't be. But Cam Smith was a highly rated prospect, right? He was a top 50 prospect. There was a reason we were excited about Cam Smith last season. And there's an opening with Hazard Sanchez no longer on this team, right? No one's, I don't think any of these guys like say, well, this guy has to be a starter for them. Except for maybe Cam Smith, he's taking some reps in center field. So maybe that helps him get a little bit more playing time. But Cam Smith, a guy who has, oh, high ceiling, but a very low floor, that floor being a platoon, a small side of a platoon with poor results like we saw last season. So when you're in this part of the draft, you really need to be thinking about what type of player is it that I need. Do I need someone to fill in play appearances? Maybe because I'm in a draft and hold. And that's what this roster is. Or am I shooting for the moon here? I've got some of these positions covered up pretty well. And so I'm going to grab Marcelo Mayor because even though he might get sent down and the strikeouts are just real bad and he doesn't show us much more than we did in those horrible 44 games that he had,

29:31where he hit everything on the ground. And when he wasn't hitting it on the ground, he was missing entirely. How do we, do I, am I taking that lot of ticket? Am I taking the safe like Andre Semenas is going to play? And steal some bases and do nothing else really at all. So yeah, what is it that you need? What is it that you're looking for? The more shallow of a league, the more you should be disregarding names like Zach McHenry entirely and just looking for those guys with the big upside. One of the names that I kind of like in this tier, the more that I look into him. And maybe this is because I'm in like TGFBI mode where it's going to be a 15 team, five outfielder league is Mikey Stremsky. Just kind of looking at the Brave's roster makeup. There's not a lot of competition for bats in that outfiel. You know, you know, Stremsky is penciled in as the starter and really the only guy behind him on the roster

30:31is like Brett Weisley. There's nobody really knocking on the door in the minors. I kind of think you Stremsky could get the 600 plate appearances with the Braves. The disrespect for your boy Jorge Mateo on that bench is just, he's an infielder. I mean, just for at bats, right? Jerkson Profar could move off the each play outfield and whatever, but no, you know, Stremsky, the problem with you is Stremsky, it's sort of as you're alluding to, the ceiling is in great, right? We saw four consecutive seasons of basically exactly what Mike is, Stremsky is now. That's a low batting average, okay, OBP guy who can hit 15 to 18 home runs. Very specifically in that range, just to be clear, very specifically going into his age 35 season, he's certainly not going to be any better than that. I think that yeah, he'll hit probably 230 or less. His OBP will probably be like 320

31:32and he'll hit like 16 home runs. That's fine, that's totally fine. But again, in a 12 team league, I am uninterested entirely, right? Just because there's no ceiling there, it's just a platoon bat. I may be, I'm certainly not interested, I want to say, I'm not interested on draft day. In season, I might need a fill in and it's seven games for Atlanta versus all right handed pitching. All right, there's a fill in, right? Yeah, maybe as does a little something for a week, but he's not someone in a 12 team league, even one with the big bench that I'm looking for. Although, hey, yes, does have three home runs in his first four games in spring training, which means absolutely nothing from a 35 year old man, but 35 and a half actually, it'll turn 36, 30 to season. But yeah, he did that, it's true. So again, deeply though, there's plenty there. There's plenty of there to be a fifth outfield there, especially if you kind of waited a while and had to fill in all your other positions

32:33and find yourself missing that fourth outfield there, yeah, it should be there for quite a while. Anything else to this here you want to touch on before we move on? No, there's another old guy with power would be Jorge Soler, who I think is going to play and he'll have like a decent OBP, but again, it's just a, it's like an old man lotto to get. Like the grand prize is $17, kind of thing. And it's, you know, well beyond replacement level, right? We talk about replacement level a lot on this podcast. You'll hear us talk about it a lot throughout the season. Yeah, Jorge Soler and a 12 team league is beyond the replacement level. Oh, yeah, way beyond. Actually, there is one more guy too because you're going to look at the stats and you're going to say, Isaac Collins had a really nice season for the brewers last year. You're going to say, look at that 122 WRC plus stole 16 bases. Now he's going to a Royals team

33:35where he should be able to win at least most of a starting job. But it's worth noting that what Collins actually did was have a three month hot streak, right? June, July, August, he was real good, but before that and after that, he was real bad. And by the end of the season, he was platoon. He was only playing against lefties, right? So yes, with the whole season, he could be like 10 home runs, 15 steals and a decent OBP. But don't fall for the full season line. This was three hot months, three hot months for a 27 year old rookie, all right? So don't look at that and be like, oh man, this is a sleeper in the back of the draft. It's not. It's not. There's a reason that he's way down here in the ranks and it's because I'm not a huge believer in that hot streak. I think it was just a hot streak, which again, he may be a streamer at some point in the season, especially if he's getting every day playing time, but he's not something I'm looking for on draft day, the ceiling is just not there. And neither is the floor, because he may just be like the small side of a platoon.

34:36Fair enough. Let's move on to tier 19. Tier 19 starts at number two, 13 overall. Your Detroit Tigers catcher, Dylan Dingler, Edgar Carro, Tyler Stevenson, Logan O'Hoppy, Brett Batty, Connor Norby, Andrew Benantendi, Bryce Eldridge, Jake Croninworth, Moises by Estero's, Nick Gonzalez, Bonaylor, Victor Scott, Jonathan India, Trevor Larnick, Lane Thomas, Owen Casey, Wensale Perez, Cabrion Hayes, Ryan McMahon, Parker Meadows, Vaughn Grissom, Tyler O'Neill, Carson Kelly, Carter Jensen, and Victor Caratini, 26 names in this tier Scott. A lot of them to talk about. Any of them worth spending time on here? Yeah, let's skip the catchers, right? So these guys are only interesting in two catcher leagues where you kind of feel like having a third, right? Now, if you're going to look for one of these, maybe I think the, I ranked Dingler the highest

35:37because he's like the safest. I think the batting average for him comes way down because he's not going to hit line drives like you did last season. It's a fluky line drive rate. Line drive rate is one of the flukiest stats out there, especially if a guy's all of a sudden doing it way better than he did before. It is extremely uncommon to say this guy made a skill change. Now he hits way more line drives, right? The guy hitting more than 25% line drives is probably a slap hitter, right? It's the Whisiraya is that, that'll do that. And Freddie Freeman always showed a really high line drive rate. But if a guy didn't have a high line drive rate in the, in the minor leagues, for example, and all of a sudden he's just pelting them all over a place in the majors, that's just good bad at ball luck because the difference between a ground ball and a fly ball and a line drive when you talk about round ball, line, round bat is really, really small. And line drive rates do two things. Number one, the really fluky, especially from year to year, they take forever to stabilize way longer than ground balls and flies balls. Like three to four times as long

36:38for line drive rate to stabilize because it's just really noisy because of how close it is to ground balls and fly balls. Whereas there's a difference between ground balls and fly balls, like it's quite a bit more room on the bat to get to one of the other. So it's really fluky and it inflates your extats. Right, because you look at next to that and say, oh yeah, this means he can do that, right? His X average and X slug look pretty good. He think you can do that. Well, if it was because, like, if it was just because they got lucky on line drives, they're probably not gonna repeat that. Like what is the source for the high X-wova, right? If a dude's got a 28.2% line drive rate, that's probably the source. Not some kind of like underlying great power. It's, yeah, he had a bunch of balls at launch angles that tend to go for hits. Right, that's all that is. So be a little careful with that. I think out of your Quarrow is interesting. Another guy that's going to drive line to work on the launch angle and the power. He doesn't strike out much. He's more of a hit tool guy, but I think he could be a catcher

37:39that doesn't kill your batting average, right? So that's something interesting if you're looking for that third catcher. I think Brett Baddie is interesting. We said this last year too and it kind of pinged out. Sort of, he's going to be a guy who plays, right? We don't know exactly how much. Baddie will play right now. He's kind of looking like the DH, but I think between, you know, maybe some fill-ins for Marcus Semi in a second. Maybe some fill-ins for Boba Chet at third. Maybe they just kind of move guys around a little bit. I think he can play. He should be able to hold off like Mark Vientos and stuff like that. So he's got some pop. He, you know, really kind of was better in the second half last season where he was a very, he was fairly serviceable player, even though he wasn't really playing against lefties. So, so Baddie's a guy, I mean, he did hit 18 home runs last year on 130 games. He might have a hard time getting to that number of games, but he could get back to that number of home runs while hitting 250. The ratio is not going to be great,

38:39but there's real power here and it's for him, it's all about that ground ball rate. It's been over 50% every year of his career. When the ground ball rate gets below 50%, close to like 45 to 40%. That's when we see the guy we really like as it starts creeping between like 45% to 50% and up, that's when we see the guy who just hits into too many outs. Right, because the strikeout rate is fine, but it's the ground balls that just kill him. So if he gets the ball in the air, there's a potential breakout guy here, although it'll be hard for him to carve out too much more playing time, unless we see injuries from old man, Marcus Semyon, or guy who tends to get hurt every year, Jorge Polanco or something like that. One of the guys that's in this tier that I was super high on last year, but I'm kind of backpedaling from that because I'm scared to death of the strikeout rate is San Francisco Giants listed as a DH, probably going to end up being a first baseman,

39:41Bryce Eldridge, tremendous power here, range of outcomes could be anywhere from, I won't say like a poor man's, Nick Kurtz all the way to like a Chris Carter. Where do you think we fall on that spectrum, Scott? Look name dropping, the Chris Carter's. The walk rate was really, really high as he came in way higher than it probably should have been. He's, I mean, he looked pretty, he did not have the eye popping numbers in triple way that we had hoped, right? He kind of stumbled a little bit there, and then of course in the major leagues last year, he stumbled a bit. Eldridge is, one is huge, he's six foot seven. Huge lefty with big power, probably more power than anybody in the minor leagues, right? Like him and Connor Griffin, which is a nice comp to have, right? I'm as good at Connor Griffin at something, right? Do you already got three home runs? He's absolutely unreal. We'll talk about him more in a future episode when we talk about young guys

40:42who might be able to break camp. Eldridge, the strike out rate is scary. I love, one, we loved the hard hit rate in his small sample last year, even in the minors. His, his average ex-ciplosity was 95 mile, it was over 95 miles an hour in both AAA and in the majors last year. So you put those to combine. It's like 185 battered ball events and then average ex-ciplosity above 95 miles an hour. Dude, smokes the ball, right? He just wasn't quite getting it to where we needed it to go. A few too many ground balls in the majors, although I mean, it was basically the biggest thing that we saw in the majors is like he didn't hit a single line drive. He had like two line drives the whole time. Everything was ground ball fly ball. I think that's just an adjustment thing. He's a great lottery ticket at the back end of a draft, if you're just like, who's available at the very end of the draft that could hit 30 home runs this year? Bryce Eldridge is one of those guys and it's 12 team league, you should be there at the very end of the draft

41:43and he has real 30 home run power no doubt. Another guy in this tier that I know you're familiar with as a Tigers fan, somebody who I just, I love his game. I just wish he would put together a season. It's Outfield or Parker Meadows. I feel like he's a 2020 guy waiting to happen. He just hasn't stayed on the field long enough to put it together. And I really wish I still believed that. I actually had the great opportunity to be on Days of Roar. That's the podcast for the Detroit Free Press last week. So go and check that out. We do an in depth dive of PLV stats a bit on just Tigers hitters. It was a lot of fun for me. Evan Petzoltz in the, you know, just that pot. It's the second year I've been able to be on it and just absolutely love it. So if you're a Tigers fan to definitely check it out or if you just want to hear my take on these Tigers hitters, my problem with Parker Meadows is I just don't think the plate discipline is there. I think he's he just the OBP continues to get worse

42:43every season. He really struggles with that. Is there some power? Not as the home run rate, like the number of home runs he has makes you think he hits the ball a lot harder than he does. He does it. His hard hit rate is extremely low. When he does hit the home runs, it's because he pulls the ball a lot and he can just tuck it over the fence. But I just I can't fall in love with it anymore. I think Parker Meadows at this point should be seen as a strong defender who can play in a platoon who will generally hit ninth when he plays. The big competition he's going to have is Max Clark. Max Clark is going to probably start the year in AAA and he'll be pushing for playing time and one of the easier guys to go through is Parker Meadows. And I think that is what we'll see. Now again, there is upside here. Like I'm not just going to say he doesn't have power and speed and he may have games maybe at the start of the season if he has a good spring, he does lead off to start and that makes him interesting, right? But the role he plays like this team already has lefties.

43:47They don't need like an extra lefty on the bench. They got a bunch of them on the roster already with McKinstree and Keith and Greene and Carpenter. So they're probably not going to have Jumai Jones go down. They need that right handed bat off the bench, especially because two of their three best hitters are weak against left handed pitching Greene and Carpenter and Veerling has versatility on the infield and the outfield. So Parker Meadows becomes the guy that could go down if Max Clark comes up. If you decide to draft Parker Meadows, it's because he's having a good spring and you think he could start the year leading off because this team is dying for a lead off it and they don't really have one. And the last name I'll bring up, I know you told us to kind of not worry about catchers throughout this year, but one of the more interesting ones and Nate actually noted this in his little blurb at the bottom here, but Royale's catcher Carter Jensen is a trendy name as far as catchers go. Talk to me about Jensen and what his ceiling might look like this year.

44:50I do think he's going to get plenty of time because I think at some point you start letting Sal be a DH, right, if you want his knees to make it any longer than they already have, you gotta give them some days. He, Jensen has an amazing minor league track record. He does and he could be like a good OBP guy with like 15 home runs, but also, I'm not sure how, I mean, this is definitely like a sleeper if you're looking for like a back end second catcher, kind of skills in, right? So his small sample in the majors last year was phenomenal. He slugged 550 with a 391 OBP. The plate disciplines are great. I think I'll continue to walk, but I think that strikeout rate, that 17 before, 17.4% strikeout rate is a little suspect. Even though he was kind of steady with it in that very small sample, I think that's going to end up kind of jumping up.

45:51I think the walk rate is going to come down just a little bit, just closer to 10%, and I think that he's gonna be a guy, I don't think he's gonna have a 58.3% hard hit rate, although he did do that in the minor leagues for a bit. Granted, I just can't get super excited because I don't think he'll play as much as he did at the end of year last year, and I don't think this outburst is going to just keep coming but again, as a sleeper second catcher, guy, you know, catcher who maybe gets to play in 100 games, he could sneak into double digit home runs with decent ratios, especially for a catcher. So anybody else you want to talk about in this tier before we move on? Oh, it's such a large tier. I think there's a rabbit here.

46:51Victor Scott, the second, if you need stolen bases and don't care about anything else, Victor Scott the second will probably steal 30. He's gonna play a ton because the cardinals are no good and he's a pretty good defender and he's gonna bat ninth and he's gonna steal because if that team wants to score runs, they need someone to steal bases because they're not gonna hit super great. So we're, you know, we've had a couple in the ranks up till now but this is one of those big highlights where you're like, look, it's a one category guy, exactly one. And there are times you might need that, right? Like technically Chandler Simpson is like the better version of this, but man, if you told me by ADP, which would I rather have, I'd almost rather take Scott because it's like, I'll just start him when I need the steals, right? When he's got good steals matchups based on the battery, he's up against, I'll just plug him in then and not, you know, not feel, not spend the resources to have a guy who's gonna have to play for me every day.

47:52I like that shout. We will take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the final two tiers in Scott's top 300 hitters list. Welcome back to hacks and jacks. I'm your host, Brett Ford here with Scott Chew. We're talking hitters on pitcher list, Scott's top 300 hitters list. We're down to tier 20 and tier 20 begins at number 2.39 with Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Carson Williams. Continues on with Aiden Miller, Max Clark, Josh Smith, Nolan Aranato, Hussion Kim, Christian Campbell, Mauricio Dubon, Lordesgariel Jr., Walker Jenkins, Travis Bazzana, Sean Murphy, Luis Engel, Akunia, Tristan Cassis, Sungman Song, Lennon Sosa, Justin Crawford, Jake McCarthy, Gavin Lux, Denzel Clark, Nassim Nunez, Miguel Andohar, Reese Hoskins, and Tyler Freeman. A lot of guys in this tier, a lot of prospects in this tier as well. Talk to me about tier 20 Scott. Take it any direction you want.

48:53Yeah, first of all, if you're in a 12 team league, take all those prospects and bump them up a tier. Right, I don't think a lot of these guys are gonna be super productive right out the gate. I think Carson Williams is one that will play for the Rays and he's got a lot of upside and like a real tough strikeout and his own contact rate and the miners and the majors is utterly horrifying. So there's a lot of risk there, but if you want a guy who could go 2030, that's Carson Williams. Aiden Miller is someone who could steal 30 bags this season, like right out the gate and be more interesting than the previously mentioned victor's got the second. It's just less of a sure thing because Aiden Miller will probably need about 120-ish games to get to that number. I write in the article, he could do it as few as 100, but that's pretty aggressive, especially for a team that should be able to score runs. And he doesn't have a clear path to the majors with Trey Turner around. So there's that, you know, Max Clark, if he can really kind of run with it in the minor leagues, he could find himself up, but I don't know if he's gonna be an everyday player when he does, but still worth a look.

49:55So yeah, a couple of those guys are interesting. Walker Jenkins, if you're in an OBP league, it's worth a shot, he could walk a lot. And I'm kind of interested to see what happens with Luis Angelicuna just because, you know, this team is not gonna help players get rid of strikeouts or work on their contacts. The White Sox just don't do that. But there's an opening to be a starter for the White Sox and he's got a bunch of speed. There's not much power to speak of here. That's why we've got three major league home runs in 109 games, but the White Sox are probably just looking for sparks, looking for guys who can be interesting for them. And I think Luis Angelicuna is more interesting than Andrew Ben and Tendi. He's more interesting than Brooks Baldwin. And that could give him a chance to play, right? This team's just gonna load up with, you know, mid 20 something year olds. And I think they should just kind of see what happens. It'd be a better development move

50:55than they've done in the last decade. So why not give it a whirl? He could be someone who, if they give him a starting job, could be a bit interesting if you need speed. It's same for Justin Crawford, who I think is gonna play. I think he's gonna be a starter for the Phillies. And again, he's like a stolen bases only kind of guy. It's still well, I should say stolen bases is batting average. So he could be two. He'll probably move up into my next ranks. The more it looks like he's definitely the starter, he'll move up. Someone that's interesting there. And it is Hopkins is gonna move up a little from this tier frustratingly, but I think he's gonna play. So he gets, he gets to move up. And don't forget about Hassion Kim, if you need steals. He's not gonna have enough time to get to like the 10 home runs or 20 stolen bases that I would have expected if he played all year, but he's not gonna be gone that long. So if you have unlimited IEL spots, he should be someone you might star at the back end of your draft because when he's ready, he's gonna be the everyday shortstop for Atlanta.

51:58And he'll be not bad, right? He'll be serviceable in deeper leagues. So he's someone you might wanna star that might get forgotten about because projections are gonna bury him because he's gonna miss a bit of the beginning part of the season. You started off by talking about Carson Williams and one of the biggest knocks on Williams is that the race love Taylor Walls and will not stop playing Taylor Walls regardless of whether he carries a bat with him to the batter's box or not. What would it take for Carson Williams? What are you looking for out of Carson Williams in the early parts of the season? What would you call a successful first month of the year for him? Yeah, so the reason for that is because Taylor Walls is really, really good defensively. That's why the race has always liked him. He hits for a really low average, but he gets on base better than that. I guess he walks a lot. Yeah, he doesn't have much power. He does have speed. What I'll be looking for in Carson Williams' contact.

53:00Contact, contact, contact. The guy whiffed a ton when he was up. He whiffed a ton when he was down. It's, he's gotta try to get somewhere close to an 80% zone contact rate. And if he can't start climbing that direction, it's just not, I don't see how he can be successful. He'll just be another one of those guys and it's like, yeah, he had a lot of power and speed and he never hit the ball enough to make it matter. That's the fear with Carson Williams. I think he will play, you won't play every single day, but he'll get the opportunity because his, you know, his glove is, his glove is definitely plus. And he could be the type of guy that completely overtakes Taylor Walls, but again, he's gonna have to make some contact. Another guy in this tier who I thought was interesting, at least was Josh Smith from The Ranger's utility guy should get at bats. I have no idea where he'll play defensively. It could be everywhere, but he was a guy

54:02that kind of struck me as like a Gerardo Predomo kind of candidate where he does a little bit of everything, but you're not sure how. And he was streaky, you know, at parts of the last two seasons. Frankly, he's been extremely streaky. Talk to me about Josh Smith and whether or not you're interested down here in the 200s. Well, he begs bars and steals his way into 140 games each of the last two seasons. There's, again, the upside is what you saw, right? Barely double digit home runs, barely double digit stolen bases, counting stats worse than you'd like, but ratios that are fine, right? He can't slug 400. He can't, you know, hit, he'll probably hit like 240 to 50. He'll probably get on base like, you know, a 330 clip or so. Again, I'd like to say I don't see how he gets to 140 games, but I said that last year and he did. He'll just be injuries and things like that. He can play all over the place. He's eligible, especially in Yahoo leads all over the place.

55:05But in every leak, he should be a belt. He should be eligible at outfield, short third and first. So well, actually, you know, I think he fell short of outfield just by a little in some, and Yahoo leads will be there in outfield and other leaks he won't, but he'll always have the short first and third. So he's versatile. He's a deep, he's a fine, deep league bench guy, right? I think the price is going to be down. And if you believe he's going to get plenty of playing time, I can't call him a sleeper because there's just no ceiling. And I think it's weird to call a guy a sleeper when you think he's going to be roughly as good as he was last year. And that dude was like, just barely a top 200 hitter, but you're not paying top 200 prices. So that's okay, right? I mean, he's not, he's not exciting, but it'll play. And that's the kind of guy who, again, at this stage of the draft, you may be, you know, you may have a need for that.

56:06It's just like in a 12 team league, there's just really no wind. I have no interest because the upside's just not there. Even like a Jake McCarthy, he probably can't hit, right? He had many chances to be the guy for the debax and it didn't work. But hey, he goes to Colorado. Maybe there's a, like there's a path to Jake McCarthy being a starter, even in a three outfield league. That's where he gets to lead off for the Rockies and he's stealing 40 bags and slapping the ball around when he's at home, right? It's not that hard to get there mentally. Do I think that's going to happen? No, that's why I ranked him 256. But I see the path, I see how it could happen. What is the path for Josh Smith to be a starter in a 12 team league? That path is, he is better than he's ever been before. That's it. It's not, shows me a skill that he showed me for a little bit once before. Like Jake McCarthy's been that guy for half a season. He's been that guy for 16 games. Josh Smith has never been that guy.

57:06He's been a, I really glad I got him off the wire for a while, right? That's Josh Smith and that's all he's going to be. So that's probably the difference there. But again, as if you're in AL only, if you're in draft and hold, you're in the reserve rounds of a 15 teamer. Sure, sure, he is a fine reserve who can fill in at a couple spots until you find something better. Well, we'll move on from that safe, volume feel and kind of go to the other end of the spectrum for a guy who might have some ceiling if he ends up getting on the field. And that's Cleveland's second baseman, Travis Bazana. Highly rated prospects, better bat than anything Cleveland has at second base currently. Talk to me about Bazana and whether or not we might see him at some point early in the season. I love how you went on a wet limb there. Better bat than anything they have at second base currently, which is Brian Rockio, right? Brian Rockio is a fine major league player,

58:07but it's not because he can hit, right? He's all defense. So, Bazana, I thought they'd bring him up last year. This team, so what I write in the article is the Guardian should realize they need offensive firepower in the worst way. And they signed Reeze Hoskins, and this race doesn't change. This team still needs offensive firepower in the worst way. Bazana could be that guy, like I don't, he's certainly not at the same level of some of the prospects that are, you know, up about 50 spots from here, right? Like this isn't counter-griffing. This is a guy who could maybe be like a fine regular. You know what I mean? He has good numbers in the minor leagues. We saw him at AA in Triple A last year. He doesn't have huge power, but he gets on base a ton. He could be someone who provides, especially in an OB-P league, a little bit of plus. He's just smoked, I mean, he smoked the ball

59:09so far this spring. He didn't do it so much in Triple A last year, but it's only six bad ball events, he's averaging 96 miles an hour on those balls. But, you know, he doesn't have like a huge power ceiling. It's probably like 12 to 15 home runs, maybe like 10 steals, but he could also hit like 250, maybe. You know, and that to say, you know, offensive firepower and they need it, and this is it. For the Guardian's 10 home runs is offensive firepower. They don't have that, right? They don't, especially 10 home runs that doesn't hit like 200. Brian Rocchio played 143 games in 2020, he had eight, all right? Like, and then he had 206 doing it. So, you know, last season, he had five, but he hit 233, so I guess that's better. But yeah, Bazzana could be somewhat interesting

1:00:10as a second basement. If first, if something were to happen, where I found out today, he was the starter for the Guardians, he might break into the back of the top 200. That's the kind of upside I'm thinking about now. He'd probably be in like the first year we talked about today, because I'd say, hey, there's a little bit here to, you know, full season that's 10, you know, maybe even 15 home runs, maybe 10 stolen bases, that's a guy, right? And maybe there's more. Maybe he unlocks a little bit more power, something like that. But that's kind of the upside we're talking about with Bazzana. He could be like just inside the top 200 with a starting job. And then in season, if he looked good for a week or two, he could break into the top 50. Or sorry, the top 150. And, you know, you say that, and somebody might not think that much of it, but top 200 for a second base eligible prospect is borderline startable with how weak the position is. Yeah, it's, so second base, just to briefly talk

1:01:11about some strategy there, it's the, like, it's just the absolute wash, right? After the first like two or three tier second baseman, you're just in the wash the whole time, right? Like second base is a position where if I didn't grab someone with eligibility early in the draft, I'm just not gonna pressure myself. At no point in any draft, particularly in a 12 team league, should you be thinking, oh my God, I gotta get a second baseman. Just get the last one, because the difference between the last one and like the seventh one just ain't that much, right? I'd get the last second baseman, and I'd feel just fine about it, right? And I don't know who that is. Maybe that's like an auto Lopez or a Bryson stock because I need speed, Caleb Durbin. Like those are the kind of guys you can get, you know, late second baseman, and it's fine, right? Even Brendan Donovan, maybe, you know, kicked the tires on Matt McLean, maybe he's a little better than he was last year, right? That's just inside, you know, you're boy, Willie Castro, right? That's the, that can be the last second baseman. Do you feel great about it?

1:02:12No, but is Willie Castro that much worse than the other names I just said? Not really. Do you, do I feel great about it? Yes. Yeah, which, and I'm happy for you, right? But that's, you know, he's not, or like a Chase Meadrat because, you know, I want some batting average in steals and I don't really care about the rest and he's going to lead off for the white socks. Like, yeah, second base, keep waiting. And if you're in a deep league, my backup second baseman, I'm just going to keep waiting. Keep waiting, that's my motto for second base, basically, all off season, just keep waiting. It's okay, keep waiting. Keep waiting until you really feel like, all right, this is a good value. Like every, the star is kind of a line, okay, I'll take this second baseman. Don't, don't pressure yourself. And, you know, if bizzana becomes available, it's like, yeah, sure, why not, right? Like Brent Baddie, that's not terrible, you know? I worry a little bit about the playing time, but hey, it's just, it's fine.

1:03:14Second base, just, it doesn't have cliffs like third base, right? Third base has a cliff. I want one of those first, you know, nine guys. Second base, it's like, meh, it just kind of slowly, like the quality just kind of trickles down and trickles down. And you get to the end and you're like, it's still not that much less than what I was thinking about four rounds ago. So I'll just do it now. Beautiful. And we've got one more tier left to cover Scott. We're already over an hour for the pod. We've got 38 guys in this tier. I'm not going to read them. It starts, it starts at number 263, Jordan Lawler goes all the way down to number 300, Nick Castell, Nick Castellanos, now a San Diego Padre, pick a handful of these guys that you think are worth talking about here in the final tier of your top 300 hitters list. Yeah, let's do some quick it. So I already talked about a little bit earlier, Kobe Mayo in this tier. I think he's going to get a shot to play some third base

1:04:16right out of the start of the season that gives him a bit of upside and you can kick the tires on that and see what happens, right? Eventually, we'll probably lose that job. But what a, it's worth a look. I think Ryan Walchmann is someone that people like. He had a great season in the minors. He could be making the roster really, really quickly. And he's got tons of speed and he's got a bit of power. If he's going to win a job this spring or maybe in the summer, we could see Walchmann jump way, way up. A high sound Kim might get some extra action with Tommy Edmund missing the start of the season. If you need speed, late in the draft, I said Kim might be one of those guys that you can look at to give you a little something. Think if you're in a deep league, Jake Frailey, he's a platoon guy. He's got a career 776 OPS against Rites. He could be a guy that you kind of plug and play a lot and those kinds of deep leagues where you're just, you're looking for playing time. He can be that. I'm also looking at Troy Johnston. So he's not, I'm not going to sit here

1:05:20and talk about skills because what Troy Johnston is is a lefty who should play in course, right? Left handed plays in course. There's nothing really super special about that, but he'll be at home and get a lot of righties once in a while. So just keep that name in mind in those deep leagues to stream. Are we talking like Michael Toglia, like how successful he was as a lefty in course or is the contact skills a little bit better? I mean, most people have better contact skills than that. But yes, his plate discipline is a lot better than Michael Toglia. He's not going to be a huge walk rate guy, but the batting average should be good, right? It'll be like 260, could be like 260, maybe even 270. But again, he'll be this like streamer at first base and outfield. When, I think in some leagues it'll only be outfield. Like if you have 20 game eligibility, it'll only be outfield. But in Yahoo League, so be second base or outfield.

1:06:22He's not going to strike out a ton. He'll put the ball in play and it's course. That's what it is. It is a lefty in course. And the Rockies don't have a ton of options. It's not as though like they have nowhere to play this guy. I think he might be the regular at the regular there. I think another guy who might sneak into this ranking because I just, I'm just a glutton for punishment and I can't stop doing it. Edward Julianne, also a lefty on this team who's in field eligible, he'll be eligible at second and first, I think he's way way too passive and he has big contact problems. But if there's something that can help you with contact problems, it's going somewhere where the ball moves less. Right, so like if you've got contact problems and he has contact problems, he's also just not nearly aggressive enough. If you've got that issue, one thing to do is just go somewhere where the ball moves less. I mean, like just go there and see what happens. Right, maybe he'll finally stop taking strike three over and over and over again and stop taking strike one over and over and over again

1:07:24because he's one of the most passive players in all of baseball. You know, maybe he'll want to swing a little more because he knows he's in Colorado. Again, not someone you're trying to build a team around. Just a name to keep in mind. We've seen him be good before Edward Julianne. He was a top 100 prospect. Great plate discipline again. He was mostly by spitting on breaking balls and you don't have to spit on breaking balls and cores because they don't move so much. So yeah, him and Troy Johnson are two guys at the very end who I probably even, you know, maybe in a very deep league like an NFPC, I might be picking up Troy Johnson for the back end of my bench. Otherwise, both these guys just a little star, little watch list to be like, hey, eventually they're going to go to cores for a week and they're going to get a bunch of right handed titters and I might want a piece of that pie. So one of the names that you skipped over in this tier that I just thought had a super interesting spring training stat line is Houston Outfielder Zach Cole. Cole battling for a starting outfield job in Houston.

1:08:26He has started his spring training with no hits in his first 12 plate appearances. He has four strikeouts in those 12 plate appearances. He's reached base four times, three walks, one hit by pitch and has stolen second. All four times he's been on. So I think that the speed there could play if he gets on base at this clip. You know, a 333 OBP is great, a 0, 0, 0 batting average is not. So he's a guy who I'm at least curious to see how the contact plays at the major league level and if he wins a starting job in Houston, he'll be a name that I'm at least putting on my scout list. Yeah, to say, you know, to say you're a little worried about the contact in the majors is an understatement. Dude struck out 30% at every level. He struck out 30% of the time in the complex, right? Dude struck out all the time. How does he bring that to the majors? Like you said, a 333 OBP is great, a 333 OPS is not, right?

1:09:32Like that's a problem. Is there power here? Sure, right? He's got a bit of game power, but it is going to be the glove that maybe, I mean, even the glove's not great. The speed might help him make this team. I know he's competing to be in the outfield. I, his main competition is Cam Smith. Unless Cam Smith also goes and starts in center field instead of on the side. But yeah, the contact is a huge concern. Normally, I would say a guy who's striking out at this rate, just won't make it in the majors. To strike out 30% of the time in 416 minor league played appearances last year, mostly in AA, that's terrifying. That looks like 40 plus percent in the major leagues. And I can't think of a single player who's survived in the major leagues with a 40% strikeout rate for more than a few weeks. It's just horrible to watch when that's happening. So unless, even if you walked 20% of the time, right?

1:10:36It just doesn't work. So that's what you'll be watching for this spring. What can you keep a 30% strikeout rate can play, right? A 40% strikeout rate is not major league material. From the very little I've seen of him, he reminds me of Will Benson from the red. It's kind of a very similar makeup, speed power, but you're not sure if he's gonna make contact ever. Yeah, and his zone contact rate, the minors is okay, which is just kind of funny that his strikeout rate is so high. He doesn't chase that much either, to be honest. But the zone contact rate came way down in the major leagues in a small sample last year. It was just really bad. So it was only 52 played appearances or so, but it was a 75% zone contact rate. You gotta hit the strikes. If you swing the strikes, you gotta hit him. You gotta hit him about four out of every five times. You don't have to put him in play necessarily, but you gotta get a piece of him.

1:11:37So that's the thing to be watching for how often can he just get a piece of these and maybe live to fight another day. If he were to make the majors, he'd be a speed threat and maybe a little bit of power, but an absolute ratio tank, right? There's just, there's no way I see an OBP that stays above 300, with this, even if the strikeout rate's 30%, he's just not gonna hit for enough average to try to have those kinds of numbers. So I know the minor league numbers look better than that, but remember, if your weakness is breaking balls, you can go a long way in the minor leagues, like Edward Julianne. That's what we saw from him. He was able to strike out quite a bit in the minors, but spit on every breaking ball and make it to the majors, and then you can't do that anymore, because too many guys can throw breaking balls for strikes, and then you become in big, big trouble. I worry that's what we're gonna see was that cool, but we have more spring training. The other thing to mention is just about spring training that Cole has those four stolen bases. One of the few stats that you really can take from spring training and take it into the season

1:12:40with some kind of correlation is stolen bases. So if a guy is running a ton in spring, there's some good, there's some good data out there that'll tell you that they'll keep running, like the team is willing to let them run. Stolen base, especially like team wide and players, we see that number go into the majors, whereas like if you're hitting home runs in spring, yeah, sure, you're putting in a tiny ballpark against low rated pitching. But if you're running, yeah, sure, maybe you're only being successful because of the batter you're against, but the more important thing is that you're getting the green light, right? Your managers giving you the green lights, they want to see you run. That can very well translate in the majors. So keep an eye on the stolen base leader boards, and we'll probably talk about that again as we get a few more spring training games in the season, maybe next week, I'll try to talk more about that, but keep an eye on those spring training stolen bases. Beautiful. Scott, we are out of time. Tell the people where to find you and your work. Find me on Twitter at if the two fits, if the CHU fits, you can find me on bluesky, scotchew.pictureless.com.

1:13:41And of course, the top 300 hitters, you should see an update come out maybe by the end of this week, if not first thing next week, we'll have some of the first updates rolling out, and that'll start happening weekly. I'm just waiting for a little bit more data to come through, otherwise the rankings look just like they did when I did them before. Beautiful. And my name is Brett Forty. You can find me at Fade That Man on social media. I'm active in the Discord for Pitcher List as well. Make sure if you haven't already, check out our lifetime subscriber. I believe it's still open. And then of course, with PL Pro and PL Plus, you get the live draft assistant. One of the best tools on the market right now, and one of my favorite things to prep with, to draft with, love that tool. I'm gonna be using it for a second straight year, this year. For Scott, I'm Brett. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see y'all next week later.