Brendan Gawlowski Prospects Chat: 9/22/26
| 2:00 |
: Hello everybody
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| 2:01 |
: Housekeeping notes: I don’t think I’ll be able to chat next week, at least not at the usual time, because I’ll be in AZ watching instructs.
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| 2:02 |
: I’m hoping I’ll have a couple pieces up by then. In particular, I’m working on something with a rough working title of ‘How to scout in the age of the model’ that I’m excited about
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| 2:02 |
: I may also have a “wait, what?” or “because you asked”
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| 2:02 |
: For now, let’s get to it
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| 2:02 |
: Where does Bryce Eldridge fit among the rookie of the year candidates this year? Who would you take ahead of him if you could draft from all rookies that debuted this year?
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| 2:03 |
: He’s not going to win the award, nor do I think he should.
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| 2:03 |
: But I don’t think there’s a bat I’d rather have going forward from this class
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| 2:04 |
: I’d still rather have McGonigle, maybe Clark, Weatherholt and McLean too, I’d need to think about it. But Eldridge is up there.
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| 2:04 |
: What do you think of Max Williams being a breakout candidate in the AFL? Strike out rate stayed pretty low throughout the season, pretty good power numbers while also overcoming some injuries during the year.
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| 2:04 |
: Excited to see him, he’s on the list of guys I specifically want to check in on.
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| 2:05 |
: i am remembering rikuu nishida’s brief stint in the majors and how fun he was to watch. do you ever see guys who you think are non-prospects, but you are personally rooting for them to get a shot? any notable examples?
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| 2:07 |
: There are a couple. Channy Ortiz had 80 instincts, he was always in the right spot or doing something interesting and useful; he just couldn’t hit. Jorge Marcheco looked like he was 130 pounds soaking wet and couldn’t break 88 but on the right day guys couldn’t hit his fastball, that was fun too. Braiden Ward hitting grounders into right and legging out a double. There are more.
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| 2:08 |
: In the Cubs prospect write up you had Moisés Ballesteros ranked #1 in their system and wrote that “‘high confidence, bat-only’ position player prospects exist at the top of the 50 Future Value tier,” which is where you placed Mo-Baller. The obvious question: what happened? Not a critique of your ranking, which was eminently reasonable. And we all get that rookies struggle. But leaving aside the defense, Ballesteros has just been flat bad with the bat.
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| 2:08 |
: Bad approach, lot of chase leading to swing and miss and bad contact.
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| 2:09 |
: It was a risk, thought he’d tame it/have enough hit tool to make it work. Still might, story isn’t over there yet.
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| 2:09 |
: The year is 1663. You start a war with the objective of becoming an anecdote in 363 years. The year is 2026. The anecdote arrives as planned. You ascend to Valhalla in abundant glory.
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| 2:10 |
: Raimondo Montecuccoli will rise again
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| 2:10 |
: River Ryan, pretty good pitching prospect???
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| 2:11 |
: So happy for him, between the TJ and just getting stuck in OKC this must have been a really frustrating couple years.
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| 2:11 |
: But he looked awesome last night. The change in particular looked great, if that’s what he’s got going forward, it’s at least plus.
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| 2:11 |
: What are the odds of Jo Jo Parker staying at SS?
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| 2:11 |
: Lower than 50/50 but not 0
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| 2:12 |
: Have you observed a significant difference between baseball IQ and general intelligence? Like, have you met players who are thick as a brick but have great baseball awareness or are super smart but completely clueless about situations on the field?
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| 2:12 |
: All quadrants have data points here
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| 2:12 |
: Brendan! I want to make it out to AFL one of these days. What are your recommendations for timing? I already go to spring training every year, I’m assuming they use the same facilities?
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| 2:13 |
: They do, there are six teams and their home stadiums are all big league spring training sites. I don’t know that it matters when you go, maybe lean early before some of the high profile pitchers hit their innings counts? You could also justify going right at the end just for the weather alone. Not an expensive time of year to go to PHX regardless.
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| 2:14 |
: Early 2027 ROY predictions?
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| 2:14 |
: Let’s do Walker Jenkins for the AL and Jose De Paula for the NL.
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| 2:14 |
: Hi Brendan!
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| 2:14 |
: Hi triplesandtea
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| 2:15 |
: Were you ever a big Brooks Lee guy? Average production with bad expected stats has to give a very discouraging outlook for a high pick, right?
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| 2:15 |
: Didn’t really see him, but even if he’s a 45 or 50 that’s a good outcome for that disaster of a first round.
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| 2:16 |
: Benge overall about what you would’ve expected after one year? Honestly he’s better overall than I would’ve guessed, even with the April ugliness
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| 2:17 |
: Yes, slow start not too surprising given how quickly he rushed through the minors, and then think you saw a good player on both sides, if not quite a star
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| 2:17 |
: Maybe there’s a little more power to unlock, it’s possible. Regardless, that’s just about what I wrote in the T100
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| 2:18 |
: How much has Nimmala rose
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| 2:18 |
: Ticking along nicely, has gotten stronger and that’s helping make a long swing work
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| 2:18 |
: Still hit tool/3B risk, but productive year for him
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| 2:19 |
: Hi Brendan,
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| 2:19 |
: Hi jsdspud
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| 2:19 |
: Very polite chat today
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| 2:19 |
: Who is you biggest prospect evaluation miss? What lesson did you learn from that evaluation?
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| 2:20 |
: That wasn’t my biggest miss necessarily, but it’s a good example of learning from a mis-evaluation
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| 2:20 |
: As for biggest… I thought Lesko would be good
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| 2:20 |
: Leo Bernal seems to have played better than his prospect pedigree. Do you think he’s the full time future catcher for the Cards or do you think this is just a hot streak that will calm down?
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| 2:21 |
: I like him and will be pushing to 50 him on the T100 this offseason.
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| 2:21 |
: Murf Gray – Pirates 3B at any point in 2027 (assuming games)?
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| 2:21 |
: Better than 50/50
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| 2:21 |
: Your favorite 3-5 farm systems entering the offseason?
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| 2:22 |
: Favorite does not necessarily mean best but… San Francisco, Boston, Colorado, Milwaukee all jump out as fun systems
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| 2:23 |
: Thoughts on the Tigers system this year? Nice to see Clark and McGonigle thriving but nobody else really took a step forward aside from Max Anderson, who seems more floor than upside
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| 2:24 |
: The lack of pitching is driving this, I think. When we were writing them up in the winter, neither of us could recall a system so bat-heavy
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| 2:24 |
: There were fewer projectable arms lying around here to leap forward than some other systems
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| 2:25 |
: Clark and McGonigle thriving is the important part here
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| 2:25 |
: With Brody Hopkins, it seemed like a lot of the hope on his command was that he was new to pitching full time and a good athlete. Has that shipped sailed or still time?
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| 2:25 |
: Still time
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| 2:25 |
: How much does it matter the Twins waited so long to call up Rodriguez, in terms of development or readiness for next year? Thanks.
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| 2:25 |
: Not much
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| 2:26 |
: What is your favorite non-baseball thing to measure relative to replacement level?
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| 2:26 |
: Probably restaurants.
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| 2:26 |
: Have any of the Giants roster of A/AA/AAA promotees opened any eyes over the last month or two? I seriously have no idea who is on the team right now. Shay Bandura? Turner Furman?
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| 2:27 |
: Extremely fun team to check in on for me and… maybe just me. Jonah Cox is maybe the most interesting follow. A big key to his minor league breakout was that he’d developed more of an approach and the tools were finally playing. The approach has gone backwards in the big leagues but he’s still hit. Curious to see where it all goes in ’27.
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| 2:28 |
: how does one end up working in scouting etc? it feels like a bunch of tools that aren’t necessarily taught in the typical undergraduate education (note: recent undergraduate)
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| 2:28 |
: Watch a ton of baseball, have a passion for evaluation/projection, meet a lot of people, get lucky.
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| 2:29 |
: Do you think Jarlin Susana can stick as a starter? How would you handle him next year? How do you think the Nats will handle him?
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| 2:29 |
: sure he could. Hopefully he can get stretched to a point where he’s facing lineups at least twice.
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| 2:29 |
: Have you ever seen a man as large as Blake Burke steal 29 bases in a season? Also, come on man, let him get to 30-30. Good kid, easy to root for, big fan even though he torched the Wahoos all year.
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| 2:30 |
: Does Josh Naylor count?
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| 2:31 |
: Was Bubba Chandler’s first full season a disappointment? Or did he at least inch upward along his developmental curve?
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| 2:32 |
: Not for me, averaged 5 IP/start over a full season, control improved over the course of the year, league average-ish FIP/ERA… Pretty good for a rook
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| 2:32 |
: What do you think happens with Kevin Alcantara next year? Thought he’d be up for good one way or the other this year, but then he got an extra option year, so next year will be it for him
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| 2:33 |
: Man, I have no clue. He seemed like the most obvious trade candidate in the world. The Cubs were even active at the deadline! It doesn’t seem like he’s part of the plan there, so I still think he winds up elsewhere some point soon…
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| 2:34 |
: Who would be your “wait, what?” that you would want to dive into from the past? Doesn’t matter how far back.
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| 2:35 |
: Real random list of guys popped into my head, on both the good/bad sides of the ledger… Jeremy Reed, Matt Manning, Tommy Edman, Kyle Hendricks.
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| 2:36 |
: Behind the top two, there are still a TON of top-tier SS prospects in MiLB. Who do you like to make the biggest impact outside of De Vries & Made?
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| 2:36 |
: Arias
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| 2:37 |
: Andrew Fischer has had a big year in the minors. Is he next year’s starting 3B for the Brewers and do you think he can control his Ks enough to keep the job?
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| 2:37 |
: Not right away.
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| 2:37 |
: I want to dive back into him again, I was skeptical the first couple times I looked
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| 2:38 |
: I’m not out on the skillset/shape in general, I like Jones and Laz
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| 2:38 |
: As a Nats fan, am I wrong to be semi excited about the future? Susana, Sykora, Willits, Fitz-Gerald, Sime, Rosario + some of the younger pieces we have in the majors. Like we could be pretty good in a few years…..right….please….
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| 2:38 |
: Farm clearly going in the right direction
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| 2:39 |
: I like some of those guys more than others, but the system is in a much better place. Figuring out how to handle extending or trading Abrams and Wood is a different kind of problem for this front office than turning around pitching dev, but you have to like what Toboni and crew have done so far.
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| 2:40 |
: Catching up on chats…what’s the Jimmy Glowenke report story? Involve his older sister (my first crush…)?
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| 2:40 |
: Find me at a ballpark or a bar
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| 2:40 |
: who were your personal favorites from your time in Long Beach for ACG?
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| 2:43 |
: Gustus, Ferguson, Wincher on the mound. Hawpe, Leeper, Nockley among my favorite hitter/position guys.
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| 2:43 |
: I’m excited to monitor the HS guys next spring, first time I’ve ever had a feel for that player group going into a draft year
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| 2:43 |
: JDP seems to be ensconcing himself in LA’s plans as you’d expect, but given their roster construction is there a world he doesn’t break camp next year?
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| 2:44 |
: If he’s probably on the playoff roster, which I assume he will be, he’s been in the lineup practically every day, then probably not.
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| 2:45 |
: You can diagram a plausible scenario, maybe he’s dinged up early in camp and doesn’t get many PA’s, the rest of the roster is healthy, etc. But I think he’s part of the team now.
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| 2:46 |
: what happened to tyler cleveland this year?
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| 2:46 |
: Hit rate on deceptive, low-level relief prospects is pretty low in general. The juiced ball really hurts guys like that, too.
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| 2:46 |
: Any prospects surging as the season comes to a close? Seems like when someone has a hot month to start the season there’s a lot of buzz but not so much at the end of the season.
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| 2:47 |
: People are paying a lot more attention at the start of the season
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| 2:47 |
: And late season surges aren’t all that predictive in and of themselves. Oftentimes the competition is lower, so a hot finish in, say, A-ball, is driven in part by a lot of at bats against arms up from the complex.
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| 2:48 |
: Allan Castro has hit the hell out of the ball lately, which makes me a tiny bit more curious to dig into him come Red Sox eval time
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| 2:49 |
: do some systems draft/develop one side of the ball more than the other, more pitchers or more hitters? and, if they do, is it easier to do that and trade for help than it is to just develop both?
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| 2:50 |
: You can see patterns, but I tend to think they’re more noticeable along the lines of college vs. high school, risky vs. safe, good tools vs. good data than hitting/pitching.
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| 2:51 |
: Mariners had a weirdly high hit rate on some random starters this last year. UDFA’s Jack Bowery, Reid Easterly, Independent Pick up Scott Rouse. Any of them interesting or just older guys succeeding against younger hitters.
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| 2:53 |
: Check back next week, Bowery’s data looks fairly interesting, want to dive in on that a little bit
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| 2:54 |
: is there anything in vance honeycutt’s improvement as he went up to AA at the end of this season. pretty remarkable improvement and under the hood the numbers look pretty solid as well
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| 2:54 |
: It’s 80 PA’s.
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| 2:56 |
: Cursory video look doesn’t show much different in the swing
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| 2:56 |
: I’d be skeptical
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| 2:57 |
: Do you have any thoughts/rules of thumb about guys like Luke Adams that succeed in milb while essentially never swinging? Seems like a profile/approach that would be pretty vulnerable in the bigs but do any success stories come to mind?
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| 2:57 |
: Sure, it can happen. Bazzana springs to mind as a recent one.
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| 2:58 |
: Your approach can be both pretty good and also a little passive
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| 2:58 |
: It’s not super common though
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| 2:59 |
: And statistically, in the minors a “slightly passive, still good” approach looks very similar to a “passive and ultimately bad” approach
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| 2:59 |
: Should the Red Sox put Braiden Ward on the playoff roster, zoom zoom?
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| 2:59 |
: I’m a little surprised they haven’t brought him up already
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| 3:00 |
: It’s a viable playoff skillset
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| 3:01 |
: Anyone moving the needle for you in the Angels’ system this year vs early season rankings?
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| 3:01 |
: Raudi will rise at least one tier
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| 3:01 |
: Wish I’d written the list in March and seen Ureña’s new slider but it’s on me for tossing the ‘thrower not a pitcher’ label on the guy too early in the dev path
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| 3:02 |
: someone like Dylan Jordan may also rise a tier. I don’t think his ceiling/projection has changed a ton, but he was barely off the complex at last glance and now that he’s further down the line, it’s appropriate to value what he brings to the table more.
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| 3:03 |
: Juan Flores is one Eric and I will have to kick around for T100 purposes. He’s probably not going to make it but elite defensive catchers only have to hit so much…
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| 3:04 |
: Snead will be on the main section
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| 3:06 |
: Cape League took a couple hits in the press recently (Joe Doyle article, Kendall Roger’s tweet).
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| 3:07 |
: I don’t have super strong feelings on Cape trajectory. It makes sense that the league would get caught up in the collateral damage from the NIL/transfer portal developments and a later draft
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| 3:07 |
: And if the draft moves up again in the next CBA (prayer emoji) maybe that helps the league attract more talent again
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| 3:08 |
: But if you’re a fan of the league, I think the things that make it special to go are mostly still in place. There’s just a little less talent.
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| 3:09 |
: A couple weeks ago you asked a chatter to check back with you on Eric Hartman and some other Braves prospects who were promoted to AA. Do you have early thoughts on what you saw from Hartman, Gil, Lodise, Carey, etc.?
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| 3:10 |
: Ideally, you’d have liked to see fewer strikeouts from Carey/Hartman but it’s the end of a long season for some very young guys. Getting to AA at 19 and 20 is impressive and it’s not alarming in and of itself that those two didn’t play well.
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| 3:10 |
: Gil/Lodise were better but not really in a way that moves the needle much for me
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| 3:13 |
: Have you seen anything in his profile that makes you think Davalan can play 2nd?
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| 3:13 |
: Athletic enough to do it, don’t have much of a sense for how the hands will work on the dirt.
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| 3:13 |
: Has your assessment of any Braves prospects changed in recent months?
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| 3:14 |
: Looked again in July: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/trade-deadline-prospects-guide-atlanta-bra…
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| 3:14 |
: Mostly backburnered since, but I’ll presumably be writing them up again this winter
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| 3:14 |
: What is your replacement level standard for restaurants? Given, of course, that replacement level is not a high bar
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| 3:15 |
: Tends to be ~quick chains that I’ll go to if I’m in a rush or a bad food town
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| 3:15 |
: Jimmy Johns or something
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| 3:15 |
: Is there anyone on the Rockies 40 man+60 day that will be on their next 81 win team?
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| 3:15 |
: Amador, of course
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| 3:16 |
: In all seriousness, I would guess “yes” but there’s still a long way to go here, obviously.
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| 3:20 |
: Going to shut it down here today. Thanks as always for stopping by. Catch you at a ballpark in Arizona next week!
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Brendan covers prospects and the minor leagues for FanGraphs. Previously he worked as a Pro Scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
re: Fischer at 3B for the Brewers next year (or ever really).
My guess is that he ends up primarily 1B/DH given how much they value defense, that he made 18 errors in 709 innings at the hot corner this year, then played exclusively 1B/DH over his last 32 games, plus guys like Turang, Pratt, Ortiz, Made, and Pena (maybe Jett Williams too?) ahead of him in the infield mix.
Thanks for these chats, I always learn something from them!
What’s the best way to get questions answered about systems covered by neither Eric nor Brendan (Astros, White Sox, and Cardinals)? I understand the strategy of dividing systems between three people really helps manage the workload, but often questions about those three systems can go unanswered as a result.
Tell ya what, you tell me which Cardinal you want a dive on and I’ll do a “because you asked” on them.
Hey, I appreciate it! Hopefully my comment didn’t come off the wrong way. I wasn’t trying to call you guys out or anything; I was legitimately asking if there was a better place to ask about them. You guys get tons of questions, cover a lot of systems, and can only answer so many.
The Cards have a few interesting middle infielders at the lower levels (Yairo Padilla, Sebastian Dos Santos, Miguel Hernández), and I’ve been trying to sort through them. If any single one of those immediately stand out to you, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. If not, Dos Santos’ stats catch my eye, but I’m no scout and hesitant to project too much from the stat line alone. Thank you!
Brendan, Up The Creek restaurant in Cornville. Without peer for food, atmosphere and tableside humming birds. I do spring training games from there. 90 minute drive or so. so, so good.
“Brendan Gawlowski: As for biggest… I thought Lesko would be good”
I’d say this places you firmly in the majority. Sigh.
“ Brendan Gawlowski: Wish I’d written the list in March and seen Ureña’s new slider but it’s on me for tossing the ‘thrower not a pitcher’ label on the guy too early in the dev path”
I’d point to the changeup with him. That is one helluva pitch. I didn’t think I’d see one to rival Logan Henderson’s, but it’s right there. If his command improves a grade he’s at least a #2.
Re: Baseball IQ vs general intelligence, I feel like part of good baseball IQ is quick (and correct) thinking and spatial awareness, while high general intelligence does not necessarily require fast thinking. Some very intelligent people just deliberate more slowly. In my neck of the woods, I see this with folks who are great at chewing on difficult problems when given time to think about them, but do not perform well when put on the spot in a Q&A session.