Spanky99

Exactly.

Walking dead.

Yankees f***ed G-Rod up in the 1st.

Big C has already told us he's been muzzled, and I believe him and his source. Likely Tiedemann/Click and their resources with a final say by Shapiro. The BOD has spoken.

Tigers just hit around on the Dodgers in the 9th to tie it down 5, cool beans! Crazy comeback win by the Tigers.

That was 200 on his career.

Oh man, that's must watch tv right there.

I highly doubt it will be Atkins, lol. He's a dead man walking and they certainly won't punt the offseason whatever that means?

Justin Turner's wRC+ by month... Mar/Apr - 150 May - 8 June - 167 July - -6 WTF dude, get us some trade value back...

They're not punting next season, can't see it.

Link?

lol... free bags kill.

Small ball... produkshun!

Nice play man.

73 - 110 -13 18th place, helluva team, quitter.

ARTICLEDRAFT Chase Burns’ Slider, Hagen Smith’s Fastball & The 9 Nastiest Pitches In The 2024 Draft July 11, 2024 July 11, 2024 Peter Flaherty 0 Comments Image credit: Kate Woolson/Texas Rangers/Getty Images Readers scrolling through our final BA 500 big board will find pitch grades for the top 200 prospects. So we thought it’d be fun to examine the nastiest offerings in the 2024 MLB Draft class. Some pitchers below, like Chase Burns and Hagen Smith, have multiple double-plus pitches, but for the sake of the exercise I’ll focus on one per player. All of the individual pitches discussed below all grade out as 70s. You can also find individual MLB pitch comps for the top five college players on our board here. Chase Burns’ slider Though he’s armed with a thunderous fastball that routinely eclipses triple-digits, Burns’ calling card has long been his hellacious, upper-80s-to-low-90s power slider. Not only is it a pitch he throws with conviction, but he also has an advanced feel for it. It takes what looks like a hard left turn—with some depth—as it approaches the plate, and this season it held opposing hitters to a .084/.141/.139 slash line with a gaudy 64% whiff rate. Hagen Smith’s fastball Like Burns, Smith’s slider is also a 70, but I opted to highlight his fastball here. It sits in the mid-to-upper-90s, and this season it was up to 100. Smith has some natural funk in his delivery which adds to the pitches’ effectiveness. It explodes out of his hand with both run and ride through the strike zone, and it especially lively when located in the top half of the strike zone and on his arm side. This spring, it held hitters to a .172 average with an impressive 42% whiff rate. Cam Caminiti’s fastball At the prep level, Caminiti’s heater is the best of its kind. An athletic lefthander with a loose, easy operation, Caminiti’s fastball sat in the 92-96 range this spring and topped out at 98. It’s most effective, and generates the most swing-and-miss, at the top of the zone. The fact that there’s some crossfire in his operation from the left side only adds to its effectiveness, and it figures to be the headliner weapon of his arsenal as he progresses through pro ball. William Schmidt’s curveball When focusing solely on secondary offerings, Schmidt’s bender is the most lethal at the prep level. It has big-time depth with 12-6 shape, and he consistently spins it in the 2,900 or higher range. He has an advanced feel for the offering and can not only land it for strikes, but uses it to generate plenty of whiffs in and out of the strike zone. Brody Brecht’s slider From a sheer stuff standpoint, Brecht might be the only other pitcher in this year’s draft class who can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Chase Burns and Hagen Smith. In addition to his high-90s riding fastball, Brecht features a demonic high-80s gyro slider that flashes sharp, two-plane break. He has a better feel for his slider than he does his fastball, and he has shown the ability to land the pitch for strikes. This year, Brecht’s slider garnered an eye-popping 56% whiff rate and held hitters to a measly .119/.272/.216 slash line. Carson Wiggins’ fastball The younger brother of Cubs prospect Jaxon Wiggins, Carson has big-time arm strength himself. The power righthander’s fastball sat in the 93-97 range this spring, topping out at 99 and overpowering high school hitters. He pairs his fastball with a slider that flashes above-average, making for a pretty deadly one-two punch. Like his brother, the key for Wiggins is being around the zone consistently, which will help his loud arsenal play up. Chris Cortez’s fastball One of the most effective college relievers, Cortez features a powerful one-two punch in his sinker and slider. Cortez’s slider is also a plus pitch, but his power sinker is the better of the two. It sits in the high-90s, routinely touching 100 and even 101. On top of run to the arm side, it flashes bowling-ball sinking life that bears in on the hands of righthanded hitters and down-and-away from lefthanded hitters. He dominates the bottom of the zone with it, which is also from where the vast majority of its whiffs come. Carson Messina’s slider The “little” brother of potential day one pick Cole Messina, Carson boasts a lethal, tight mid-80s slider. It has no shortage of sharpness or teeth, and it plays particularly well off a low-to-mid-90s fastball that flashes plenty of armside life. Messina’s east-west profile plays in his favor and enables him to generate plenty of swings and misses, especially with his slider. LP Langevin’s fastball Following a spotless summer in the Draft League in which he posted a 0.00 ERA with 22 strikeouts across 11.1 innings, Langevin became a household name this spring after pitching his way to a 3.73 ERA with 106 strikeouts in 62.2 innings. His fastball is one of the more fascinating pitches in this year’s draft class and is a comfortable 70 on the 20-80 scale. From a low release height, Langevin’s high-spin fastball sits 93-95 but has been up to 97 with no shortage of life through the strike zone. His VAA of -4.31 enhances the pitch even further, and this spring it generated a ridiculous 46% whiff rate.

ARTICLEDRAFT Six Polarizing Prospects In The 2024 MLB Draft Class July 12, 2024 July 12, 2024 Carlos Collazo 0 Comments Image credit: Brody Brecht (Mike Janes/Four Seam Images) It’s fun to disagree about players. Every year some players seem to be more polarizing than others and this year is no different. Below we look into six players who have wide-ranging opinions from the scouting industry and try and examine the pro and con cases for each. BA 500 Draft Rankings Our final big board is here. See the top 500 prospects and updated scouting reports. Vance Honeycutt, OF, North Carolina As we wrote earlier this season, Honeycutt has arguably the highest upside along with the biggest risk of any player in contention to go in the first round. He has almost every tool teams look for. Honeycutt has big power—he is North Carolina’s all-time home run leader (61)—and perhaps even greater speed. He is the first Division I player to hit more than 60 career homers and steal more than 70 bags. He’s also a two-time ACC defensive player of the year. Not to mention, the face of North Carolina’s run to the College World Series in 2024. So what’s the catch? Simply put: Some scouts and teams wonder whether Honeycutt’s hit tool will hold up. Interestingly, though Honeycutt hit a career-best .318 this season, his contact and strikeout rates actually regressed. Honeycutt made contact less than 70% of the time this year to go along with an 83-36 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Those are concerning figures, though our piece also points out teams are showing more leniency in recent years when it comes to strikeout rates as they rise at all levels of the game. Based on tools and athleticism, Honeycutt is one of the elite choices in the draft. How teams feel about developing enough contact skills to maximize the rest of the game will determine how high his name is called Sunday night. Dakota Jordan, OF, Mississippi State Much of Honeycutt’s writeup also applies to Jordan. Just read the first line of his BA 500 scouting report: Jordan was a high-profile prospect coming out of high school who stood out for his multi-sport athleticism, physicality and power-speed combination. Jordan is less refined than Honeycutt, likely because he was also a star football player in high school, but he faces some of the same contact vs. power questions. Jordan is also a plus runner, but he’s less refined in the field as well, which is why he checks in at No. 35 in our final big board. Still, Jordan hit .354/.459/.671 with 20 homers in the SEC at Mississippi State and he has 70-grade raw power and some of the best bat speed you’ll find in this class. Yet his contact rate and chase percentage were even a tick worse than Honeycutt’s. A team bullish on its ability to coax more contact ability might fall in love with Jordan. Others might find such swing-and-miss disqualifying for a first-round pick. But in a down year overall, Jordan’s power and speed should become appealing to teams late in day one, and he just might end up making someone look very smart for taking a gamble. Slade Caldwell, OF, Valley View HS, Jonesboro, Ark. Teams seem to be lamenting the lack of exciting high school hitting profiles in the middle of this year’s first round, but what about Caldwell? He was a tremendous in-game performer throughout the 2023 showcase circuit and features an enticing blend of contact skills, double-plus speed and strong center field defense. Additionally, he is one of the youngest players in the class, and will be only 18.1 on draft day, which is a significant piece for model-heavy teams that prioritize age—especially so for hitters. There are a few potential landing spots for him in the first round but perhaps less than you’d expect given his skill set and the relative weakness of the prep class. Size is the question mark for Caldwell. He’s listed at 5-foot-9, 182 pounds (and might actually be a bit shorter than that) and some teams wonder about how much power he’ll get to and whether he can hold up over the course of a major league season. There are teams who view him as more of a supplemental first or second-rounder because of his size which makes us think about 2023 shortstop Kevin McGonigle. McGonigle ranked No. 25 in the class a year ago but slid to the supplemental first with the Tigers where he signed for $2.8 million. That pick has looked pretty good so far. Brody Brecht, RHP, Iowa Brecht is the peak example of a polarizing pitching profile for this year’s class. His pure stuff is comparable to Chase Burns at the very top of the class that sits in the 96-97 mph range and has been up to 101 mph with cutting life. He has also earned double-plus projections on his wicked, upper-80s slider and is one of the most impressive pure athletes in the class. Before this season he also played for Iowa’s football team as a receiver. The rub with Brecht is that he simply struggles to find the strike zone. His 17% career walk rate is higher than any college pitcher taken among the first 30 picks in the bonus pool era, and he carries significantly more reliever risk than teams typically associate with round one pitchers. Because of that he’s simply not a first-round option for many teams, though others seem more willing to take a shot on his immense upside and/or believe their pitching development groups can help him throw more strikes moving forward. PJ Morlando, 1B/OF, Summerville (S.C.) HS Morlando entered this draft cycle as one of the top-ranked high school players in the class, consistently ranked right alongside Konnor Griffin—who currently stands as the top prep in the class and a potential top-10 pick. Among prep hitters, he has perhaps the best combination of pure hitting ability and raw power, with a lengthy track record of performance against the best arms in the class. Morlando’s strength and bat speed allows him to generate easy plus raw power, and he also turned in perhaps the most impressive batting practice display a few weeks ago at the MLB Draft combine. However, scouts wanted to see him hit for more power than he showed this spring (though he was pitched around plenty), and there are teams who are simply skeptical of a likely corner profile from the high school ranks who is also going to be 19 on draft day. Ryan Waldschmidt, OF, Kentucky Waldschmidt was one of the most prominent helium college players in the class and finished an excellent 2024 season with a .333/.469/.610 slash line 14 home runs and 25 stolen bases. He also checks a lot of hitting data boxes with an 80% contact rate, 88% in-zone contact rate, 18% chase rate and 108.7-mph 90th percentile exit velocity. Walking nearly as often as he struck out is a big boost to his profile as well. More than maybe any other player in the class, Waldschmidt seems to divide the most analytically-inclined scouting departments and the teams who value their in-person scouting assessments above all else. Those scouts look at Waldschmidt and wonder about the steepness of his swing and how that will play at the next level, and also aren’t too excited about his defensive ability in left field or how his athleticism and speed works on the field despite his 25 stolen bases. If he had played center field all season or looked better in left field he would perhaps be less polarizing. Those high on Waldschmidt see a well-rounded SEC college hitter with power and speed and those lower see a right-right corner outfielder who will need significant swing work and defensive refinement in pro ball.

Meh...

Bag of hammers.

I'm hoping that's at 136, lol.

Callis take today for Toronto...

I want this guy but doubt he gets to us... BA made a mistake leaving him off that last listing... Ahh, nevermind I see him now at 9, lol.

Or Konnor Griffin. For some reason he isn't on that listing and the Jays have been linked to both these guys in previous mocks.

lol... yeah that wasn't glowing. Most mocks I see have us taking a college catcher or a prep OF'er, who knows.

BA's 6.0 Mock...