Offense Not Found and a Braves Farm System Check-In

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to episode ten of the Hammer Territory Podcast. I am your host, Brad Rowlands, coming to you on a Sunday evening into Monday here in mid May, and we are part of the Foul Territory Network. Go ahead and subscribe to this podcast anywhere you might find your podcasts that includes Apple and Spotify as well as overcasts, and again anywhere you might find the Hammer Territory Podcast. We have tons of contact this week, including an episode The Idea with Chris Willis a Battery Power on Wednesday. Also, my colleagues Steven Tolbert and Sean Coleman talked in two different occasions in the last couple of days, including a very fun, informative, interesting rivening visit from ESPN's Buster Olney on Friday. So if you miss that recent episode and this podcast feed and I definitely recommend listening to all of that is still very relevant right now, all kinds of talk about the struggling offense as well as some history, some rumor stuff from Buster and definitely worth to listen to be sure. And then on today's podcast, I'll actually be joined in a few moments by a special guest and that is Garrett Spain of Battery Power and PAHDA Prospects talk all about the Braves farm system. I am not an expert on that, but that's why I run in an expert who actually is, and that is Garrett Spain. So first though, I'm gonna go solo a little bit for a few minutes here at the top of the podcast. My usual co host Scott Coleman is still gallivanting out of the country for a little while longer. And by the way, FYI, I'm recording this on Sunday evening, so keep that in mind because the Braves have two games on Monday, including an early afternoon game on Monday afternoon at Trust Park because of the rain out that transpired on Saturday, So we'll cover those games later on this week. But with all that said, we'll dive into the last two games, which were both losses for the Braves and not lost three games in a row actually, and there are now twenty six and sixteen on the season. Friday's game was relatively normal as far as a loss is concerned. Max Free was not his best. He was chased forward the end of the fifth inning two strikeouts, not great for him. Free walks, nine hits allowed. The bullpen was fantastic for the Braves on Friday evening despite the loss, the Patterres had thirteen hits in the game and all of them, every single one was a single. So it was like that I absolutely bludgeoned on Friday. But the offense was not great, as we'll talk about again in a second. They had seven hits, free walks, and not a ton going on there offensively. The only other sort of news and note thing is that Travis Arnaut was removed from that game on Friday with dizziness, and he if you' not remembering this, is that he's actually had some extensive concussion issues in his career, as many as four concussions, so they were being very careful with him. They did say quickly that it was not a concussion, so that's obviously a positive. He was not in the line up on Sunday, but the plan is, according to what I've been told and what's been reported out there on Sunday, that he's going to be hopefully able to catch one of the two games on Monday. If that happens, you can kind of let out an exhale of sorts. The Alison need tripes to know pretty badly with the absence of Sean Murphy and the hitting issues of Chadwick Trump. So Paul that said, that's sort of Friday in a nutshell. Sunday's game was less exciting, even with Bride's again not being great. Myself ended up being a nine to one loss. It was over pretty quickly. I'll say this now. It would not have mattered to get that the offense was really bad on Sunday night. In fact, the offense managed to score the ninth ending to avoid being shut out for the first time in more than one hundred and sixty straight game. It's spent a year plus as the brains of Rocture shut out in a game. But that was the only small bright spot because Bryce Elder struggled very badly on Sunday, and we talked about Bryce a lot in recent days. If you were listening to our old podcast over at Battery Power, you would have known that in the height of Bryce Eldermania. I know Scott and I were pretty tepid on Bryce. We were kind of getting yell at a lot for being not exactly bought into the Bryce Elder experiences. He was earning the All Star birth a year ago. I never really believed that to be real. This year so far, we've been trying to go the other away a little bit and the fact that people wanted to five Brice letter into the sun, and my overriding point has basically been that no team really has six starters that they love, and of course the Raves lost their number one starter, arguably in Special Strider, so Elder is really the sixth guy who's seen time for the Braves and the rotation. He has had a couple of reasonable starts this year so far. He was also bludgeoned by the Dodgers and then tonight the Potters are not the Dodgers, but they do have a pretty potent lineup, and Bryce showed that he is not exactly the best option against top flight offenses once again, seven runs, six earned. He only got nine outs in the game. His ra now is over six for the season, as his FIP is over five for the season, less than a two to one ratio of shrekcouts to walks. It's hard to live in that area, and given that he ended last season with his last fourteen starts up last year with a five point seventy five ERA and a fip in the mid In the mid fives, it feels like this is more like what he actually is. Now. I would still make the same point that I've made before, and that no matter what the happened to do it with that fifth spot, it's not going to be someone that you absolutely trust. I know they are higher upside options obviously, Aja Smith Shaver is a much younger, more exciting prospect that we'll talk about actually later on in the show with Garrett. But Bryce Elder is a pretty run of the mill, average ish fifth starter. Now, I would have no issue at all if the Braves wanted to try somebody else there after the way he pitched on Sunday, I would understand that. I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. I just think people have to understand that basically that spot is kind of a danger zone area, and the Braves had five guys that they trusted. Now they only have four, and that makes it more difficult. So the Braves have been awesome this year, at least the last four or five weeks when I was starting pitching, gotten a lot out of Sale and Morton and Lopez and even Freed most of the season, but that fifth spot's been an adventure, and it was really really bad tonight. So I always recommend taking a deep breath when it comes to analyzing anything, and people were of course big mad about Bryce Elder tonight, and I get it. He was really bad, but you know, that's the realizes to way. Maybe we'll see who actually goes in that spot this coming week, because I won't do a full fledged preview because we have more to come on Monday or Tuesday of this week. But because of the rain out on Saturday, the Braves were already going to need a spot starter later this week. Because of the schedule change, they're not lined up to actually have these five guys pitch in normal order. So if they do want to go with a different guy in Elder's place, they have to actually have two guys because they have to use somebody else as a spot starter and then they have to fill in for Elder. So if I had to guess right now, we might see Bryce Elder pitch again in this next outing, and it wouldn't shock me at all. If he's replaced, it wouldn't shock me at all either. We will see at this point in time, But the other big picture thing we have to talk about, of course, is the offense. So I'm gonna give a bunch of stats right now. Some of them cut off at the end of Friday's game because it's harder to get real time stats going into a game that happened on Sunday. But just bear with me. Over the first twenty four games of the season, the Braves were leading the Majors with six runs per game. They weren't absolutely tearing it up in the way they were previously. I know we were off the air for part of that in April, but other than Parslo Zuna, it was a lot of like normal offense from the Braves. They were really good with the productive last year. If you need a reminder of the Braves were the best off the team in baseball by a wide margin. They were historically fantastic. A year ago is a similar group, of course, but the first one to four games of the year, they were leading the league in run scored. In the seventeen game period beginning on April twenty seventh through the end of Friday's game, by the way, for the Braves, and that was actually of Saturdays a game for everybody else in the league is the braz break down on Saturday. The Braves were in that time period dead last in baseball in WRC plus was seventy two slugging percentage, which last year they led all of baseball and they were historically awesome in that category. They're dead last and slugging and they only averaged three runs a game for seventeen games. And of course, again those numbers actually got worse today. Not everything updates in real time, but those numbers got worse today than they actually were. They're actually average below if he runs a game now. In the last eighteen games. Over that same time period, however, the Braves led all of baseball, so does last no stats. They led baseball in average exit velocity and hard hit rate at the plate, two numbers that strongly correlate with positive offense. Now that should be almost impossible to do. It's not a huge ample size, but still there were some reasons why they struck out a lot, that's for sure, But it was like they were striking out forty percent of the time. They have a high strike out rate. That is part of the issue here. I won't argue with that, but it's not going to explain all of it. They do have a high WIF rate in the zone as well, again not to the point that that would sort of explain everything. That's part of the deal. The ground ball rate is also very normal, so that's not an area of concern right now. You can debate how much luck is involved here, but it's definitely some of that. It is worth a memory that offense is down across the league this year. There's seemingly some talk about anti juiced baseballs this year, and that's a whole different conversation that we won't do now. And somehow Raised went eight to nine in those seventeen games despite all of that, basically horrible hitting, because the pitch has been awesome. But basically there's this whole argument happening about how much of this is luck. I'm not trying to tell you that it's all luck. They've not been playing very well. Part of that is on the player level. Of course, Ozuna is the only guy who's having what I would describe is a really good season so far. He's been awesome. The other big guns in this stretch have not been awful. Talking about Olsen and Riley, who's been out for a while now actually, and Acunya, they have not been very good. They've not been horrible, they have not been very good. But the other thing is that all of the supporting guys, or at least almost all of them, have been really really bad for about three and a half four weeks at this point. In that sample, Sas coming into the night, Jared Keelnick had a forty five dou bars plus Orlean Arcia had an eighteen the barc plus coming to the night. In that sample, Adam Duval thirty six, Michael Harris seventeen the barsc plus. They also miss Sean Murphy quite a bit when you remember that Chadwick Trump had gotten on Bay twice in like seven or eight games total. So that is a lot of holes in the lineup. And yes, you would expect Michael Harris to be better. You expect all those guys to be better, at least a little bit better than they've been so far. But it has been an up and down the lineup issue other than Ozuna for most of this season. Now. My friend Brando at BG thirty seven on Twitter, point of this out on Sunday afternoon, the Braves worst seventeen game stretch offensively. Last year in that historic season, also finished with the eight to nineer record, and it also came in May almost at the exact same time. This year is a little bit earlier, but it's pretty close. This year's numbers were worse than last year, to be fair, but I looked it up last year on that same sample size. The Braves also led the league in exit velocity at hard hit rate, And again I understand there's a contingent that does not really care about that stuff. I understand that I'm not telling you that always means you're awesome when you hit the ball hard. But the notion that I've heard in my mentions a couple times today really is that you know, hitting the ball hard is overrated. That is not true. Hitting the ball is very important. You want to hit the ball hard. The results don't always match perfectly, as we've seen the last three weeks from the Braves, but you still want to hit the ball hard, and hitting the ball hard a lot is a good way to track how good your offense can be, and usually is. So what does it all mean? Well, last year, in the next seventeen games after that downturn, the Braves were awesome offensively, that isn't a huge surprise. Now again, part of this is personnel base. The Braves are missing their key guys right now. They're missing Austin Riley for in the last several days. In fact, we'll talk about that in a second, but he's still out of the line up Murphy. Going from Murphy to chat with Trump is a downbreak. And yes, you should expect better individual results from most of these guys, but I'm also not going to tell you that is guaranteed to balance back all the wather where it was last year. So I do believe with all my heart that this is not what the Braves offense is suddenly going to be. I hade people in mentioned saying the Braves suck now, and it's like that's a direct quote. It's like, guys, they're twenty to sixteen. They're not playing well right now. I'm not going to argue about that. They obviously are not playing well. But the notion of this team is just like broken offensively breaks my brain, to be honest with you, but it's useful context. I would say I wouldn't panic. At the same time, it has been really bad, and I don't want to overlook it, and I'm sure they wouldn't. They wouldn't handway either. They're not panicking, as Chris talked about when he come on the show with me a few days ago. He's in the locker room, he's in the clubhouse. They're not panicking. But you might see a closed door meeting at some point in the future if they don't get this together in the near future. But you might also see some logic in that. You know, if Robby comes back, that will definitely help things. If Marky comes back in the near future, that really help things. But right now it is dire, and Sunday felt dire from the start, and again, offensively was not the only problem Tonday night, but there was lots of issues. And there you go real quickly. Before we move on to Garrett and myself talking about the minor league guys. Austin Riley, i mentioned before, has been out for a while. He has what the oversimon now calling intercostal inflammation. He did not feel anything in his side today on Sunday. That's a positive direction from Riley, but he's not swinging a bat still, and that is really, I don't want to say alarming, but it feels like it would be fair to say the races not handled this perfectly, because if they had known he wasn't going to be able to swing a bat all the way through the weekend, you would imagine they would have put him on the IL. And you could argue that they don't really have a great option on the forty man to replace him. That's fair, but you don't want to just burn a roster spot for a week. And that's where they are right now. And yes, you can backdate it, but only by a few days. So it would be a pretty remarkable situation if I was still able to come back in the next couple of days, like he will have missed a week and a half, two weeks without going on the IL. You don't love to see that, but we'll see. Obviously, you can't replace him. He's one of your best players, and hopefully the biggest picture thing for a team that is very likely be in the playoffs and I'm not playing all right now, is that he gets back and gets healthy in the relative in your future. But his impact has obviously been missed. Sean Murphy is starting to rehab on Tuesday, and whenever that'll be a huge impact. Of course when he returns. He's been out since opening day. That not be overlooked as to how much of a drop off it is from Murphy to to the other catchers in the system. There you go. Also, Pierce Johnson was activated over the weekend. That was a positive sign. They all ran Jackson Stevens rather than devoting ray Kerr and optioning him. Kurb been pitching well, so they didn't want to do that. No huge surprise there, even if I was wrong about that. I thought they were probably going to option Kirk as he had an option, but in the end they chose to keep him up at that point in time. And the last thing is a potential podcast all on its own that I will not do right now. Dave Fletcher has now been reported by ESPN to actually have been betting with the bookie that was involved with Shoeyotani's interpreter. We'll kind of a wait and see on the fallout of all of that. But Fletcher's and the miners right now, of course, and happening when he was with the Angel, so it's not going to come down on the brain necessarily. But I don't think the Braves want to call it David Fletcher right now. If I had to guess, if they had to in the near future, maybe they would because he's still on the roster. But one of those things where that's a national story more than almost the local story. But when at least flagged that because it was a talking point, we could dive into that really deeply if he wanted to, But for now he's not will be on the major league roster, so I will put that to the side, but certainly something to keep an eye on in the coming days because that's a little bit of trouble, especially if he's back on baseball. That becomes a banishment kind of thing if it has proven to be true. But we will see what happens on that. All right, That is all I have on the solo part of the podcast, But fear not, after a quick break, tar If mar Sponsors will come back and it'll be myself and Garrett Spain talking all about the bravest farm systems. So stay tuned. We'll see you in a minute. I am joined now by a genuine minor league expert when it constant Lyana Braves, Garrett Spain is here. Hello, sir, how are you?

00:15:31
Speaker 2: I am all right, I am glad to be on the show. I thank you for having me on. How are you tonight?

00:15:35
Speaker 1: I'm good. I always admit this, and I'll say it now for people that may have joined the podcast after we've moved over to Hammer Territory. I am not the biggest prospect guy. Neither is Scott. We will not try to fake it on our podcast, but every once in a while, I'm going to look to bring in someone who's much smart about this stuff than we are, and that is certainly you. Just to say at the top and before I'm sure we'll do it again later on. You are, I believe, a minor league editor at Battery Power. You can correct me if I'm wrong, and also one of the hosts of the Peach State Prospects podcast doing all things Braves Prospects. Is that all right? Yeap?

00:16:09
Speaker 2: That is perfect.

00:16:10
Speaker 1: Folks should be checking your workout across the board. But we'll dive in here. I do want to kind of start broadly a little bit about kind of the overall state of the system in general. It's very I'm sure it's not a surprising question to you, but you know, coming into the year, they were not necessarily projected at the highest levels. When it comes to Braves prospects and organational rankings, those are often I would say flawed from what I can gather, But you know, in the bottom ten generally speaking from most most shops. What do you make of that? And what do you make of kind of where the system stands right now because we all know the deal here, I think, but it was you know, the Braves had a lot of prospects for a long time, and now they're really good, and it's harder to be really good in the minors when you're really good in the majors for this long.

00:16:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think generally the rankings are correct on the Braves and not a very good system. There's not a lot of depth to their talent, and that mostly comes from the way they've traded their players away and caught up guys very quickly because they're looking to compete in the present. But I think that the right Like for me, this is as excited as I've been about the system in a few years, because it feels like for the last couple of years, you know, guys have come up, but they either haven't been ready or they're not really main contributing type guys. Really, since Michael Harris and Spitzer Stroker came out, there really hasn't been a guy like that coming up. And it kind of feels now like there's five, six, seven guys that are double A or higher that we're looking at and saying, Okay, this guy next year year after they can contribute. They can contribute to a winning culture. And that's kind of where it is different where overall this system isn't very good and there is a lot of there's a lot of depth issues, mostly because the Braves have focused heavily on their pitching and so they haven't built a lot of position player depths, but they're built in a way where they have players that can come in and fill holes at the major league level, and that's really what they've been focusing on is making sure they have a laundry list of pictures that they can go to and that they're kind of targeting key positions like catcher and shortstop to fill in positions. And then when you have those high value positions filled on the position player side, and then you have a host of pitches that you can call up that can help them contribute to their current window. Even though it may not necessarily be the sexiest farm system out there.

00:18:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense to me for sure. And I was actually going to ask you, like philosophically, what the Braves are even trying to do. And you got to get into it there because there's been some changes, you know, guys have left the organization all that stuff. Like I think you kind of just spoke to it to some degree. But does that kind of just summarize what the overall aim is, because look, you still want to just have a bunch of prospects. You want to have the best guys available that you can get to. Also, it frees you up a little bit when you're a lot of your major league core is a bunch of relatively young position players. Probably makes your life a little bit easier than not to push guys along as fast. But what do you make of the sort of the whole setup, because you know, this is a system that can kind of afford tickets time a little bit because they don't have those urgencies that some other teams might have. But also you want to be ready if you actually have some needs.

00:19:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the overall focus of the system is getting in pitching, Like I had mentioned, and when you look at their draft, that's really heavily where they focused and most of their top picks, most of their money is going towards pitching, and they're kind of pushing it off towards more of the international class, those guys that are maybe six seven years away, and kind of letting the position players develop over time and really focusing on premier positions there, you know, but organizationally, the focus is getting guys that they feel they can develop, you know, on the position player side, getting guys that they like the underlying metrics for, you know, guys that hit the ball hard consistently, Guys that have good contact rates, guys have good approaches, and saying, let's get you with our coaches, get you in our system and try to develop high level athletes into the players that we want them to be. And they're trying to find value in that way. And a similar thing that they did with Michael Harrison that he was a guy that they liked the underlying data for, they liked his workout, and they said, we can do something with you, and it worked out for them, and they do the same with both pitchers and hitters. You know, that first round pick tends to be a high level guy, and then after that it's they're going to go off the board. It's They're very hard to predict in that way because they have their system, you know, they have their models, and they really focus on those models in terms of player acquisition. So it's hard for a lot of traditional scouts who don't have access to that information to be able to predict what they're going to do. But there's a tends to be trends, you know, pitching and hitting. They want to go for high level athletes. They want to go for guys who maybe haven't tapped into power or velocity that they feels there and they are confident that they can develop a guy's approach. They're confident that they can develop a guy's secondary pitches and turn them into not just a hard throwing pitcher. So really their focus is on trying to find value in guys, especially that are high level athletes, Guys that were multi sport players like ag Smith Shauber was in high school. Guys that were you know, two way players like Spencer Schwellenbach, one of their top prospects right now, who was a two way player in Nebraska. Their focus is on high level athletes and guys that they feel that they can develop, rather than they don't have the draft. They're not in a position in the draft to just go get a guy that's ready. They can't do that. Yeah, it makes sense.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: I mean again, and that's part of the balance of being as good as they've been for so long that you're not going to be picking in the top five, top ten anymore. They had a couple of those picks, of course when they're rebuilding, and but you know, you can't bank on having those premium picks. And also the way that the draft has changed, which we'll save for later times, but it's it's just interesting kind of calculus. And also, I don't know about you. I'll actually kind of ask you this. It feels like braves, fans, braves observers have been kind of spoiled a little bit because basically, I'm not saying they were perfect so there perfect lately, but a lot of the guys that they've moved quickly or have kind of banked on and really needed to be good have been good. That seems very simplified, but it's also true. But I mean, I guess you could mention Von Grisom as a guy who they didn't like the world on fire and beyond that, beyond like the hot start, But even then they were able to move off of him and it was not a big deal. But Strider, Harris, et cetera. Like, they feel like they have a pretty good hit rate in the last five six years on guys who they have clearly pushed aggressively, not crazily, but aggressively and had those guys actually work.

00:22:34
Speaker 2: Out for them. Yeah, they've especially in the hitting end of things. I mean, the amount of basically every top prospect that they have is either at the major league level or I was traded, and that's really hard to do. They got lucky, I mean, to be as good as they are, they got lucky.

00:22:48
Speaker 1: I almost use a lucky word, and I wasn't sure if it was gonna be appropriate, but I'll let you let you.

00:22:52
Speaker 2: I mean, there's certain they're definitely there's definitely an aspect of scouting, like guys like Grisham and Harris that they did a good job scouting. But you can't necessarily predict that a guy like Ronald Kuna Junior is going to just pop up. That just happens, right and so being as good as they are was lucky. Pitching wise, It's harder to judge pitching. They've really always invested heavily pitching, and I think that they've kind of just been averagish in that end. I mean, they haven't had it doesn't feel like they've had a ton of guys get injured. But it doesn't necessarily feel like they're just churning out top level starters. You know, they've but the guys that they've gotten to the major league level, for the most part, have kind of been able to stick. And of course they've been able to do well, you know, in trades in the free agent market in that regard, but you know, guys like Max Freed and Spencer Schreider before he got injured. They've put those guys up, and other than really Ian Anderson, when those guys have gotten to the major league level and had success, they've been able to maintain that success other than you know, again, I mean Anderson, right, you know, you talk about pitchers, it's just they've gotten to come up and they've gotten injured. But they've had decent luck with pitching in terms of being able to get it to the upper levels. Their development as they hit triple as kind of been hit or missed, and that is what it is with any pitching prospect. But the fact that they've been able to really build a stable now, I mean, you look at it and it's nine or ten guys that, yeah, you don't necessarily trust a guy like a J. Smith Shover yet to be your third starter, But if that's your ninth best starter, that's a lot of pictures that they've been able to develop, and it's their pitching side is just again they focus on stocking up on pictures in the upper parts of the draft.

00:24:32
Speaker 1: I do want to ask you about some players while we're here. You know, I think the someone like me who's much more casual on the miners pays attention. I read your I read you guys minor league recaps in the mornings, but I'm not diving into a tons of game action on a daily basis. I feel like there's two names that people probably know very well, and that is you've already mentioned Smith Shov, and then you also have Herston Waldrop. What have you seen from those guys so far this year, because especially with the case of smith Shov, it felt like he already. He already arrived. Last year, he pitched some of the majors. He is still very young, and I think that, you know, he wouldn't be too far away from being pulled up to help the big league club right now. What have you seen from them this year? Not that they're always lumped in together, but you know why I'm doing that, because they are the two guys everybody kind of knows.

00:25:14
Speaker 2: Right If you look at the results of pure results from both of those guys this year, it's been a little bit underwhelming. They haven't been missing a lot of bats, and they haven't been you know, there's been more walks than they've you've wanted to see from these guys, and the numbers haven't been stellar for them. But what the Brays are really doing right now is focusing on their development with the top level prospects, and they're kind of not worrying about whether these guys perform when they get to double A and triple A, and they're focusing on making sure they're commanding their pitches, making sure the shape of their pitches is going well. And I think in both cases they're making changes for the better. I think Smiths Schava is a clearer case where he's added a little bit of velocity this year. His pitches are a little bit sharper, a little more refined, kind of working on the pitch mix. His splitter has really taken a step up this year to where I think it's a pitch that can be a consistent pitch against left handed batters versus last year he really struggled against left handed batters. I mean all season he had an ops over nine hundred I believe in ops against over nine hundred in the major leagues against left handed batters. So having adding that splitter this year for him has really been a key step. But it's going to be a process for them. He wasn't one that they necessarily wanted to be at the major league level.

00:26:30
Speaker 1: Last year.

00:26:30
Speaker 2: They were kind of forced into it, and now it's I'm not I would consider him either their fifth or sixth best starter right now. The Braves are going to give him as much time as he needs because they want to focus on his development, and they feel like and they're right that the major league team is good enough that they can leave Smiths Shavn triple A even if he is their fifth best starter and say we're gonna win enough of those games anyway. You develop at your own pace and you'll kind of see I think second half of the year is when you'll see Smith shaver back and they'll make an attempt at least for him to hold down a job long term. Waldrop's a little further behind now over all the results. He had a really bad opening day game, but he has a three thirty two RA this year. The fit's a little bit higher because he has had a lot of walks and not a ton of strikeouts. Is based on what he had been expecting before. But it hasn't been a lot of hard contact. Other than that first game of the year. It's been mostly self contact. And he's doing that without his best pitch. They're basically telling him, we want you to throw a fastball slider most of the time. Those are the pitches that they feel like he needs to work on and be able to throw consistently in games. And so his splitter, which is one of the best pitches in the minor leagues, he's throwing it less than ten percent of the time and still having success. So that's a positive sign. The stuff is good.

00:27:50
Speaker 1: The stuff is.

00:27:51
Speaker 2: All baseline, pure raw stuff has been good. The command is hit or miss, and we knew that with Waldrope that it was going to take time for him to develop that command. And I haven't seen a ton of development this year. But the command is something that just takes time, right, That's something that you look at between game one and game twenty, not between game one, three and five. So what he's done to be able to work with the limitations that the Brace of give him and still manage to work and find success with that has been positive. But it's just going to take you know. I don't think Waldrop is particularly close. I think maybe he gets a shot next year, but more than likely it's probably going to be a legitimate shot two years down the road, even though he is already in double even though he was a high draft pick, even though he was a college arm They need to develop that command, and again, it's a similar situation to Semishava, where they feel like the team is good enough that they can live without him until he's ready. So with Waldrop there's a lot of risk there, and there's gonna be a lot of development time, and I think that he may end up moving slower than and a lot of people would want, right, Like people if they look at him and see he has a three thirty two ra in Double A and a guy at the major league level of struggling, you're gonna have fans are going, hey, get this guy up here. Now that was the first round pick. Let's get him up He's not there yet, and it's just going to take time, and it's not going to be this year, at least not in my opinion. But I think what we've seen in terms of the pure stuff from Waldrop has been impressive. And that's really the like, like you can somewhat teach a guy command, but she can't. Really. Guys either have it or they don't when it comes to stuff, and Waldrop has it and he has high level athleticisms. There's a lot to like there.

00:29:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was gonna actually ask you, you know, scouting the data, not necessarily with my eyes, but looking at the numbers, I was going to ask you why he wasn't throwing splitters And that makes more sense. They're trying to emphasize what he is not quite as good at already. And took the words out of my mouth with regard to, you know, people wanting to push him along. I think last year his numbers were so good when he arrived, you know, It's Sposely episode. I think it was eight starts, but he was really lighting it up and people were talking about him. I'm sure you read this and pushed back on this as much as I did, like could you be all the opening their roster this year? It's like, no, he's still not quite there. And Smith Shov is interesting because it's a point that we made on the show regularly and also dated back to our old show about you know, you don't always want to push your guys super fast, especially with the fact that you can get away with not doing that. You know, Bryce Older isn't someone that I love. Bryce Elder is a capable fifth starter, and they don't have to worry about Smith Schauber by the way, I think these people kind of maybe don't know this. Smith Shov is younger than Waldrop, which is one of those things it's like gets lost because water is further away. But Smith Chauber is forty one years old. He is, uh, there's a reason that he has to rush and suddenly be throwing one hundred eighty's.

00:30:44
Speaker 2: In the major right now, right, And I mean, you know Smith Shower. You know, we kind of talk about getting lucky with guys. The Braids did a good job scouting Smith's shabor. Nobody thought he'd be even close to this point yet, Like that's a guy that says an area, So, you know, seventh round pick, a guy who really didn't throw that much in high school. Best case scenario, you're hoping he's in high A, maybe double A at this point and he's throwing major league innings already. The way that Smachev has developed has been incredible, and he's a guy that we hear a lot about in terms of just the makeup, the off the field stuff. He's a hard worker, a guy that learns really well, high extremely high level athlete, and so being able to develop that way is really impressive on his end. And again, the Brady's got lucky with him that he developed as well as he did and continues to develop. I mean, he's gotten noticeably better this year, and I think that he's only going to continue to get better. I mean, given the level of experience he had, you know, this is really his third year, third or fourth year pitching overall, I think he's going to continue to get better. And he's already you know, a guy that you look at and say, well, I mean that's a probably already a guy that could come in and be a fifth starter, and he's continuing to get better. And there's a high ceiling for that guy. I mean, right now, wou'd say Smiths Shover is clearly the best prospect in the system and a guy that I would consider probably top forty overall prospect in baseball. Definitely the best play that definitely the best prospect they've had since Michael Harris came up.

00:32:08
Speaker 1: Wow, that's that's that's high praise. I was going to ask you at some point in this interview, like who you had as your top guy, because you know, I read the Battery Power preseason prospect list and had that in front of me right now, and but yeah, that's that's pretty strong praise for smith shaw Or. I like it quite a bit as well. I mean, again, just the combination of the age, the traits, the fact that he was able to move so quickly, and it is pretty appealing. But obviously you know about more more lot of stuff than I do, so as a it's a pretty strong stamp. I did want to ask you about some other guys. Yeah, I think you mentioned earlier Spencer Schwellenbach. He's a very interesting prospect that's looking the part. Him and Owen Murphy. I think, I'm uh, we're both in the top five or six of the preseason the list that I saw at Battery Power. What do you make of those guys as well? And I do trust me, I'm gonna I'm going to ask you as the last guy about na Joelreis because I everybody's waiting for that. But what about swelling Block and owned Murphy.

00:32:56
Speaker 2: Schwelling Bock's another interesting one when we talk about developed over results and he's had very good results at every level, but there's always been this issue with him where he doesn't miss a lot of bats and his pure stuff now is fastball, good velocity. You know, he's ninety five to ninety seven his last start with Mississippi, and so that's good velocity. There's not a ton of movement on his fastball, so it is a little bit hittable in the zone and he throws his fastball quite a bit, so he was getting hit quite a bit. And then we got access to data which I can't share completely, but we got access to data where he's throwing it slider around, you know, less than twenty percent of the time, and when you look at really when you watch him and when you look at the metros on a slider, it is by far his best pitch. And so what I kind of suspect is going on with him is they're doing the same thing of saying we're gonna limit your best pitch, let's develop everything else. And Schoellenbach is kind of similar to dismisschav and that he really, you know, even though he was a college arm he he pitched as a reliever mostly in college. He was more of a shortstop and a lot of people preferred him as a short stop. Then he missed two years with Tommy John surgery, so he hasn't had a ton of kind of pitch and he's already in Double A having success and a good fast bat. Again, I do think the fastball plays down because of the movement, but mix in above average curveball, probably a plus or better slider, a splitter that he's shown recently, or more of a split change that he's shown recently that's had promise. So that's a guy that's three four average to above average pitches, and he has high level athleticism. He throws a ton of strikes right now. He's control over command, but the command is coming and he's locating at the edges more often. So he's a guy that we have a ton of confidence that Schwellenbach is going to be a major league pitcher. The stuff is too good for him to not be a major league pitcher. The command is too good for him to not be a major league pitcher. There aren't major red flags. The only issue with Schwellenbach is because of the Tommy John surgery, because of being a reliever in college. He's only his career highest sixty five innings, and stretching him out to be a major league starter is going to take time. But he's a guy that you're gonna see next year. He's Rule five eligible this winter, which means they have to add him to the forty man roster. They're going to ad him to the forty men roster unless they trade him, which could happen. They've done it before, but I don't Schwellenbach is a guy that I know they like a ton and I don't expect him to be one of those guys that they're eager to trade unless they are just getting a huge impact player to add to the major league roster. So Schowllingback's a guy you're going to see next year because he's going to be on the forty man roster, and when he's on there, at some point they're going to call him up. I could see him being ready next year just with his ability to control the strike zone, having four pitches, and I think that once he starts utilizing that slider more, he's going to have a ton of success. I think the biggest concern is their ability for him. So far, he's thrown thirty eight innings this year in seven starts and haven't had any issues. His fastball philosophy's been ticking up just a little bit start to start. You know, he started out the year more ninety three to ninety six. He's about ninety five to ninety seven in his last start, So good marks right now. You know, you kind of got to see where that guy is in July in terms of this sturability. But that's going to be a process where he may not be a full time guy next year just because they're still going to be building him up. But he's a guy that we have a lot of confidence in and as long as you stay healthy, I'm fairly confident in that as a mid rotation starter, kind of a three four type starter. Murphy, I think he's a top one hundred prospect. I think he should be. No one's really giving him that love right now. And you know, we talk about national rankings and a lot of times, you know, a system like the Braves is going to be underrated because there's not a lot of prospects. So because there's not a lot of prospects, the national writers tend to not watch that system as often. They'll watch the guys like the Orioles that have you know, five top twenty guys. They're going to watch them, you know, a couple of times a week. And so those kind of fringe guys, those guys are a little bit lower, they're going to be seen more often. So a guy like Murphy, if you just look at his pure stuff, I mean, curveball, change up fastball that sits you know, ninety to ninety three. That's not that impressive from a right handed starter. But one Murphy's fastball, even if it is ninety to ninety three, I would consider it to be a better fastball than swelling Bucks because his last start twenty two inches of induced vertical break, which is absurd. I think, what is it like? Seventeen is considered above average, so he's I mean, that's double plus carry on his fastball. He gets great extension on his fastball as well. His fastball is even with the velocity. And that's really been the concern with him is he was kind of ninety two to ninety five before the draft. He's backed up, and so people are looking at and going, well, his fastball has gotten worse. Well, it's also he commands it well to the top of the zone and it has a ton of movement, and that's why he's really he's dominating high A this year. He has the most strikeouts in the league this year as a twenty one year old. Twenty year old I'm sorry, he is twenty now and he's dominating at the high level. His slider looks good, his curveball looks good. So you're looking at your guy with another player that command great fastball, a couple of good breaking balls. I think that he's further along. He might actually be further along than Waldrup at this point though, they're going to again be patient with him. There's no reason to rush him. But I think with his with the metrics on his pitches, what we've seen out of him, with his command, that's a guy that is going to get out. So now, I do think if the fastball velocity doesn't step up and get back to where it was before the draft, and right now it really doesn't look like that's coming for him, you do look at that and say his ceiling is probably limited because he's not going to miss bats at an elite level. But he's a guy that has solid potential and a guy that I really think can fit in the back end of any rotation is going to be you know, with with any picture, it's can they stay healthy. You know, all of these guys really, other than Smcheve are kind of smaller guys. I think Waldrip is six one or six to two. Murphy is generously listed at six to one. I would say that's closer to six foot. Maybe he's gonna touch below. Oh but you know, all four of those guys are guys that are projected to majorly starting roles right now, and the Brads haven't had that. The Brads haven't had that kind of depth of guys that are confident, not just fill in fifth starters like a guy like Dylan Dodd would be, but guys that could come in and be legitimate contributors to the team, and guys that you could look at and say, maybe this guy gets a start in October. They have four guys that you know, as long as they stay healthy, which again is you're lucky if two of those guys stay healthy long term. That's just how it works with pitchers. But I think Murphy and Schwellenbach are both in positions where they've taken steps up this year. I think Murphy should be pushing for top one hundred consideration. I think Schwellenbach, you know, I don't think he's quite a top one hundred guy, but I think if you look in that one hundred and fifty range, he's definitely there. Like the difference between an eightieth prospect in baseball and one hundred and fiftieth prospect in baseball, it's very small, and I don't know that Schwellenbach has quite gotten to the point where he's going to get top one hundred recognition. By the time he does, he's going to be in the major leagues and it's not going to matter, but I think both are kind of pushing to be that tier of prospect and they the Brakes haven't had that depth of talent at the top end and quite a long time.

00:40:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean, you know as well as I do, like the first round picks get more attention, just like the casual attention because that's what the first person that they remember from the draft, and the Brakes haven't had a big hit first round pick since Kyle I guess, you know Kyle Wright as a year ago with that Bill Finally, but right Anderson were the most you know, most famous guys. You know, Brandon shoe make didn't work out, Langeliers was fine, got traded, et cetera, Jared Schuster no longer around, et cetera. So like you know how it is, Waltrip and Murphy, of the last two first round picks, they'll get more attention, but they're also seeven be according to what you just said and what I've seen in boss scorers and stuff, well to be the part so far, So we'll see how that goes. I do want to ask you about one position player and then you can get to anybody else that you want to as well, want to open it up to you. But Nacho Alvarez, number one has a fun name, and number two seems to be really someone that everybody's seems to like and that isn't super far away to spite be twenty one years old. What do you make of him and his development?

00:41:06
Speaker 2: Nah, Joe's an interesting one. He kind of made a rare switch. He went he was a third basement as a prep guy. We heard sorry, junior college guy, amateur, he was a third basement that All we heard was this guy is a great glove like this, This guy's an easy plus defender. He's going to stick at the corner. And the brains moved him to shortstop. But he's a bit of a squadier guy. If you watch him play, he doesn't look like a shortstop, but I mean he's he has great hands, a great arm, His footspeed isn't is bolo average, but he really does everything you kind of ask of a shortstop. I don't think he's going to be a guy that's going to ever be an elite defender, but he's starting to look like he's going to stick at short stop, and that makes a huge difference. In his profile yep, you know, shortstop versus their base. His big concern is is he really just hasn't hit for power. Now. He has strength, but his swing is a bit stiff and he tends to have a flat bat path, so it's hard to project him to even average power. So far, he has eight home runs in his career one hundred and seventy eight games below average isolated power at every level. Now, part of that is the Braves at high and double A. Both Rome and Mississippi's parks are very pitcher friendly, so it does somewhat dampen the power production for him. But overall, he's not gonna be guy it hits for a lot of power, and whether he ends up playing with the Braves, the Braves don't tend to like the guys that are on base over power. Not Joways a great hitter, I mean approach wise, he takes a ton of walks, He swings at the right pitches. He's his eye is better than the minor league umpires at this point to where a lot of his strikeouts are just him watching pitches that are not strikes get called. So you know, he's a guy that can hit any pitch, can use all fields, hits a ton of line drives. It's just he doesn't make enough impact contact to be a guy that you project as kind of a cornerstone player. You know, more of an average is to above average guy. There's nothing wrong with that. That's a fantastic baseball player. Hit it, hit it every level.

00:43:10
Speaker 1: You know.

00:43:10
Speaker 2: The question is is if the power never comes, does he get on base enough to stick at the major league level. If you play short stuff that helps you know if he's you know, he's run an OBP over four hundred in his career, four h two in his minor league career. You know, if you're running a three seventy plus OVP, which he very much has the potential to with his line drive rates, with his strikeout rates, with his walk rates, you know, and on base percentage of three to seventy are better, you're pretty much guaranteed to be an average or better hitter at the major league level once you get to that point. Even if he's you know, thirty great power, that's a guy that's more than likely going to be a valuable major league hitter. So if the power doesn't develop, you're still probably looking at a major league ballplayer. It's just can he still draw walks? When you can see upper levels of minor leagues. You know, guys that don't hi for a lot of power, they're going to get challenged more by better pictures. And if he's not able to really turn and hit you know, ten home runs a year, is that a guy that pictures are going to just throw the ball on his own and suddenly the walk rate drops off. I do think that he's good enough hitter and he's gonna hit a lot of doubles, but ultimately his ceiling is going to be determined by whether the power ultimately comes, and right now, it's just it doesn't look like it's going to for him. I do think that he's probably going to be better than you know, eight home runs in a hurt seventy eight games. I think he's maybe going to be a ten to twelve home run guy. I think he has enough fat to get away with that. But I don't think that he's ever going to be an impact, elite guy like some of the guys that they've had come through the system. Now that said fifth round pick, if he turns into an above average major league shortstop, that's an absolutely fantastic pickup for them, and he's one of their best scouting wins because it wasn't one of those things where he developed over time. He came into the system, was immediately the best pure hitter in the system, showed a ton of potential on the defensive end. And so I think that this guy that as long as he's sticks at shortstop, that some major league guy. Now, if he does end up having to move off of the short stop position, which I don't foresee at the moment, if he does end up moving off the shortop position, with his lack of power, it's going to be hard for him to find a role. But maybe you kind of look at that as a super utility guy. You know, he's a guy I could see starting for the Braves. So I don't know necessarily if he's going to be one of those guys that are going to come in and tear the world up.

00:45:24
Speaker 1: Makes sense to me, and I am going to let you go, but I do want to make sure that I ask you, is there a guy or two that you seem to love like your guys for instance, or someone that people should know more about that don't know how much about him so far, because I think we talked about like the top five ofst guys on the on the OLDVP list, but I'm sure you have a favorite or a sleeper somewhere.

00:45:42
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of want to focus on guys that are fairly close to being able to contribute to the major level. And I really want to look at a couple of guys who, well, Wana is definitely a relief prospect. One is a starter right now, could end up a relief prospect. And that's really Munno's. He's at the DOUAA right now, striking out over forty five percent of the time. It was forty six point eight percent the last time I checked, but I haven't checked recently. Either way, absurd strikeout rates. His fastball ticked up this year. He's sitting, you know, ninety eight to one hundred h slider in the low nineties. That's a wipeout pitch. That's a guy that you know, he's Roll five dosible. So he's probably going to be added to the forty man roster this offseason, which means come next year, the praiceer're going to give him look in the spring training. The praise they're gonna may give him looks throughout the year, So that could be a guy that comes up and contributes. And I think if you look at a guy on the forty man roster like Dasbell Hernandez right now, I think he's better than Diasbell. I think his commands about the same, which is not good at all, but the fastball is better, the slider is better. So that's a guy that I think come up and contribute pretty quickly. And then another guy that's coming back from an injury right now. So we hasn't looked very good at Gehan. Carlos Lara, big breakout prospect as a starter last year, struck out batters thirty seven point one percent of the time I believe was the number for him, you know, towards over the last twelve starts of the year. Last year, he's sitting ninety eight to one hundred topped out of one hundred and two this year as a starter again low ninety slider, wipeout pitch. So with Lara great athleticism, my guy that has shown flashes of being able to command his fastball up in the zone. Definitely better command than a guy like Munnos. So the Regi're going to run him at as a starter for right now, and they tend to be slow on moving guys off the starting pitching, But he kind of lacks a third pitch. He lacks the elite command like a guy likes Fitcher Scheider. His command ended up being good enough that and his pitches were good enough that it really didn't matter that he didn't have a great change up when he came up to the major leagues. He was able to have success. I don't see that with Lara. I don't think that his pitches are quite that good at this stage, and I don't think his command is good enough to get away with bad command. But I think as a reliever, if they end up moving him to reliever, which is where I project him, that's a guy that could probably get up to the Major league's maybe this year. I think they have enough reliever depth that they won't do that, but I could see that guy being a late inning option next year. This is I don't often rely. I don't often rank guys I project as a reliever very highly. There is probably other than aj mentor the best relief prospect that they've had come through the system in my time. With battery power and I mean that's a guy that again he says healthy. I think he's a major league arm and I think he could be a contributor to the Braves in the next couple of years.

00:48:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, relievers are always tricky, and your pictures are always tricky, and we all kind of understand that. But yeah, that's a pretty pretty pretty strong stanfe of approval. If you're looking like a j mentor adjacent, it's not a bad place to be for reliever prospects. Garrett, thanks for the time, man, I do appreciate it. I of course kept you longer than I said I was going to some apologies, but anything to plug beyond your uble stuff, and please feel free to pluck all your rum stuff because it's all worth diving into and listening and reading.

00:48:51
Speaker 2: You know, like you said writing at Battery Power, trying to ramp up our content. We're kind of getting close to draft seasons, so it's going to be a lot more frequent for us on the minor league side of things. We definitely over the draft fully and Draft day stuff is going to be big, and then p Shape Prospects podcasts. The three guys we talked about a lot here Schwellenbach, A, J. Smith, Shaver, Kristin and Waldrup. We have deep dive breakdowns up ready to listen to right now. They were really good episodes. I think we got a lot of information out more than I was able to get out here, and we really went deep in on these guys. And if you give if you're interested in those guys and knowing more about the top guys, we've been able to get those out lately and it's good stuff. Like it's genuinely good content. And I'm not just going to say that because it's mine. I think there's a lot of valuable information there and if you're interested in prospect and knowing more about the guys, guys that are you know, in all three cases, guys that contribute in the next couple of years, that I would definitely give it a listen.

00:49:42
Speaker 1: Yes, strongly agree. It's a great place to dive in and learn more about the system and what being the guys who are coming because I know, you know, the next wave of braves, hopefully in a positive direction, are coming and always good to listen to that and read all of this battery power and learn all about the new wave of guys. Thank you again for being here. Do you want to plug your Twitter account as well?

00:50:03
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, Twitter is at Braves m ILB and I've been a little bit lazy with it in the last couple of years, but it's all right. But focusing more on the Battery Power content lately, but definitely do some updates there. And if you ever want to reach out to me, you, guys, my dms are open. I may it may take me a few days to get to it. But if you guys want to reach out to me, ask me questions. You ask when guys are going to be pitching whatever. You know. I'm always available and I try to answer questions whenever I can.

00:50:30
Speaker 1: He also a managed to secure a fantastic handle. I don't know when you would have had some good Braves and MLB. That was a good grad by youth on Twitter.

00:50:36
Speaker 2: It's good. That would have been twenty fourteen.

00:50:39
Speaker 1: It's been very good. That's a good find by you. Thanks again, Garret for being here. As forbody else, please listen to this podcast, subscribe to charitory anywhere you get your podcast, rate review, et cetera, et cetera. We'll see you all. Thanks time. Wow, it's very very les very let's tap believe that