International Signings and Braves Top Prospects with Ben Badler of Baseball America

00:00:19
Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the latest edition of the Hammer Territory Podcast. My name is Sean Coleman. As always, it is a pleasure to be with you. My podcast host his name is Hid this episode, but there's a very good reason. Why is Steven Tobert Steven, How are you doing, sir Sean?

00:00:35
Speaker 2: How are you buddy?

00:00:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always good to be on with you, man, and it's always fun to have a special guest. We've got somebody you know, you and I have talked to many times before about how we are nowhere close to experts on anything prospect related, especially when it comes to the you know, the January fifteenth signing. Guys, I mean, we just we don't know what we're talking about, so I have to have somebody. Of course, everybody can see now, like Ben Badler from Baseball America to come on and talk to us about this is a real treat.

00:01:01
Speaker 2: So I'm excited for this episode.

00:01:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's not many when it comes to when it comes to the arena of prospect knowledge, especially on the international front. Ben Badler has been named synonymous with with those breakdowns for decades now. Ben don't mean to make you feel old or anything. Like that, but last year had the chance to talk with you. Always a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us on this episode of Hammer Territory.

00:01:24
Speaker 4: Nks for having me on. Guys, you guys can keep going. I love hearing this. Thanks for all the kind words.

00:01:29
Speaker 5: I appreciate it, of course, of course.

00:01:31
Speaker 1: But listen, there's a reason we brought you here, and that's of course to hear your insight. So Ben, you know, obviously this is a busy time of year for you. We have the International signing class that occurs across baseball. Obviously, you know that's when you know, a lot of you know, young talents come into the system, but some of the biggest names we know now in baseball and for decades in baseball have come to the majors that way. But there's also the time when prospect list comes out as well. So we're going to talk with Ben mainly about the internet class for this year, but also talk with him about some of the prospects and Dylan's jump right into it and we'll get into a few of the names here in just a moment. But let's talk about this international class for the Braves as a whole, it feels like it feels like that perhaps this class didn't have like a standout prize of the pack like we did the previous two years with Luis Guanipa as well as Jose Perdomo, but we did to that level of talent. But we did have several talents in this class that make it be a bit deeper. Is that a true statement or is it just that we've seen a few more names. Where would this class rank for recent classes when it comes to quality of class overall? The Braves twenty twenty five International.

00:02:43
Speaker 4: Class, Yeah, I think you see you see a lot of names that they signed the first day of the signing period, or at least, you know, the first couple of days of the signing period. I think it's tough for you know, teams that have one Dominican Summer League team, it's hard for them to just compete on volume compared to the teams that have i mean literally double the roster spots, so you can have thirty five more players in your in your DSL. It's a lot more players that those teams can sign, just opportunities to take chances on that ten thousand dollars arm who's you know, eighty seven ninety one, now some various form of feel for a breaking ball, very degrees of strikes, and then all of a sudden you get them in the academy in six months later or maybe a couple of years later, that eighty seven ninety one guy is, oh, now this guy's ninety two to ninety seven, right. So those teams that have more roster spots just can take more chances on players. So I think it's an advantage for those clubs. So you know, you saw a decent number of signings for a team that has one DSL team, and it's not like you know, you're right, it's not like one player. You know where they've gone, almost like all in on Jose Perdomo for example one year, where you know, this year, I still think, you know, the centerpiece signing for them is Diego Tornees, outfielder from Cuba, and then later in the process Rowdy Reyes, the big, big fastball right had a pitcher from the Dominican Republic. So maybe not just one player, but you know those are really the two headline centerpiece guys for them this year.

00:04:18
Speaker 1: Well, let's focus on those two. And let's look at Diego Tornees and I know that you know, many will you know when we talk about him being you know, the prize of this year's pack when it comes to the position, players don't want to compare him to a per Domo or a Gwanipa. Just from that perspective, where does he kind of rank in terms of those two coming into this And the other thing that stands out about Tornez is that's he's a big bodied, you know, a hitter outfielder. But it seems like Atlanta really likes the fact that how his physical stature is. Even though he's a big body, he's lean, he's muscular. It seems like they feel confident that he's going to mature in a way that's going to allow him to, if he hits be able to be hopefully signing for us. Just your thoughts on Diego Tornees, especially as he matures, you know, starting off at being such a you know, big sixteen year old himself.

00:05:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, we know when they signed Gwinipa, he was what probably five eleven six foot, very compact, stocky, strong, you know, very muscular frame for for his age.

00:05:20
Speaker 5: Packed a lot of tools.

00:05:21
Speaker 4: I when he could hit the ball really hard, he could run good athlete, whereas Tornees is just you know, a lot, a lot longer lady six foot four, probably what like two hundred pounds in that area. And I think, really what, you know, what the big appeal with Tornees was was the bat right in the offensive upside, especially early on, he you know, showed a good job of being able to recognize pitches, control the strike zone at least as much as you can tell at that age, and he seems to always perform well against live pitching, and at that size, the power that he has and the power upside that he has, I mean, looking at somebody as a chance to be twenty maybe twenty five plus home run hitter at least that kind of power to be determined obviously on the battle. We'll know a lot more by the time the DSL season is over this year in terms of how that translates right away. But certainly the offensive upside I think was what drew a lot of teams to him. And then I think the pleasant surprise has been the development of some of the the other tools on the defensive side right where a lot of teams looked at him initially as well, probably a left fielder. He's you know, already as big as he was at that age, is maybe some risk of going to first base, and I think more than likely at his size, he probably ends up on a corner outfield spot.

00:06:40
Speaker 5: But he's improved his speed.

00:06:41
Speaker 4: I mean, he runs well enough where they'll probably start him out at center field and see where it goes.

00:06:47
Speaker 5: Right, So you know a lot of times guys that.

00:06:49
Speaker 4: Big slow down and fill out slowly on as they fill out, and you know, probably not center field type of a look. But I mean Aaron Judge played center field. Julio Rodriguez when he signed thought I love Julio Rodriguez.

00:07:05
Speaker 5: I thought no way was he gonna play center field.

00:07:07
Speaker 4: So guys do surprise that when you're signing players at you know, sixteen seventeen years old.

00:07:12
Speaker 5: It's a lot of a lot of things to like, especially.

00:07:13
Speaker 4: Offensively, but some of the progress of the speed and defensive tools that he has has been pretty encouraging too.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: You heard it here first, Ben Badler thinks that there's a lot of air. I'm kidding, I'll go there, but no, it does go to show that, you know, not all. You know, hey, you can be six four two hundred even at the young age of sixteen. But there's different types of that, right. You can have big bodied guys, you know, who may not necessarily they be all mashed, not that athletic. But the big thing with Torn is that should help him out is that he does have the ability it seems to stick potentially with some defensive upside to go along with the bat and that has to be encouraging for his overall prospect rise as time goes on.

00:07:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you're you know, you're looking at physical indigator and just the progress that he's made, and you're you're trying to make educate guesses. Really a lot of times that at that age about where it's going to go. So historically, you know, most guys like that end up in a corner. So I would say that's probably the most likely landing spot for him. But I mean, there's no reason not to put him in center field for now, until you know, later on where he said, Okay, maybe maybe it's time to move, but for now, yeah, I would run him out in center field and see what happens.

00:08:28
Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of the that's kind of the whole. That's kind of what everybody does. Like every prospect that's is a center fielder or a short you know, you see a lot of these guys who sign as.

00:08:38
Speaker 2: Center fielders or short stops.

00:08:40
Speaker 3: Teams just let them, you know, they they obviously want them in the most high value position and they force them to show they can't do it, right. I mean, essentially, there's a bunch of guys who signed a short stops who will never be short stops at the major league level, but teams want to make them show they.

00:08:53
Speaker 2: Can't do it. That is that an accurate way of putting it.

00:08:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean Miguel Sino signed as a shortstop. You look at him right now and it looks like a you know, a nose tackle, so I you know, and I don't think anybody really thought he was going to stay at shortstop at that time either, but also didn't think he'd like blow up and be quite as big as he is now. So guys, will you know, surprise you in all sorts of different ways with the way that they look at sixteen compared to what they're going to look like when they're you know, twenty three, twenty four to twenty five years old.

00:09:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, so let's talk about risk, because this this kid kind of jumped out of everybody, both physically and you know, metaphorically.

00:09:32
Speaker 2: Here a big, big kid. When we saw the.

00:09:35
Speaker 3: Picture of him, I mean, the kid looked massive. He throws one hundred and one miles an hour sixteen years old.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: My first question to you is this, how rare is that to throw that hard that young?

00:09:46
Speaker 3: That seems like I remember being in high school and like if you threw, if you threw eighty nine ninety like you were, you were, you know, high level. Especially at sixteen, you know, it's probably what like a sophomore in high school level age. How rare is it to have somebody that young throwing one hundred and one miles an hour?

00:10:05
Speaker 5: Yeah? I don't. I don't know that I've if I've ever seen somebody do that at that age.

00:10:13
Speaker 4: You know, there is a picture. He's in New York, he's in the draft right now. Who I think it was not like two falls to us, so I think he was sixteen. Miguel Sime committed to LSU. He threw ninety nine miles an hour when he was sixteen years old. You know, the velocity certainly is up, way way up across the board just for high school pictures, and we see that in Latin America as well. But even you know, there's not even that many eighteen year old high school pictures right who are throwing one hundred, let alone, like ninety nine ninety eight miles an hour. So the velocity that he's showing is just like crazy for that age.

00:10:54
Speaker 2: And is he.

00:10:56
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm guessing again, we don't know, but is he somebody that could eventually be a starter. Is he a pure reliever or is he is he just kind of a hybrid? He throws hard, he's young, and we'll see what he can do when he gets to pro bowl.

00:11:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, to be determined on that, it's hard to Certainly, I'm sure the brains are going to develop him as a starter and give him every opportunity as a starter, you know, even I'm sure at some point if they even think he's gonna end up in a relief role long term, just to continue to give him more opportunity to get get innings, work on, you know, different pitches, just get getting more experienced that way. Right now, I think there's certainly, Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say about like a sixteen year old kid, right, but there's certainly relief risk factors there where Okay, there is a good amount of effort to to the to the operation. The control is you know, all over the place. Right now, He's gonna have to sharpen a lot of other things to his game. But he's also, you know, sixteen years old throwing triple digits velocity, So like there's there's a very good foundation to work from, at least from from that one pretty special pitch that he already has for that age. So you know, we'll learn a lot more once he goes out this year in the DSL. We'll see how how the secondary stuff looks, how the strikes look I'm you know, I'm sure they'll have his innings very carefully monitor especially with that kind of velocity yet at that age. But I mean, you look back historically at guys like you know, like when Frankie Montes was with uh, he's with the Red Sox in the Dominican Summer League and I think he had to repeat the league and was just a ton of walks there, and oh like you would never look at that on paper and think, oh yeah, this guy's gonna be a not just a starter in the big leagues, like a pretty good starter or.

00:12:41
Speaker 5: Two in the major leagues.

00:12:44
Speaker 4: But guys, guys can make a lot of changes and make a lot of development obviously from the time they're sixteen until they're you know, getting into their twenties and getting closer to the big leagues.

00:12:53
Speaker 1: I'm not making this comparison in terms of his whole profiler who I think he develops into. But you know, I'm to Stephen knows, I've got to put him in there when I can. Being a Tennessee fan, you know, a guy when it comes to just a rare level of velocity that we've seen recently, has been Joyce, you know, closer for the Angels. But the reason I bring him up is because the velocity at which he throws, I imagine, is kind of, you know, stands out like what Rays throws at sixteen. You just don't see that level of velocity at that age. But I bring up in Joyce because he was a year He took him what less than a year to get to the majors. With ray esk we're talking about three four, probably five plus years to get there. What is the concern when it comes to how much of a high risk, high reward prospect he is. Is there more concern with how far away he likely is for the majors, or is there a bit more confidence in the fact, Well, if he's throwing this fast is young, there's some ease, there's more ease in his way of being able to throw that velocity. How do you come from the perspective of how consistently he's going to be able to hit that velocity while also not becoming a huge inyury risk as time goes on.

00:14:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right.

00:14:02
Speaker 4: I mean it's kind of a double edged sword where I think just even the teams don't know what to do with it, right, Where it's just velocity, elite young velocity in general. Right, where like you get so excited it's great that a young pitcher can throw you know, ninety six or ninety eight or one hundred miles an hour. But also like we see the correlation right between velocity and injury risk. So it's kind it's a double edged sword where you get excited, but you know, you also get really nervous sometimes about that. I mean, with ray, it's the good thing is you don't you don't have to project anything on him. As far as physical development to be able to gain velocity. You know that's there, that's already in place. It's it's just the rawness as far as strike throwing and development of the secondaries and understanding of how to pitch, the pitch ability, all all those other factors beyond just the enormous fastball, the enormous velocity that he has. So yeah, I think it's it's not somebody who I think you're gonna see racing through the minor leagues, even if he was there by the time he's like twenty twenty one years old, that would very much surprise me. I think it's somebody who's going to need quite a bit of time developing at the lower levels, working on a lot of the finer points of pitching, even some of the basic points of pitching, right let's say, which is not a terrible thing for somebody who's sixteen years old to say that about. But he obviously has the ability to blow a fastball by anybody right now. So it's more about teaching, all right here is you know, hitting your spots, mixing in your you know, your breaking ball, change up, learning a little bit more about the soft the soft stuff to the finer the kind of the pitch ability parts of the game with him.

00:15:47
Speaker 3: So Ben, obviously there was torn as, there was Reyes, and then there was a third kind of big three of this class was on hell Carmona. So I don't know, I know very little about this prospect of what basically what I read from you. So I just got kind of give you the floor. I don't not set up this question. I'm just gonna kind of give you the floor. What's special about his game? Why was he intriguing to the Braves and what did they get when they signed him?

00:16:10
Speaker 4: He trained at a program run I don't know if it's run by Labor Torres, but basically Labor Torres Academy. You know, he has a day job during the season, and I'm like, intimately he is involved during during the year, but I think it's him and his dad running the program there. So yeah, things to like with him. A good athlete, six foot one, still pretty lean, uses the whole field. He can project more power coming like it's it's not big power right now, He's still a pretty slender I think sixteen, maybe seventeen years old now, kid more of like a line drive gap to gap type of approach from the right side of the plate. So somebody who has a chance to maybe stay at short stuff project somewhere in the infield with some you know, some offensive upside. Again, see how he See how he fills out, See what that, See what direction the rest of the tools take as far as the power the speed, because he's still pretty pretty slender player right now. So definitely some more more physical upside and more room for growth with him.

00:17:17
Speaker 1: With that being said, you know, just I know that you know from you being a prospect guy, everybody looks at the perspective of well, how do they rank versus other notable names in the system, and to what extent you want to discuss that, But I will ask you know, of course we talk about Luis Gwinepa two years ago, we talked about Jose Pedermo, now Tornez as well as Carmona. When you look at the last three classes, like where does Tornez compare in terms of his you know, stature of a potential prospect next to a Pedermo and Gwinipa. Is there a certain way that you might rank them? I know, again, it's very hard to do when they're all sixteen. But in terms of when they came into the system as an international signing, where would Tornia is compared to Gwinipa as well as Perdermo in terms of, you know, seed Ley as a potential major leaguer.

00:18:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say at the time Perdomo would be would be the top guy from that group, and then I would have Tornez ahead of Guanipa. I mean, Gwennepa is an interesting guy, but I think Tornez just has more more physical upside than him. Guanipa is a bit more physically mature, like what you see is what you get, Like you don't expect the tools to get a lot better, whereas with Tornez, you're you're seeing flashes of power now. But you know there's certainly I mean, I I don't know, he might get thirty pounds heavier, who knows, I don't know exactly, but you know, six four to two hundred, he's gonna pack on more way, pack on more strength. There's there's a lot more physical upside there, I think with him, and probably more present ability to offensively with him, whereas with Jose Perdomo, you know, I think he was clearly one of the top players in that class at the time. I mean, it's tough to say, because you know, these players are reaching agreements with teams when they're you know, thirteen, fourteen years old, sometimes even younger than that. The international market's really gotten crazy.

00:19:06
Speaker 5: But you know, Perdomo looked like.

00:19:08
Speaker 4: A you know, at the time, a middle in, a middle endfielder who could who could hit, and you know, had a chance to be a mix of hitting ability and and power, kind of along the lines of like a Glaber Tours, you know, like the hopefully the good Glaber Tours and every if in the you know, during his his best years with the Yankees. But as far as like what right now, it's a little hard to say on Jose Perdomo because he's just been on the field for uh so little. I think he got like twenty at bats in the DSL last year. So I just really want to see him healthy and on the field this season.

00:19:41
Speaker 3: So Ben, we're gonna we're gonna zoom out a little bit here, and we've got Ben Badler from from Baseball America on the show with us tonight, and so we had this conversation I want to ask you this question because we had this comment.

00:19:54
Speaker 2: Me and Sean had this conversation a couple a couple of.

00:19:57
Speaker 3: Nights ago, I think, and the conversation will about the Braves farm system as a whole, and how when you look up and down for the last few years, especially since the Michael Harris graduation, that there really hasn't been the elite level position player prospects that you see in other systems. The Braves are pretty consistently and kind of the bottom third of farm rankings by most people. And and Sean, we're having Sean and I were having the conversation that you know, the Braves had that four year stretch, three or four year stretch where they were they had the penalties from the previous regime, they couldn't sign international free agents, and we were kind of talking about the fact that, you know, because these guys are four or five years away when they signed that even though those penalties were four or five years ago, that this is kind of the time because of that lack of time, This is kind of the time where the team is really kind of paying for that for not having that depth in the in the system that may maybe other teams do.

00:20:50
Speaker 2: So I just want to get your perspective.

00:20:52
Speaker 3: You know, the penalties were I think twenty seventeen to twenty twenty's when the Braves were either had sanctions or you know, certain amount they could sign or players for a certain amount. So I just want to get your opinion. Do you think this is where the team is really feeling the effects I'm not having those international classes.

00:21:10
Speaker 2: For three or four years. Do you think it's something else?

00:21:12
Speaker 3: I know they've gone very pitching heavy in the domestic draft. In your opinion, why have we seen kind of this, this lull, this drag and position player prospects in the Brave system going on the last probably I don't know, three or four years.

00:21:27
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's probably a mix of the two. Yeah.

00:21:30
Speaker 4: I think the penalties, especially if you look at like the upper levels of the Braves farm system, it's like, well, where where these international prospects that every other team pretty much has, right, Well, it's I think a lot of it is those penalties that they were under. And this is this is that lag time where okay, like sure you have like a Jackson curio, right, and he gets to.

00:21:49
Speaker 5: The big leagues when he's twenty years old.

00:21:51
Speaker 4: But there's only like maybe one Jackson curio that comes around every couple of years or so. Right, most guys are, you know, getting to the big leagues. They're you know, they're signed at sixteen or seventeen, might get there at twenty two, twenty three, twenty four.

00:22:05
Speaker 5: It takes a long time for those guys to matriculate.

00:22:07
Speaker 4: Not just to the big leagues, but just to the upper levels of the farm system where you really have a better idea too of what you have in your system. And the Braves just don't have that internationally because they I think, yeah, the penalties were a big part of it, both losing players and obviously then losing the ability to sign players, and it's just you know, having to rebuild the entire international scouting department too. I mean, that takes quite a bit of time to just rebuild that internal scouting infrastructure as a as a scouting staff and as an organization. So yeah, I think that's hurt them. And like you know, like you said, it's been a pitching heavy emphasis and a lot of their drafts and it certainly shows up in their top ten with you know, the obvious exception of Drake Baldwin's looking pretty good right now.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:22:57
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the other thing that kind of stands out is that, you know, Braves Country, you know, kind of spoil because you know, if you go back to the previous decade, Hayward did not hit. But then after that Freddie became I think better than anybody thought. He became our franchise player. And then within a five year span we had well maybe six year we had Swans and then Alby's and the Kunya, then Riley then Harris all come up. So kind of spoiled when it comes to the fact that you typically don't see teams over a decade, within the decades timeframe had that much of a hit rate with position prospects, especially when the Braves with the previous regime had had such an intent focus on pitching. And so I think that's kind of helping us out. But you I also want to get your perspective on a prospect who's on the rise. One thing that seems to have stood out about Alex and Thopolis during his time is that he can identify catching prospect Shang lang Leers, Wilson Contreras or William Conterrest excuse me, and now Drake Baldwin. Your thoughts on Drake Baldwin, who definitely lead many people seem to really be coming around on his bat. What do you feel, even mishean Murphy here long term? What do you feel the Braves really value about him? And where do you stand on his potential upside in Atlanta in the future.

00:24:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, I really like Drake bad.

00:24:17
Speaker 4: I feel like he gets and it's weird to say, maybe about a number one prospect in a farm system, but I feel like he gets maybe a little bit overlooked too sometimes relative to the other big catching prospects out there. I mean, offensively, he checks a lot of boxes that you look for in.

00:24:33
Speaker 5: A young hitter.

00:24:34
Speaker 4: I think he is a pretty good sense of the strike zone. He makes a lot of contact. There's not a lot of swing and miss to his game. And you know, maybe it's not like, you know, thirty plus home run type power, but this is a guy who should hit you know, fifteen, twenty, maybe twenty plus home runs in some seasons obviously, you know, depending how much he gets on the field as or how many bats I want to give him as a catcher. But I think is a you know, somebody who's gonna stick behind the plate and be a you know, potential high OBP type catcher. So just a pretty well rounded, like no glaring holes or weaknesses, and a guy who's a pretty good offensive track record now all the way up through through TRIPLEA, where you know, maybe there's not like a seventy tool that everybody like jumps up and down over like. I think catchers who have a strong arm or like, especially like a seventy arm, everybody like gets super excited about that. And those guys tend to get really overrated because a lot of times they can't hit. But people love to see a catcher who can, who has an absolute hose. But you know it's maybe not Drake. You know, Drake Bald was not that guy. But he he can catch, and I think he can really hit too, So I think he's one of the better better catching prospects in the minor leagues right now.

00:25:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like catching specifically, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, you've done it for so many years now. I feel like catching specifically is one of those positions that because there's so much that is hard to quantify with catchers, you know, we run into this in Hall of Fame voting too, where like it's tough to just use the same metrics we use for every other position because there's so much more that just goes into catching, Right, There's dealing with pitching staffs. There's learning how to you know, you know, talk to you know, key pitchers in games, calling games. You know how much individual catchers call games versus the pitchers, especially now with PitchCom system. I feel like catching in general is just one of those positions that's very tough to grade. It's very tough to judge until you see a guy, you know, with a major league you know, with a major league rotation that he's controlling or with he's catching for. Is that fair that it's that that catching is one of the tougher positions to to scout on your end.

00:26:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think so, that's I would agree with that. And if you look at the track record, like look at the track record in the draft for teams drafting high school catchers in the early rounds, it's it's rough. I mean, like there's Joe Mauer and you know, Hall of Famer and all that, but like otherwise it is it is really rough because it's hard to tell until these guys really get into professional baseball. I mean even even the college catchers. You know, like there's misses at every position. But uh, you know, like Kevin Parata with the Mets was a very high first round pick a couple of years ago, like Henry Davis number one overall pick, and you know, maybe that was to save some money, but it's it's not looking good. It's not look like he's even gonna catch. And then you have other guys like Austin Wells with the Yankees, where okay, sort like he was a he was a high pick, but the big question mark was h on him coming out of college was defense. But now looks pretty good defensively, Like, no doubt he's gonna be able to catch in the big leagues and it looks pretty good for them. So there's there's just a lot that goes into the development of a catcher in addition to the evaluation where Okay, now you get them into professional baseball, and you know, whether it's a high school catcher or even a college guy who you know is older and has more experience, but okay, he's got to deal with school and so many other things, and how good is the quality of instruction for catching specifically that he's getting in college. There are some college coaches that are tremendous coaches, some of the best coaches in the world for helping catchers and their development.

00:28:26
Speaker 5: And there's other programs that are you know.

00:28:28
Speaker 4: Just don't have don't have the resources that you know an MLB organization has for catching specific instructors and where your job now full time is to do every like you can go out every single day and work with somebody on catching, so you have a lot more time, better resources.

00:28:44
Speaker 5: Guys can get a lot better, I think really at a lot of positions.

00:28:49
Speaker 4: But there is just so much that goes into catching, So both the evaluation of catchers in terms of being to evaluate who they are now and then the development and then the projection of where they're going to be down the road, and just all the you know, demands.

00:29:03
Speaker 5: It's such a.

00:29:04
Speaker 4: Grind on your body for you know, one hundred what is it now, one hundred and forty something games and in the minor leagues, I was one hundred and sixty two in the big leagues that you know, you're just not seeing you know, you know't obviously get that as a high school catcher or even a college catcher where you're you know, maybe catching a few times a week through you know, throughout the spring, throughout the college season. So yeah, I totally agree the evaluating catching is very much a challenge.

00:29:34
Speaker 1: So of course it's awesome to have Ben Badler on from Baseball America as we're wrapping up this edition of The Hammer Territory, which has been a great addition with Ben Badler, also want to point out Baseball America has released their top thirty prospects for each of the teams, and if you look below, we have a promotion going on right now through Foul Territory. If you use the promo code Hammer thirty with the QR code that you see on the screen here on YouTube, you'll get thirty percent off your first year of annual subscription. Some of the most well known names when it comes to prospect coverage at Baseball America, Ben Badler me and among the best of them. You'll get all his great content as well, so make sure you take advantage of that special offer. Blow Ben before we before we end this edition with you of the Hammer Territory podcast, just a couple of quick lightning round questions if you don't mind. The first one that I'll ask is, Okay, we know Drake Baldwin. You know, we know Nacho Alvarez as well. We've talked about some of the more high ceiling, lower level prospects. Could you give me a name or two position prospect wise in the Brave system that you feel could have a kind of breakout season where they may not necessarily become a top prospect in baseball, but they could work themselves into relevancy when it comes to the Brave systems. Just one or two position prospects that you have your eye on that you feel could take a big step this year.

00:30:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know, Carlos Colaza does are Braves top thirty and I know he got a lot of good feedback on John Gill.

00:30:56
Speaker 5: He was in that twenty twenty three Braves class. Those that was the year was was the year they signed Guanipa.

00:31:04
Speaker 4: He had a nice year for himself in in the Florida Complex League last season as an eighteen year old. So somebody where you know the swing seems like it works really well.

00:31:15
Speaker 5: Uh, performed well.

00:31:17
Speaker 4: Made a lot of contact, showed an idea. The strike zone didn't show a lot of power, but he can really run too. I mean, he's a plus plus runner, a lot of a lot of tools, or at least you know, it's certainly the run tool, and then the offensive performances is pretty promising early for a guy in the lower levels. He's a he's a pretty intriguing name to keep an eye on that, you know. Obviously, you know, I love international prospects, but he was a name that really once Carlos did a lot more work on him, him to pop a lot more than I realized.

00:31:49
Speaker 1: Next, talking about the next wave of arms in the Brave system, you know, and we'll get to the Waldrip and Smith, Shover and and others, and Kim Cammanditty will put in that group as well. Kind of the same perspective. A name that you feel, a name or two that you feel you know could really step up and emerges that next really intriguing Braves arm in their system. You know. Swelling Back of course had a better season than anybody could have thought at the major's last year, But in terms of the miners who could kind of be the breakout, you know, a name when it comes to the mound for the Braves this season to the minors.

00:32:22
Speaker 4: I have some of it is just gonna get be some some of these guys back and healthy again, right, like an Owen Murphy or some of these other guys who just missed some time.

00:32:31
Speaker 5: But I think Diddy or Flintes.

00:32:34
Speaker 4: Ray Hand, a pitcher who they signed out a Columbia a few years back, hit a nice year for himself. A ton of strikeouts. It was up to ninety seven miles an hour. Feel for for a slide, right, there's nothing nothing to wipe out there, but still really strong performance this year. And he just the way he throws, like the fastball seems to play up and gets on hitter as faster than they're expecting. So they for the year that he just had as an eighteen year old basically you know, same age as what like a or eighteen nineteen years old last year, that was pretty impressive. So I'm he's somebody I've I've definitely got my eye on to see what he what he does this year.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: And then the final question I have Ben is going to center on the two top arms Hirst and Waldrip as well as aj Smith Shover Waldrip, you know got roughed up in his debut last year, smith Shover, we were really hoping he was going to get an extended look, but of course had the oblique injury after what was a pretty good debut last year in Chicago. Schwellenbach had a great year last year. Looks like a fixture of the rotation moving forward hopefully. What are your thoughts on Waldrop and smith Shov Do you feel if given the opportunity, they may be able to make their mark and cement their place in the Rays rotation moving forward? What are your thoughts on either one of them becoming a significant contributor at the majors this season?

00:33:59
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean still get good reports on smith Shov's stuff. I think he's he has the stuff to be and just the overall profile to be a pretty solid back of the rotation type starter. Hursted Waldrop man, it was a tough.

00:34:15
Speaker 5: Year for him.

00:34:17
Speaker 4: We were some people were extremely high on him, uh coming out of the draft, and he just didn't any you know, move fast initially, but uh, yeah, it was rough. I think more than likely probably ends up in in a bullpen roll, but I certainly wouldn't put him into that spot quite yet.

00:34:37
Speaker 5: At least at.

00:34:38
Speaker 4: Least not full time. So more more optimistic right now about Smith Schavor than than north Waldrop.

00:34:46
Speaker 2: All right, Ben, we're gonna get you out of here with this one. And this is one. This is one I've actually wanted to ask.

00:34:51
Speaker 3: Somebody to like you in your position for a couple of years now, because this was a big topic around the CBA time when they were negotiating the new CBA and there was all this talk about the domestic draft versus an international draft, about how players come into the game, how we want all players to come into the game the same way. And obviously the domestic or the international draft did not happen. It's almost certainly going to come up every CBA that we have going forward. There's nobody that has a better perspective on this concept than you do, in my opinion, So I just want to get your opinion. How do you feel like international free agency as a whole? How do you feel like it's gone? Do you like the bonus system? Do you feel like a draft is inevitable?

00:35:33
Speaker 2: Would you prefer a draft?

00:35:35
Speaker 3: Just from your perspective, kind of a zoomed out, thirty thousand foot look over the entire sport. With the way these guys come into the sport, how do you feel like it should be? Do you like the way it is or do you see a draft coming down the line?

00:35:47
Speaker 5: Yeah?

00:35:48
Speaker 4: I mean generally speaking, I'm pro freedom right, pro freedom for players, pro freedom for teams. So I like the part I like about international free agency is that players have the ability to go to all thirty teams and make a decision. I mean, they can't just choose whoever they want to sign with, right, but they have the ability.

00:36:08
Speaker 5: They're not limited just.

00:36:09
Speaker 4: Negotiating with one team whatever team drafts them, right, So they have more freedom to go where they want to go and the team's the same way. They can go out and compete. There's all thirty teams have the ability to go out and sign you know, whoever the next you know. I don't always say Ronaldlecunya maybe not a good example because he wasn't a big bonus guy, but Vladimir Guerrero Junior, right, Julio Rodriguez, any big bonus player, any team can go out and sign those guys if if they want to put their whole bonus pool or compete to sign them, they can go do that if you want to go and beat other teams to sign that player. I like that competitive aspect where everybody's on a roughly equal playing field. Obviously, the smaller market, smaller revenue teams have a little bit more bonus pool money to start in their bonus pool, but everybody can go out and compete and sign players.

00:37:06
Speaker 5: Well.

00:37:07
Speaker 4: One of the bad parts of the system that's really broken right now is just how early these players are committing to sign with teams, or you have teams making agreements to sign players when they're thirteen years old, which means really means the players are getting scouted when they're you know, especially starting when they're twelve years old, and the trainers are getting these players into their programs even younger and trying to get them ready earlier and earlier to go to showcases and go to workouts and just to be ready if you can even call it, being ready to be seen by MLB clubs when they're thirteen years old. So that part is, you know, there are very few people, whether it's on the club side or on the trainer side of the people are developing and representing the players who who are in favor of keeping this this type of system in place. So certainly where a draft would help things is it would it would slow everything down, right, It would not be you know, not have these super early commitments. You just can't do that in a draft. So I think that would be a benefit of the draft. But as far as having like you know, well, there's a draft in the States, so there should be a draft internationally so everybody comes through the same system, I don't know that that that that.

00:38:26
Speaker 5: That argument's never really swayed me much.

00:38:30
Speaker 4: I mean, there's just two very different ways that players are developed and that teams are scouting and evaluating uh players in Latin America compared to the United States, where everything is so much more organized between high school baseball, college baseball, junior college baseball. There's just it's a lot different in in Latin America. So I don't think just because we have a draft in the United States means we need to have the same thing internationally. I think there are good arguments in favor of a draft, but certainly there will be things that would both both the teams and the player side would would lose if we went to a draft too.

00:39:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, let's be honest, drafts. Owners love drafts.

00:39:18
Speaker 3: Because they control costs, right, That's the whole point is it suppresses salaries, that controls cost So Yeah, like.

00:39:28
Speaker 2: I love, I do.

00:39:30
Speaker 3: I do understand the argument for wanting everybody international domestic to come through the same way.

00:39:35
Speaker 2: But I'm with you.

00:39:37
Speaker 3: I just I love the fact that these kids can kind of choose where they go, and I wish domestic kids got the same. I would love for domestic kids to have the same, you know option where they get to negotiate with twenty five teams and pick the best one. I would much rather do that than do an international draft. But I'll be honest, it feels I don't know if it feels inevitable, but owners love controlling costs so much much.

00:40:00
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like it might be coming at some point, But.

00:40:04
Speaker 3: I very much appreciate your perspective on it because obviously that I don't think there's anybody that knows more about it than you do.

00:40:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and absolutely, and that's why we enjoy talking with Ben second straight year. Ben has been kind enough to join us. If it works out to where we can make this an annual event, it would be something that we very much look forward to doing. But of course a couple more things again below. Make sure you check out the QR code below thirty percent off your first year of annual of any annual subscription through Baseball America. Their top thirty prospects are out, You'll get thirty percent off using the promo code Hammer thirty.

00:40:39
Speaker 5: Ben.

00:40:40
Speaker 1: Please, by all means, promote any work that you have coming up. I know you've already done a lot of legwork in the month of January, but anything that that that the listeners are, you know, just in general can look forward to, you know, through that be a subscription with Baseball America.

00:40:55
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks guys.

00:40:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you said, we got our top thirties up right now, our top one hundred, and you know we can those updated throughout the year. So pretty much every month during the season, we've got a whole team working to make sure that we're keeping both our top one hundred and as well as our top thirties consistently updated. Because we're always getting feedback from from the scouting community, from from teams to make sure we keep our rankings up to date. That's been a really big emphasis for us over the last couple of years.

00:41:24
Speaker 5: Both of us.

00:41:25
Speaker 3: I think you guys are the only ones that I don't want. I think you guys are the only ones that do that that update, that are consistently updating your list as you would get new information. That's what I appreciate much. But most about I have a Baseball american'scription. That's what I appreciate most about it is you guys are constantly constantly updating stuff.

00:41:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, because it would you know, it would just frustrate us internally. Even we're you know, a few years ago with trades would be happening and people say, oh, they traded for the numbers eighteen Baseball America prospecting the Braves top thirty. Well no, now this guy is actually like number you should be number four if we had updated. But so now we're just saying, Aris, we'll just update it faster. So hell, we'll just we'll be crazy people and putting all the work to do that, and obviously all the work that Carlos does on are keeping our draft rankings updated as well, so in addition to all the international stuff too. So hopefully something for everybody if you're interested in everything prospect really and hopefully we've got something something for you guys.

00:42:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't want to put words in your mouth or speak for you, Ben, but I imagine with the work that you do for as long as you've done it, and the high quality of work that you do, it's just a pure love for baseball and that's why we're all here to talk about it and you know what makes the most of it. But being I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us, especially you know in the midst of you know, one of the busier times in the year for you. You can follow Ben at Ben Badler on x slash Twitter, but please make sure you follow him and do all this great work. Ben, Thank you again so much for your time.

00:42:51
Speaker 5: Absolutely thanks for having me on guys.

00:42:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can buy myself at Stat's sac And I know you can't see it, but Steven tober is at b Underscore Outliers on Twitter slash x. Foul Territory across all forms of social media. Hammer Territory across all forms of social media. So proud to be a part of the foul Territory family of podcasts. And like we told you, we're always going to deliver content from great sources like Ben all the way down to discussing a slow off season for the Braids. But until next time for Ben Badler and Steven Talbert, my named Sean Coleman Go Braids will talk to you again here on the Daily Hammer.