Konnor Griffin debut preview w/Baseball America’s JJ Cooper, Prospect extensions, 2016 Top 10 revisited

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Baseball America editor in chief JJ Cooper joining us right now. Of perfect timing, We arranged having JJ on the show before we learned the news of Connor Griffin, and we love how that works out. So happy Connor Griffin news day to you, Jj. And then we're excited to see him in his debut. So let's start with the good stuff in terms of the projections, the scouting profile, everything tell us how excited fans in baseball should be to watch the next supposed great star in our game.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: So if Strasburg's rival of straspis, I guess.

00:00:32
Speaker 3: This is Connor Griffin, Eve, and I kind of think that this might be the most anticipated debut of a true prospect since maybe Strasburg. Now you could say Showyotani, but showy Otani was coming over, you know, yes, he was coming up from the minor leagues technically as internationally ad but you know all that, But he was, I mean, he was fully formed. Connor Griffin is arriving as the number one prospect in baseball. A guy who can run, this is almost anyone can throw as hard as almost anyone, can hit the ball as hard as almost anyone. And by the way, also has the fourth best betting average career betting average of the Minor League since twenty ten. So like, there's just so many things here. And by the way, this first teenager position player to reach the major since Wan Soto in twenty eighteen. There's just so many things stacking up here.

00:01:20
Speaker 4: Oh yeah.

00:01:21
Speaker 3: Also, he makes the Pirates much more interesting and probably much better. I like the little segment that Bucco Territory did there where they just have talked about how this is the team that needs a shortstop. The thing I like about this is I think the message that the Pirates will have, the message they'll have to Connor Griffin is play defense, run, hit the ball hard. There's gonna be some growing pains here, but you're gonna make this team better while you're kind of adjusting to the major leagues because he is a big league shortstop and they needed one of those.

00:01:53
Speaker 5: All right, JJY, Very happy for the Pirates, Very happy for Connor Griffin.

00:01:58
Speaker 4: What happened in the week, What happened actually was less than a week.

00:02:01
Speaker 5: What happened in the five days he was in trimpat Man Like, he went down there and got hot, guys, Let's call him up now, like, what besides the fact that they want to sell tickets for opening day, besides the fact that they wanted people excited for their home opener, besides the fact that we all know he's going to sign an extension, not the day of, but it'll be a few days. Dall, he's probably aready agreed to it. They're keeping that quiet. What happened in those five days.

00:02:25
Speaker 3: He did at four thirty eight, so maybe that maybe he did play good defense at short stuff. But no, I think that this does feel like we've seen a couple of these.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: I feel like now where it's like, oh, we're starting on the road.

00:02:35
Speaker 3: We I don't The funny thing is, I don't even think it sells more tickets though, Like if Connor Griffin had made his debut on the road, I still think Pirates fans would absolutely be like, I want to be there for Connor Griffin's first home game. It is odd because I don't know, you know, maybe they tone down the hype ten percent by not having him on the opening day roster maybe, but it doesn't really change much of anything he does. You know, he's still eligible for a PPI pick. As you noticed, you know, as you noted their AJ like, you can't sign an extension before he makes his major league debut and be eligible for a Performance Prospect Performance Incentive pick. So if you want to win that pick by having him be rook of the Year or finish high in MVP voting in the next couple of years.

00:03:20
Speaker 2: Got hold off on that extension.

00:03:22
Speaker 4: But yeah, but the point, that's the point JJ.

00:03:26
Speaker 5: They gotta wait because he can't sign extension before he gets to the big league. So now they're gonna call him up and then they're gonna wait a couple of days.

00:03:33
Speaker 4: Sorry, that's that's it's just all too convenient.

00:03:36
Speaker 3: They're gonna see him arrive in Pittsburgh and then they're going, oh, this guy's really good, maybe we should sign him to extension.

00:03:42
Speaker 2: That's how it's gonna work at j. You know, they're gonna they're gonna come.

00:03:45
Speaker 3: To their real their realization after they see him in Pittsburgh that they now feel like he might be worth an extension.

00:03:51
Speaker 6: All right, Well that's fair.

00:03:52
Speaker 2: I'm glad.

00:03:53
Speaker 6: I'm glad that his first games has so much pressure on it that he could make one hundred and thirty million dollars if he has a good first game. But I want to go back to last year, his first full season in professional baseball, Connor Griffin played fifteen games in the outfield. Was that a misjudgment by the Pirates in the sense of, well, you know, we just don't know where he's going to be defensively, or was it kind of like a Bryce Harper type of situation where they're like, we put him in the outfield easier to learn he'll be in the big league sooner because of how much we like his bat.

00:04:32
Speaker 3: I think it was a little bit more of the second. Like, the funny thing is is that this time last year we really were coming off of a spring training where Connor Griffin almost all his games with the big league club. Last year, in spring training, we're in the outfield. And by the way, this is kind of a you know, rich prospect problems here, because if Connor Griffin was in center field, I promise you right now we say that the Pirates have a hole at shortstop. If Connor Griffin was in center starting in center field tomorrow, he would vastly make the Pirates defense better. Because we have seen O'Neil Cruz in centerfield. Connor Griffin is a potentially Gold Glove center fielder if that was where he was going to play. I think they actually did, though kind of have a little bit of ambiguity about that, and then as he played, he kind of just showed like, no, this is a shortstop and kind of goes back to that old kind of Hey, as good as a center fielder, great defensive center fielder is if you got the short stop, you got the short stop, and they needed a guy like this. I do think that he's actually gotten even a little bit better this year at short stop. Just watching his you know eight I think he made twelve thirteen plays at shortstop over those those five games at Triple A. He's showing a little bit more kind of the savvy that you see that you want to see from a short stop. There was a play where he went kind of his backhand was about to rush it, then looked over, realized how slow the runner was running, and just kind of geared down and just kind of made an easy throw. Those kind of things that you're seeing a little bit of that polish get at it now that we weren't seeing at the start of last year.

00:06:00
Speaker 2: Year.

00:06:01
Speaker 6: Defensively, you have to be a big league shortstop to play in the big leagues. And what I mean is guys can play shortstop, but you have to be a big league shortstop. If he never wins a Gold Glove, is it going to be a failure as a as a Baseball America diagnosing him as a ridiculous defender, or is his ceiling really just an above average big league shortstop?

00:06:29
Speaker 3: I would say his ceiling is Gold Glove caliber, but I would say it's more likely that he's just above average, right, I think his ceiling is there, like because he does have a cannon of an arm.

00:06:39
Speaker 2: He is athletic.

00:06:40
Speaker 3: He does for a guy who's I really keep using the comp It's kind of true, Like it's kind of a Mic Trout body, but if Mike Trout didn't move to the outfield. Mike Trout played shortstop some in high school, but like that kind of body, but with enough agility, enough quick enough first step to work. But if you said, like, is he going to be the rangiest shortstop in the major leagues, it's hard to believe he'll be that over that kind of you know, cat quick, kind of more traditional type of shortstop. But when you throw in the arm, when you throw in the savvy I will say, like one thing that he's gonna do much like we've seen with Elie de la Cruz. He's that shortstop who if the ball's hit over his head. Well, for one, if I'm an outfielder, I'm watching out because if he runs over me, he may kill me because he's that big. But if he sees that ball kind of in that that that Bermuda triangle like beyond behind the third basement in front of the you know, the the left fielder, he can make that play that not a whole lot of guys can make. He tracks balls in the air really well. He does have the arm. If there's gonna be a little bit of issues early on, I would say, again, there's range there, but I don't think he's going to be exceptional range. I don't think that he's gonna make the play up the middle and the play deep in the whole time after time.

00:07:54
Speaker 2: But there is that potential. He's still a teenager.

00:07:59
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00:08:57
Speaker 4: It's blue Choo. Let's not sell anyone short. Okay. Let's make sure that we don't sell anyone short, all right.

00:09:05
Speaker 5: So Connor Griffin is going to be a stud and I'm happy for Pittsburgh and their fans and for Connor Griffin once he signs that extension, once they see him put on the big league uniform, because they haven't talked about it yet and they haven't eything close to tea. Nope, exactly, yep, exactly. We haven't heard anything about him signing extension. I want to go to the other two guys, the prospects of signed extension, Emerson and Cooper Pratt.

00:09:26
Speaker 4: First of all, I'd never heard of Cooper Pratt.

00:09:27
Speaker 5: I'd obviously heard of Emerson before because of the Mariners and he was their top prospect. What do these two guys bring to the table, and what are the Mariners and the Brewers seeing these guys that would allow them to sign both these guys to big extensions before they've even really come close to the big leagues.

00:09:43
Speaker 3: So Emerson is our number seven prospect in the game. I would say that he's you know, again, he's not as fast moving as Connor Griffin, A few, very few players are, but he is kind of still on the very much the fast track. I mean, the Mariners have been pretty open about saying that they expect him to be their third baseman before too.

00:10:01
Speaker 2: Long this year.

00:10:02
Speaker 3: He's a very well rounded player.

00:10:06
Speaker 2: Again, it's hard.

00:10:07
Speaker 3: We just talked about Connor Griffin and we also have Kevin McGonagall, j Jo Weatherhold who I think are exceptional prospects as well. I would put Emerson in that next tier below that. That doesn't mean he's not going to be a very very good player. I mean he could be a star. I just don't think that he has that one like Connor Griffin could be, you know, the fastest dude who hits the ball, the.

00:10:25
Speaker 2: Furthest all those things.

00:10:27
Speaker 3: McGonagall and weather Hold are probably going to be two of the better hitters in the major leagues by you know, this year, by next year, I would say Emerson kind of fits more in that well rounded where he's going to provide defensive value.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: He's going to hit for average, he's gonna hit for power. He's going to be a cornerstone.

00:10:43
Speaker 3: He should be a cornerstone for the Mariners. And that contract kind of shows that, Like again, he's giving up potentially some money down the road.

00:10:51
Speaker 2: Obviously, you don't sign one.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: Of these contracts where if you hit on everything that they hope you'll hit on, that you're going to end up still making every bit of that, giving up on a couple of years of free agency that he could be a very young MLB free agent long based down the road. But this is one of the top prospects in baseball. The Pratt extension, I do think is a little bit kind of more interesting, more unusual, I would say, from the standpoint of we have him as our number fifty prospects in the game, and that obviously means it's one of the best prospects in baseball. But the number fifty prospect in a top ten prospect are two very different things. A top ten prospect had a piece up at Baseball America about this recently. A top ten prospect means that we expect there's kind of almost like a coin flip chance that you're going to be a star.

00:11:34
Speaker 2: You're going to be one of the best players in baseball. Top fifty prospect.

00:11:38
Speaker 3: Some of those end up being stars, a lot of them end up being solid regulars, but a lot of them don't pan out. Pratt is kind of he's still young as a high school pick, kind of guy fell in the draft but quickly showed very savvy, can really hit all those batting average last year in the Southern League may not have shown that. And good defender, you know, should be a very valuable in fielder, shortstop who could play second or third as well. But what he doesn't have is he doesn't have power yet. Maybe that'll come. And the batting average again there, even though we think and scouts really like his hit tool, there may be a little bit more uncertainty with that because he did hit I think two thirty four last year in the Southern League. That's one where the Brewers clearly believe in him. Pratt is a top prospect, but there's a little bit more risk to that one, I would say on the Brewers side. That's also why the number that he signed for is significantly less than cold Emerson's.

00:12:31
Speaker 2: It's still fifty million dollars.

00:12:32
Speaker 6: And this is a perfect transition into your list of the twenty sixteen top ten. Now I didn't go to your list. I went to Major League Baseball's list for number fifty in twenty sixteen, ten years ago, and it's Wilson Contreras. So had a team given fifty million dollars to Wilson Contreras, it would have been major value. But let's talk about that group, that list of top ten from twenty sixteen and where they are now and how much you expected those guys to be able to do that.

00:13:06
Speaker 3: So that's funny, now, I'm going to probably try to call up our all time fifties and when we do this, but yes, like I would say that with this, like you look at our top ten there and I would say, what you see with this is is again we do not say that every top ten prospects going to hit. And I would say that you would say there, and you say, Alex Reyes, you know, pictures to throw hard and get hurt are a challenge. Orlando Arcia obviously is a guy who's been a solid big leaguer, but he's been less than you would expect for a top ten prospect. And Joey Gallo had an early kind of uh, you know, peak and then it kind of tailed off pretty quickly.

00:13:39
Speaker 2: The guy does have a ton of always had a ton of strikeouts.

00:13:41
Speaker 3: But I would say overall, you look at that list and you say it that Cory Seeger skipped a lot of very good players skipped on.

00:13:49
Speaker 4: You skipped one, You skipped number four one, number.

00:13:52
Speaker 3: Four huliar Urius was a really good picture until you know, off the field legal issues and all.

00:13:59
Speaker 5: But you guys don't include those. You don't include those in your prospect rankings.

00:14:02
Speaker 4: JJ, we we.

00:14:04
Speaker 3: Do, but they are hard to fully evaluate. You know, it's hard to wake up. That's a great point, you know, but hey, some guys who you know, you hear makeups obviously makeups very difficult to evaluate. And you know, Urius was a guy who is a sixteen year old was considered to be advanced enough to go to the Midwest League at an age where no one gets to go there, and then you know, down the road he was a very good pitcher, even in the postseason and then but he was one of the players who where the legal issues are such that he essentially just kind of disappeared from Major League Baseball almost like that because of that. But I think that that's a good way, a good useful way to lay out, like place the piece I did yesterday kind of you could say, like, Okay, why are they giving Cooper pro or let's say, especially cold Emerson, Why are they giving cold Emerson this much money?

00:14:52
Speaker 2: He hasn't proven that he can play in the big leagues.

00:14:54
Speaker 3: And the piece that I kind of tried to lay out yesterday is is that's true, but they feel pretty good about the likelihood that he's going to be a long term productive regular even if he doesn't have that MLB you know that astis by his name where you could say he's already a big leaguer. But the other part of this is is I think that the way just our brains work, if he had been up for a year and gets his extension and then it all falls apart, it'd be like, oh, well, that wasn't surprising. He showed that he could do it, and then what happened, Like I used an example, Yesterdy Johnson, India was the National League Rookie of the Year not that many years ago, and he had a great season that year and he was twenty four years old. And if you saw that season, you would say, oh, this is what he should be able to do or something like this for the next five, six, seven years. And that's been the best season of India's career. That was his highest in batting average, on base percentage, lugging percentage, home runs, you know, war any way you want to look at it, he was at his best as a rookie.

00:15:55
Speaker 2: And but you wouldn't look at that.

00:15:56
Speaker 3: And say, you know, if they'd assigned him to an extension, it would have been oh, it's just pointing that his production tailed off, but it wouldn't be because he was unproven, because he had already proved it. He'd already had success at the big league level. Colt Emerson may not have had success at the big league level, but when you look at what he's done in the minors, when you look at the evaluations of him, there's a pretty good likelihood. Much like we talk about these Connor Griffins and Kevin mcgonagall's and jj Weatherolds, there's a likelihood that this guy is going to be a long term productive regular because most guys who are top ten prospects, especially at this age, most of them end up being long term productive regulars or better.

00:16:36
Speaker 1: And that is why you make these moves now, so that when they hit, you save a ton of money. That is the whole point, and the player gets rich right away. So it's good math.

00:16:47
Speaker 3: Could I just point out with that, like to AJ's point, like with this extension that you know they're not talking about yet, but that they will maybe bring, you know, broach with Connor Griffin once he's approven big leaguer. But this is kind of a problem, I think for the MLBA in the long run because on the individual player side, these deals make a ton of sense.

00:17:05
Speaker 2: If the Pirates are going to pay.

00:17:07
Speaker 3: Connor Griffin, let's say one hundred and thirty million dollars Roman Anthony type contract, it's really hard to turn that down because you've got one career and yes, you may be sacrificing hitting free agency as a twenty six year old a la Juan Soto, but you're also going to be not you're just you're going to be rich, but your grandkids will be rich because of that deal. That's something that's a little difficult for that. You don't get as many of these kind of reset the market free agent deals. Reset the market arbitration moves when these players, these stars get locked up so early.

00:17:42
Speaker 2: In their careers.

00:17:43
Speaker 3: And I don't know what the real answer is that for if you're the PA and you want to see these, you know, record free agent deals, that kind of then move the entirety of the market. Connor Griffin is the kind of guy who, if he doesn't sign extension, could be the next like, oh, this is the record breaking contract, but this would probably if he extends, they'll probably buy out that age twenty six, eight, twenty seven, maybe age twenty eight year where you're going to be a much smaller contract with twenty nine year old free agent doesn't make the same as a twenty six or a twenty seven year old free agent star right.

00:18:15
Speaker 2: Salary good point, J.

00:18:17
Speaker 5: Salary cap is the answer to everything that solved the world problems. Salary cap just just salary cap. And by the way, also what you just said is one hundred percent true. How do you tell a nineteen year old kid, hey, here's one hundred and thirty million. Man, I really hope those first couple of days of him in the big leagues go well, because if it don't go well, he's not going to sign that extension.

00:18:36
Speaker 4: And if he does go well, he'll get that extension.

00:18:38
Speaker 5: So, man, I'm hoping and praying for Connor Griffin that he gets his first day goes really well.

00:18:43
Speaker 4: So they can announce that this I mean so they can offer him an extension.

00:18:46
Speaker 2: Hopefully the first five days go as well as that five days in Triple A. Did that should ready for the big leagues?

00:18:53
Speaker 5: Imagine if they go as well as in Triple A, they might have to double that contract offer.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: I can see the documentary One Day one changes everything.

00:19:01
Speaker 2: JJ.

00:19:02
Speaker 1: Thank you appreciate it. That's JJ Cooper from Baseball America. Hot Sheet is the show that you can catch him on, among other shows of course, on the Baseball America YouTube channel Baseball America podcasts the channel as well. Subscribe to it. Ap Sheet airs Tuesday's three PM Easter right after FT Live.

00:19:24
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