00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Future Projection. This is episode 212 of the show. This is a Baseball America podcast. I'm Carlos Glazo, as always, joined by Ben Badler. What's up, Ben? How are you?
00:00:12
Speaker 2: Good. Tis the season for multiple screens, Carlos. I had multiple playoff games going at once the other day. It was MLB playoff baseball. I had U15.
00:00:24
Speaker 1: I was about to ask if you had the rainy U15 World Cup game on. That was fun.
00:00:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, USA, Dominican Republic, Angel Montas, who's going to be one of the big, I mean, literally biggest prospect. Just physically huge power, left-handed bat for 2028. International class of the DR, hits a bomb. USA pulls it off and extra innings, good game. Yeah, just... A lot of screens going on at once. I'm not usually a multi-screen guy. I like to lock in on one game, but there was a little too much going on for me.
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Speaker 1: I'm with you. I agree. If I can pick, I would rather focus on one screen, one task at a time. Otherwise, I feel like I'm not really focused on anything. But you're right. There is a ton going on right now. There's a ton going on at Baseball America. A few housekeeping notes at the start here. We do have our 2027 books on sale now. So you guys can pre-order the prospect handbook. You can pre-order the directory. You can pre-order the almanac. We do have a three book bundle where you can get a deal on those books. If you purchase them all together, if you just have a personal favorite in that grouping and you want to get onto that, you can go to store.baseballamerica.com. I will try and put the link in the show notes as well. We are busy in production for, for all those books and, At this point in time, and I know if you order directly through us, that typically is how you get it quicker. And we also do a lot of digital editions of those books if you want the physical and like a PDF version, which I particularly like because it's very easy just to search through to specific players or to specific teams. So just wanted to put a note out there about that. Today is a mailbag episode of the show. As always, you can email us at futureprojection at baseballamerica.com. At any point, if you've got a question you want to ask us about a prospect you're curious to pick our brains on, you can also reach out on social media. Those links are in the show notes like every single episode as well. But before that, Ben, you have been working on some international coverage in Alfredo Sena. Sounds like he's a guy we should know about and maybe talk about today before we get into a handful of listener questions.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he is, if you ask, I mean, I haven't asked every single international scout, but most scouts that I talk to when I ask them, who's your number one player in this class? The answer is, well, one, it's a little tough to say because a lot of them haven't seen a lot of these players in several years in some cases, but Alfredo Santa is by far the most popular answer to that question. He's a switch hitting shortstop from the Dominican Republic. If there's no international draft, which Who knows what's going to happen in this upcoming CBA. But if there's no draft, the Braves are going to sign him. Should get north of $ 5 million. He's just ultra, ultra, ultra talented. He played in the U15, the World Cup qualifier a couple of years ago for the Dominican Republic. And he was teammates with Wanda Esihen, who signed for a ton of money this year with the Mets. with Miguel Gruyon, who's an outfielder, big-time prospect for this upcoming 2027 international class, a whole bunch of other good players on that team. Francisco Renteria was on Venezuela, big-time Phillies international signing from this year, who had a great year in the DSL, is going to at least be in the top 100 conversation for us this offseason. And it was just like, By far, Saina was the best player in that tournament. He just seems like he always hits. Switch hitter, swing works well from both sides. He's a patient hitter. He was already driving the ball with really impressive bat speed and impact. That's only continued to get even better over the last couple of years as he's gotten stronger. He's not And he's not like Elie De La Cruz physically, not that kind of a freak.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a high bar to live up to if that's your bar.
00:04:47
Speaker 2: Sure. But he's like a 5'10, 5'11, guy. He's not like ultra physical or anything like that, but just really advanced in everything that he does, especially at the plate too. I mean, I think he's got a really good chance to stick it. shortstop too great arm runs well like pretty quick burst guy too maybe not to the extent of like you know a Joshua Gonzalez with the Giants but everything about him is just really really special don't see too many players come along like this where it's where people are like oh yeah no this is just obviously the guy.
00:05:31
Speaker 1: Yeah that's kind of what I wanted to ask you about is he just like a I don't know if you'd say generational, but the way you're talking about him does feel different than a typical top of the international class sort of prospect. How would you compare him to some of the better class toppers we've had in recent years? And is it more of a testament to his talent being unusual and very special or the fact that there's just a significant drop off after him or some combination of all the above?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say it's about him. He's just a really... really talented player. And we've had some really good players come up in recent years, right? I just mentioned Joshua Gonzalez signing with the Giants or you think to Leo DeVry signing with the Padres, another switch hitting shortstop, Ethan Salas signing with the Padres. There are some years where you have players like that, but he certainly fits in the very top tier group, like in that Salas, DeVry-type group. I think Saina might even have more tools than– maybe not necessarily Joshua, but then DeVry. But I think we'll end up– he'll at least be in our top 100 conversation whenever it is that he does sign.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: Our top 100 comes out right after January 15th, TBD, when these players are going to sign, so it might not be our official off-season top 100, but I think he has that kind of talent where he can jump right into that mix. We just don't do that too often, but I think he fits into that kind of group of talent.
00:07:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, he definitely sounds like an exciting player. Your report made him seem super interesting. There is also video up if you're a Braves fan or just a fan of international prospects or prospects in general. I would encourage you to check out Ben's piece on 10 of the top names to know from the 2027 class. We actually have a few questions about the international market, potential international draft in today's mailbag section. And we'll get into those questions right after this quick break. Okay, we are back. Ben, we got a few questions I feel like that makes sense to chat about today. So appreciate that from the listeners. Very timely from them. Our first is from Jimmy on Twitter who asks, what approach proves more successful historically? Spending big at the top of the class for one or two players or spreading around bonus pool money among many different players? I feel like this is the perpetual question, the annual strategy question for international scouting, international signing. I feel like there are great examples you could use to maybe make the case for either side here. But in general, do you feel like the history of the international class has maybe pointed towards one strategy being more successful than the other?
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Speaker 2: I think you can have success either way, but there just aren't that many players who are worth like going all in for, especially at the time when you're making these decisions. Right. So when teams are reaching agreements to sign players, like the very, very top end players in the class, a lot of times these, you know, the players are still 14 or often now 13 years old or even younger. So, I mean, you don't even know your bonus pool necessarily, uh, three or four years out, although you have a sense of what it's going to be. Uh, But it's hard to look at a player who's that young and now to see the size of the bonus pools to where they've grown to the top teams having $ 7 million, $ 8 million in their pool. They're just not players who are signing for $ 7 million or $ 8 million. But even let alone to say a guy is worth $ 4 million or $ 5 million is really hard to do at that age. It's really hard to do at 16 years old even when the signing age– is official for the player. But what will often happen is a player will reach an agreement and then later on, the player gets better and better and better and keeps getting better. And then the bonus ends up going up. Um, so sometimes that can swallow up at a team's entire bonus pool. And sometimes it works out, right? Like look at the blue Jay signing Vladimir Guerrero jr. Uh, or I'm sure the Padres are happy having, uh, signed Ethan Salas to all that money, uh, when they, when they signed him, um, But you can have a lot of success going the other way, too, where you're spreading it around a little bit more. I mean, even if you're, quote, unquote, spreading it around, like if you're paying a guy a $ 2 million or $ 3 million bonus, that's still going to be one of the very, very top bonuses in the class. And in terms of just your capital allocation relative to your bonus pool, if you have a $ 7 million bonus pool and you give a guy– you know, let's say three and a half million dollars, we still have 50% of your money, still have three and a half million dollars to throw around. So you can find one, you know, elite premium guy, at least in your mind when, you know, the time of the agreement, but then still have a ton of money left to spread around otherwise.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel like There have been just some significant players who come in as like, oh, this is the top guy. They signed for the biggest bonus. And then you'll look at some like lower signing who signed for less of the time and winds up being better. And then it convinces people that, oh, you definitely need to take that strategy. But your point about like, hey, there's there's no reason you can't kind of do a little bit of both here, given the amount of money you have to spend also makes sense. It's not like you have to go to one extreme. or the other. It'll be interesting to see how maneuvering money would maybe change in an international draft, how the bonus pools for that might work, and how the strategy in general will change. Related to that, we do have another question about potential.
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Speaker 2: Before you get to that, if there is an international draft, MLB would probably both hard slot the picks and allow you to trade it. It would be another interesting strategy to say, okay, Are there certain teams that say, hey, I want to trade up and try to get– maybe there's a year where there is an Alfredo Sena or somebody you want to get a top five international draft pick. Or will there be certain teams that are frequently trading down in the draft and say, hey, let's just try to get a bunch of late first round or second round picks, whatever the ultimate number ends up being and say, it's a hard slot. Let's say the third overall pick or let's say the ninth overall pick is $ 3 million. We don't see a guy there who's worth $ 3 million. There's teams right now that don't want to spend $ 3 million on their highest international signing in the bonus pool system. In a draft, why do we want to do that? No, let's trade down and try to spread our you know, spread our money and spread our picks around a little bit more. Right.
00:13:06
Speaker 1: You even see that with the domestic draft. I mean, the last few drafts we've had, the top players never are getting the assigned slot value because teams don't view those players as worth all that, that signing bonus. So under a hard slotting system, you could even see on the domestic side, that being the case as well, depending on like who's, who's at the top of any given draft class.
00:13:26
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:13:26
Speaker 1: More draft questions on the mind. We have one from Mets prospect group on Twitter who asked what team picks first in an international free agent draft, this could either be what we've maybe heard would be the process for an international free agent draft, or maybe like what we would like to see ourselves. Is it just as simple as, Hey, whoever's picking first in the domestic draft is also picking first in the international draft. Or how creative do you think MLB should or might get in this department, Ben?
00:13:57
Speaker 2: So we don't know the answer to that yet because it just hasn't been rolled out yet, right? In the last go-round, there were different proposals. I think MLB is hesitant, and I feel the same way, to give whatever team is drafting first overall in the draft in the States also the first overall draft pick. In the international draft, so we're going to reward teams doubly now for just being terrible and just tanking and not even trying to win in some cases.
00:14:36
Speaker 1: Do you think the lottery disincentivizes that enough to make that issue less of a concern? Or do you think even with the lottery and a little bit of randomization for the worst teams, you would still not want to have one team picking it first in both drafts?
00:14:52
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to have the same order. in both drafts. I don't like giving teams Do.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: You think inverting the order is too crazy? Like, hey, if you set the domestic draft order and then you could completely flip that order for the international draft. I'm sure people would complain like, hey, why if you won the World Series do you get the first pick in the international draft?
00:15:15
Speaker 2: I don't love that idea either, and I don't think MLB would want that because they like to say, oh, well, the draft is about competitive balance, so you can't really sell it as a competitive balance thing if you're given the team that just won the World Series, the first pick in the international draft, too. I mean, they've talked about different ways of doing it, like rotating by division.
00:15:39
Speaker 1: I was about to say, in the past, it used to rotate by league, the worst team had the first overall pick, right? And one year would be the American League and one year would be the National League. I'm sure that would be brought into play. I think that's super arbitrary as well. I don't know if I have a strong preference on what it should be on how you determine the order. I think the lottery is fun and interesting. There may be ways you could do like two separate lotteries maybe for the domestic draft, then you just run it back again for the international draft because you get a different order, especially if you were expanding like how many picks were actually lottery picks. I think that could be interesting as well. There are a number of different iterations that would make sense to me, both from an interest perspective, I don't really buy into the competitive balance conversation, that MLB tries to lay it out. But I think you get creative here and make it a lot of fun from a fan perspective outside of what's good for the teams.
00:16:39
Speaker 2: And you could do a separate international draft where let's say you do the draft lottery first in the States and then say, okay, whatever team picks first overall, or if you have a top three overall pick or six overall pick, whatever cutoff you want to set it at in the domestic draft, those teams are then excluded from having a top three or top six pick or whatever it is in the international draft. So there's some creative ways and there's plenty of bright people at MLB that could come up with different ways to come up with different orders for the draft.
00:17:15
Speaker 1: If you did something like that, imagine a year where it's just a really unexciting domestic draft class. There's no clear top player. And then on the international side, you have like a no doubt.
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Speaker 2: Right, right.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and everyone's hoping they don't win the lottery for the domestic draft because they just want their odds in the international draft. Stuff like that would be interesting.
00:17:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also don't think you want a situation where, okay, the White Sox get Rock Cholowski and Alfredo Santa in the same draft. Or, look, and TBD, what's going to happen with Japanese and Korean players, too? But yeah, you could have somebody, Roki Sasaki, maybe in hindsight, not a great pick to get, but like Whether it's him or Shohei Otani and Brock Chalowski or Bryce Harper, somebody like that in the same year. I guess you could turn around your franchise quicker. Maybe if you're a fan of that.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: The more we talk about it, the more I also wouldn't want the same team picking first in both drafts. Finding a way to avoid that would be more interesting and probably also more useful for the larger competitive baseball landscape.
00:18:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, let us know your ideas for how you would determine.
00:18:35
Speaker 1: I'll be curious. A good question though. Let's move on into some prospects specific questions here. We have one from Ernest on Twitter who asks any updated thoughts on Mets left-handed pitching prospect in Daviel Hurtado, my new favorite pitching prospect in their system. I think Hurtado is an interesting arm, but I have to say this is mostly initial thoughts on Hurtado for me. I was not super locked into who he was coming out of the international market. Ben, I don't know if you want to maybe refresh non-Mets fans or maybe Mets fans who are less locked into the prospect status, what Hurtado was like coming into the organization. But I did dive into just his game and his pitch mix and some of his performance in recent years. I have thoughts on him as a prospect now. But do you remember what you thought about him when he signed at the time? I believe it was in the 2023 class out of Cuba. He signed for.
00:19:29
Speaker 2: $ 500, 000. Yeah, he's just like lean, athletic, left-hander, liked the way he moved on the mound. He was 18 years old at the time, but just fast arm, low to mid-90s, up to 96, some feel for for what he was doing in terms of manipulating his breaking stuff just pitch ability $ 500, 000 signing so you don't barely see too many pitchers signing for significant bonuses like that so he's definitely one of the top arms when he signed with the Mets it's just kind of you know a little slower progression for him uh i guess but.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah so the last two years for him have actually been really impressive though he still is playing in the lower minors like you said in 2025 um this was like his first full pro season he pitched between the fcl and low a he made 12 starts appeared in 18 games and through 65.2 innings so a solid chunk of time for a young pitcher he posted 2.06 era The strikeout rate he had over the course of that year was 27.6%, 8.8% walk rate. He did level up in 2026 in his age 21 season. He spent, I think it was four games in low A, and then the rest of the season was at high A Brooklyn for him. And again, it was very solid. 18 starts, 21 games total, 86 innings, and a 2.93 ERA score. He's continuing to strike out a respectable amount of batters. He had a 25.9% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate. And when you look at him on the mound, it is a very clean, easy operation and delivery. This is the sort of like starter look I feel like that you see on the mound just with how he works mechanically and the strikes that he throws. I would say I am a bit skeptical of like the amount of swing and miss he's going to continue to have. at higher levels. Right now, he's throwing an average fastball velocity-wise. He's sitting right at 93, 94 miles per hour. I think it was 93.3 in 2026, which that number for a left-handed starter in the majors is average velocity. But I think there are some movement and release questions that I would have beyond the velocity with that pitch that would make me wonder, okay, is he going to continue missing bats? He doesn't have elite extension. He doesn't have elite movement. It's not a great swing and miss pitch like in a vacuum currently. Although maybe he does have the sort of command to allow it to be effective enough to set up his secondaries, which have been kind of the pitches he's going to more often for swings and misses. He throws a slider in the mid to upper 80s. He throws a curveball around 80 miles per hour. He has a changeup. He doesn't use it a ton. And I know when he signed, There were some exciting thoughts about what those breaking balls could be. Still, with those pitches, I'm probably a little bit more skeptical of what they might be at higher levels. Neither are super high spin pitches. They don't seem to have elite snapping bite or break. But again, maybe he's just one of these guys who the command is so good that he can get by with a collection of solid average pitches. I don't see anything plus here. and I would like to see him get a little bit more physical and maybe add some more power to help improve each of those pitches. Do you have any additional thoughts on that, Ben? That's kind of how I'm viewing him now. I don't think of him as this impact starter, but I could see him continuing to pitch like this and being sort of a safe back-of-the-rotation pitchability type who gets by with a number of solid pitches.
00:23:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, famous last words, safe back-of-the-rotation arm for me. Yeah, I think he's going to pitch in the big leagues. I don't know what role or what level of impact it's going to be, but I think he's going to end up pitching in the big leagues. I'm with you.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: I would like to.
00:23:40
Speaker 2: See another gear to come from his stuff.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: Right.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: It's hard to bet on that. It also wouldn't surprise me to see it coming because I think there is still some upside for him to get stronger. It just hasn't really come since he signed a few years back.
00:23:58
Speaker 1: Right. He's still very lean. I don't know enough about his physical progression over the years to say whether it just hasn't come yet or if he's the type of player who you're like, he's probably never going to be super big. You don't always have to be super physical and big to add stuff. We've seen plenty of lean, lanky guys who just never get bigger, but the arm speed is good enough where they make mechanical tweaks and just optimize what they do have to make strides. But I do think I would like to see kind of another gear, either from the fastball or from one of the secondaries or from multiple of the secondaries. The one thing I do like about what he does overall, though, is he throws a ton of strikes and he generates a lot of ground balls. And if you're not going to be an elite swing and miss pitcher, I think putting the ball on the ground a ton and really limiting the walks does allow a path to say, hey, like this was never a super high profile sort of arm, a guy with elite pure stuff. There are pitchers like this who become effective big leaguers because they can mix and match. They can throw strikes. They drive a lot of ground balls. I think there is a path to big league value here, even if he doesn't, but I would be a lot more excited if he did find a little bit more power somehow. Yeah, I agree.
00:25:12
Speaker 2: He throws a lot of strikes. Delivery is good. It's like a starter-ish type look, but also maybe that extra year comes in short stints as a lefty coming out of a bullpen too where it's like okay now this stuff plays up a little bit more because he's able to throw everything including his breaking balls with a little bit more power and that plays up a little bit out of the bullpen even though i don't look at him as like okay this guy's got to move into a bullpen because he's like herky jerky and efforty right all that it just might end up playing better in that role but i would obviously keep him as a starter all the way through at this point up until like you know you have to make a decision once it gets to the big leagues.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: Right, yeah. And to your point, he has had success in his role as a starter in the minor leagues so far. So until he stops having that success, it does make little sense to me to take him out of that role. I also think it's a good point you make too. Some of the guys who look like this and look starter-ish also still might wind up being better in a bullpen role because their stuff can just play up a little bit. Okay, that's all I had on Hurtado. Great question there. We got another one from Ben on Twitter who asks, how did Daniel Pierce's underlying data look before his injury? What level do you anticipate him starting next season? So Daniel Pierce, 2025, first overall pick by the Rays, 14th overall, signed for $ 4. 3 million. He was a really exciting prospect coming out of Georgia. I thought the secondary tools were really, loud for him as a draft prospect. I was a little bit more skeptical of just like what he was going to do offensively. Um, he had a great spring kind of launched up draft boards. And I would say that his, so in low a this year, 34 games, age 19 season, he had two 52, three 36, three 90. Um, that's good for like a 100 WRC plus at that level for home run six deals, 28.6% strikeout rate, 7.9%. walk rate if you were hoping to see maybe encouraging signs under the hood from a batted ball perspective I don't know that I have the numbers to give you that I feel like everything that we have makes me even more kind of concerned about the sort of hitter that Daniel Pierce was before the injury there was a lot of swing and miss he had below average in zone miss rates he had below average miss rates overall he had below average swing decisions in terms of like how often he was expanding the zone And he didn't really back that up with like super exciting exit velocity data for his age either. So like across the board, probably a bit underwhelming offensively. If you were like a like Daniel Pierce is going to be this impact player, maybe get to like solid or better offensive upside. I guess a lot of this depends on like what your expectations were for Daniel Pierce offensively. But I do think there are some there's some current concerns I would have. About the sort of hitter he's going to be for all. I really love him defensively and as a runner. What are your thoughts, Ben?
00:28:18
Speaker 2: I was more skeptical of the pick at the time that it was made. I think that It was, I don't think it also wasn't viewed as like a stretch or a reach or a mile, but just within the industry.
00:28:31
Speaker 1: We ranked him 24th overall. So we went like slightly higher, but in that range on the board, like that's not a, that's not like a crazy reach at all. Like you said, we had him ranked as a first round pick. He went in that range.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. It, it, look, he's a really good defender. A lot of really strong defensive tools, especially at a premium position. And there was talk about how he had, you know, his offensive game had taken a leap forward. over the spring, um, wasn't, wasn't in line with what I had seen, um, from him previously. So I just was, you know, especially like if you're going to draft a shortstop there, you know, high school guy, case in Cunningham was right there or Merrick Houston, your guy, if you want to go with a college route, um, certainly some other good players just looking right down the board at like a Andrew Fisher or a Tate South, the scene drafted right after. So, Yeah, everything you said about some of the swing and miss concerns and some of the tendencies that he has at the plate, expanding the strike zone without huge power to go with. with it. I think that's all accurate. At the same time, in fairness, he got, what, 140 plate appearances this year, so not a huge sample.
00:29:51
Speaker 1: That's his only pro experience so far, so it's not like.
00:29:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't want to go overboard on it. At the same time, the general things he saw and the trends and just what we saw in a abbreviated pro debut not it's not arrow up right no.
00:30:09
Speaker 1: No i wouldn't think so yeah i'm trying to see if there are any other players like irish going behind him in that draft is one that jumps out to me for like where i was viewing players at the time um jace laviolette preseason although i think where he went makes sense yeah i think you could you could rationalize some other guys ahead but We don't have to get too hindsight-y right now, but I do still like Daniel Pierce as a prospect. Like Ben was saying, he does have really exciting defensive tools. He's a great runner. He's a really strong athlete in the field. Watching him play defense is exciting, but hopefully he can stay healthy next year, make some strides offensively, get into a little bit of a groove, and show that some of those spring adjustments he made mechanically and with the hit tool um are real um we can bank on them moving forward obviously the Rays would like that um they have taken some more of these like extreme I don't even know that Daniel Pierce is really an extreme offensive profile he was just a player who did have a history he didn't have the sort of history of as a hitter uh of like a case in Cunningham or a Billy Carlson in that class um I.
00:31:17
Speaker 2: Was going to say, they also got Cooper Fleming in that draft, another high school shortstop who's tremendous. Yeah, and Tate and Gray with their third-round pick that year, who's also had a great debut. It does help to have some extra picks, but those guys, if you look at the totality of that draft, whatever. If you flipped Cooper Fleming and Daniel Pierce and said, okay, Cooper Fleming was our first round pick and Daniel Pierce was our second rounder. He'd be like, yeah, we, Daniel, excuse me, Cooper Fleming would be an awesome first round pick for.
00:31:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you also don't need to hit on your first four players in the draft to have a successful draft. Like me and JJ have been going through all these redrafts. If you get one impactful player in your draft class, that could be enough to have the best draft in a given year. It really does carry you. If you just hit on one player, they've got, 20 options in this group. I guess 19. Well, no, they have some supplemental picks. I don't remember their exact picks. They only didn't sign one player in this draft. But either way, they have plenty of... I don't think the Rays are currently lacking for talent on the minor league side. But I guess we'll see what Daniel Pierce can do next season, hopefully fully healthy, and we can circle back at that point. Any other thoughts? Any final comments? Anything you want to say before we get out of here, Ben? No. Yeah, so that was another Mailbag episode. We appreciate you guys sending in the questions. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for supporting Baseball America. Thanks for listening to the show. If you want to rate and review the show wherever you listen to your podcasts, that would also be super helpful for us. So we appreciate if you can do that. But otherwise, he's Ben. I'm Carlos. We will see you guys next time. So long.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Future Projection. This is episode 212 of the show. This is a Baseball America podcast. I'm Carlos Glazo, as always, joined by Ben Badler. What's up, Ben? How are you?
00:00:12
Speaker 2: Good. Tis the season for multiple screens, Carlos. I had multiple playoff games going at once the other day. It was MLB playoff baseball. I had U15.
00:00:24
Speaker 1: I was about to ask if you had the rainy U15 World Cup game on. That was fun.
00:00:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, USA, Dominican Republic, Angel Montas, who's going to be one of the big, I mean, literally biggest prospect. Just physically huge power, left-handed bat for 2028. International class of the DR, hits a bomb. USA pulls it off and extra innings, good game. Yeah, just... A lot of screens going on at once. I'm not usually a multi-screen guy. I like to lock in on one game, but there was a little too much going on for me.
00:01:01
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I agree. If I can pick, I would rather focus on one screen, one task at a time. Otherwise, I feel like I'm not really focused on anything. But you're right. There is a ton going on right now. There's a ton going on at Baseball America. A few housekeeping notes at the start here. We do have our 2027 books on sale now. So you guys can pre-order the prospect handbook. You can pre-order the directory. You can pre-order the almanac. We do have a three book bundle where you can get a deal on those books. If you purchase them all together, if you just have a personal favorite in that grouping and you want to get onto that, you can go to store.baseballamerica.com. I will try and put the link in the show notes as well. We are busy in production for, for all those books and, At this point in time, and I know if you order directly through us, that typically is how you get it quicker. And we also do a lot of digital editions of those books if you want the physical and like a PDF version, which I particularly like because it's very easy just to search through to specific players or to specific teams. So just wanted to put a note out there about that. Today is a mailbag episode of the show. As always, you can email us at futureprojection at baseballamerica.com. At any point, if you've got a question you want to ask us about a prospect you're curious to pick our brains on, you can also reach out on social media. Those links are in the show notes like every single episode as well. But before that, Ben, you have been working on some international coverage in Alfredo Sena. Sounds like he's a guy we should know about and maybe talk about today before we get into a handful of listener questions.
00:02:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is, if you ask, I mean, I haven't asked every single international scout, but most scouts that I talk to when I ask them, who's your number one player in this class? The answer is, well, one, it's a little tough to say because a lot of them haven't seen a lot of these players in several years in some cases, but Alfredo Santa is by far the most popular answer to that question. He's a switch hitting shortstop from the Dominican Republic. If there's no international draft, which Who knows what's going to happen in this upcoming CBA. But if there's no draft, the Braves are going to sign him. Should get north of $ 5 million. He's just ultra, ultra, ultra talented. He played in the U15, the World Cup qualifier a couple of years ago for the Dominican Republic. And he was teammates with Wanda Esihen, who signed for a ton of money this year with the Mets. with Miguel Gruyon, who's an outfielder, big-time prospect for this upcoming 2027 international class, a whole bunch of other good players on that team. Francisco Renteria was on Venezuela, big-time Phillies international signing from this year, who had a great year in the DSL, is going to at least be in the top 100 conversation for us this offseason. And it was just like, By far, Saina was the best player in that tournament. He just seems like he always hits. Switch hitter, swing works well from both sides. He's a patient hitter. He was already driving the ball with really impressive bat speed and impact. That's only continued to get even better over the last couple of years as he's gotten stronger. He's not And he's not like Elie De La Cruz physically, not that kind of a freak.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a high bar to live up to if that's your bar.
00:04:47
Speaker 2: Sure. But he's like a 5'10, 5'11, guy. He's not like ultra physical or anything like that, but just really advanced in everything that he does, especially at the plate too. I mean, I think he's got a really good chance to stick it. shortstop too great arm runs well like pretty quick burst guy too maybe not to the extent of like you know a Joshua Gonzalez with the Giants but everything about him is just really really special don't see too many players come along like this where it's where people are like oh yeah no this is just obviously the guy.
00:05:31
Speaker 1: Yeah that's kind of what I wanted to ask you about is he just like a I don't know if you'd say generational, but the way you're talking about him does feel different than a typical top of the international class sort of prospect. How would you compare him to some of the better class toppers we've had in recent years? And is it more of a testament to his talent being unusual and very special or the fact that there's just a significant drop off after him or some combination of all the above?
00:06:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say it's about him. He's just a really... really talented player. And we've had some really good players come up in recent years, right? I just mentioned Joshua Gonzalez signing with the Giants or you think to Leo DeVry signing with the Padres, another switch hitting shortstop, Ethan Salas signing with the Padres. There are some years where you have players like that, but he certainly fits in the very top tier group, like in that Salas, DeVry-type group. I think Saina might even have more tools than– maybe not necessarily Joshua, but then DeVry. But I think we'll end up– he'll at least be in our top 100 conversation whenever it is that he does sign.
00:06:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:06:58
Speaker 2: Our top 100 comes out right after January 15th, TBD, when these players are going to sign, so it might not be our official off-season top 100, but I think he has that kind of talent where he can jump right into that mix. We just don't do that too often, but I think he fits into that kind of group of talent.
00:07:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, he definitely sounds like an exciting player. Your report made him seem super interesting. There is also video up if you're a Braves fan or just a fan of international prospects or prospects in general. I would encourage you to check out Ben's piece on 10 of the top names to know from the 2027 class. We actually have a few questions about the international market, potential international draft in today's mailbag section. And we'll get into those questions right after this quick break. Okay, we are back. Ben, we got a few questions I feel like that makes sense to chat about today. So appreciate that from the listeners. Very timely from them. Our first is from Jimmy on Twitter who asks, what approach proves more successful historically? Spending big at the top of the class for one or two players or spreading around bonus pool money among many different players? I feel like this is the perpetual question, the annual strategy question for international scouting, international signing. I feel like there are great examples you could use to maybe make the case for either side here. But in general, do you feel like the history of the international class has maybe pointed towards one strategy being more successful than the other?
00:08:37
Speaker 2: I think you can have success either way, but there just aren't that many players who are worth like going all in for, especially at the time when you're making these decisions. Right. So when teams are reaching agreements to sign players, like the very, very top end players in the class, a lot of times these, you know, the players are still 14 or often now 13 years old or even younger. So, I mean, you don't even know your bonus pool necessarily, uh, three or four years out, although you have a sense of what it's going to be. Uh, But it's hard to look at a player who's that young and now to see the size of the bonus pools to where they've grown to the top teams having $ 7 million, $ 8 million in their pool. They're just not players who are signing for $ 7 million or $ 8 million. But even let alone to say a guy is worth $ 4 million or $ 5 million is really hard to do at that age. It's really hard to do at 16 years old even when the signing age– is official for the player. But what will often happen is a player will reach an agreement and then later on, the player gets better and better and better and keeps getting better. And then the bonus ends up going up. Um, so sometimes that can swallow up at a team's entire bonus pool. And sometimes it works out, right? Like look at the blue Jay signing Vladimir Guerrero jr. Uh, or I'm sure the Padres are happy having, uh, signed Ethan Salas to all that money, uh, when they, when they signed him, um, But you can have a lot of success going the other way, too, where you're spreading it around a little bit more. I mean, even if you're, quote, unquote, spreading it around, like if you're paying a guy a $ 2 million or $ 3 million bonus, that's still going to be one of the very, very top bonuses in the class. And in terms of just your capital allocation relative to your bonus pool, if you have a $ 7 million bonus pool and you give a guy– you know, let's say three and a half million dollars, we still have 50% of your money, still have three and a half million dollars to throw around. So you can find one, you know, elite premium guy, at least in your mind when, you know, the time of the agreement, but then still have a ton of money left to spread around otherwise.
00:11:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel like There have been just some significant players who come in as like, oh, this is the top guy. They signed for the biggest bonus. And then you'll look at some like lower signing who signed for less of the time and winds up being better. And then it convinces people that, oh, you definitely need to take that strategy. But your point about like, hey, there's there's no reason you can't kind of do a little bit of both here, given the amount of money you have to spend also makes sense. It's not like you have to go to one extreme. or the other. It'll be interesting to see how maneuvering money would maybe change in an international draft, how the bonus pools for that might work, and how the strategy in general will change. Related to that, we do have another question about potential.
00:11:55
Speaker 2: Before you get to that, if there is an international draft, MLB would probably both hard slot the picks and allow you to trade it. It would be another interesting strategy to say, okay, Are there certain teams that say, hey, I want to trade up and try to get– maybe there's a year where there is an Alfredo Sena or somebody you want to get a top five international draft pick. Or will there be certain teams that are frequently trading down in the draft and say, hey, let's just try to get a bunch of late first round or second round picks, whatever the ultimate number ends up being and say, it's a hard slot. Let's say the third overall pick or let's say the ninth overall pick is $ 3 million. We don't see a guy there who's worth $ 3 million. There's teams right now that don't want to spend $ 3 million on their highest international signing in the bonus pool system. In a draft, why do we want to do that? No, let's trade down and try to spread our you know, spread our money and spread our picks around a little bit more. Right.
00:13:06
Speaker 1: You even see that with the domestic draft. I mean, the last few drafts we've had, the top players never are getting the assigned slot value because teams don't view those players as worth all that, that signing bonus. So under a hard slotting system, you could even see on the domestic side, that being the case as well, depending on like who's, who's at the top of any given draft class.
00:13:26
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:13:26
Speaker 1: More draft questions on the mind. We have one from Mets prospect group on Twitter who asked what team picks first in an international free agent draft, this could either be what we've maybe heard would be the process for an international free agent draft, or maybe like what we would like to see ourselves. Is it just as simple as, Hey, whoever's picking first in the domestic draft is also picking first in the international draft. Or how creative do you think MLB should or might get in this department, Ben?
00:13:57
Speaker 2: So we don't know the answer to that yet because it just hasn't been rolled out yet, right? In the last go-round, there were different proposals. I think MLB is hesitant, and I feel the same way, to give whatever team is drafting first overall in the draft in the States also the first overall draft pick. In the international draft, so we're going to reward teams doubly now for just being terrible and just tanking and not even trying to win in some cases.
00:14:36
Speaker 1: Do you think the lottery disincentivizes that enough to make that issue less of a concern? Or do you think even with the lottery and a little bit of randomization for the worst teams, you would still not want to have one team picking it first in both drafts?
00:14:52
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to have the same order. in both drafts. I don't like giving teams Do.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: You think inverting the order is too crazy? Like, hey, if you set the domestic draft order and then you could completely flip that order for the international draft. I'm sure people would complain like, hey, why if you won the World Series do you get the first pick in the international draft?
00:15:15
Speaker 2: I don't love that idea either, and I don't think MLB would want that because they like to say, oh, well, the draft is about competitive balance, so you can't really sell it as a competitive balance thing if you're given the team that just won the World Series, the first pick in the international draft, too. I mean, they've talked about different ways of doing it, like rotating by division.
00:15:39
Speaker 1: I was about to say, in the past, it used to rotate by league, the worst team had the first overall pick, right? And one year would be the American League and one year would be the National League. I'm sure that would be brought into play. I think that's super arbitrary as well. I don't know if I have a strong preference on what it should be on how you determine the order. I think the lottery is fun and interesting. There may be ways you could do like two separate lotteries maybe for the domestic draft, then you just run it back again for the international draft because you get a different order, especially if you were expanding like how many picks were actually lottery picks. I think that could be interesting as well. There are a number of different iterations that would make sense to me, both from an interest perspective, I don't really buy into the competitive balance conversation, that MLB tries to lay it out. But I think you get creative here and make it a lot of fun from a fan perspective outside of what's good for the teams.
00:16:39
Speaker 2: And you could do a separate international draft where let's say you do the draft lottery first in the States and then say, okay, whatever team picks first overall, or if you have a top three overall pick or six overall pick, whatever cutoff you want to set it at in the domestic draft, those teams are then excluded from having a top three or top six pick or whatever it is in the international draft. So there's some creative ways and there's plenty of bright people at MLB that could come up with different ways to come up with different orders for the draft.
00:17:15
Speaker 1: If you did something like that, imagine a year where it's just a really unexciting domestic draft class. There's no clear top player. And then on the international side, you have like a no doubt.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: Right, right.
00:17:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and everyone's hoping they don't win the lottery for the domestic draft because they just want their odds in the international draft. Stuff like that would be interesting.
00:17:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also don't think you want a situation where, okay, the White Sox get Rock Cholowski and Alfredo Santa in the same draft. Or, look, and TBD, what's going to happen with Japanese and Korean players, too? But yeah, you could have somebody, Roki Sasaki, maybe in hindsight, not a great pick to get, but like Whether it's him or Shohei Otani and Brock Chalowski or Bryce Harper, somebody like that in the same year. I guess you could turn around your franchise quicker. Maybe if you're a fan of that.
00:18:18
Speaker 1: The more we talk about it, the more I also wouldn't want the same team picking first in both drafts. Finding a way to avoid that would be more interesting and probably also more useful for the larger competitive baseball landscape.
00:18:32
Speaker 2: But yeah, let us know your ideas for how you would determine.
00:18:35
Speaker 1: I'll be curious. A good question though. Let's move on into some prospects specific questions here. We have one from Ernest on Twitter who asks any updated thoughts on Mets left-handed pitching prospect in Daviel Hurtado, my new favorite pitching prospect in their system. I think Hurtado is an interesting arm, but I have to say this is mostly initial thoughts on Hurtado for me. I was not super locked into who he was coming out of the international market. Ben, I don't know if you want to maybe refresh non-Mets fans or maybe Mets fans who are less locked into the prospect status, what Hurtado was like coming into the organization. But I did dive into just his game and his pitch mix and some of his performance in recent years. I have thoughts on him as a prospect now. But do you remember what you thought about him when he signed at the time? I believe it was in the 2023 class out of Cuba. He signed for.
00:19:29
Speaker 2: $ 500, 000. Yeah, he's just like lean, athletic, left-hander, liked the way he moved on the mound. He was 18 years old at the time, but just fast arm, low to mid-90s, up to 96, some feel for for what he was doing in terms of manipulating his breaking stuff just pitch ability $ 500, 000 signing so you don't barely see too many pitchers signing for significant bonuses like that so he's definitely one of the top arms when he signed with the Mets it's just kind of you know a little slower progression for him uh i guess but.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah so the last two years for him have actually been really impressive though he still is playing in the lower minors like you said in 2025 um this was like his first full pro season he pitched between the fcl and low a he made 12 starts appeared in 18 games and through 65.2 innings so a solid chunk of time for a young pitcher he posted 2.06 era The strikeout rate he had over the course of that year was 27.6%, 8.8% walk rate. He did level up in 2026 in his age 21 season. He spent, I think it was four games in low A, and then the rest of the season was at high A Brooklyn for him. And again, it was very solid. 18 starts, 21 games total, 86 innings, and a 2.93 ERA score. He's continuing to strike out a respectable amount of batters. He had a 25.9% strikeout rate, 7.8% walk rate. And when you look at him on the mound, it is a very clean, easy operation and delivery. This is the sort of like starter look I feel like that you see on the mound just with how he works mechanically and the strikes that he throws. I would say I am a bit skeptical of like the amount of swing and miss he's going to continue to have. at higher levels. Right now, he's throwing an average fastball velocity-wise. He's sitting right at 93, 94 miles per hour. I think it was 93.3 in 2026, which that number for a left-handed starter in the majors is average velocity. But I think there are some movement and release questions that I would have beyond the velocity with that pitch that would make me wonder, okay, is he going to continue missing bats? He doesn't have elite extension. He doesn't have elite movement. It's not a great swing and miss pitch like in a vacuum currently. Although maybe he does have the sort of command to allow it to be effective enough to set up his secondaries, which have been kind of the pitches he's going to more often for swings and misses. He throws a slider in the mid to upper 80s. He throws a curveball around 80 miles per hour. He has a changeup. He doesn't use it a ton. And I know when he signed, There were some exciting thoughts about what those breaking balls could be. Still, with those pitches, I'm probably a little bit more skeptical of what they might be at higher levels. Neither are super high spin pitches. They don't seem to have elite snapping bite or break. But again, maybe he's just one of these guys who the command is so good that he can get by with a collection of solid average pitches. I don't see anything plus here. and I would like to see him get a little bit more physical and maybe add some more power to help improve each of those pitches. Do you have any additional thoughts on that, Ben? That's kind of how I'm viewing him now. I don't think of him as this impact starter, but I could see him continuing to pitch like this and being sort of a safe back-of-the-rotation pitchability type who gets by with a number of solid pitches.
00:23:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, famous last words, safe back-of-the-rotation arm for me. Yeah, I think he's going to pitch in the big leagues. I don't know what role or what level of impact it's going to be, but I think he's going to end up pitching in the big leagues. I'm with you.
00:23:39
Speaker 1: I would like to.
00:23:40
Speaker 2: See another gear to come from his stuff.
00:23:45
Speaker 1: Right.
00:23:46
Speaker 2: It's hard to bet on that. It also wouldn't surprise me to see it coming because I think there is still some upside for him to get stronger. It just hasn't really come since he signed a few years back.
00:23:58
Speaker 1: Right. He's still very lean. I don't know enough about his physical progression over the years to say whether it just hasn't come yet or if he's the type of player who you're like, he's probably never going to be super big. You don't always have to be super physical and big to add stuff. We've seen plenty of lean, lanky guys who just never get bigger, but the arm speed is good enough where they make mechanical tweaks and just optimize what they do have to make strides. But I do think I would like to see kind of another gear, either from the fastball or from one of the secondaries or from multiple of the secondaries. The one thing I do like about what he does overall, though, is he throws a ton of strikes and he generates a lot of ground balls. And if you're not going to be an elite swing and miss pitcher, I think putting the ball on the ground a ton and really limiting the walks does allow a path to say, hey, like this was never a super high profile sort of arm, a guy with elite pure stuff. There are pitchers like this who become effective big leaguers because they can mix and match. They can throw strikes. They drive a lot of ground balls. I think there is a path to big league value here, even if he doesn't, but I would be a lot more excited if he did find a little bit more power somehow. Yeah, I agree.
00:25:12
Speaker 2: He throws a lot of strikes. Delivery is good. It's like a starter-ish type look, but also maybe that extra year comes in short stints as a lefty coming out of a bullpen too where it's like okay now this stuff plays up a little bit more because he's able to throw everything including his breaking balls with a little bit more power and that plays up a little bit out of the bullpen even though i don't look at him as like okay this guy's got to move into a bullpen because he's like herky jerky and efforty right all that it just might end up playing better in that role but i would obviously keep him as a starter all the way through at this point up until like you know you have to make a decision once it gets to the big leagues.
00:25:49
Speaker 1: Right, yeah. And to your point, he has had success in his role as a starter in the minor leagues so far. So until he stops having that success, it does make little sense to me to take him out of that role. I also think it's a good point you make too. Some of the guys who look like this and look starter-ish also still might wind up being better in a bullpen role because their stuff can just play up a little bit. Okay, that's all I had on Hurtado. Great question there. We got another one from Ben on Twitter who asks, how did Daniel Pierce's underlying data look before his injury? What level do you anticipate him starting next season? So Daniel Pierce, 2025, first overall pick by the Rays, 14th overall, signed for $ 4. 3 million. He was a really exciting prospect coming out of Georgia. I thought the secondary tools were really, loud for him as a draft prospect. I was a little bit more skeptical of just like what he was going to do offensively. Um, he had a great spring kind of launched up draft boards. And I would say that his, so in low a this year, 34 games, age 19 season, he had two 52, three 36, three 90. Um, that's good for like a 100 WRC plus at that level for home run six deals, 28.6% strikeout rate, 7.9%. walk rate if you were hoping to see maybe encouraging signs under the hood from a batted ball perspective I don't know that I have the numbers to give you that I feel like everything that we have makes me even more kind of concerned about the sort of hitter that Daniel Pierce was before the injury there was a lot of swing and miss he had below average in zone miss rates he had below average miss rates overall he had below average swing decisions in terms of like how often he was expanding the zone And he didn't really back that up with like super exciting exit velocity data for his age either. So like across the board, probably a bit underwhelming offensively. If you were like a like Daniel Pierce is going to be this impact player, maybe get to like solid or better offensive upside. I guess a lot of this depends on like what your expectations were for Daniel Pierce offensively. But I do think there are some there's some current concerns I would have. About the sort of hitter he's going to be for all. I really love him defensively and as a runner. What are your thoughts, Ben?
00:28:18
Speaker 2: I was more skeptical of the pick at the time that it was made. I think that It was, I don't think it also wasn't viewed as like a stretch or a reach or a mile, but just within the industry.
00:28:31
Speaker 1: We ranked him 24th overall. So we went like slightly higher, but in that range on the board, like that's not a, that's not like a crazy reach at all. Like you said, we had him ranked as a first round pick. He went in that range.
00:28:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. It, it, look, he's a really good defender. A lot of really strong defensive tools, especially at a premium position. And there was talk about how he had, you know, his offensive game had taken a leap forward. over the spring, um, wasn't, wasn't in line with what I had seen, um, from him previously. So I just was, you know, especially like if you're going to draft a shortstop there, you know, high school guy, case in Cunningham was right there or Merrick Houston, your guy, if you want to go with a college route, um, certainly some other good players just looking right down the board at like a Andrew Fisher or a Tate South, the scene drafted right after. So, Yeah, everything you said about some of the swing and miss concerns and some of the tendencies that he has at the plate, expanding the strike zone without huge power to go with. with it. I think that's all accurate. At the same time, in fairness, he got, what, 140 plate appearances this year, so not a huge sample.
00:29:51
Speaker 1: That's his only pro experience so far, so it's not like.
00:29:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't want to go overboard on it. At the same time, the general things he saw and the trends and just what we saw in a abbreviated pro debut not it's not arrow up right no.
00:30:09
Speaker 1: No i wouldn't think so yeah i'm trying to see if there are any other players like irish going behind him in that draft is one that jumps out to me for like where i was viewing players at the time um jace laviolette preseason although i think where he went makes sense yeah i think you could you could rationalize some other guys ahead but We don't have to get too hindsight-y right now, but I do still like Daniel Pierce as a prospect. Like Ben was saying, he does have really exciting defensive tools. He's a great runner. He's a really strong athlete in the field. Watching him play defense is exciting, but hopefully he can stay healthy next year, make some strides offensively, get into a little bit of a groove, and show that some of those spring adjustments he made mechanically and with the hit tool um are real um we can bank on them moving forward obviously the Rays would like that um they have taken some more of these like extreme I don't even know that Daniel Pierce is really an extreme offensive profile he was just a player who did have a history he didn't have the sort of history of as a hitter uh of like a case in Cunningham or a Billy Carlson in that class um I.
00:31:17
Speaker 2: Was going to say, they also got Cooper Fleming in that draft, another high school shortstop who's tremendous. Yeah, and Tate and Gray with their third-round pick that year, who's also had a great debut. It does help to have some extra picks, but those guys, if you look at the totality of that draft, whatever. If you flipped Cooper Fleming and Daniel Pierce and said, okay, Cooper Fleming was our first round pick and Daniel Pierce was our second rounder. He'd be like, yeah, we, Daniel, excuse me, Cooper Fleming would be an awesome first round pick for.
00:31:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you also don't need to hit on your first four players in the draft to have a successful draft. Like me and JJ have been going through all these redrafts. If you get one impactful player in your draft class, that could be enough to have the best draft in a given year. It really does carry you. If you just hit on one player, they've got, 20 options in this group. I guess 19. Well, no, they have some supplemental picks. I don't remember their exact picks. They only didn't sign one player in this draft. But either way, they have plenty of... I don't think the Rays are currently lacking for talent on the minor league side. But I guess we'll see what Daniel Pierce can do next season, hopefully fully healthy, and we can circle back at that point. Any other thoughts? Any final comments? Anything you want to say before we get out of here, Ben? No. Yeah, so that was another Mailbag episode. We appreciate you guys sending in the questions. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for supporting Baseball America. Thanks for listening to the show. If you want to rate and review the show wherever you listen to your podcasts, that would also be super helpful for us. So we appreciate if you can do that. But otherwise, he's Ben. I'm Carlos. We will see you guys next time. So long.
