Full Transcript for Draft Podcast: Reflecting On The 2019 Draft

the Adley Rushman, Bobby Witt Jr. draft, but I think that's really selling it short of just how talented it is. But, Carlos, more than anything, we talked about last year, the 2018 draft, and how that was your first draft as the lead draft writer. That was the first draft where it's like we didn't have John Manuel with us either, and it's like, so that was a very nerve-wracking draft for me. This one, I just remember when we were going through this, I just remember this one being a whole lot of fun. 00:03:18 Speaker 3: Yeah, this one was fun, and this draft, This one probably has the single biggest difference of any of the drafts that I feel like we're going to talk about between perception at the time and perception in hindsight, because I think people really do look back at this 2019 draft and think about how great it is now because so many players have been star players, franchise players from this class, especially in the first few rounds. They're just a ton of hits. But at the time, this class was heavily criticized by scouts in the community. I think We viewed it as a very strong top six. There was kind of a consensus top group that included Adley Rutschman, Bobby Witt Jr., Andrew Vaughn, J.J. Blede, Riley Green, and then C.J. 00:03:58 Speaker 4: Abrams. 00:03:59 Speaker 3: And then after that, I remember having a lot of conversations with scouts who said this is really top heavy. The depth isn't impressive. There was conversation about whether or not this was the worst college pitching class scouts had ever seen. At the time, we had just one college pitcher in and one pitcher overall go in the first 10 picks, Nick Lodolo. We can talk about maybe how some of those arms have panned out, but for me, this class is a great reminder, and you said it a lot at the time, so I think you deserve some credit for it. It is better to have a top-heavy draft, a draft that's led by a few can't-miss, no-doubt prospects, and maybe you have a lot more questions about the depth than the inverse, because ultimately, if you're hitting on those sort of generational types, like an Adlai Rutschman or Bobby Wood Jr., you've got a couple other players that are In the mix up there, it's so hard to tell like the quality of the depth ahead of time. There are always going to be players that pan out. And so I think those two things are my big learning points and lessons from this draft. One, very hard to say with confidence, the caliber of an actual draft, you just kind of need to wait and see. And two, if you're choosing depth or top heavy, you would always choose top heavy. 00:05:10 Speaker 1: I'm going to say I have a theory with that. I don't have a way to support this. It's more of just a hypothetical theory, which is when you don't like the depth of a draft with not one. Like, okay, there are drafts where it's like if you have one guy at the top and you're saying, oh, this draft's not very good. That's one thing. But if you have a draft where you're like, we don't know. There's multiple guys who have a case to be the number one in a very good top of the draft. And then you say, well, how's the depth? It's like, oh, the depth's terrible after that. There's a certain level of, as much as anyone can try to control for it, it's hard not to compare like to like. You're always, I mean, again, scouts, front office officials and all are always trying to compare it to past years, understandably. But we have a special guest here joining us on the show, if you're on the YouTube channel. But you're never going to be able to fully remove the fact that, yes, if you compare these guys a little bit further down to Bobby Witt Jr., they don't seem as good. If you compare these other guys a little bit further down to Ali Rushman, they don't seem as good. And there are years you just don't have that, right? There are years where you're like, these guys all seem pretty, I don't know which one of these lines up better. Often that's because they're all a little bit further down the spectrum as far as talent. That's, again, that's a theory. Do you think I'm like, Is that crazy or does that make some sense? 00:06:42 Speaker 4: No, I think that makes some sense. 00:06:43 Speaker 3: If you have very clear standouts at the top, the tier separation between those players, wherever that tier is cut off, is going to look more stark than a typical class. That doesn't necessarily mean those players in the second tier are any worse than a typical second tier. It's just the gap between them is maybe a little bit more obvious and wide. And so I think that could definitely be a reason why you get a little bit more critical when you have classes that are led by no doubters like Bobby Wittinger and Adley Rushman. 00:07:12 Speaker 1: Okay. So take us back, Carlos, because you were very much doing this, you know, all spring, all off season, even leading into the spring that year, we had Adley Rushman to set the stage and I'll just kind of let you talk through like the, the, the challenge of this. We had Adley Rushman who I would say checked every single box you would expect to see a college position player check. to be a top of the draft guy, which is, does he have performance? 00:07:41 Speaker 4: Absolutely. 00:07:42 Speaker 1: Does he have success? Like he was a key player. He was a leader on one of the best teams in college baseball. He played a premium position because he was a catcher. He had athleticism. He had thrown in, like he played football at, you know, college football, you know, not just like, oh, he played in high school. No, no, you could have, you know, he, he played. And you put all that together so you have this clear, kind of no glaring flaw, one-one candidate on the college side. And then on the high school side, you have Bobby Witt Jr., who had been kind of this known name on the horizon back to his freshman year, I would say, in high school, where it's like, hey, Bobby Witt's kid is going to be really good. And by this point

you had all the tools were as loud as you're going to see. He had kind of the, the build, the speed, the power, the arm, everything that you kind of would say would at least line up as this guy could be a high school one, one pick as a shortstop. 00:08:48 Speaker 2: Right. 00:08:49 Speaker 1: I was CJ Abrams was Riley green in that conversation too, but how do you kind of trace like with that battle of number one, we kind of felt like the Adley was always going to be the one who went one, one. But how much of a real debate was there going on at the time, do you feel like? 00:09:06 Speaker 3: Well, I mean, me and you had internal debates about it. I think we personally preferred different players. But I think for the entirety of the draft cycle, it was sort of like you said. Adley Rushman was the clear consensus top player entering the summer. And I think had Bobby Wood Jr. been in another draft class, he would have been the clear 1-1 candidate on his own as well. I think there were two things going against Bobby Wood Jr., in this draft cycle at the time that made it easy to defer to the also premium position, super toolsy college player. One, a lot of people pointed to the fact that Bobby Wood Jr. 00:09:42 Speaker 4: Was 19. 00:09:43 Speaker 3: He was old for a high school player at this stage. I remember there were a lot of conversations about this, like he's older than his competition. How is that going to impact projecting him moving forward? Do you expect him to dominate because he's older? I think that one probably got over-narrative if that's even a word. I think the bigger one is there were real hit-tool questions with Bobby Wood Jr. He swung and missed more frequently than scouts wanted to see him swing and miss throughout the summer. And so you could easily line them up tool for tool. 00:10:16 Speaker 4: Bobby Wood Jr. 00:10:17 Speaker 3: And Adley Rutschman and say, hey, we've got a college player who has this impeccable three-year track record. His draft performance was also strong like it was every year prior. There was just a lot more conviction that Adley Rushman was not going to have the sort of miss issues that could maybe cripple the profile where Bobby Witt Jr., even if he didn't pan out to be a plus pure hitter, even if it was below average, the tools were loud enough that he was going to be an impactful player. But I think there were just some more questions about risk an ECA with Bobby with junior. Um, and I think that ultimately, that ultimately led us to having them in the order, Adley, Bobby, which junior that felt fairly consensus throughout the industry. Um, and we weren't super surprised leading up to draft day. Uh, like, Oh, is Adley Rushman going to be one, one. It felt pretty much cemented at that point. I mean, I remember at the time, actually the Kansas city Royal scouts were kind of joking about other teams who showed up to Bobby, which junior games, uh, because it was so obvious that Adley was going in front and

it was so obvious that Bobby would junior was clearly the picket too. Um, it was a very easy draft to kind of figure it out at the top because there were such no brainer players and the teams didn't really hide the fact that they had, they had their priorities and they knew who they were getting and they weren't going to pass on them. 00:11:35 Speaker 1: The thing I'll say with Bobby would junior, what you said there, like, um, Trying to remember, because yeah, I was the Adley guy, you were the Witt guy at the time. I don't think there's any question about us when we were talking about it and how we lined it up. And it wasn't like, oh, I hate Witt. It wasn't like you're like, yeah, Adley's a bum or anything like that. It was just like risk reward. And you kind of could see that Bobby Witt Jr., if it all came together, he could be even more valuable. And Adley had kind of the risk of he's a catcher. How well can he hold up? how much can he play because he's a catcher? Like there was a lot of the talk at that time. This was kind of the, the era where we'd started to see the, the 125, 130 game catcher, not 160 games. And so it's like, okay, would you rather have like, if you're going to have to play them that way to keep them healthy, would you rather have 125 good games of Adley or 160 games of a shortstop, all that. But I would say like to kind of summarize what you were saying there, the hit tool questions, which yeah, I'll say, I think Bobby would junior kind of, put to bed age at the top of the draft, as far as being an overwhelming concern. Like if you can always say like Eli Willis was more valuable, more interesting. If you want to say that his age and what he was at that age makes him a little bit better. Great. Sure. Thumbs up. But it didn't make it like, Oh, that's like where you take Eli Willis because of that. The same way Bobby Wood Jr was old for the class. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:13:03 Speaker 1: But he has better tools than the class. And by the way, probably can go out and, catch up for that by the fact that he's probably ready. And then we had COVID hit, but he'd have probably been ready for high a by midway through his first year or double a by the end of that year. And it's like, Oh, so now he's ahead of schedule compared to these young guys. Cause he's just so talented. But the hit tool questions, I would say like, if you're trying to put it into a modern perspective, if the hit tool had never developed, like when you say like he had this very high, like floor of what he was going to be, imagine COVID, a better Colson Montgomery, like, like imagine like if he had that level of hit to a question, I don't think there was any thought that he had that, but like if, if you said, okay, imagine if Colson Montgomery had more power was an 80 runner and was a better defender at short, would you be happy with that as your shortstop? He'd be like, yes, a hundred percent. I would. That's kind of like the worst case scenario that was kind of envisioned for Bobby Witt Jr. I feel like at the time. 00:14:03 Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. 00:14:04 Speaker 3: There were just so many paths. And that was one of the things that stood out. for him on the circuit when he wasn't just dominating with the pure hit tool. Like he was always impacting the game at a high level. He was a great base runner. He was showing his hands at shortstop. He was an impactful, tremendously gifted. I think early on in Bobby Wood Jr. 's major league career, actually, there were some skeptics about him defensively. 00:14:24 Speaker 4: And I was like, no, no, no. 00:14:25 Speaker 3: This guy is like the real deal defensively. He has been for years. Give him time. He's going to adjust. I think actually today, because I didn't see Adley Rutschman as much in person recently, as I saw Bobby Wood Jr. at the same time, I, I think he's still probably the best draft prospect that I've covered. I don't think there's someone who's, who's been better than him at the same stage. 00:14:47 Speaker 4: Throw out a name. If you think there's someone that you'd compare them to, but. 00:14:50 Speaker 1: I think, I mean, like on, if you did a, if you did, we're through, we'll start with 17 through 19. If you said, who's the one, one pick of all those it's Bobby Wood Jr. I don't think it's close. 00:15:03 Speaker 4: I agree. 00:15:04 Speaker 1: And, One thing we always say with this, like I do want to emphasize Carlos does redress for us. Right. And a redraft allows you to say, knowing what we don't now. Right. And redo it. That's different from where you're saying, like, if you are, I see sometimes people and I get it, but they're saying like, Oh, look at this fourth rounder. Like that guy should have been the one, one pick. And it's like, there's no one going in the fourth round who is, is going to go 1-1 because there's a clear reason why teams keep passing for 100 picks. 00:15:38 Speaker 3: If you wanted to do the realistic redraft from this class, it really is just one or two. And if you wanted to stretch reality a little bit, you're basically picking from the top six here because those are the only players who are considered in that tier. 00:15:50 Speaker 4: So anyone beyond that, it would just be kind of a silly exercise. 00:15:53 Speaker 1: But it really was. It was tier one of one, you know, of Rushman Witt. And then, like you said, that's a perfect segue to get into this, which is you had this tier two, which I would say, you know, is again, Andrew Vaughn went third, JJ Bleda went fourth, Riley Green fifth, CJ Abrams sixth. And then I would say Nicola Dolo went seventh. And he's kind of this weird outlier that kind of sat out here to his side because he literally was the only pitcher who was I would say was in him. And you could say to some level, Alex Manoa, those most him and Manoa were really the only two who were in, I would say in any way in consideration as a top 10 pick. 00:16:33 Speaker 3: Well, Zach Thompson, I

would say Zach Thompson, Alec Manoa and Jackson Rutledge were all kind of in the same range. 00:16:39 Speaker 4: Yeah. We had Nick Lodolo. 00:16:42 Speaker 3: We had Nick Lodolo as the top ranked pitcher in the class. We had him ranked number eight overall. But we even had Hunter Bishop, the outfitter out of Arizona state ranked right in front of him. So I don't know that Lodolo, was really in the conversation for this top six grouping. It was a pretty clear top six. 00:17:00 Speaker 4: Throughout the spring. 00:17:01 Speaker 3: And that felt to me in hindsight, I don't know exactly. I guess I could look through our, our draft board and see when these guys all kind of got into this exact ranking. I guess blood day would have been the player that kind of started off that mark and then joined it down the stretch. But Andrew Vaughn, CJ Abrams, Riley green, Riley Green at the time was maybe the best pure hitter in this high school class. He had just a tremendous track record with the swing, with the vision. There was a lot of confidence that he was going to get to power. He was a center fielder at the time. There were some questions about whether or not he moved to a corner outfield spot. 00:17:39 Speaker 4: And then C.J. 00:17:40 Speaker 3: Abrams, he maybe was the most wide-ranging sort of player in this bucket because the athleticism and the speed was so loud. But there were really wide-ranging opinions on whether or not he would even be able to stick at shortstop. I remember that at the time. He was just less polished and refined as a defender at the same stage. And because he was an 80-grade runner, there was a lot of thought that, hey, you could just move him to center field, let him play there. 00:18:07 Speaker 4: It'll be easier, more natural. 00:18:09 Speaker 3: Let the hit tool just develop a little bit easier when he's not focused on shortstop. And I think he has been better than I expected him to be, although there were certainly people who who would have looked at his career outcome today and been like, yeah, that's the sort of player that we thought and hoped C.J. 00:18:26 Speaker 4: Abrams could be. 00:18:26 Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you have any extra thoughts on this group of hitters or what your thoughts are here. 00:18:33 Speaker 1: So we have our history of like, so when we had the top 100 for this, which is the first ranking we really kind of put out at the front end, at the very start of the process, It was Adley 1, Witt 2, Abrams 3, Andrew Vaughn 4, Riley Green 5, Shea Langler 6, and Corbin Carroll 7. So let me just say, some of those moved around a little bit. In hindsight, though, looking at it, that's about as good a top seven you're going to have for a year away from the draft top seven. It's going to be hard to beat that pretty much. Those are our There's not really. 00:19:13 Speaker 3: A, all of those, all of those players you just mentioned are top seven in war from this class in the entirety of the class. 00:19:22 Speaker 4: So not filtering first, first round. Yeah. 00:19:26 Speaker 1: Sorry. 00:19:26 Speaker 4: Did you say Vaughn? 00:19:28 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:19:28 Speaker 1: Vaughn was four on that, except for Vaughn. 00:19:30 Speaker 3: So players who are in the top seven, Bobby with junior Corbin, Carol, Adley, Rutschman, CJ Abrams, Riley green, the two, and we can get into this later in the podcast, but the two who are in that group who we didn't have ranked in that range, Gunnar Henderson, which is a reason why this Orioles draft is a mega draft. 00:19:47 Speaker 4: And then Michael Harris, third runner from the Braves. 00:19:50 Speaker 1: So the other things with this before I want, I want, well, I don't want to get there until we kind of put a bow on this. We talked about Abrams. I want to talk about the two best second tier, best hitters in this were Riley green. Like you said, who, I would say at the time was viewed as, yes, he's going to start in center. He's going to move to a corner pretty quick. You're, you're just, you're, you're drafting the bat, right? You're drafting this guy who should bit hit in the middle of your lineup, hopefully for a long time. And then Vaughn was, Hey, yeah, he doesn't give you any defensive value. This is not a profile that teams like to take at the top of the draft, but yeah, you're talking about a really long track record here of hitting. I would say that basically he was the mini Spencer Torkelson before Spencer Torkelson arrived. 00:20:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:20:46 Speaker 1: Like that's kind of what he was. And I will say like, I'm raising my hand. Like I was absolutely thought, and again, he's ended up being a useful player, although not for the team that originally drafted him. But I thought like looking at it, that when you looked at the first baseman who were drafted high, the hit rate on those was pretty high. Vaughn did not help that. Torkelson has not really helped that going forward. But I did want to ask you just how rare it was that we had this everyone-believed first baseman sitting there who was expected to go in the top five. Right. 00:21:25 Speaker 3: I think that if you look at the track record of just corner infielders who go inside the top 10, the track record of those profiles is actually pretty good. that might not intuitively be what you would think, but I think just the threshold to even go in that range is so high on your hit and power combination that you kind of have to be one of the elite players in the class. And even in a class with Adley, Adley Rutschman and Bobby Wood Jr. and Riley Green on the high school side, there were people who thought that Andrew Vaughn had the best hit power combination in the class. There were scouts who thought he was going to be a plus hitter with 80 grade raw power. His track record with California was tremendous and, His wood bat track record was also really impressive. I don't think he had the best summer with Team USA specifically, the summer

heading into his draft spring. But he had a really impressive stint in the Cape. And while basically every player around him had more upside potential just because they weren't first baseman or very likely first baseman down the line, there was a ton of confidence in this bat, this offensive profile overall. I think it's hard to maybe remember just how good he was offensively. His college line, he was a 374, 495, 688 hitter with 50 home runs and 35 doubles in three seasons. He hit 12 home runs, 23 home runs, 15 home runs. And that was kind of before we got into the 2020s when everyone started hitting. 00:22:52 Speaker 1: 20 home runs a season. 00:22:55 Speaker 4: No problem. 00:22:55 Speaker 1: The bats are not as powerful. The balls don't fly as far. And he had hit 402, 531, 819 home to win golden spikes as a sophomore like the year before that like you you had this just again at a time where there wasn't as much power it was a really standout profile i mean again this is what we're saying it was a really good top of the board but there were a couple of guys kind of who moved in there were a couple guys who moved out we're gonna get into that right after this quick break So Jay, do you ever find yourself crashing in the afternoon, needing a boost, but not wanting to have caffeine that you know is going to ruin your sleep? 00:23:37 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, definitely. I found myself on the golf course a lot lately. And sometimes, you know, it can be long days out there. So I reach in my golf bag. I keep the Ultra Focus Pouch right here with me, keep it in my golf bag. And it's part of my golf bag, as I said. 00:23:52 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:23:52 Speaker 1: And so what are some of your favorite effects of the Ultra Pouches? 00:23:56 Speaker 2: Definitely gives me a little bit of focus, that little bit of energy that I'm looking for, and obviously not having any caffeine in it is always a plus for me, so I enjoy those things. Ultra is the ultimate guilt-free pouch, delivering instant focus and mental clarity without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use code BASEBALL to get 15% off at TakeUltra.com. That's TakeUltra.com for 15% off with code BASEBALL. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. 00:24:29 Speaker 1: So, Carlos, the thing that also does stand out here, though, is we did have some guys who kind of moved their way into this second tier. You mentioned Hunter Bishop. Hunter Bishop was not on our initial top 100 that year coming into the season. And then he was 119 when we went to 200. And then when we went to 300, he had gone from 119 to 13. When we expanded to 400, he went to eight. And when we went to 500, he went to seven, which is where he was at the time of the draft. That's where we had him ranked. Now, in hindsight, this is going to be a cautionary tale. This is the lone player taken in the top 10. The Giants took him 10th overall, and he is the lone player in the top 10 who has not made the majors. And I would go beyond that and say like, And that's a top 10 where you have one, two, three, four, five guys who are 10 plus war already. You know, you've got Langoliers, you've got Abrams, you've got Green, you've got Rutschman, you've got Witt. And then, you know, and Lodolo's almost at 10. Like you've got a whole lot of guys who've ended up being really good. Hunter Bishop not made the majors, probably never will. I think we say confidently at this point, we'll never. He was the ultimate pop-up prospect in this class, but with very loud tools. What do you remember about then and kind of what lessons can we learn now from this? 00:25:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like Hunter Bishop at the time was almost viewed as like a high school sort of profile rather than a college profile. I know it's easy to strap like, oh, there's some safety with college players. There's more risk with high school players, maybe more upside with high school players. Hunter Bishop was the collegiate equivalent of that. And in some ways, thinking about his profile now, there are some similarities to a Vance Honeycutt. The reason why Hunter Bishop was moving so high up on the board is because his tool set was maybe one of the best in the, in the class, probably the best physical tool set in the college class. 00:26:28 Speaker 4: I mean, he had tremendous raw power. He could run. He had a big arm. He was six foot five, 210 pounds. 00:26:36 Speaker 3: But he was also kind of a constant tinker with his swing and he had a real hit tool questions. He struggled during his sophomore season with a. 00:26:45 Speaker 4: 30% strikeout rate. He hit just 250. 00:26:50 Speaker 3: And so for me, this is just, he gets bucketed into, if you look at, we've done studies on this as we try to explain the risk of certain college players who fail to hit certain thresholds, whether it's batting average, which is actually a really useful proxy, or strikeout rate, which I think has always been a useful proxy. He gets bucketed into these high upside toolsy players that just don't have the sort of hit tool that really when you're looking at this group collectively should warrant going as high as they do. So I think even at the time, we acknowledged a pretty significant amount of risk, but every team is going to judge that risk-reward calculation differently. And if you want to take a big swing, once those first six players were off the board, I think it's pretty easy to say that Hunter Bishop had a more pure upside at the time than any player in this class. So I don't fault the Giants for taking on a player like this. I think maybe the lesson learned is just be very, very skeptical of these profiles. And I think if you're going to take them in this range, in a first round sort of range, you should feel very confident in, in your hitting development, or you should feel very confident in pointing to a reason why the player struggled offensively with a

clear path to how you're going to try and address it at the next level. Otherwise it does feel a little bit like it's, um, it's kind of a waste of the value of the pick here. if you don't, and not to say maybe the Giants had a plan and just sometimes it doesn't pan out, but I think that's, that's kind of how I would think through a player like this today. 00:28:21 Speaker 1: So not only did he strike out 30% of the time in his sophomore season, right? Which is a rate that is just, especially again, got to go back. This is 20, that's 2018. The strikeout rate in college baseball in 2018 was not what it is now. In addition to the power, not being what it is now. That summer in the Cape, He also struck out 30% of the time with a wood bat. And that's in 39 games, 149 plate appearances. So not like, oh, he was there for a week. So you had this– Hunter Bishop had not hit. 300 as a freshman at Arizona State, not in the Cape where he hit. 212 that year. Then his sophomore year, it's. 00:29:00 Speaker 3: 250. 00:29:01 Speaker 1: It's. 233 in the Cape. Then he has this junior year where he hits. 342,. 479. 748 cuts the strikeout rates like 22%. You could, so you had, I would say that basically he is an example of when you have tools this loud, I get it. Like there is two possibilities here. One is he has found it. It's clicked the hit tools much better than what we saw before. And if that's the case, these tools are as loud as anyone in this class, not named Bobby Witt Jr. for the top of the class. Okay, great. The other possibility is, Maybe we're overemphasizing this 57 games from this year as opposed to the 200-plus games of previous information we have that seems to indicate that this other thing is true. And obviously, now with the benefit of hindsight– I mean, that 342 batting average is not just the highest of Hunter Bishop's career, college, or pro. It's the only time he ever hit 300 anywhere at any level. And so in hindsight, it was small sample size didn't indicate that this was some breakthrough. I get it, though, where it's always tricky to know that. 00:30:20 Speaker 3: Well, I think there's another piece of this that I want to mention because I was just looking back through our notes at the time to see what scouts were saying to us when we were reporting on Hunter Bishop. And maybe this is relevant to Andrew Vaughn as well. There were some scouts at the time, and this maybe gets into the lackluster college pitching demographic, who were specifically talking about the Pac-12 pitching this year being particularly bad. And I think teams do a really good job now of correcting for conference play and level of competition in college baseball. And it's probably just worth reinforcing and emphasizing that even though it's college baseball, there is still a pretty significant variance in the level of pitching competition that you're going to see on any given week, on any given weekend series. From Friday to Saturday, the drop-off in certain conferences

could be massively different than the SEC or the ACC, for example. And while the Pac-12 is pretty solid regularly, At the time, scouts were talking about how the pitching was down in the conference this year. And so there were evaluators who were skeptical of the numbers that Hunter Bishop was putting up, even then, while acknowledging that he had made some impressive adjustments to his approach. So maybe that's something that we can look back and learn from. We should be even more as critical as we can be of the competition that hitters are putting up. These offensive numbers, especially when it's a player like Hunter Bishop who just doesn't have the track record. I could maybe see a case with Andrew Vaughn that still wouldn't have helped you because even if the competition was down, he has so many other years and examples of performing against, assumably, better years of competition. 00:32:02 Speaker 4: So that is probably worth mentioning here. 00:32:04 Speaker 1: To give an example of that, looking at Pac-12 pitching leaders that year, I would say that the best big league pitcher, future big league pitcher of that group was Ryan Nelson. And really... There is not a starting pitcher from that league that year that you would say, oh, that guy went on to be really good down the road. As a pro, it was an extremely down year for pitching in the Pac-12. I think that is absolutely a useful thing to note. Again, because the tricky part of it is that you don't know that at the time. You can say, I think it's down, and But you don't know it's going to be that down. You don't know it's going to be that down. You would not expect it to be that down. 00:32:53 Speaker 4: That's true. 00:32:53 Speaker 1: Right. Like, to give an example, the flip side of that, when you talk about this, you say, okay, well, what about you guys you were seeing in the SEC that year? Okay. Well, in the SEC, Kumar Rocker was there, JT Ginn, Emerson Hancock. We talked about Zach Thompson, Garrett Crochet, you know, Bryce Miller. I'm sorry, not Bryce Miller. Yeah. Nope. It's Texas A & M. Gunnar Hoglund. There were a number of guys, not just guys who were having good years in the SEC, but future big leaguers who you were seeing on a normal weekend. That makes a big difference when you're comparing. They were hitting against lesser competition that year in the Pac-12. 00:33:38 Speaker 3: Let's talk about the college pitching now, JJ. 00:33:41 Speaker 4: I think that's a good segue into that. 00:33:43 Speaker 1: This was viewed as a utterly barren year for pitching, right? Like that's like, what do you remember from the time? 00:33:55 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:33:55 Speaker 3: I remember just having many conversations with scouts who, who really just despise this college pitching group thought it was severely lacking compared to a typical year, um, multiple conversations about whether or not this was the worst college pitching draft ever. 00:34:12 Speaker 4: We'd ever had. 00:34:12 Speaker

3: I think at the time, if I'm remembering correctly, this class set a record for the furthest number of picks into the draft without a pitcher or maybe specifically a college pitcher selected. And I think it's interesting to talk through now because I do think there are a number of pitchers, obviously, who have exceeded expectations and gone on to be quite good. And I'm also interested in how we should be viewing the career of Alec Manoa and whether or not we think of that as a success as a failure would you take that in hindsight because it's just a very odd career in general and he was one of the top college pitchers in this class he was selected 11th overall so he was the second pitcher selected he was the third college pitcher on our board and then whether or not there are any lessons from George Kirby who I think is also one of the bigger success stories of this class he also went Um, in, in a range where we had him ranked, we ranked him 20th. 00:35:12 Speaker 4: He went 20th. Um, he's been tremendous. No. 00:35:17 Speaker 3: And, and I don't always think that like the success is like, Oh, do they go exactly? There's always the signing bonuses, but yeah, feel pretty good about where we had all these guys ranked at the time. But yeah, if you don't remember, this is one of the most critical college pitching drafts. I think even to this day that I've covered, um, Um, what are your thoughts on whether or not it succeeded expectations and how we can view some of these guys' careers? 00:35:41 Speaker 1: I think that the scouts at the time were right. If you look at this, this is probably, if you just look at it and line it up, the most successful pitcher from this class so far by baseball reference war is Hunter Brown. Now Hunter Brown has been really good. He does not fit into this discussion though. When you say the quality of the pitching class, that was, he was at Wayne state in Michigan and great job by the Astros, but That was not a guy who was. 00:36:06 Speaker 4: Going to go. 00:36:06 Speaker 1: There was no scenario where he was going to go first round. 00:36:08 Speaker 3: Which, by the way, this is the third straight podcast where we're giving the Astros credit for a really solid later round pick, getting Hunter Brown in the fifth. 00:36:18 Speaker 4: Pretty tremendous. 00:36:19 Speaker 3: I'll also say you kind of have to give credit to the industry at large because the next three pitchers in terms of, and this is why the Alec Manoa conversation is so interesting, the next three pitchers in terms of cumulative baseball reference war, Nick Lodolo, George Kirby, Alec Manoa, pretty good hit rate. 00:36:36 Speaker 4: I mean, unless you are, um, unless you're the nationals and. 00:36:40 Speaker 3: You drafted Jackson Rutledge or the Cardinals and you drafted Zach Thompson, uh, you're pretty happy just looking back at how the industry evaluated these arms at the top. Like those, those top three guys were the top three guys or have been so far. 00:36:55 Speaker 1: But, and again, we've got like, there are a couple of guys later on who, you know, obviously these careers are not over by any stretch of imagination, but, but we're talking that there are three pitchers at seven and a half, more than seven and a half war right now. And I say that because Alex Manoa is a 7.2. And if Alex Manoa gets to 7.5 down the road, that would be a nice career turnaround. 00:37:14 Speaker 4: I feel like this, this was the case at the time, JJ, and it remains the case. Now you, you love to call Alec Manoa, Alex Manoa. 00:37:21 Speaker 1: Alex, Alec Manoa. But, but what I would say is the comparison, like we talked about the 2018 class, that 2018 class had, has one, two, three, four, six guys who are at 10 war now. And another two at, seven and a half or more. And it's like, I feel pretty good that Tarek Skubal, that Drew Rasmussen, that Shane McClanahan are going to keep really, like those guys are really good still right now. If you go even to the class after it, you've got like Garrett Crochet, you've got, you know, I've spent Jared Jones, Spencer Strider, Cade Cavalli, who are probably going to be doing this for years to come. The thing that stands out about this class is, okay, Hunter Brown, Nick Lodolo, George Kirby, thumbs up. After that, you start running out. When you say, would you do it again with Alec Manoa? Right. This class? 00:38:08 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:38:09 Speaker 1: In this class? 00:38:09 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:38:10 Speaker 1: Because if you wanted a pitcher. 00:38:13 Speaker 3: Well, let's go into the Alec Manoa story. Because 2021, it's his rookie year. He makes 20 starts, 3.22 ERA, 2.9 baseball reference war. He finishes eighth in the rookie of the year voting. Then in 2022, just a tremendous season. 31 starts, 2.24 ERA. He's third in the Cy Young voting. He's an all-star. He gets down-ballot MVP votes. And then that's kind of it. I mean, in 2023, he made 19 starts, but he was a well below average pitcher. In that season, in 2024, he made just five starts. This 2025 and 2026, he made a handful of outings and hasn't been effective. So if you could say at the time, would you take this career– If you're picking the player at 11th overall, I think almost everyone would say no. They wouldn't take that career, but I think you probably want to. 00:39:12 Speaker 4: Take it, right? 00:39:14 Speaker 3: What would you, what would you, if you could guarantee you're going to get an abbreviated rookie of the year campaign and one Cy Young caliber season for a pitcher that you're taking 11th overall, but beyond that, nothing. 00:39:28 Speaker 4: Are you, are you taking that player or no? 00:39:29 Speaker 1: Okay. So here's the question, right? This is where this gets fun. Obviously, if you have perfect hindsight, no, you're taking Corbin Carroll. He's still on the board. 00:39:38 Speaker 2: No, no, no. 00:39:38 Speaker 4: This is the thing. 00:39:39 Speaker 1: Don't worry. I'm getting, but you

don't have that, right? All you're having, let's think of this like let's make a deal, right? You're saying I'm giving you the insight that this is what you're going to get. Are you going to take that or are you going to take the field? And if that's the case, your chances of getting better than that are actually quite low because as much as I just talked about how good this class is, and it really is, it is a very top-heavy class when it comes to the first round. You are sitting there, and if you are picking top nine– you're getting someone generally really good. And in some cases, you're getting a franchise player, right? You're getting someone that you are trying to extend to stay with you for years and years and years. Once you get outside the top 10, you've got Bryson Stott, who's been good. You know, very good for the Phillies. You've got Corbin Carroll, who I always say has been great. 00:40:36 Speaker 2: Yes. 00:40:37 Speaker 1: You've got, at the end of the first round, you've got Anthony Volpe, who... has had up and down, but it's been a starting shortstop and a productive one at times in the big leagues. And then at pick 31, you've got Michael Bush, who's been a solid first baseman after getting kind of stuck trying to play other positions for the Dodgers because they had a first baseman. That's it. There's no one else, I would say, in that 11 through 30, 35 range where you'd be like, oh, I would rather have that guy, George Kirby. I'm sorry, George Kirby, I should say. That's the other one. That's it. If you said, would you rather have Alec Manoa or Jackson Rutledge, Alec Manoa, Zach Thompson, Braden Shoemake, Greg Jones, Michael Toglia, probably Daniel Spino, all these guys, you would say, no, you'll take the Alec Manoa, what he did. So I don't think it's actually, it's not that hard of a question if you actually look at it, like you say, like having any kind of reasonable odds for this. Right. 00:41:36 Speaker 3: I still think if you tomorrow, let's say, Let's say we pick out whoever's picking 11th in the 2027 draft, and we say, hey, we're going to guarantee you this outcome. You're going to get a rookie of the year season. You're going to get one top three Cy Young caliber season. 00:41:55 Speaker 4: That's it. 00:41:55 Speaker 3: That's all you're getting. I think almost everyone would pass, and they would take a shot on something more. And I think that's my assumption. Maybe I'm wrong, but my assumption is that they would pass and hope that they could get some more length of career there. 00:42:09 Speaker 1: And I get it, the team, do you want length of career? But the other thing I'll say about this is, is if you're given a choice between, like the other thing about that Alec Manoa season that I will point out, they went 92 and 70 that year. They made it to the playoffs. And now again, they didn't make it deep in the playoffs, but they made it to the playoffs. And I'll tell you right now, they probably don't without Alec Manoa that year. And the other thing I'll say about it is, is if you're saying you're going to get a six-war win Cy Young caliber season out of a player, that's going to help you. That's how you get to the post season, right? You can't do it by itself, but this is what I was talking about with the pirates last year. And again, Connor Griffin got hurt this year. Paul schemes took a step back, but I was like, if, if you can have a, if you can line up a pirate season where Paul schemes and Connor Griffin are both five plus war players, you have to really screw up around them to not make the playoffs. Now it's possible. The reds this year, like, Ellie Dela Cruz and Chase Burns say hi, but, but it's hard. That's what Alec Manoa did for you at his peak. And it's just, and no one could have imagined that the time is like, it's done. Like it is. And it wasn't often. Usually when it's done like this, it would be something like, but in that last game in the post season, he felt something and he had a clot and then they discovered it was thoracic outlet syndrome and he had to have a rib removed and he never got back to that. No, it was just like, It wasn't some major injury. It was just the stuff backed up and then it disappeared. 00:43:44 Speaker 4: Well, we're coming up to the end. 00:43:45 Speaker 3: We're going to have to wrap soon, but I do want to go through a few last minute notes and some other thoughts on this class. 00:43:52 Speaker 1: Can I bring up one more first rounder? Sure. I want to bring up one more first rounder, which is the one that I did not understand at the time that I'm not trying to dunk on them in hindsight, but I cannot explain for the life of me why the Rockies took Michael Toglia at 23. And it's not trying to pick on Michael Toglia, but we had him rated much lower than that. And what I would say though, beyond everything else is like, and I'm not saying that like, look, Cody Hosey went right after him, like Walston, Ryan Jensen, who was a weird pick at the time. Again, a guy who was much lower rated than that has never made the big leagues. But I just would say like, this is where I think the Rockies have to get away from this, which is, Hey, we've got this well-rounded first baseman. Who's not probably very good at anything. Like exceed has a no carry tool. Don't take that in the first round. Take a swing at a shortstop, a high school shortstop or something. Take a picture. He's got some upside. 00:44:47 Speaker 3: Even if you want to go on the college route, I feel like the A's have been a team who for several years now have, whether by luck or happenstance have just been able to take the best player available on the BA draft board. 00:44:58 Speaker 4: And it's worked out pretty well for them. So sometimes that, that can pan out. 00:45:01 Speaker 3: Um, Yeah, but I think what separates this class from some other classes are, obviously, the first round hits. There are also a lot of hits in the first few rounds after that. Most of

the war in this class is concentrated in the first few rounds. Obviously, that's going to be the case most of the time, but there are just so many good players hit on here. 00:45:21 Speaker 4: Gunnar Henderson in the second round, the fact. 00:45:23 Speaker 3: That the Orioles have two of the top six players in the class in terms of total production so far, you could make a really compelling case that Gunnar Henderson... is going two overall if you're redrafting this with perfect hindsight. In fact, I think that's just where he goes. 00:45:35 Speaker 1: Even with the season he's having this year, I'd still say that. Right. 00:45:39 Speaker 3: The Michael Harris pick in the third round, tremendous work by the Braves. It's funny that baseball reference even lists him as a pitcher at the time. He was selected as an outfielder, but we liked him better as a pitcher at the time. This is kind of just a continuation of the Braves taking these really exciting two-way players, athletic players, maybe taking them at a surprising position at the time but it's panned out um we mentioned hunter brown in the fifth round a couple other late round players who have looked really good so far the royals again you get bobby wood jr it's a victory even if you do nothing the rest of the time and even if you pass it's a great draft for the royals but vinnie pascuantino in the 11th round that was a really good pick um a few other names i'll just mention here kind of quickly josh smith with the yankees in the second round jared triolo with the pirates in the second round ryan pepio with the dodgers In the third round, Joey Ortiz, yet another Orioles pick. In the fourth round, and then if you're looking at top five teams from this draft, in total B-War, it's so far Orioles, Royals, D-backs, Braves, and Tigers. 00:46:45 Speaker 4: Those are your top five teams. 00:46:47 Speaker 1: I did want to bring up one other guy from the first round, because this was a great reporting by you at the time, which was Keone Kavako. came into the year off of all radars, I would say. People didn't know that he existed, but he was not viewed as a top prospect. And then he just set the world on fire in a very competitive SoCal district and rocketed from not ranked. When we went to 200, he was not ranked. Where was he on 300? 00:47:22 Speaker 4: That would have been around March. 39. 00:47:26 Speaker 1: 39. 00:47:27 Speaker 4: Okay. 00:47:28 Speaker 1: And then we never went higher than 32, which I would say that our, our hesitation. And what I would say with this though, is that this is the danger we talked about with Hunter Bishop in some ways, but this is the danger. Keone Kavako then went out and really never hit in Pro Bowl. The tools were always loud, but not as loud as they did not translate as loudly. Like it was a third baseman pretty quickly. It was like, okay, he's a good defensive. 00:47:53 Speaker 3: I can tell you the dynamic of what happened with Keone Kavako with, with, Pretty strong confidence. So area scouts were aware of Keone Cavaco heading into the spring. He wasn't some unknown player from their perspective, but they had seen him really struggle to hit a lot. Um, he came out during the spring and he had a few, I think there were a few workouts he did, and then he also just performed better in the spring. And so teams were bringing him in. Directors were bringing him in national trust cross checkers were bringing him into team workouts and he had the exact tool set. That just lit those workouts up. It was 70 grade raw power. He had a big arm. He was an above-average runner. There was a chance for above-average defense at third base. 00:48:32 Speaker 1: Really young for the class? 00:48:34 Speaker 3: Young for the class. There's the age thing coming into play. I believe it was the Twins drafted, I'm sure. The age really factored heavily in their model at the time. But I do remember there was a pretty big disconnect between where area scouts liked Keone Kavako and where national evaluators liked Keone Kavako. And I'm assuming that's why We had him ranked where we did. It's one of those that has aged pretty well. 00:48:56 Speaker 4: For us in hindsight. 00:48:57 Speaker 3: But he is also one of the kind of go-to players for you and for me when we talk about just hesitance of these pop-up high school hitters. We really are skeptical of the guys that just don't have a lot of track record in the summer. 00:49:11 Speaker 4: And he's one that hasn't really panned out. 00:49:14 Speaker 1: This is the Austin Beck story that we talked about in 2017 all over again, which is guys who arrive like but i think this is again slight difference here which is the key thing that you just mentioned here the feedback we were getting at the time mainly you were getting at the time was from these area scouts saying i don't know why all the national guys love this guy so much and it was kind of this is a point like where, I mean, we're, we're kind of getting into the point where the, the shift is happening as far as how these decisions are made, especially in the first round. And I would say that like, not just Kavaka, but like there are guys who it's like the area scouts were not big fans of who would just rock it up because like you said, they, you could, you could see everything you wanted to see, but they didn't have the track record of doing it. 00:50:05 Speaker 4: Right. 00:50:05 Speaker 1: There was more skepticism there for that reason. 00:50:07 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:50:08 Speaker 3: Right. 00:50:08 Speaker 1: A very fun draft. Best, I would say, for ranking the drafts so far that we've talked to, this is number one. It's like by far. 00:50:17 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:50:17 Speaker 3: Of the three we've done so far, I'd go 2019, 2018, 2017. 00:50:21 Speaker 1: Well, next week when we do this, we're going to talk about the wildest draft that you and I hopefully will ever be involved in covering because I have these moments for each of these drafts before where things stick in my head from like these blasts vignettes of like being at this event or seeing this guy or whatever there are none of those for 2020 i remember being on the phone in my backyard a lot walking around the neighborhood and all because there wasn't a season so we'll get into that next week but if you have not checked out the other ones do check out you know these are every week on the draft podcast we're looking at so 2020 next week we've already done 2017 2018 and obviously today 2019 Also, check out BaseballMaker.com. A whole lot more stuff over there. For Carlos, I'm JJ. 00:51:10 Speaker 2: So long, everybody.