Hello, and welcome to the Dynasty Baseball Pickups podcast.

Today is September twenty seventh.

I am Kyle Sonteg.

I'm joined as always by Taylor Corso.

Taylor, it is the second last day of the MLB regular season.

How are you doing today, Man.

I'm doing good.

I feel like this year kind of flew by.

It's crazy to me that the regular season is ending tomorrow, fantasy seasons are wrapping up, MLB seasons wrapping up, We got the playoffs right around the corner, and you know, as usual, this will be kind of our final podcast of the season, even though we will be back relatively soon.

But yeah, it's just kind of crazy that this is already upon us.

Yeah.

It, like you said, time absolutely flies when when we're talking baseball.

We'll get a little bit more into, you know, the end of this season and what that means for us later on in the episode.

But Taylor, as you alluded to, most fantasy baseball seasons have also ended.

There are a few that are still wrapping up out there with the end of the MLB regular season this weekend.

So on that note, I wanted to ask you how did your season go for fantasy baseball.

Just overall this year.

Yeah, I don't know, like it went fine.

I guess I think I'll probably break even.

I did win one championship, but I think overall most of my teams actually performed worse than they did last year, and it just felt like a really kind of frustrating season where you know, a lot of things went wrong, whether it was trades or injuries or whatever.

So I have to look at like, what went wrong this offseason, but wasn't my best season.

But I think your season was a different story.

Huh.

My season was very much a different story.

Yes, of my I don't even remember how eleven or twelve dynasty teams that I've got.

I only had one team that did not make the playoffs.

I still have a few leagues running through this last weekend of baseball, but of those that have wrapped up, I have sealed three championships, a second place finish, and a third and this weekend I have two more third place matchups.

But most importantly, Taylor, I have our matchup in the Prospects Live Dynasty League for the championship, which is still ongoing right up to the last day of the MLB tomorrow.

The score currently sits at eight to three to one in my favor, but there are a lot of really close categories.

We talked about it last week.

This one has gone back and forth really throughout the two week matchup here.

I'd say our second week are both of our teams are playing a lot better baseball than they were in week one.

But how are you feeling about our matchup so far?

Taylor?

It's been a fun matchup, but I don't really feel great about my chances of winning it.

I know there's a lot of close categories.

I think I looked at it and I have maybe seven categories I can realistically take of the twelve, which would you know, again give me a victory.

But it's gonna be really hard to take all seven of those categories.

I'm gonna need some help, and I think so far today I'm I'm not getting the help I need, So we'll see.

I gotta say at this point in the season, I don't look at the scores a whole lot throughout the day, especially in that league, because it's not a league where we can make lineup changes every day or even throughout the day.

This is a league where we can only adjust our lineups twice a week, so I really haven't been paying a ton of attention throughout the day.

I couldn't tell you how things are looking today.

I'm gonna look again tonight and hopefully things look as good as they did this morning.

But it definitely makes for, in my opinion, a little bit more of a relaxed championship when there's not as much thinking that has to go into it.

Yeah, that's true.

With the daily leagues, you have to really sweat those decisions of oh, man, do I, you know, pick up the streamer for Sunday?

Do I, you know, do this?

Do I do that?

Whereas this one we're kind of locked in, like, you know, whatever happens happens.

Yeah.

Now we basically just have to hope that, you know, pitchers in particular, that we're expected to start on this final Sunday of the year actually start, because those are the kind of shenanigans that we sometimes get trapped by when we aren't able to set our lineups on a daily basis.

So fingers crossed really for both of us that you know, everything goes according to plan as far as all those scheduled starts.

But I'm really looking forward to the final day and a half of baseball here, and I will admit, Taylor, I am watching the Jays game off to the side right now.

They are two outs away from sealing a victory, keeping pace with the Yankees, so fingers crossed that that continues to go well as well.

Yeah, I'm rooting for you.

I really hope the Jays can win that division and go far in the playoffs there.

I think they're a fun team and hopefully we get to see a lot of them this postseason.

I would absolutely love that.

But Taylor, we have a lot more great baseball discussion coming today that includes a lot of news and notes from around the baseball world.

Once again, we've got an upcoming rule change that we're actually going to discuss a little bit.

There were some more injuries, demotions, promotions, big league debut.

Then we're gonna get into part two of our reviews of each other's work, and then at the end of the episode, we are going to maybe make some predictions as far as what we actually think will happen in the playoffs this year, and then just discuss our off season plans a little bit and kind of make sure everybody's aware of what's going on and why they might not hear from us for the next couple of weeks.

But before we get to any of that, I do want to remind everyone about all of the incredible content still being pumped out at Prospects Live.

There's the daily Sheets, the Dynasty Prospect and Open Universe lists, the Trade Analyzer and Matchmaker, the p Live Plus and Hobby Plus tools.

There's the Dynasty Closer Hierarchy.

There are our Dynasty Baseball pickups written articles, which once again will be wrapping up this week for another season.

There's the Sunday Smoke articles from Darren Eisenhower, Diamond Diplomas from Lucas Morrell, three Up, three Down from Tom Gates, and I have to assume that all of those articles will also be wrapping up for the season here.

But Josh Catlett also dove into the twenty twenty six draft class as he took a look at the ten best individual pitches in the college draft class.

And then on the podcast front, Drew, Reese and Nate dropped episode thirty six of the On Deck Pod with Reese and Nate investigating the recipe for World Series success, and then they stuck with the playoff theme for episode thirty seven, as they discussed the X factor for each team in the playoff hunt down the stretch here as well.

Episode eighty five of the p Live Dynasty pod dropped as Greg Hucamp, Doc Eisenhower, and Roger Metta discussed the twenty twenty six All Minor League team and a lot of the players they discussed Taylor were names that we have recommended this year, so hopefully we helped a lot of people out there grab some shares of some of the best players in the minor leagues this year.

But as you can tell, there's a lot of awesome work being done up and down Prospects Live.

Whether you like to read your articles or listen to podcasts to consume your content, whether you are into fantasy baseball, real life scouting, the amateur side of things, card collecting, you name it.

We have something for every kind of baseball fan and it is all available for as little as five dollars per month in one convenient place at prospectslive dot com.

If you enjoy our podcast, please rate and review us.

We really appreciate the support, and please give us a follow.

While you are at it.

You can find me at Sunny Underscore ONEH eight on X and Sonny one O eight on Blue Sky, and you can find Taylor at Dynasty Pickups on both.

You can also get a hold of us with all of your Dynasty Baseball questions at Dynasty Baseball pickups dot com.

Now let's get into some of the news and notes from baseball over the last week, and we will start with the announcement that the ABS Challenge system is coming to the MLB in twenty twenty six.

So this is not the full blown ROBOUMP, just the challenge system that we've seen where, if I've heard or seen correctly, each team will get two opportunities per game to challenge a call, ball or strike made by the umpire at home plate.

Taylor, they've been trying this out in the minor leagues for a little while now it seems to be going well.

But what do you think about this upcoming change for the MLB?

Yeah, I mean I think this is an expected change, right, Like we've we've sort of known this has been on the horizon.

We saw it in spring training, so I'm for it.

You know the fact that umpires aren't perfect.

I think they generally do a pretty good job.

But there's nothing more frustrating than seeing a really bad call that that you know, affects the outcome of a game.

So if we can limit that, I'm all for it.

I do think that it'll be interesting to see sort of how this impacts the value of good framing catchers, Like, you know, I'm a Giants fan Patrick Bailey, Like that's a lot of his value comes from being an excellent, you know, defensive catcher, excellent framer.

Does he lose some of that value now?

Do we see you know, more sort of bat first catchers get more run at the catcher position because there's not as much emphasis on the framing now, with only two calls to challenge per game, then I think, you know, that doesn't limit their value to too much at this point, but I would anticipate, like, if this goes well, we might see sort of that usage expand further down the road.

Yeah, I would agree with you there.

I think that the way that they are approaching this with the limited challenge system is a really nice kind of happy medium between what they've got now and going all the way into the roboumps.

I think that while it can really take away from the game to see a bad call either way, you know, maybe decide a game in one way or another.

The human element of the game is still a really important element to me at least, and I know as a pitcher, as much as it sucked, you know, not getting the calls that I should have, it's nice to know that you can maybe get lucky on the other side of things too.

So I think this is a really good medium, and like you said, probably won't take away too much from the defensive value of some of those you know, really strong framing catchers.

Now, maybe down the road, as you alluded to, they introduce a few more challenges per game, but I think for now, this is a really nice way to introduce this challenge system.

Yeah, I would agree.

All right, then, Taylor, we will move on to the injuries as the Blue Jays wrap up a victory.

I'm just gonna slide that right in there because Chris Bassett actually, look at that transition, Chris Bassett is going to the il with lower back inflammation.

Pablo Lopez is dealing with a forearm strain, but he was apparently injured trying to make a diving place, so this likely isn't as troubling as most forearm strains for pitchers because it didn't happen on a throw, it happened landing on his arm on a diving place.

So a little bit of a weird one there for Pablo Lopez.

But Brandon Woodruff has a lat strain, Ozzi Albi's is dealing with a fractured hand, Mackenzie Gore has an ankle impingement, Ty France oblique inflammation, Luke Kishel has a sprained thumb, Jose Burrios elbow and inflammation, and Cade Horton is dealing with a fractured rib.

Now Taylor Obviously, at this point in the season, there's not a whole lot that can be taken away from any of these injuries.

From a fantasy standpoint, this will have an effect on a lot of you know, playoff teams though.

But taking it back to fantasy, is there anything here that you are maybe keeping an eye on through the off season as it might affect someone's value going into twenty twenty six.

Yeah, I'm curious about Brandon Woodruff.

I'm hoping that, you know, because of the lap strain, it's not as you know, serious as like an elbow obviously or a shoulder, but because of the injury history, because of the fact that really he came back and I think performed better than I expected, I think performed better than most people expected after his long layoff.

Tough to see him injured again.

Also one that I'm keeping an eye on is is Ozzie Albi's with the fractured hand.

He should be good to go for next.

Year, but this is a guy who obviously the perform rmance has been down for a couple of years now, he's had injury issues, so hoping that that doesn't impact maybe a bounce back season next year from him.

And then the other one is Luke Kishel.

You know, this is his third iel stint in the last year.

They're all unrelated, but it's definitely something to monitor when you have a young player like this that's still pretty early on in his professional career who's sort of racking up these injuries, you know, particularly in an organization that's had a lot of players with that sort of similar injury history.

So those are the ones that I'm I'm kind of keeping an eye on, but I think it's worth mentioning Jose Barrios first time on the IL in his MLB career, which is kind of crazy.

Yeah.

The other thing that I really don't like about that first time on the IL, but it came immediately following his first relief appearance as well, so obviously he was a little bit out of his regular routine and things just didn't really go well for him.

He didn't pitch great, but obviously something didn't feel quite right.

That one.

I'm gonna be keeping a little bit of an eye on too.

It's just being labeled elbow inflammation right now.

But if he can't come back during the playoffs, it starts to put some questions in your mind as to what's going on and what twenty twenty six might look like.

Yeah, and I think there were some like performance related questions there.

Anyway, I've sort of like, yeah, his value is going.

To be going forward, absolutely, So a few to keep an eye on, because I really do agree with you on the rest of them, Woodruff, Alby's and Keishold.

Those are all names to keep an eye on as well.

So let's move on to one quick injury update here.

An unfortunate note because Luis Garcia of the Astros, the pitcher, is having Tommy John surgery and will miss all of twenty twenty six, this coming after just a few appearances back from surgery.

Taylor, what are you doing with Luis Garcia at this point, knowing that he's gonna miss all of next season as well?

Yeah, I'm pretty much dropping him everywhere, you know, if I have an eye out spot where I can keep him, sure, but that aisle gets full, he's back to the wire because we know the history of to Tommy John's is not great, and I don't know if it's been confirmed that the second surgery is gonna be a Tommy John.

But you know, two elbow surgeries in you know, essentially two years is kind of crazy.

So it's one of those where you just hope he's able to come back and be effective again, and that's not something I would bet on at this point.

Yeah.

I think the good news for anybody rostering Luis Garcia right now is that your fantasy season is probably already over.

Your lineups have probably already locked, so you don't need to worry about making those roster decisions right now, and come the start of twenty twenty six, a lot of those guys currently sitting on your aisle will be off of it and you'll need to make some other roster decisions, but Luis Garcia can probably safely sit there for a little bit.

But like you said, if it comes down to you know, April, May, June, mid season and that ile's filling up, he probably will be one of the first names that I'd be kicking to the waiver wire as well, just again because of the way that so few players come back from this second elbow surgery.

Yeah, exactly, all right.

Now, speaking of elbow surgery, bit of a surprise.

DFA here as the Toronto Blue Jays Dfad alec Manoa, and he was just recently claimed by Atlanta.

Now he was actually performing relatively well down in Triple A.

Some of the under the hood stats and metrics and pitch values and things weren't looking maybe as good as the actual numbers were.

But this was still a little bit of a surprise to me considering how recently he was a cy Young finalist and how highly thought of he was within the organization.

It kind of makes you wonder if there was something else going on.

But Taylor alec Manoa moving on to Atlanta, Now, is this a name that you're maybe a little bit more interested in for twenty twenty six with the change of scenery.

Not really, I just don't have a lot of hope for Alec Manoa Atlanta.

I think it's a pretty good pitching development organization, and so I think that's a good landing spot.

But I'm not super confident Manoah's gonna turn things around.

I think there's there's a lot of stuff that needed sort of fixing there, and I don't know if he's gonna put it all together again.

So I'm I'm not gonna make any moves to sort of go after him buy him this offseason.

It's more of a wait and see approach for me, but not one that I'm like super confident it's gonna pan out.

Yeah, I'm right there with you, wait and see here.

I need to see how he performs in the big leagues before I really get interested again.

And I don't know what his opportunities are going to look like if he sticks with Atlanta, as you said, because that rotation is going to be pretty full, and they've got a lot of young arms that they could be giving opportunities to.

So it's gonna be interesting to see exactly what things look like in Atlanta and for Manoa comes spring training next year.

All right, Taylor, We've got a couple promotions to the big leagues to discuss before we get into one big league debut first though, a couple of arms returning to the big league's Mick Abel and Robert Gasser both coming back for Minnesota and Milwaukee respectively.

Obviously, you know, not a whole lot to talk about to end this year.

But what do you think the odds are we see either or both of these guys making their respective rotations next season.

I think it's pretty good.

You know, we know the Brewers don't like to spend money, so I would expect, you know, they're going to try to have a mostly homegrown rotation with the options there.

They do have quite a few options.

So I don't know if Gasser breaks camp in the rotation, but I do think we're going to see a lot of him next year.

In similar situation with Mick Abel, you know, I do think he'll probably be part of that rotation next year.

You know, the Twins have pretty much gutted everything at the deadline this year.

They'll be looking to fill innings.

Abel's gotten quite a bit of run in the big leagues this year.

We talked about him last week, so I'm not going to get too far into him, but he was sort of better his last time around since coming back.

Still had some walk issues, but pitched a little bit better.

Gasser did not pitch well, but has pitched well in Triple A there.

So I think both of them are sort of intriguing deeper names for next year to sort of keep an eye on.

Yeah, I think that's the right way to label them intriguing deeper names.

We don't need to get into that Mikeable argument once again.

So we're gonna move on to the last big league debut, assuming it's going to be the last big league debut we see this season with just one day left after today, and that is Hunter Barco, who, if not for an injury earlier in the year, likely would have made his debut for the Pirates much sooner.

He's being used in a relief role to close out the year here.

But what do you think the chances are that we see him crack the opening day rotation in Pittsburgh next year.

I think it's decent.

I think it's more likely that he'll start in Triple A but I wouldn't say the chances are zero.

Yeah, I think I'm with you there.

They've got a lot of options they I think we'll have Jared Jones back by spring training next so that complicates things.

The Pirates, they're not one to spend a lot of money, but for some reason they keep bringing in those old veterans that are just plugging up the rotation and taking spots away from guys like Barco.

So it's entirely possible they'll bring someone like that in once again.

But like you said, I think there's definitely a chance, But I'd say the chances are extremely high that we see him probably before the All Star break.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's probably more realistic.

All right, then, Taylor.

That does it for the News and Notes pretty quick through the last weekend of the regular season here, So let's get into part two of our year end review.

Now, just like last week, we are going to start by calling out a few of the best recommendations from each other's articles, this time from the second half of the year.

Then we are each going to get a chance to argue for some higher grades on a couple of players that we think the other person may have graded too harshly.

We will also finish with one player that we each missed on who we think could have a bounce back year in twenty twenty six.

So, Taylor, let's get into it, and let's start with you.

Who were a few of my best recommendations in the second half this year.

Yeah, I mean this might shock you and shock our listeners, but all of your best recommendations from the second half were pitchers, which just continues a trend of you just being really really good at calling out which pitchers are about to skyrocket because he kept it up in the second half.

First up, as Tanner McDougal of the White Sox.

You called him out on July sixth, You just him for leagues of three to fifty prospects.

He's now ranked at one forty four and our latest rankings his roster ship went from two percent to fifteen percent, and he was absolutely lights out to close out the year after you wrote him up forty and a thirds innings pitch three point seven nine ERA one point one to nine whip, you know, just really really good stuff to finish out the year.

There.

Another one was Elma Rodriguez Cruz of the Yankees.

You wrote him up in that same July sixth article again and fifty plus prospects rostered.

He's now even higher ranked at one point thirty in our rankings.

He went from five percent roster to sixteen percent rostered.

I think you had written him up just before.

I think he got promoted to double A.

He ended up eventually getting promoted to triple A.

All in all to close out the year, just an amazing stat line, sixty eight and a thirty Ing's pitch two point three seven ERA, one point oh two whip, thirty point four percent strikeout rate, just eight point nine percent walk rate to close out the year.

There just awesome stuff.

Next arm was Kendri Chario of the Royals.

You wrote him up on July thirteenth, league size of four and fifty plus prospects.

He's now ranked one seventeen in our rankings, just outside the top one hundred.

I think he made the top one hundred for some people.

I think you might actually be one of those people.

But two percent rostered all the way to seventeen percent rostered, and between complex and single A almost thirty Ings pitched a four point five to five ERA, but a three point two five FIP, one point zero whip, twenty six point two percent strike out rate, three point two percent walk right, so really showing good commit and control there to go along with really good stuff.

And then you know, maybe one of your favorite calls of the year, Caden Scarborough of the Rangers.

You wrote him up August seventeenth, suggested him in leagues of two hour plus prospects, which I thought was really aggressive for the timeframe.

Well, he's now ranked one sixty seven in our rankings, his roster rate has jumped from five percent to twelve percent.

And want to talk about, you know, outstanding performance after you wrote him up, just thirteen ings pitched but no runs allowed, the zero point six y two whip, a strikeout rate close to forty percent, and just a four percent walk rate.

So absolutely absolutely dominant performances from all four of these pitchers.

You nailed all four of them.

And you know, if you listen to Kyle, you've really boosted your your future pitching there.

Yeah, you you said it was Scarborough there, one of my favorite recommendations from the year.

Really, all of these guys are some of my favorites.

I'm really glad to hear that you thought they were some of my best as well.

But Taylor, when looking at your articles, the big theme I noticed with a lot of your best recommendations in the second half was how young they were.

Most of the a's that I gave you in this article were teenagers who started and in most cases, finished the year in either the DSL or Complex Ball.

One of those names was Esteban Mahia, who rose from five percent roster to twenty one percent rostered, and he went from unranked at Prospects Live to our one hundred and twenty fifth overall prospect.

He also rose from complex ball to single A.

So he is one of those teenagers that made it out of complex ball.

But he did that as an eighteen year old, who you know, you just don't see that very often from eighteen year olds rising out of complex ball into full season ball.

Now, the big draw here with Mahia is the big stuff.

Fangrafts has put a future seventy grade on his fastball.

It regularly touches triple digits.

He's got a nasty slider to a really solid one two punch.

Command and control can be a bit shaky at times, and that along with the fact that he is so far away from the bigs and carries some extreme risk is why I think even you, Taylor, but myself certainly would say that I'm a little bit lower on him than some out there are.

But there is no denying that this was a fantastic call and his stock has risen tremendously.

That's Esteban Maheea of the Orioles.

Now the lone twenty something prospect that I'm gonna mention in this group is Ty Johnson, pitcher for the rais another arm here, this one.

You wrote up Taylor at the end of July when he was ten percent rostered.

He ranked two sixty overall, and his roster rate rose to sixteen percent and his ranking to two oh six, So more modest bumps than a lot of your other best calls, But the performance was stellar for Johnson.

He pitched to a two point sixty five ERA with a thirty five percent carried and a five percent walk rate over thirty seven innings after you recommended him.

He ended the year with a two point six y one RA twenty six percent K minus walk rate in a one hundred and ten innings So he was a little bit more well known He might have been a little bit harder for people to find on the wire, but if you did, you found a real gem who I think will just continue to rise next year.

An excellent call there by you, Taylor.

But we're gonna move over to the DSL now for a couple more teenagers, the first one being Marconi Hermann, who you recommended on July tenth.

At the time, he was relatively unknown.

He was kind of just starting to get some hype in dynasty circles.

He was still unranked at Prospects Live and just four percent rostered on fan tracks.

Following your write up, though, he slashed two eighty nine four to sixty one five hundred with three home runs and sixteen stolen bases.

He rose to eleven percent rostered, and he flew up our ranks to two hundred and four overall.

It is going to be really interesting to see how he performs when he comes stateside next year.

And the same can be said about the other big DSL hit that you had in the second half, Juan Sanchez of the Blue Jays.

He was recommended in the middle of August, so he didn't have much time to continue performing, but that didn't stop his stock from rising, as he went from unranked at p live to three twenty six overall, and he actually rose even further in roster ship than hermandad, going from four percent to fifteen percent.

He ended the DSL season with a one fifty six WRC plus thanks to a three forty one, four thirty nine five sixty five triple slash and eight home runs over fifty six games.

So Taylor, four more excellent recommendations and another pad on the back to you for another great year.

Yeah, I mean, I thank you, but I think, look, you get your recommendations for the year in mind, I think you you had the stronger year in terms of recommendations.

I think we both did good, but I mean your success rate just like blew my mind.

How how good your recommendations were.

And I think kind of comparing it to last year.

You know, even you did a fantastic job last year too, but even then you took a big step forward this year as well.

So I think, like I said, I think we both did good, but man, your numbers were out of this world.

So congrats, man.

Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

I can't echo enough the fact that we both did tremendously.

Once again.

I am really enjoying watching really both of us grow and continue to learn with what we're doing here, and I can't wait to see how things look going forward.

But Taylor, next, we are going to get into a bit of a debate surrounding a few players that we think the other person maybe could have graded a little bit more favorably.

Now.

I don't know about you, Taylor, but I had an even harder time picking player to debate this week than last week.

We're gonna give it a go anyways, So why don't you tell me the first player you think I am being too harsh on.

We'll go back and forth a little bit, one player at a time here again and see if we can sway each other at all this week.

Yeah, and I agree, it was tough, particularly with the smaller sample in the second half there.

I think you graded really fairly.

But it was funny because I told you one of the I was gonna I was gonna bring up, and you're like, yep, I figured he would bring up that player and that players Dakota Jordan.

You gave him a C plus, which I think is a is a solid grade.

But I think he deserves a little bit more than that.

And the reason why is because he saw his roster rate raise four percent, he saw his ranking at Prospects Live climb sixty eight spots, and he just put up phenomenal numbers after I rolled him up.

It was only eleven games because he got hurt, and maybe that injury is a big part of why you you dinged him a little bit.

But he did put up an ops over eleven hundred, a one to ninety four WRC plus and five home runs in those last eleven games, so you know, he didn't slow down at all.

If anything, he got even hotter after I rowed him up.

He saw you know, his stock rise.

To me, that deserves to grade at least in the bees.

But I know you were never really a big Dakota Jordan believer to begin with, so maybe that was part of why you kind of kept it at a C plus there.

So I've never been a big Dakota Jordan believer.

No, but he did perform tremendously both before and after your recommendation.

I can't deny that seeing him rise in roster eight and at p Live in our rankings was fantastic.

But he only did so against single A pitching, which he really should have been dominating regardless of his hit tool, because the thing you failed to mention Taylor is he's a twenty two year old college draftee who, because of his injuries, stayed in single A all year.

Again because of his tools.

In my opinion, he should be dominating that level.

If we saw him do it in Hi A, I probably would have bumped this up to a B or a B plus even, But because he was dominating younger pitchers, especially the later we get in the year when a lot of the maybe more talented arms are already moving up past Dakota Jordan, I just I need to see him show those improvements against more age appropriate competition before I buy in, And had he done so this year, his grade would be higher than what I'm giving him.

Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

That's really the big knock on him is this we haven't seen it at a level where you know, he's not for the level.

So totally get that, but I feel like it, you know, even docking him for that, I think the case could be made that he deserves you know, like a B minus even over a C plus.

But but yeah, totally understand where you're coming from.

Well, I will definitely be looking at it again because I haven't quite submitted my article to Greg yet.

I'll be doing that later this afternoon.

But I'll have to give Dakota Jordan one more look here because I'm actually going to make a bit of a counterintuitive argument to what I just said about Dakota Jordan with my first player here, because I'm looking at Ryan Johnson of the Angels, who you gave a C grade to, and I do understand why you did.

He only pitched twice after my recommendation, total of three innings.

But I think that you are holding the wacky antics of the Angels against him.

Now again, he probably should have dominated because we already saw him in the big leagues.

Again, that's a whole different thing with the Angels.

But his roster rate rose a couple points, and his ranking you're talking about Dakota Jordan's rising sixty eight, Ryan Johnson's rose two hundred spots.

So I thought he was deserving of maybe a bee, even if there wasn't much of an on field performance to go off of, just because of the kind of overall thought on Ryan Johnson in the dynasty community and the way that his value has risen, the way his stock has risen.

Yeah, I think that's a fair argument.

I think it was just for me, you know, exactly like you said, like he basically didn't pitch at all.

I mean, three innings is nothing, so it's really hard to be like, h his his stocks really moved one way or the other.

You know, rankings only take place once a month.

So yeah, I think that one.

Maybe I could have gone, you know, even as high as like a B minus or something like that, but I think I got too hung up on the fact that we've just really hadn't seen him pitch, and then you know, questioning sort of why is another issue there the angels as well.

But yeah, totally fair argument there.

All right, Well, I'm glad to hear that we you know, haven't really dove into these arguments just yet like we were last week.

But Taylor, this next one, I am really interested to hear your argument on because I'm giving him a pretty good grade as of right now.

Yeah.

So, I don't know if most of our listeners know this, but I started my professional career as a teacher, and I'm going to be the annoying parent who is annoyed that their student didn't get an A plus and instead got an A minus.

Because Aaron Nostrada, you gave him an A minus, and I think he deserves an A plus.

And maybe this is the one that I'm I'm gonna argue a little bit more here, because really, what more do you need to see?

I recommended him as a pickup in leagues of four unre and fifty plus prospects.

He's now ranked at pe Life within our top two point fifty.

His roster rate quadrupled from two percent to eight percent.

And since I wrote him up at double A in one hundred and two plate appearances two ninety three, three fifty three, four forty six, three home runs, four stolen bases, fifteen point seven percent, strike out rate eight point eight percent.

Walk right, And you want to talk about, you know, dinging Dakota Jordan because of his age to level, that's fine.

Aaron Estrada is twenty years old, absolutely ripping up double A and again has seen the roster rate increase a ton, has seen his ranking increase a ton.

You know, like, what what more could this guy have done to get an A plus that's what I want to know.

Why the A minus there.

So the big thing for me here, and I told you ahead of time as well, because we again submitted these to each other ahead of time.

I wrestled with this one, and I knew it was going to be an A, but whether it was a flat A plus a minus I really struggled with.

I settled on the A minus because there just wasn't quite the counting stats there that I would have liked to see.

Again, age to level contexts I maybe need to take into consideration a little bit more.

But we're talking about just three home runs and four stolen bases over those hundred plus played appearances since your recommendation.

It's a one fifty ish ISO, so it's fine, but it's not super exciting.

Yes, again, age to level is something that I need to maybe take into further consideration here.

But he's not a really big player.

He's not someone that the tools have ever been graded super highly for, so I'm not sure that we can expect a lot more out of the counting stats than what we saw here.

He did play tremendously, but I just I didn't quite see that upper end ceiling that I really wanted you to push me into that a plus.

Yeah.

One thing I've got to mention is if that if you pull up his metrics on TJ stats, he's not only holding his own with contact metrics at delay there, he's exceeding and doing very good and pretty much every contact metric you want to see, his you know, K rate, his wiff rate, his zone contact rate, his chase rate, all that is above average to elite for the level.

Again, three and a half years younger than the average age at double A.

Now he's five eight, So I get it.

I get it.

He's he's a short guy.

But again I still.

Think, you know, if you take that out of it, you know, maybe he doesn't have the Dakota Jordan tools or anything like that, but I don't know, like what else this guy could have done more to raise his stock, And I think that, you know, it's going to continue to rise if he can continue to perform very well at such a young age at the highest levels of the miners.

I really think that there's something with Aeron Estrada, and I think he's a pretty exciting player.

I do too.

I really like Aeron Estrada, which is why I again wrestled with this ranking as much as I did.

I'll have to take a closer look at it.

I just I think maybe he ends up as an A.

I don't know if I can get to A plus.

For me, I just again would have liked to see more home runs, more stolen bases, more of those counting stats, a little bit more ISO for the power production, just to drive home that exclamation point on what was a really good season.

I'm just again not sure I see the ceiling even in the one hundred plus played appearance span to end the year after you're write up to really get me into that eight plus territory.

Yeah, I get it.

All right, then, Taylor, let's get into my last player here that I think you could have ranked a little bit higher, and this is Henri Mendez.

This is gonna be a little bit nitpicky because you did give him a B plus, so still a very strong grade similar to aeron Estrada, but you also mentioned the reason it wasn't in A is because of the lack of improvement in his roster rate.

And for me, I just think that when we're talking about a recommendation at the end of August, when people are more focused on their big league rosters than their minor leagues because they're pushing the chips in for a Fantasy championship.

I don't think we can draw too many conclusions from a lack of roster rate movement at the end of August.

Again, it's a little bit nitpicky.

Your still very positive in your review of Henry Mendez, but I think it could have been an a given that context.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

You know, it's just one of those where if the roster rate just isn't moving at all, it's one of the factors that we're looking at there.

And like similarly, you know, when we're talking about your other one, Ryan Johnson, right like, we're putting a lot of stock into the increased roster rate there, and with Henry Mendez, his stock is up, but his stock is not that much up.

That I can you know, realistically consider him and A.

Yeah, and again completely understand.

I knew I was being a little bit nitpicky with this one in particular, but you made it really hard to pick two guys to argue on this week.

I think really we can both agree on that.

Clearly, we both know that we were maybe stretching it a little bit on some of these because we're not getting into nearly the same arguments that we did last week.

I think both of us not only had again really strong second halfs, but graded very fairly in this second half as well.

Definitely all right, then, Taylor, next, we are each going to call out one of our own recommendations that we missed on but we think could be strong bounce back candidates next year and could regain some value in twenty twenty six.

So who fits that bill for you, Taylor?

Yeah, mine is going to be Aiden May, pitcher for the Miami Marlins.

There he missed the beginning of the season due to arthroscopic elbow surgery.

Just nine starts after coming back.

Wasn't the best performance, but again, like for just essentially making his professional debut, the first nine appearances, nine starts, you know they were shortened.

It was essentially his rehab assignment to close out the year here, I'm not putting too much stock into that, and the stuff here is really good.

I mean, we're talking about potentially a double plus slider, a big fastball that tops out at ninety eight, a change up that's coming along real well, Fangrafts gave it a fifty five grade, and he's in the Marlins and a really good pitching development organization.

We also finished up the year with his strongest start of the year, his first one going you know, four innings or more.

He went five and a third no hit innings with seven strikeouts to finish off the season.

There are some command and control concerns, but I really do think this is intriguing arm and nobody is you know, thinking about him right now.

I think he can be had in a lot of leagues.

He's won to definitely keep an eye on for next year because the stuff is there that he could really take off if he hits the round ground running, and hopefully he'll have a healthy offseason this year where he can really have a real professional debut next year.

Yeah, I think this is a really good call.

Like you said, he's got good stuff, and he showed better command in college.

It still wasn't great, but it was better than what he showed in his relatively brief sample in pro ball.

Here.

Again, it's just hoping that the command can return post injury.

Another year removed from injury, and then he should be a pretty fast riser.

I think there are a number of names pitching wise a little bit deeper in this Miami system shocker, but they are developing arms still, so it's going to be really interesting to see how he hopefully regains that control and then sees his stock rise next year.

Yeah, just health is the biggest.

Thing, absolutely it is now, Taylor, you didn't leave me many choices for this one either, and I honestly don't feel super confident in any of my misses having a strong bounce back year next year.

But if I'm gonna pick one, I'm going to pick the eighteen year old Endel Ricardo of the Royals, who really didn't struggle at all until he got the aggressive promotion to single A.

Now, he only hit two home runs on the year, but there's legit raw power in the tank for Ricardo.

He just needs to work on his launch angle because the fifty five percent ground ball rate he posted on the year and sixty percent in single A just is not going to cut it.

He did also steal thirty one bags despite not typically getting better than average grades for his speed, and a lot of scouts seem to think that that's going to slow down another step or two as he grows into his body, so it will be interesting to see how the power speed combo comes along.

But again, of the few options that you gave me to pick from for a twenty twenty six bounce back, I'm going to go with the eighteen year old Yen deel Ricardo.

I think he settles into HIA and maybe he even gets a push to double A if he's performing in hi A like he was in single A to start this year.

Yeah, I think this is a pretty good call.

Like you said, it's a limited pool to choose from, but there are intriguing skills there.

Fangrass has him as an above average defender, so that really sort of helps his value going forward.

One thing with him, you know, the strikeout rates were pretty good, particularly at single A.

He actually only struck out twenty percent of the time, but it came with a sixteen and a half percent swinging strike rate contact rate the round seventy two percent, so not terrible, but aggressive approach.

One of those things where will want a monitor, but still super young.

Like you mentioned the aggressive assignment to single A.

There, he's definitely one that I could see taking a step forward, but I don't know how confident I am that that's gonna happen.

Yeah, and that's exactly it.

I'm not super confident either, I can see the avenues in which it'll happen.

He was just the bounce back candidate that I liked the most out of the options that you gave me.

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

All right, Taylor.

That does it for our year end review.

But we aren't quite done with the baseball discussion.

Just like we've done in past years, Taylor, we mentioned it earlier.

You and I are going to take a short break from the podcast during the MLB playoffs.

We will be back once again this offseason with more of the content you all love.

But before we go, Taylor, I wanted to get your thoughts on how you see this year's playoffs shaking out, and then we can get into a little bit of an end of season wrap up discussion.

So I know not everything is decided yet, especially in the American League where there's still quite a lot to figure out with the last few playoff spots, but please tell me who do you think is going to take home the World Series this year?

I have Mariners over Padres, and that is for a couple of reasons.

One, I just think it would be a really fun World Series.

Neither of those franchises has won a World Series.

The Mariners have just had this kind of crazy year, Like the Cal Rawley thing is amazing what he's been able to do this year.

I just I think they're a fitting team to win the championship this year.

And selfishly, I love to see the Padres in it.

You know, they They've been a long suffering franchise and I know it would mean a lot to the city of San Diego, so that that's who I'm going with.

I don't necessarily think it's the likeliest matchup, but it's definitely the one I bost want to see.

I really like that shout out because I was kind of thinking along those same lines.

As much as I want to say the Jay's are going to win it all, they're gonna be there, They're going to put up a great show.

They've made it really tough to feel confident in their chances with the way they've played recently.

Now they do have a couple of back to back wins here at this point in the year, but it's going to really hinge on whether or not Bobachek can come back and what he looks like.

Frankly, I just don't know that the AL has much of a chance in general, if anybody does.

With the way the rosters are currently constructed, I agree with you.

I think the Mariners might be the team to represent the American League.

But similar to last year, I think the World Series winner might come down to the winner of the NL West matchup that we saw last year between the Dodgers and Padres.

I think whoever comes away from that, hopefully the Padres.

I think they've probably got the best shot to take home the World Series against whoever comes out of the American League.

Yeah, I really hope the Padres go far.

What they've been able to do the last few years has been pretty incredible, but they're continuously outshattled by the big brother in LA there, and it would be really cool for them to be able to at least, you know, make a deep playoff run, which is something that we just have never seen.

So I'm really rooting for both these franchises because they just don't have a history of getting deep into the postseason there.

Yeah, and Taylor, I know that you know a lot was made in the offseason about the big bad Dodgers and how unbeatable they look.

But this is why we play the games.

Doesn't it feel like they're just a little bit more vulnerable this year than they were last year?

Oh?

Absolutely.

They've had a lot of things go wrong this year.

I mean, rookie Sazaki, their bullpen has been an absolute disaster.

They've still had their share of strong performances and are still a really good team, but I do think they're weaker than they've shown in the past.

Whether that manifest in the playoffs or not, we'll see, but they're definitely vulnerable.

All right.

Well, apologies to the Dodgers fans, Phillies fans, any other fandom in the NL, but I'm rooting to see the Padres in the World Series.

Obviously, I would love to see the J's there.

I'm going to root for the J's if they make it, but if it's the Padres and any other American League team, I'll be cheering for San Diego right there with you, Taylor.

Awesome, maybe we'll get to see Toronto Sandy.

That would be pretty awesome.

World Series.

That would be a lot of fun.

Now.

As I said, though, Taylor, as both of us have said, this marks the end of the twenty twenty five season for us.

Again, we're going to take a little bit of a break from the podcast and from our regular articles.

We will be coming back in the off season.

But what are you going to get up to with this little bit of maybe extra free time that we're going to have over these next few weeks And is there anything you wanted to say to wrap up the season?

Yeah, First off, I just want to thank everybody for listening to the podcast.

You know, we've had our best year ever in terms of people listening.

You know, we switched up our format this year and I think the feedback has been extremely positive on that.

So really really excited for you know this year, also excited for what's to come.

I mean, we're constantly figuring out ways to improve the podcast and do different things going forward.

So, you know, just to thank you to everybody continue to tune in.

You know, again, we will be back with our off season content, which is really popular.

We do a lot of.

Things in terms of FYPD prep, in terms of sleepers and breakouts and everything like that, so we'll have a lot to offer coming up and we'll keep you company all off season long, but we do need a little bit of time to recharge the batteries.

I got about six months worth of house projects that I've been telling my wife I'm going to catch up on, and now the bill is due, so well, you got about.

A month and a half to get those Dot Taylor.

I'll be working really hard during that time.

But I will also be at First Pitch Arizona probably I think the last weekend prior to us resuming the podcast there.

So if you're you do attend First Pitch this year, you know, please come up, say hi, talk to me.

I think it'll be a really, really good time.

I think it's going to be during the Fall Stars Game this year, so we'll get to see some of those AFL prospects and everything, So keep a lookout for me there.

But yeah, other than that, just sort of enjoying recharging the batteries and having a little bit of free time there.

But how about you, Kyle, Yeah, I'm very much looking to this little bit of free time.

I will say Greg is keeping us busy on the Dynasty side of things, because while we won't be writing our regularly scheduled articles, there are a lot of fantasy spins that we're doing for I believe something like sixty players for every MLB team, so we are covering pretty much anybody and everybody that is fantasy relevant.

This offseason, we are doing a ton of writing, and then we've also got a return of an article series that we did last year where we are going to be predicting the I believe now twenty twenty eight lineups for every team in the league.

I can't remember which four or five teams I've been assigned, but I've already written one of those and it is sitting there waiting to be released later on this offseason.

So there's still a lot of content coming, both written and audio here through our podcast, because, as Taylor said, we've got plans to bring back a lot of the same content that we did last offseason as far as sort of division previews, sleeper picks, FYP, these all sorts of things that we are going to be bringing back, and then we're going to have some ongoing conversation.

Even though we're taking a break from the actual podcasting over the next few weeks, Taylor and I are going to continue discussing anything and everything that we think we want to try and add to our offerings this offseason, so there's going to be a ton more great content coming your way.

And as Taylor said, I cannot echo it enough.

Thank you everybody for joining us for another fantastic year.

Thank you for following.

We hope to see you again this offseason.

We hope to see you continuing on through next year as well.

But sincerely, thank you and thank you Taylor for just being again a fantastic co host throughout the entire year.

Yeah, well, thanks for having me because I feel like you just dominated this year, whether it was the actual Fantasy Championships or your picks.

Man, You've just really become one of the best, if not the best, at doing this.

So you know what I'm to do for this time off.

I'm want to work to try to catch up to you because you've just been awesome.

So thank you, man.

And I also want to say thanks for being flexible.

I My schedule has been kind of crazy the last few weeks and Kyle here has been nice enough to record on different days and be super flexible, So thank you man.

You know I.

Appreciate everything and looking forward to doing all this again next year.

Absolutely no problem at all.

You were just as flexible anytime I needed it, so I appreciate the same from you, and I'll be honest, I hope my domination continues for another day and a half year because I would love to bring home just one more championship and it would be that much sweeter being our prospects live Dynasty League and getting to you know, do that against you.

So my fingers are crossed that this last day and a half goes well for me again though, Thank you for everything you have done this season, Taylor, and thank you to everybody out there.

All right, that is everything that we have for you today one more time, thank you all for joining us all year long.

A reminder one more time as well that we won't be back next week as we take a break through the MLB playoffs, but we will be back in the offseason with a lot more content for everybody.

If you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a rate and review and give us a follow while you are at it.

You can find me at Sonny Underscore one eight on X and Sonny one eight on Blue Sky, and you could find Taylor at Dynasty Pickups on both.

You can also get a hold of us with all of your Dynasty Baseball questions at Dynasty Baseball Pickups at gmail dot com.

All of that contact info will be posted in the show notes as well, and as always, please consider subscribing to Prospects Live for as little as five dollars.

We get access to a wealth of incredible tools and content, including more from us at prospectslive dot com.

Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.