Bertz

Brad is smart and insightful and a good follow, particularly for MiLB stuff. But as far as I know just a guy. So either you're right it's just the poll and a poor time of year to use the eyes emoji or there's an implication that he knows something.

Does Brad have sources now or am I interpreting this incorrectly?

Wow, I kind of assumed that every team short of like the Rockies and White Sox were going to get a meeting with him and then the real contenders would get a second. The Phillies are a good team in a good city with great pitching dev. If they didn't even make the first cut that says something.

No. He's going to demand a team's full bonus pool because it's the least they can do, but he's going to make his decision off of soft factors. He knows he'll get paid primarily via endorsements the first few years over here.

I think a lot of it really is just a more grounded framing that's contrasted to how other pubs write up prospects. The few things that I would actually push back on: - His writeup doesn't IMO justify the grade on Cristian Hernandez, especially since he did start hitting this year and is still more than age appropriate - Feels like he gave Caissie and Ballesteros short shrift on age relative to league. Ballesteros is one of 4 hitters age 20 to get at least 100 PAs in AAA. The other three: Junior Caminero, Jackson Holiday, and Roman Anthony, all got ranked as top 10ish prospects in the sport. So he doesn't pull the ball as much as you like and he has some issues with the high fastball, but he's also a baby. It's a bit similar with Caissie. He's one of 15 hitters aged 21 or younger at AAA this year (and several of those are like Kevin Alcantara and came up in like August). So like yeah I understand his offensive numbers were more good than great but I have a sneaking suspicion that he'd have been ranked higher for doing a Barry Bonds impression at AA than getting appropriately challenged at AAA Overall though I'm a big fan of Longenhagen. Since he lives in AZ near Mesa I consider him the authority on any of the complex league kids. And then for older prospects I appreciate Eric's blend of scouting and stats. Very much the spiritual successor to what Keith Law was ~15 years ago.

With Bellinger and Tucker done not sure this has any reverberations for us but still good to see the position player market might get moving finally

Some of it is that Longenhagen just tends to have more of a glass-half-empty writing style ("here's what could go wrong" as opposed to "here's what could go right"), some of it is that yeah he just seems straight up lower on the group than over the summer. TBD if it's just him or if it's industry-wide.

I think for me the thing this reinforces is how soft the middle third of the pipeline is. And losing Cam Smith certainly doesn't help that. Iowa is stacked. You've got the meat of this list, plus young talent that doesn't technically qualify for the list like Wicks and Brown. Myrtle Beach and the Complex Leagues are a lot of fun. You have a solid wave of LatAm hitters plus the trio of fun high schoolers from last year's draft. Pitching looks a a bit weak on account of last year's draft being all bats, but there's some guys like Mule worth paying attention to. South Bend and Tenn though are real light though. Jefferson Rojas and YMMV on Jaxon Wiggins are the only top 10 guys in the system across those two levels. You've got some 10-20 guys in Mathis, Cristian Hernandez, and maybe a brief cameo from Jonny Long. But mostly the rosters are filled with non prospects or low ceiling tweeners like Brett Bateman. So to me I think one of two things probably needs to happen. Probably both actually, and I think Michael Busch is a good example to hold up. One is that I think we need to get comfortable with some guys just keeping warm at Iowa. Someone like Moises Ballesteros might just need to rack up ~1000 PAs at AAA before he gets a permanent spot in MLB. The big league team needs to maximize wins in the short term, but also needs some optionable depth down at Iowa. Even if he's running a 150 wRC+ "call him up" and "trade him" are not the only two options. The other is to explore a Michael Busch style trade from the other direction. Let's imagine a dream scenario where a Kyle Tucker extension gets done, PCA's bat proves legit, and every cup of coffee Caissie and Alcantara get over the next year goes well. Next winter really sets up for us to "trade back" with one of them and fill someone's near term outfield hole and pick up some impact talent further down the development ladder.

I need to read the writeups still but Longenhagen gave the system a pretty noticeable bump down from mid-season.

37 pitchers hit 170 innings in 2023. 16 of them, more than 40%, failed to get to at least 150 last year.

You'd be surprised how many innings converters give you. They seem to average 120-130. Like even Jordan Hicks, probably the biggest fail among these conversion attempts, gave SFG 109 innings last year. I think too, at least for me I've basically chalked up that in a SP trade someone in the Assad/Wicks/Brown trio is gone. If you do handle SP via trade you're adding a SP, not swapping one. Between Poteet and the kids we already had on hand there is depth for a long reliever and an entire additional starting 5 at Iowa of guys you would be happy to give some MLB innings to next year.

Seth Lugo, Garret Crochet, Nick Martinez, Michael King, Reynaldo Lopez are all recently converted SPs and were all Top 25 pitchers in baseball last year.

I know a couple folks have been pushing for us to be the team that lets Jeff Hoffman try starting again. I think I might be coming around to that post Luzardo.

Minter and Yates or Minter and Robertson is probably my ideal. I like Finnegan and Martin and to a lesser extent Jansen too.

Passan's article today says Walker Buehler is in line for a multi-year deal. If true hardest of hard passes. I can talk myself into 1/$15M or thereabouts but I'd legitimately much rather take the risk and pitch lab someone rather than give Buehler a multi-year deal.

It's certainly aggressive, but he's super young and put up 2.7 in about 75% of a full season last year.

Walker Buehler feels the most likely now, by a decent margin. I don't feel good about the odds of him bouncing back all the way back to impact status, but he's been linked to a number of smart teams and there were some objective improvements to his slider in October. I was fairly all in on Luzardo, but two positives of this: - Having Taillon, Luzardo, and Boyd all set to hit FA at the same time would have been problematic. Not enough so to avoid making the deal, it is two years out after all, but I think dealing one of those three away next winter would have been pretty much a necessity - I suspect Jed's only going to do one more trade of substance and will fill out the rest of the roster with FAs. If this non-deal ends up meaning that SP gets handled in FA, you could do one of the other to-do list items via trade. My mind immediately goes to the bench. There's room for adding two bench bats, but in FA it's hard to find the right combo of offensive and defensive coverage. Trading for a Willi Castro simplifies things quite a bit IMO

Yeah it's really hard to not tie this news and the Bellinger trade together. Especially hearing from Cashman earlier that Jed insisted on finalizing a Bellinger trade yesterday with or without the Yankees.

Bummed, I liked Luzardo quite a bit. But with the medicals feeling like the likely culprit here hard not to defer to the team on this. Walker Buehler feels like the likely alternative. One of the Padres' guys would be the really fun alternative. Even after the Bellinger trade not sure you can allocate more than $15Mish to SP, so not even going to bother eying Burnes, Flaherty, or Pivetta. Hopefully there's another fun SP available in trade that's just not getting much ink. Someone like Mackenzie Gore? Among less notable FAs Patrick Sandoval feels like the most obvious pitch lab candidate on the market, so while I'm hoping for more obvious oomf in the next add he might be the savvy play as this year's Sean Manaea.

Rumors around Jesus Luzardo were so hot and heavy over the last week that a deal was beginning to feel inevitable. Apparently not as Bruce Levine, who has been most plugged into this potential deal, declares that it's currently "dead." Luzardo has an extensive injury history, including major back issues in 2024. It's possible that medicals scuttled a deal either directly or indirectly by making it difficult for the clubs to align on a price that properly weighed the risk/reward. It's also hard not to view this in conjunction with yesterday's Cody Bellinger trade. While not simply "the cheap option", Luzardo was one of the lowest salary starting pitching options on the market. Did Jed Hoyer's newfound infusion of cash open up more attractive opportunities? Or did Hoyer push to free up cash as a response to this deal dying on the vine? View full rumor

I know Trueblood poopooed Polanco as a 3B last winter, and it certainly doesn't help that he's had a leg injury since then, but man would he be a fun lefty bat to bring in. I also really want to know if Tucker is willing to play CF or (less likely) 1B. If you only need to worry about the IF or only need to worry about up the middle finding two bench guys for three spots is pretty easy.