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17. Mautz
18. HansenLooking into Rom a little more, I note that he is a month younger than Liberatore, and has all three option years remaining, whereas Libby has only one remaining. That may give Rom more runway with the org and consequently more time to figure things out. I consider them similar in that neither has explosive stuff with an obvious out pitch.
I have always felt a starter with a BB/9 around 4 is unlikely to be successful. It just leads to too much traffic. A reliever can sometimes get away with it somewhat, if he’s good enough, like Helsley. But even with him there are going to be more blown saves than you want. Its different with a starter. Liberatore brought his BB/9 down somewhat this year, but at the expense of a drastically lower K9. That is unlikely to work either, and as I alluded, 2024 could be his last year to put something together. Rom has the BB/9 problem, but he also has time. I have him a few slots down just after Mautz, Hansen, Bedell and Pages. On my own list, I had Showalter mid twenties.
Nice seeing Crooks steal that coveted #15 slot from a contentious field of superb candidates……quick aside here. Every now and then, I’m met with the question “Hey Pugs, what does it take to become a great PBP announcer”. An extremely long response ensues and one of the qualities I cover is patience. Almost without fail, a puzzled expression envelopes their face. I then explain that every experienced PBP person has a cache of tricky lines or short stories in their repertoire, but you have to know when to unleash them. This often takes time. Take Jimmy Dale Crooks here. Let’s say Juan Soto is the batter and he hits a little pop foul behind home plate and Jimmy Dale whips off his mask and takes a flying leap and makes a dazzling catch. I would say that “Soto just got robbed by Crooks”. Not a bad line, but let’s this is 1970. Would the accomplished PBP guy want to burn this great line on your average Joe, or would he have the patience to keep the lid on it and wait for Jimmy Dale to make a great play such as this when Ernie Banks is the batter? “Banks just got robbed by Crooks” is a home run with the bases juiced as far as PBP lines go………and it would also work on another player from this era too. You know, way back in the 70’s when all ML pitchers had to bat too, there was a pitcher by the name of Tom House, whom had the opportunity to take a swing or two every now and then. “House just got robbed by Crooks” would be absolutely epic! Patience…….it can pay off big time in the PBP business.
17 Mautz
18 BedellI have Hansen right behind them as I think all three are in pretty similar spots. Mautz is a little younger, Bedell had stronger results this past season, and Hansen is right in between in both categories.
17. Hansen
18. Noah MendlingerAt 22, Noah “mini-Donovan” Mendlinger started the 2023 season in High-A where he posted a 150 OPS+ for a few weeks, forcing a promotion to Double-A. Once there, he got off to a roaring start — but then struggled so badly in June that I mentally wrote him off (.157 average and .186 slugging).
Well, the little guy adjusted and hit roughly .320/.450/.390 over the final three months in Springfield. With a tremendous walk/strikeout ratio of 44-to-28. Yeah, 50% more walks than whiffs and a .450 on-base percentage.
He’s apparently a decent defender; nothing special but very versatile. Looks like an uber-elite bench man to me, with a chance to start somewhere if he can add just a bit of power to his profile…or simply maintain his elite walk rates, but that’s a tall order with his punchless profile. Just another part of the outfield/second base glut right now, but Noah’s got a lot going for him with that rare level of plate discipline.
#17 – Pete Hansen
#18 – Brycan MautzJust changed the numbers from my last picks! Both pitchers will have a chance to impact the team eventually, either as roster members or trade bait!
17-Bedell
18-HoneymanHansen has good numbers, but he seems like the control over stuff college guys that struggle once they reach AA. It’ll be good to see him continue to produce as he climbs the ladder.
Hansen has good numbers, but he seems like the control over stuff college guys that struggle once they reach AA.
He is exactly that, and you never can tell how he will do in the upper levels until he gets there. With the explosive stuff guys, the risk is more about throwing enough strikes to get advanced hitters to swing and whether they can remain effective through arm injuries.
The Hansen/Mautz types remind me of Jake Westbrook, as far as the role they can fill. Westbrook had the most unexplosive stuff imaginable, but he made 33 starts in the #4 rotation slot for the 2011 WS team. Averaged 5.5 IP per start. It seems to me Mo has hired Lynn and Gibson hoping to get that stability and performance out of the bottom the the rotation. If we’d developed that capability in house, the $20+ Million could have found a different use, like a top of rotation guy.
17 Hansen / 14 Bedell / 6 Pages / 5 Honeyman / 5 Mautz / 3 Rom / 2 Prieto / 1 Granillo / 1 Mendlinger
Hansen and Bedell are numbers 17 and 18.
1. Winn
2. Saggese
3. Hence
4. Roby
5. Scott
6. Hjerpe
7. Graceffo
8. McGreevey
9. Davis
10. Bernal
11. Rajcic
12. Robberse
13. Cho
14. Kloffenstein
15. Crooks
16. Showalter
17. Hansen
18. BedellI admit that I’m disappointed in Hansen being named # 17. I think he’s closer to #30. But there are a lot of good evaluators here so I’ll embrace the group’s decision. We will do 1 more round of selecting 2 prospects at a time and then we will start doing 3 at a time the rest of the way to 50. I’ll stick with my same votes from last time.
#19 Honeyman
#20 Granillo19. Noah Bingham Mendlinger
20. Travis James HoneymanYeah we both missed the boat for #17 & 18, Pads. The old adage(“The early Redbird gets the worm”) does fit when making these selections.
blingboy
The Hansen/Mautz types remind me of Jake Westbrook, as far as the role they can fill.
I wouldn’t include Mautz in with Hansen in terms of similarity. Like I said earlier, Mautz is younger, taller, was drafted higher, and throws harder, but Hansen has gotten better results.
They were back to back in the same draft class, LH, and were pitching at the same level, but a lot different. Mautz is more like Hjerpe pitching from a lower slot and Hansen is more polished and could probably pitch in ML relief right now with his slider.
I’m not sure if we’ve had this sort of quantity of guys getting votes this early before. For instance, 15-17 had only 7 guys voted for in the 2021 rankings. 18-20 had a bit more going on, with 11 voted for in the 2021 rankings. We voted 15-20 in 2022, and there were 20 who got votes. Typically there was more consensus those years, and voting for 3 or 5 usually opens up more options than voting for 2. So it definitely seems like there’s more widespread opinions on prospects this year. Probably a result of all the new players we have to parse through.
I confirm my previous vote:
19 Rom
20 PrietoI have three other hitters in my ranking, before Honeyman and the other newly drafted players
#19 – Brycen Mautz
#20 – Cesar PrietoI like what I see from Honeyman, but hesitate to rank him too high since he hasn’t played at all professionally. Next round if he doesn’t make it this one.
Sorry we missed you Pugs and Pads last round. Pugs did make a fun comment last round, but didn’t vote. I’ve been trying to stick to 36 hour windows each time +/- an hour or so just to keep things moving.
I agree there’s a wide variety of prospects this year. There’s really around 20 guys in this range that I could see voting for.
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