Splash Considerations Ep. 3: Interview with Senior Director of Player Development Kyle Haines

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona — Before this year's Spring Breakout game, Justice chatted with the San Francisco Giants' senior director of player development Kyle Haines to discuss several of the organization's top prospects, including newly-signed shortstop Luis Hernandez.

Josuar Gonzalez's status: 2:00

Luis Hernandez: 5:57

What's the plan with Hernandez and Gonzalez: 11:29

Jhonny Level: 14:57

Trevor Cohen: 17:00

Keyner Martinez: 22:02

Who's worth watching that's not getting buzz: 24:12

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Now joined by the second director of player development, Kyle Haynes, and funny enough, not the first Haynes brother that I've ever covered. Kyle, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

I will say this as a fun story, just to kind of start us off. I actually, as I mentioned, I did cover your brother in a sense. He was the hitting coach of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And I felt like it was going to happen eventually, where I accidentally texted Andy about a Giants prospect instead of you. And he was like, Justice, I don't I'm not I don't run the Giants, but he was a good sport about it. I knew it was gonna happen eventually, and I'm just gonna let you know it's probably gonna happen again at some point.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Completely understandable. And uh yeah, I mean there's been some kind of unique uh crossover where I remember we had Brian Reynolds here uh to bring up a you know obviously a forever Giants minor leaguer that we drafted and uh had for a couple years in development, and then him and my brother are really close now. They live down the road from each other in Tennessee, and and then on the obvious one being uh Joey Bart. Uh I'd like to think that you know me and Joey have a really strong relationship and and that some of his transition to the Pirates were because you know, some of that you kind of remember that firsthand. Uh, you know, Joey uh once he went to Pittsburgh, I remember just talking to my brother, and then Joey getting on the bus and then calling me. And so kind of uh yeah, some overlap, uh obviously the brother combo, but then also some of those uh stories behind the scenes, you know, it's been been fun to see those guys connect with my brother after I connected with him for years.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Tyler Beattie as well. We got a couple got a couple giants going to Pittsburgh or kind of vice versa there. But obviously, today is the day of the spring breakout game, the morning of the spring breakout game. So this isn't gonna go up for a couple days. So if anyone's like, Justice, why didn't you ask about Luis Hernandez's five homers? You know, we're not we're not there yet. But you know, one guy who, you know, I think is not gonna be playing today is Joshua Gonzalez. Obviously, he left uh a game a couple days ago. Just what's what's his status, you know, before getting into the other prospects, just his status overall.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah, I mean we will on the minor league side we don't do press releases on the injuries, right? But uh for today's game, uh Johnny Level will be set it out as a precaution. He's got some like uh lower back spasm day to day. He might even play tomorrow. Um, but we're gonna give him an extra day. Uh and then uh Joshua's got uh a little slight hamstring tweak, so he'll be out probably probably at least a couple weeks, a few weeks, uh something like that. So we'll see how it progresses. But there is zero reason to push him in this game. As much as we want to see him out there, and he wants to be out there, uh, just gonna make sure that he he makes sure that he enters the year in a good spot healthy. You mean you don't want to push Josuar in the uh just an exhibition before we get to the real season? You don't want to give him that doesn't seem uh this isn't playoff level baseball yet? It's a it's an emotional uh decision, but we we try to use logical decisions here. So uh yeah, it's it's definitely not worth it.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

So yeah, as much as it would be fun, especially, you know, it I I was just such a fan of the decision when they made this a thing, and obviously we can even talk about how next year this is gonna be a tournament. Just like how excited are you for that, like that prospect of the prospect of seeing like a prospect tournament?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Well, you know, I'm conflicted because I think spring training is such a huge development window. It's not just a readiness level, and I feel like there's so many of the young players that there's pressure on them to perform and overreactions to how they play in one or two games, and that's already hard enough on the world baseball classic type stage to do that on a 17, 18, 19-year-old. And then when, you know, my view on the spring breakout, it's an exhibition, it's a fun game. But I think I think we're facing Chase Petty tonight, right? I mean, he's a big leaguer who's going to be facing a 17-year-old who's never had a professional bat. That is a huge discrepancy in uh, you know, learning curve, age curve, uh, experience curve, etc. And um, I think just not overreacting if you know something goes south in March versus when it's kind of a you know varying degree of veteran versus uh rookie ball type uh matchups on both sides.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

I don't know what you're talking about, overreactions. I've never heard of that on social media. I've never heard of an overreaction to one at bat ever. I I've I've only heard nothing but calm, collected approaches, you know, guys just gonna be solid pros. I've never heard someone say after one at bat this guy's gonna be a future Hall of Famer. Never heard that ever.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

It's uh there's nobody that's that good that good uh, you know, to predict that. One way or the other, um, some of the great players of all time, I mean there's probably Hall of Famers who didn't start looking great until their mid-20s, and there's some that show it as teenagers, and everybody's development's different. It's just like life. That's why I love baseball personally. Development in baseball is a lot like life. You learn things at different times than others, and and everybody's got their own unique story, and and that's the same with player development. Everybody develops at different times, uh, different experiences. And um, but yeah, I mean the the game itself, the spring breakout, phenomenal. But I'm I'm more excited to see the kids finally get in a stadium in front of fans and music, and and some of that's overwhelming. Some of them's never done that until this game tonight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

And I did tell you this before we start recording, unfortunately, I will not be at the spring breakout game because one Logan Webb is gonna be pitching uh over at Salt River. It's his first start from the WBC. I hope you'll excuse me for missing. I was looking forward to it. I I had it circled, but circumstance, circumstance is bringing me to another area of Scottsdale. I'll I'll have it up on game day for sure.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Completely understandable. I think the irony is I remember when Webb was 17, 18 and nervous about pitching in front of fans. Um I believe it was Hillsborough, maybe we played, uh, and he was like extremely nervous pitching in front of a couple thousand people, and now he's pitching in the World Baseball Classic, been in the all-star game for us, and it's just two times. You know, twice. Yeah, I mean, finished second to Cy Young, that you know, young kid who was nervous just pitching in front of fans, and now he's grown into a man, an ace of the staff, and and one of the best pitchers in the world.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

You obviously mentioned, you know, a 17-year-old who's never had a professional at bat, and I think that fits the description of one Luis Hernandez, obviously the top overall. I know I know ratings can be ratings, but you know, just for our purposes, uh the top-rated prospect of this international signing class that comes on the heels of signing Josuar, who was the top position player behind Roky Sasaki overall. And Luis is kind of in this you know ambiguous stage of his career where it's like there's not a ton of information on him, like as far as like stat cast stuff. There's not even a ton of games really. And honestly, even before going into you know the the prospect portion of it, the evaluation portion of it, I think it's important to mention that he's here in Arizona. He is he's not currently uh in the Dominican or wherever else he would be at this time of year. Is it kind of is it confirmed at this point that he is going to be starting the season in the ACL? Is that still kind of up in the air? Like what is the status on on that?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, that's locked in. He'll be in the Arizona Complex League. Um I know that was rumored back and forth for a long time, and there was a lot of rumors about his starting spot. He's gonna start here in the Arizona Complex League, and we're excited for him to work with a lot of our development coaches, the most famous being Travis Ishikawa. He's coming back to Arizona League this year, um, and he'll be around the Arizona League team, and um we're excited for our entire group that we have here, but especially uh for Luis to learn from people like Travis Ishikawa what it means to be a giant. Um but yeah, he'll he'll skip over the DSL, so to speak, which is pretty aggressive, um, but not unheard of just to skip over that level, especially someone his experience.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

I mean, kind of to that point, like again, this was something that had been kind of speculated going back to when he signed, just because he had had he had played against kind of grown men in Venezuela, and you know, the whole point of the DSL is to kind of get ready for the ACL. So what went into the decision as far as you know making that, as you said, pretty aggressive move to skip over the DSL entirely and just have him start the season in the ACL.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, that there was a lot to it. I think his his ability to perform against X pros last summer was probably uh the biggest driver. But um, you know, we saw a lot of those at Bats Live. We get the video from those games sent to us. We're staring them down, we're watching them even just last month, re-watching them, um, combining that with uh, you know, whether it be our tryout reports, our scouting reports, but also just a huge credit to our international scouting group. Um they've they've been following and tracking his progress for years. This isn't a we just saw him work out a couple times. This is something that we've stitched together the pieces for years on, tracking him back to you know, the first time our scouts laid eyes on him in tryouts, seeing how he's developed over the last few years. Um, you know, once players actually arrive uh in the Dominican Republic for tryouts, so to speak, um you can have him on site for a certain amount of days. I won't go through the rules, but um I've been fortunate to be there a lot. Um our hitting coordinators, our our you know, field coordinator, our pitching coordinators, they're all watching tryouts, they're forming relationships with the players. Some of them we sign, some of them we don't. Um so we've got a good track record and head start uh on Luis, knowing who he is, seeing his progress, and when you combine it, you feel a little more comfortable making that decision.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

I know at this age, especially because as I mentioned, there's not a lot of video, there's not a lot of information, but you know, you do see a couple comparisons that are thrown out, and like when you see those comparisons, you know, the the I can imagine among the fan base that it instantly kind of salivates a little bit. And you know, I I will be the one, I'll be the one to temper expectations here. Let's not put too much, you know, on a teenager. There's obviously, you know, if you look at baseball America's, you know, kind of when they there's a thing they have called risk, and like when they say high risk, it's not because like there's not belief in the prospect, it's just that, you know, this is a 17-year-old kid at the end of the day. These are a lot of teenagers at the end of the day. But what the question I will pose to you is just in the time that you've been around him, I think we saw a video a couple days ago, it was like a hundred and a hundred point seven mile an hour Homer exit velo. Just in the time that you've been around him, in the time that you've had to see him in person, what's really jumped out to you about you know his profile overall?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Well, I just think he's so advanced for his age and how he plays the game. Um, you start looking at like just his maturity level, his conversations are just very advanced for his age. Um, you know, he doesn't probably have that one tool, two tools that really just stand out as holy cow, wow. And then others are like, wow, that's rough, that's gonna have to iron out. I think depending on what evaluator like, they're gonna like something different about his game. Some some of them are gonna say, hey, I really like how he's in control of his movements at shortstop. Uh, one's gonna talk about his approach, one's gonna talk about his uh you know gap-to-gap ability or ability to handle VLO or breaking well. Each one's gonna mention something different. There's other players you look at and it's clear plus speed, plus power, and then you got like chase, you got swing and miss issues, and they're all in consensus. I think the the part about Luis is I think depending on your your personal style of evaluation, you're gonna like something a little different. Uh he doesn't have the one or two thing that really just pops out, good or bad. He's a very well-rounded player uh compared to maybe higher profile guys at those age. Usually when you get a big bonus guy at 16-17, it's like they're 6'4, they hit it over the lights, but everything else is flawed, or they are, you know, incredibly fast, incredibly athletic defensively, and struggle with the plate, and you would just have this crudeness to the game. He does not have that.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

And so you would mention that with Joshua, he's gonna be, you know, it's probably a little bit of a delay to start the season, but you know, presuming health, you know, they will both be playing in the ACL and they are both projected as shortstops. What is kind of the plan there when both of them are healthy in the field? Is it gonna be exclusively playing, you know, kind of flip-flopping second base shortstop? Is there maybe a plan to even you know float one of them out in the outfield, or is it just gonna kind of keep them in the you know up the middle there and kind of just see how that pans out?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

It's a great question, and I think it's one that we're still gonna debate. I think if you said today we needed to make a decision, the answer would be one of them plays short, one plays third, or one of them plays short and one plays second. And that might even mean Joshua plays short and Luis plays third, and it might mean when Luis plays short, Joshua plays second, um, just to kind of see, you know, maybe give Luis a little more experience on the left side of the field, playing third, versus having to play second, because it's a completely it's like looking at the game as a in a mirror sometimes when you switch sides of the field. So I think um, you know, I I wouldn't be surprised if we land at something like that where you know Joshua's got a little more experience a second than Luis does, so maybe it's it's them playing the middle together. Um we think they're both shortstops for sure, and we're gonna give them as much time to play shortstop while respecting the other players' ability. DH will be used as well to maybe manage some workloads, and we're gonna have to be creative. And we got other good shortstops. I mean, I think uh, or good infielders in general. Bretto's a great shortstop, Julian Bretto, Anthony Marquez, he's a great shortstop. So we have quite the balancing act to get those shortstop reps to to the appropriate people. It might even be, say, Josh were short for a week while Luis doesn't, and then they just flip each week. That way they get a bigger sample in a row, not flipping each game, so to speak. So I know that first week probably people will look into those lineups a little more in depth than they really need to, but the goal is to get them as both as much shortstop reps as possible early, and then uh we'll kind of see how it goes from there.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

I guess kind of building off that, how much of that is is a fun problem to have, knowing that because because usually, you know, we've talked about this previously, like the up the middle positions, whether it's shortstop, second base, center field, like those are like the premium positions. And you know, what usually I think you know, one example that comes to mind is the Padres where like they just had a ton of guys who played shortstop and then they then you can kind of float them around. Is it kind of like a situation like that where if you have a guy who can play shortstop, you can pretty much play anywhere else in the field because of the athleticism and the wear and tear that's required to manage that position in particular.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

I remember Jackson Merrill playing shortstop right on this field right out here in the Arizona League. So um exactly what you're talking about. I I have personal experience. One that flashed back to me was uh the Mariners had Adam Jones and Asdrubal Cabrera playing shortstop on the same team, and they had to balance them, and then Adam Jones ended up in the outfield, right? So I I think, and that was like high A, if I'm not mistaken, in the California league. They had both Adam Jones and Asdrubal Cabrera playing short. And then Asdrubal ended up playing short in the big leagues, Adam ended up in the outfield, but you know, you never know where it's gonna go, but it's better to have really good players than not have enough. So uh sometimes you get in those situations where you know you're playing a clear second baseman short just to have somebody to play short. Um, and we've not been ended up in that situation here. We we we got a I don't say a good problem, but you know, it's it's a it's a good problem to have is have too many good short stops.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

And for the aggregators who might be listening, I'm pointing to the camera for the podcast listeners. Kyle Haynes is not saying that one of them's gonna be in the outfield. We're just making comparisons. Do not clip that, take it out of context. But you know, speaking of short stops, obviously someone that kind of gets a little bit lost in the shuffle because of Joshua and Luis is Johnny Level, and he obviously made it to uh San Jose last year, where he starts off the season uh has yet to be completely determined. But you know, he's kind of another one of these shortstops that are in the mix in the organization. Just what have your overall impressions been of just his progression and just kind of speaking to that point, you know, how he could potentially, you know, in this ecosystem of shortstops, maybe, you know, maybe he may maybe bounce around a little bit to other positions as well.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Absolutely. I mean, our hope is that that Johnny can stay at shortstop. I think we're gonna be able to find a way to do that. Because we also have Gavin Keelan, you got Lorenzo Miola. You I could keep naming other names. We got plenty of people we believe in that are more than capable of playing shortstop in the minors and seeing if they can develop a short. Um but Johnny, I you know, I think people are always gonna kind of just look at him be like, oh, he's short. But there's a lot of good short players in the big leagues. And Johnny looks that part. This guy is very highly skilled, uh switch hitter who loves to play. He's got kind of that uh, you know, that that little man, mighty mouse power from both sides of the plate. Um, but he's not just a power hitter. He's he's he'll hit line drives all fields. He's kind of that table setter that uh is really fun to watch. Now, how does he develop, right? I mean, physically, he's a little strong right now, so it's tough to project a short guy who's already strong, um, but he's highly skilled, and and we think he can play some shortstop. And if not, he could be an offensive second baseman, uh, has a uh you know a floor for him, hopefully. And but they're still young, we'll see how it develops. But he's he's he's a guy that in other words, he's the number one shortstop prospect. Um, but with us, we just have other names, so people instantly kind of just put him behind those others. But Johnny could easily end up being, you know, just as good or better than anybody we have in our system, you know, in five years from now.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

If you want to talk about little guys with power, I do not qualify, which is why I'm sitting here talking to you instead of being being somewhere out on a major league field right now, but kind of sticking, you know, up the middle with up the middle positions. I want to shift over to the outfield a little bit. And someone who I was really intrigued by in last year's draft, and that was Trevor Cohen, your second selection, obviously didn't have the second round pick due to the signing of Williadamas. And for complete transparency on my part, you know, whenever somebody gets drafted, like I'm not gonna pretend like I know all the 500, like the big board. So whenever the draft rolls in, instantly just see like, all right, where's this guy on MLB.com's top 500? Where is he on baseball America's top 500? And Trevor Cohen was not on either of them. And so when you see that, and you know, when you're not even 500 picks in, it's like, okay, like who who is this guy? Like, what's the background here? And you know, I did have a chance to see him last year at San San Jose, Jacob Resnian started as well. So that was just like a beautiful, like checking off a couple boxes there. But you know, the bat-to-ball skills have been, you know, that was his kind of bread and butter in college. It's really jumped out as well. He's just continued to hit in his short professional career. What did the organization like about him coming out of college and what has he shown to you as far as his offensive profile, specifically with that bat-to-ball ability?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, I I remember sitting in the draft room and just hearing our scouts talk about him, and I just we just kept getting more and more excited the more you heard them talk. And obviously we we look at the public rankings too, and I'm saying this guy's kind of interesting. Um and as soon as he came in, I I kind of remember telling people, I mean, our scouts were like, hey, we would have got you know been happy to get this guy in the second round. We didn't have a second round pick last year. I and I said, I actually I think you're still low. I think I think if we redid the draft, like some teams should have considered this guy in the comp round, second round type type window here. Um I know I talked to Jim Callis a long time the other day, and he said he had a lot of the New Jersey scouts trying to help, you know, paint a picture here, but he didn't play center field in college, which a lot of the center fielders don't. I don't know why. Uh Dakota Jordan didn't play center in college, um, and many other goods. I remember Steven Duggard didn't play center field in college at Clemson, right? And uh so it's like there's a lot of names who don't play center. I mean, Austin Slater played infield and ended up center field for us, and there's that unique profile where whoever Christian Yelich is playing first base on his high school team. So he starts to visualize uh and project where they can go. And I think so that that probably hurt Trevor a little bit because people said, hey, he doesn't have a lot of homers, he's not playing center field. So I think that was tough for people to swallow from a northern school, and unfortunately a lot of the reports are piling in right now. But it hasn't warmed up yet above, you know, a certain latitude. Um like that here. Yeah, it's uh but you know, a lot of the scouts all go south, and then they got a lot more reports on the teams in the south, or the northern schools um, you know, aren't ready yet, and then by the time they get going at the end of the year, um, some of those boards already started to mock themselves forward. And I I huge credit to our scouting department on that. I mean, he just came in from day one and he just showed professionalism, bat to ball, all the qualities we want in our hitters, line drive all field, I think future power potential, um, and just just a professional at bat. So huge credit to our scouting department on on finding that profile to work with here.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

If you this kind of hypothetical question, if he just played center field straight away from start to finish, do you think he would have even made it to the third round? Like it's obviously tough to like know because again, like Northeastern schools, like it's difficult because the those guys just don't get any shot. And obviously, Mike Trout's probably the best example of that just because of you know where he played. But you know, do you think that there may be a little bit more of a case for him to maybe go second round, even maybe like late first round if he played center?

SPEAKER_01 20:34

But based on the feedback we got, there was a lot of scouts from that area pushing hard for him to go even higher than we picked him from that area. Um I just think it on the national level it's hard uh to pick someone who didn't hit a bunch of home runs and you know they're staring at right field that high. So it's just tough for the entire groups across 29 other teams to swallow. And like I said, our our group had a great vision for that. And um I mean he he looks like a first-round caliber player from what we've seen, if you if you ask me.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

I think it was maybe Michael Holmes who may have mentioned this, but I think the one thing that really impressed was I think it was a pre-draft interview. I'm not gonna ask you to say all the questions that were said that asked or the responses, but you know, what was really you know stuck out about him just throughout that entire process, like kind of what you know, as as you're envisioning, you know, what he could be, you know, going forward, like what were maybe some of his the the cadences, the maturity level maybe that really stuck out during that process.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah, I you know, on those, I'm not really uh involved in those. I talk to Holmesy, but they're they're experts at forming those connections. And you know, honestly, it's just kind of, hey, I want to get a feel for the guy, you know, and and see who their most human version is. And our our scouts, not just ours, scouts across baseball, they're amazing connectors of people. They're great evaluators, but people will lose track of how much work they do, connecting with families, connecting with players, so that way uh they get a good feel for for what we're getting and making sure that uh we don't just get a good talented ball player. We get a you know a great giant on and off the field.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

One of the guys that, you know, as we're talking about all these position players, one of the guys to highlight as well is Kana Martinez. He's obviously gonna be starting in the spring breakout game today. And I think this time last year, again, we're not gonna I I know like prospect rankings can be prospect rankings, but you know, he wasn't a guy that was, you know, considered a top prospect in this organization. Same time last year. Now he's the number seven per baseball America. He's made a lot of strides, particularly with his breaking ball. Just how have you seen him really progress from last year to this year, specifically in in commanding that breaking ball?

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Yeah. You know, Keener did he didn't pitch in the Dominican Summer League. We skipped him over. Um and you know, in some regards, I think if he'd have stayed in the DSL, we would have seen him pop there. Uh he showed flashes of plus slider, plus VLO. And we needed pitching in the Arizona League, so what is this, 2024, like May, about about May. And we said, why not just get him here and just expose him to as many advanced things as possible? Um because we feel like he could handle it. And he came in, struck out whatever, six point whatever per nine, you can look it up and showed a little VLO, a little slider. But that year of growth was tremendous um around our pitching group, um, our pitching coaches. And then he took that lessons learned and really took off last spring on us. And and the VLO took another step forward, uh, the slider took another step forward, the confidence took a step forward, and then he just became a man amongst boys in some regards. Uh, and then we said, hey, this guy relieved for us last year. Let's start him and let's work on this changeup. And we did it, and he started adding the changeup. And it's just been a great story uh and a huge credit to him that development happens at different for different time for different people. Um, you know, I mean he went from whatever 93, 94 to 95, 98 last year with uh touch 99 um with a devastating slider. You can look at Josh Norris's uh Twitter feed, probably he's got a video of that somewhere. I don't know if it's called Twitter anymore. I'm not up to speed, but um colloquially. Yeah, Josh had some good video, and and Josh from Baseball America was texting me going, hey, well, who's this guy? I'm like, you you better take note. And uh Keener has been been an amazing story and excited for him to showcase uh in this spring breakout game.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

Kind of speaking of take note, obviously. I think every time we have a conversation, I'm like, we could just talk about every single guy. Top 30 and so on and so forth, and we'd be here until the temperature starts getting to reasonable levels. I think it's gonna be like 100 or something, whatever it is today. It's why the game had to be pushed back. But you know, as we kind of you know finish up here, I I'll I'll leave you with this. Who are some of the guys that, again, like prospect rankings at prospect rankings, buzzes, buzz, but who are you thinking maybe one or two guys who you know maybe deserving of a little more shine that's they're maybe not receiving, or maybe just some guys to keep an eye out on based off what you've seen here in person?

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Oh, that's a great question. I mean, we got 165 guys under roster. I was gonna say there's a lot of guys to choose from. I believe in each one of them. I believe they're all uh underappreciated. Um I'm trying to I'm trying to think of some uh a standout. I get asked that a little bit and I change my my I you know I still feel like people are low on Dakota Jordan. Uh maybe I just I I think do I think the world of Dakota's leadership abilities and who he is. But man, this this guy, I it's it I still feel like the industry should value him more, if believe it or not, even though they do value him, I I still feel like they're low on him. Um and I think Gene Carlos CEO is a dang good baseball player. Uh I think this guy can hit. He's always hit, he's always controlled his own, he's starting to come into power, and he's athletic enough to play many positions on the field as a left-handed hitter. Those guys stay around a lot. I feel like those guys are maybe known, but still people haven't seen them break out.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

Kind of speaking of CEO in particular, it was actually the game in Mesa against the A's where he homered. And again, I try to be, you know, like knowledgeable as possible, but he was someone that I just didn't have like a big background off. And that like he homers and I'm like instantly gone fangrafts. Like, who is this guy? And it's like 800 OPS last year. I'm like, okay, there's there's something here. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna jot him down, I'm gonna circle it. And then to the point about Dakota as well, just you know, when you see a guy that has like the football background that was also like a wide receiver and just like that combination of power and speed, that doesn't come around a lot. And you can start like, again, you don't want to you know put the weight of the world on a guy like that, but like when you see that combination of tools and like again to the leadership ability, I think when I talked to Travis Ishikawa last year, he mentioned that as well. You start seeing you know the vision. And so to that point, I think that you know, I think those are two guys that are worth keeping an eye. Any pitchers though? Any any love for any pitchers?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

All right, I'm gonna give you I'll give you a couple deep uh guys that showed up in the camp. Um so for deep prospect watchers, uh Alexander Fuentes has been maybe one of our best pitchers this spring. He pitched in the Arizona League. I think the way we talk about Keener, Luis DeLatore, who we'll see in tonight's game, because he's gonna come in after him, I I think Alexander Fuentes is gonna be a guy that in May people are gonna talk about. Uh Leandro Rodriguez comes to mind, name no one talks about in those prospect circles. I think he could break out this year. And uh yeah, I'll give you some very deep ones. Please do for those prospect uh people who follow the top 30, the names they've probably never thought of. I I think those are guys that if you're coming to minor league spring training games, you better watch those guys pitch because you know, yeah, they're they're gonna I I think this is the year they break out.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Those will be some guys that I keep an eye on over the course of the season, even as I'm watching the major league games, gotta keep an eye out, gotta show some love to the Myers as always. Kyle, this was fun. Uh, really knowledgeable stuff as always, and looking forward to having more of these conversations over the course of the season.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Awesome. Well, I appreciate having me on and happy talk prospects anytime. Yes, sir.