Top Prospects to Stash! Quinn Mathews on the Radar! (7/23 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

We're back with Prospects to Stash, up next on Fantasy Baseball Today Express. (upbeat music) Welcome into FBT Express on Thursday, July 23rd, I am Frank Sample, joined by Scott White. And let's start with the Prospects on the periphery. We have five names here who are making some noise as of late and that group includes Zahir Hope of the Dodgers, James Triantos of the Cubs, Ike Irish of the Orioles, Kendri Toreo of the Royals and Sammy Stafora of the Pirates. Scott, what do you have on this group? - Well, you may think Joe Swede de Paula, Mike Sarota and maybe even Eduardo Cantero have passed Zahir Hope in the Dodgers hierarchy of Alphial prospects. My goodness, do they have a lot? But Hope is making a case that he still belongs, at least among that group, his last 15 games. He has batting, this is a AA. Last 15 games, he's batting 400 with eight home runs and five steals. We don't have exit velocity data available at AA. It's not out there for public consumption. But I do know that one of those A home runs he hit, he hit 114 miles per hour. And there was another that was 111. So like big boy exit velocities for Zahir Hope, a lot of power, some speed. You know, if they were to have an opening, I don't know which of him de Paula or Sarota would get called up first. Cantero's a little further behind, but Hope definitely make it his case. All right, James Triantos, this was a prospect of some run-down a couple years ago when he was still in the lower minors. The power never developed his hope. But now that he's a AAA, he's showing that the hit tool may itself be enough. His last 39 games, basically since the start of June. James Triantos is hitting 340 with three home runs, 14 doubles, five steals. That's a long stretch of time to be hitting 340. The exit velocities aren't terrible. They're closer to the middle pack than the bottom of the barrel. But you know, so maybe there's still some hope of developing power. It's just it's a lot of hitting the ball to all fields, line drives rather than the fly balls. That this wing just isn't optimized for power. I think the skill set overall is pretty reminiscent of Nico Horner. The Cubs already have a Nico Horner of course, but maybe James Triantos can be used as a trade chip and become someone else's Nico Horner. I think there's still a chance of that. IRISH of the Orioles was drafted as a catcher last year, was the 19th overall pick. Has not played a single game to catcher this year. So I think he's done being a catcher, IRISH. He's been splitting time between first base and corner outfield. Which puts a lot of pressure on the bat. It's a left handed bat, which helps, but still. He's got to hit a ton to make it with that limited defensive profile. He is hitting a ton here lately, IRISH in his last 20 games. I'm sorry, last, that's 34 games for IRISH. He is batting 338, 338 with 10 homers and 9 steals. So very hot right now. Great on base skills, definitely looking like a keeper for Dynastie leagues. That's IRISH. Kendri Churio is somebody who showed up on my midseason top 50. He came in at 49. And when I first pulled up his numbers, I wasn't convinced he belonged there. Strike out, Raid's pretty ordinary for a guy who's in A-Ball. But dig a little deeper. He is an 18-year-old in high A. And so just merely holding his own for being that far ahead of the developmental curve, I think is impressive enough. But he certainly has an arsenal to become a strike up. Hitcher, I think part of the reason why it's just a little more than a strike up or running, even at that low level, is he is such a control artist, less than two walks per nine for a second straight year. So part of it is he's just facing so few hitters that he doesn't get a chance to get his mini-strikeouts. It does help. Two of his last five outings, double digit strikeouts. Already he's trending the right direction. There's plenty of velocity there. There's a good breaking ball. And again, elite control for Kendrick Turio. I think he should be rapidly rising up dynasty lists, even as a starting pitcher. And then Sammy Stafura of the pirates who they acquired from the Reds and the Cabrillon Hayes deal last year, that turned out to be a good move because he is suddenly throttling the ball 12 home runs in his past 16 games. Australia rate is too high. It's up over 30% for the year. And again, this is Abal. It's been 26% during that stretch of 16 games with 12 home runs. So hopefully there's hope for improvement there. First of all, he's stealing plenty of bases. But clearly there's an impressive tool set. Good defender at shortstop, which should buy him some time. It's just obviously that far down the ladder, if you're already striking out that much. It raises major downside concerns offensively. But with the kind of power surges on, I think Sammy Stafura is a name to know. All right, let's take a quick break and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back, FBT Express. And now let's count down the five prospects on the verge. And number five on this list is a newcomer. We have Quinn Matthews of the St. Louis carnal's. Once regarded as a top pitching prospect a couple of years ago, dealt with some injuries, some walk concerns as well. But man, he has really turned it around. - He hasn't gotten all the way back to where he was two years ago. Two years ago, he struck out 202 batters and 143rd and under 43 and a third innings. That was across four different levels. So he was zooming up the ladder and looked like maybe the left-handed pitching prospect in baseball. But yeah, the walk rate last year where he came crashing back down. Gosh, I think it was over six per nine. It was terrible. And it started out pretty rough this year too. But in his last eight starts, Quinn Matthews has a 170 90 R8.77 whip and 9.7 K per nine. It's gone six plus innings at five of those eight starts. And the walk rate during that time 3.2 per nine. So it's passable. It's still a concern, but passable. For the year, the whip is at 116. So, obviously he's doing a good job of preventing hits. And I think it's put him, so obviously on the verge of a call up for the carnal's, they don't have a rotation opening right now, but at the next one, Quinn Matthews might be getting the call. - Let's get Matthew Libber-Torada here. And let's make that happen with Quinn Matthews. Number four on this list is Zach Vien of the Rockies and Scott here were hoping the Rockies trade away some of their outfielders at the trade deadline. That would be nice. - That would be nice. It also helps the Troy Johnston has slipped quite a bit in recent weeks and the data, the underlying data for him was never particularly impressive. He's already 29 years old. So I don't think Troy Johnston's a real building block for the Rockies. And if they wanted to make that change now, they could, seems like though Tyler Freeman and Willie Castro, they don't have everyday jobs themselves. So even if the Rockies were to stop giving at bats to Troy Johnston, they might just give him to those two. But Zach Vien continues to plug away at Triple A, which has had another big game on Wednesday, batting well over 300 more power than he's shown in the past, better plate discipline than he's shown in the past. So overcome some maturity issues. He talked about that in spring training. And just seems to be recommitted to baseball, former top prospect who's putting himself in that conversation again. - Number three on this list is someone we've talked a lot about that is Joshua Buyers. He's had a very up and down season sky. He goes through these stretches where he looks like the best hitter in the minor leagues, but then he also has slumped with some strikeouts and things where has Joshua Buyers been lately? - Down, way down. So far down, in fact, that in his last 19 games, he's batting 108. Strikeout rate is on the rise again. It's right around 30% on the year. I'm keeping them in the five on the verge because the impact potential is so high. The power is. Among the best in the minors, clearly he's right around 30 home runs already. And he gives you some speed. And it's not like the Cardinals outfield is impenetrable. But Heim Bloom, the head of their front office, talked at the end of June, he talked about how they want to. The big league pitchers are better at exploiting weaknesses and they want to make sure bias for us, hot as he was. at that point at that time is actually ready to go to work against them. And I think the last couple of weeks have shown maybe not. So yeah, strikeouts remain a major concern, but there's enough upside here that I'm going to keep by as in the five on the verge for now. Number two on this list is another rocky and that is Charlie Condon again. We're hoping if they make moves that the deadline could open up some opportunities here for their prospects. Yeah, it's kind of the same story as Zach Vene. Charlie Condon I think is the better prospect, but he's the one of the two's not on the 40 men roster yet. So the rocky's might default to Vene instead of Condon just for that reason if they only have one opening. All right, and number one at the top of the list and it's no surprise that is Cade Anderson of the Mariners, another name that could be affected by the trade deadline if the Mariners move one of Luis Castillo, maybe someone else in their rotation feels like Cade Anderson is potentially a trade or injury away. Yeah, it's hard to know how exactly it's going to play out because you would think only another contender would be interested in Luis Castillo and you don't see a lot of contender to contender trades like that. I guess they would the Mariners would trade Luis Castillo for all offense. I'm guessing I just I don't know what that kind of deal looks like because they're so rare. I think one way or another, they're going to have to give Cade Anderson a shot and I think the fact that he hasn't pitched since July 3rd suggests that the Mariners are thinking along those lines too. They want to save some of those bullets for crunch time when they're trying to get in the postseason, when they're trying to advance in the postseason rather than use them all now mid-season. He did throw in an Incade Anderson in the the futures game, but apart from that, yeah, hasn't pitched since July 3rd. That's like three weeks now. At some point, I think we're going to see him ramp up again and I'm thinking like late August, Anderson, one way or another gets the call. The impact potential here is so high that I think he got to keep him stashed. However long it takes. All right, for more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full-length podcast, Fantasy Vs. Ball Today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to Fantasy Vs. Ball Today Express and we will be back again this weekend. Bye-bye!