Top Prospects to Stash! Who is Yohandy Morales? (5/27 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

What's the latest in the world of prospects? Find out next on Fantasy Baseball today, Express. (upbeat music) Welcome back to FBT Express on Wednesday, Bates 27th, I am Frank Sample, join five, Scott White. And let's take a look at the five prospects on the periphery. These are names that are doing something notable as of late. We have Carson Milbrandt of the Marlins, Johnny level of the Giants, Nolan Perry of the Blue Jays, Henry Mendez of the Twins and Murph Gray from the Pirates. What do we have on these five? All right, let's start with Carson Milbrandt. That's Carson with the K, and you may remember me talking about him two weeks ago. At the time, he had a 148 ERA at AA. It's only gone down since then. He's had four starts, six inning four straight, six inning starts, one earned run between them. The strikeouts have increased each time from eight to nine to 11 to 12. His swinging strike rate, which at that time I was marveling at it being 18%. Well, it's up to 19.4% now. I gotta move this guy up to AA. First of all, Carson Milbrandt. I know baseball in America recently moved him in their top 100, but I'm not sure that's enough. Like I think Carson Milbrandt is trending toward being a top five pitching prospect. And he may not get a chance to be ranked for 2026, because it may only be a short stay, or get ranked for 2027, I should say, it may only be a short stay at AAA before he then moves on to the majors. Very excited about Carson Milbrandt. Johnny level, that's a Johnny with the H before the O. And he plays for the Giants, a short stop. Got some attention, some top 100 attention prior to this season, because he was an 18 year old who held his own at high A last year, maintaining a low strike at rate, a little bit of pop. Well, Johnny stayed at that level, and he's leveled up. As far as the power goes, already three quarters of the way to last year's home run total, couple two homer games, just in the past week. There's some speed there too, it's worth pointing out, maintaining a low strike at rate. And this is, again, as a 19 year old at high A, very impressive. Less raw power than just him golfing pitches out from the left side of the plate, switch hitter. The whole profile is sounding a lot like Ozzy Albees to me. Level, of course, is a short stop right now, but it seems like he's going to shift to second base as Albees did once he got to the majors. So a few years from reaching the majors, but I think Johnny level is going to be on everybody's top 100 this soon. We have Nolan Perry of the Blue Jays, missed all of last year because of UCL surgery. But he's come back, look in, dominant. It's a good bad, Mr. Before the procedure, but had some major walk issues, those have gone away and completely. And he's missing bats at an exhausting rate. 10 strikeouts and back to back starts. That's with a recent move from low A to high A. And between the two levels, 15 K per nine this season for Nolan Perry, great ride on the fastball from an over the top delivery, which the velocity actually isn't that impressive on it, but he misses a ton of bats just because the secondary characteristics on that pitch. And I think Nolan Perry's trended into or being a top 100 guy himself. Henry Mendez, now this is an interesting one because he may pay dividends sooner than later. He's already a AAA. Actually, this was a player that twins acquired from the Phillies for Harrison Bayter last year. And kind of profile, there's a fourth outfielder type, good contact skills on base skills, but there wasn't clear there was much power there that he played particularly good defense enough to be a starter in the majors. The defense is still a major question, Mark for Henry Mendez, but now that he's gone to AAA and we have access to stack cast data for him, I think there's real pop there. I do and he already has seven home runs this season. Once again, walking and striking out an equal measure, but the ex of velocities are like 80th percentile. He's doing everything you could want a hit or do Henry Mendez is except putting ball in the ground too much. But again, like he's homering at a good clip despite that. So I think if he can even play passable defense, there's a shot for him to break through for the twins this year. And maybe surprise a lot of people that's Henry Mendez. And finally, Murf Gray, he has just been killing it all year. He's a 22 year old in low A and I've learned to disregard those because they're clearly overleveled or you could say underleveled, I guess, overleveled is kind of a video game way of putting it, I suppose, but too old for the level, bottom line Murf Gray. And so like, okay, he's killing it, but he should be killing it. Well, he just moved up to high A and all he's done there in six games is home or four times. 10 for 24 overall. Got a quick swing. He is built like a guy who is made to hit home runs and he's been doing it now at a level that I think is a little more age appropriate. Still needs to be tested at AA. If he continues this hot start, I think Murf Gray will be soon enough, but he's a third basement and there are so few third base prospects. I think dynasty leakers need to take note. All Murf with an F gray. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be back right after this. Welcome back in. We're counting down the five minor leakers on the verge of getting the call and number five on this list is a new addition at Yo-Han D. Morales of the Nationals. I've already seen him get picked up in a few of my redraf leagues, Scott. So what do we need to know about this guy? Yeah, I don't know that he really needs to be stashed because it doesn't seem like the prospect rankers like him that much. Both MLB pipeline and baseball America have him outside of the Nationals top 20. But he has been a wrecking ball at AAA this year and particularly recently. Last 10 games, Yo-Han D. Morales is hit 436 with six home runs. That is the kind of surge that normally propels a guy to the majors, especially when his parent club just sent down the starter at the position he happens to play. Brady House was sent down. Yo-Han D. Morales is a third baseman doing all kinds of crazy things at AAA. I think he's got to get a look at least. So apparently part of the reason he doesn't earn high marks from prospect rankers, a very long swing. Swings and Miss is a lot in the zone because of it. Also, a lot of his hard contact is hit to the opposite field. But as many home runs as he's hit already this year, I'm not sure that's as big of a problem as it's been made out to be. So I'm putting Yo-Han D. Morales here as a potential prospect to stash. Number four is Cole Carrick from the Rockies. I thought he would get a chance to get the promotion once Brent and Doyle went on the I.L. But that was not the case. Yeah, yeah. I'm a little surprised. It could still happen. What makes-- I'm sorry. What makes Cole Carrick, I think, such an easy choice here as a prospect to stash is his time between center field and shortstop. And if you play center field, you can play left and right. If you play shortstop, I kind of feel like you can play any field position. It's a little trickier than that I understand. But you at least have the capability of it, even if you might need some reps there first. So like any opening, the fell of some of the Rockies roaster, maybe even catcher because Cole Carrick did a fair bit of that earlier in his mind and lead career too. 356 batting average 27 steals. I think he would be an extra base monster, of course, field as cavernous as that outfield is. So yeah, Cole Carrick, very interesting choice to stash. Next up, number three, we have Kaelin Colt Pepper of the twins. We know last week Royce Lewis was sent down to the miners. Are we any closer to Kaelin Colt Pepper getting the call? Maybe. So what they actually did after sending down Lewis was shift Brooks Lee over to third base, just probably a better fit defensively for him. Cole Peppers, a short stop. Right now they are having journeyman Ryan Cripler, Cripler, I'm not sure how to pronounce his name, but he's a journeyman 28 year old, and Orlando RC, they're having them play short stop. Obviously, obviously nothing more than a stop gap there. So the lane is open for Cole Pepper. The one issue is Royce Lewis is really hit the ground running at Triple A. He might not stay there for long. And so then presumably Brooks Lee would have to go back to shortstop once he got called up. I don't know. There are probably things they could do at second base as well given how bad Luke Keechel's been. So I doesn't necessarily preclude Cole Pepper if Lewis comes up, but it is a complicated factor. Cole Pepper, power speed, pretty good plate discipline. The batting average has been suspect this year, but he's definitely a prospect that road oliegers especially should care about. Number two on this list is Nuelvi Marta of the Reds. No, he is not a prospect, but he's in the minors and he is destroying the baseball. And we're still just waiting for him to get called up. Please call him back up so we can stop explaining. Yes, we understand. He's not really a prospect, but he's a more exciting stash than a lot of the players who actually are. He continues to kill at a triple A. I mean, the numbers are just, they're unimpeachable. That's not what's preventing the Reds from bringing him back. I think Terry Franco na has started to, to, as coming closer to pulling the plug on TJ Friedle and Wiltonson who have been getting the majority of the starts and center of right. He's Franco has started to mix and Blake done more and done to perform pretty well, but he's not as good as Marta. Marta started 12 straight games in center field. Remember he was a right fielder before and had defensive issues. So I'm not totally sure what the plan is for him, but they keep playing him in center field. And I still think it could be any day. He gets the call. And number one on the list is once again, Cade Anderson of the Mariners who did have a bad start last week or two weeks ago, but then he bounced back in his most recent outing at AA. Yep. Yep. Struck out seven over four and two thirds innings. So now that's another box. The Mariners can check off in his development. Resilience bounced back from the bad start. He's resilient. But he's not getting called up tomorrow. They already have, they already can't find enough spots for the starting pictures they have. Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo doing the piggyback thing. So it's not like Cade Anderson's getting called up tomorrow that he tops this list because of the impact he will make when he gets the call. And it pitching depth can evaporate in the blink of an eye. I think as soon as that second hurler goes down for the Mariners, it may be. Anderson who comes up, even though he's still at AA, the Mariners has a philosophy with their top pitching prospects. Usually have them skip triple A entirely. It's the PCL. It's a tough place to hit to pitch Brian Wu, George Kirby, Bryce Miller himself. They all skip double A to reach the major. I'm sorry. They all skip triple A to reach the majors for the first time. It wouldn't be surprising to see Kate Anderson do the same. All right. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to our full length podcasts fantasy baseball today on Spotify Apple Podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are found. Thanks for listening to fantasy baseball today. Express and we'll be back again that later this week. Bye. Bye. [MUSIC] Paramount Podcasts.