JotCast | Kiley McDaniel Chat

Kiley McDaniel Chat - 11/27/19

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Kiley McDaniel

11:43

Hello from a rainy ATL! Scout is napping in the other room and I'm scrambling to finish stuff before the holiday grocery shopping and prep. May share some finished products and more kitchen looks on my instagram @kileymcdaniel

Also, there's a bunch of moves happening in the last hour. Gibson to TEX, Pomeranz at SDP, Urias-Grisham MIL-SDP deal, so I'm sure we'll spend time on that.

11:44

Lastly, we were in NYC last week and had a live event that sold out and went really well! Eric and I joined Meg and Ben on stage for a prospects panel with a Q&A and it's the last segment on this episode of EW: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1460-live-from-ne...

11:45

While at that event, Eric and I revealed something we've been hinting at for the last few weeks: we wrote a book!

11:46

you can preorder it here: https://www.triumphbooks.com/future-value-products-9781629377674.php?p...
and use code FV20 to get 20% through the end of the year

11:47

there's summaries there and on Amazon, but the idea is this is a follow-up on the happenings of Moneyball, about the tension between stats and scouting and where things are now in baseball. Also covers how to scout, how to get a job in baseball, how to train/get a scholarship as a player and many other things!

11:48

we've also started prospect lists and have a new PROSPECTS navigation option in the top nav bar where those are easily found.

we're doing lists by spring training pod, so ARI-SFG are done and COL will be the first after the holiday, with BOS/MIN coming after that and the east/central FL teams after that. we're planning on 2-3 per week until they're done now that the book is finally behind us.

okay, so there's all your topics of interest. to your questions:

Jim Leyland Palmer

11:49

If still eligible of FV grades would you move each of these guys down a notch from their last eligible grades in 2017: Andjuar (60FV to 55FV) & Frazier (55FV to 50FV)? Or more?

Kiley McDaniel

11:50

We'll be introducing the concept of Present Value (PV) this winter and it's most useful for young big leaguers, since it won't be 20 and it won't be the FV (Future Value) number.

Eyeballing it, I'd say Andujar is 50/55 and Frazier is 45/45+

maybe 40/45 on Frazier?

Guest

11:51

You mentioned yesterday the Yankees being connected (among others) to Po-Yu Chen. Would that be for this coming July 2?

Kiley McDaniel

11:51

From now until June 15th, he's probably the best player available that's likely to sign in this period

and there's multiple teams with 7 figures of pool left, though we never know exactly what those figures are, we can estimate.

Guest

11:51

"The Battle for Baseball's Soul"??? What does that even mean? Excited for the book though

Kiley McDaniel

11:52

There's a theme in the book of traditional/progressive being on a spectrum and we literally make a matrix of this (with success/failure on the y-axis) and place all 30 teams on it.

11:53

When you get to the furthest place on the progressive end, you tend to get firing scouts, replacing with cheaper labor, teams literally taking advice from management consulting firms and the general marginalization of traditional baseball things (sometimes smartly) which often leads to marginalization of humans and the individuality (not smart)

11:54

So we position that as a fight for baseball's soul, since if all 30 teams all end up in this area, there's a lot less humanity in the game, which in many cases is why fans like the game.

Guest

11:54

What % chance would you put Jasson Dominguez being the #1 overall prospect in 2021 (basically duplicating Wander Franco)?

Kiley McDaniel

11:55

Like 15%?

Tugs

11:55

This might be way to abstract, but when I see someone has a hit grade of 25/60... what kinds of things do you see that make you go Are they more mechanical in the swing? Is it as simple as "This kids really sucks now but I see a lot of potential there". Or is it a "he's got a nice swing and if he put some meat on those bones then he'll turn those soft liners into hard liners"?

Kiley McDaniel

11:56

The present grade on hitters maps pretty well to their level in the minors. Can't be a present 40 hitter but not have left the complex league because we don't know enough to say that, even if the skills/tools are present

So a gap that big means elite hitting ability that's already been demonstrated in games vs. good competition, but is a teenager that hasn't been to Low-A yet

LudeBurger

11:56

I’m not really familiar with minor league clusters. Who is in the west palm cluster? What are other clusters?

Kiley McDaniel

11:58

West Palm is STL/MIA/WSH/HOU, all within like 30 minutes of each other at two complexes that each house two clubs. NYM is another hour or so up the road, ATL/DET another hour or so from there. Go much further west and you get the Tampa pod of NYY/PHI/TOR, with PIT/BAL just south of them, then the new ATL and TB are just south of that and MIN/BOS are the furthest south in Ft. Myers.

I don't know the Phoenix ones as well, but they're also generally in clusters and that first one is the clubs arounds Scottsdale

11:59

The idea is that often instructs and minor league teams for these clubs will be clustered together and so scouts that tend to see one also see the others, so this is a good way to avoid circling back to scouts many times throughout the winter

and those teams will play each other, so execs for one club will know the other teams better as well

Narvain

11:59

Have you ever had an interaction with new Padres' manager Tingler or know what his reputation is around the league?

Kiley McDaniel

11:59

Nope, but all the buzz is positive

Kevin McReynolds

11:59

Thanks for the awesome AZ list and congrats on the book. If still eligible, where would Kevin Cron and Josh Rojas rate? 40?

Kiley McDaniel

12:00

Rojas I believe was a 40 before graduating. You can see older version of the lists by changing the year in the dropdown menu. Cron is a 4A/emergency type for us, so a 35.

12:00

If I wanted to reach out to teams regarding baseball ops positions who would likely be the best person in each org to reach out to (Director of baseball ops, Assistant GM, etc)? Also would mailing them a resume and cover letter be more effective than an email? Thanks

Kiley McDaniel

12:01

This is covered in the book in more detail, but the asst. director level is your best bet and an email with a sentence or two and resume and a sample of work is the best thing to send

Interested Consumer

12:01

Hi Kiley, I heard about a very interesting book that I would like to preorder. It is called Future Value: The Battle for baseball's soul and how teams will find the next superstar. Do you have any information about who wrote it, when it came out, or how and where I can pre-order it?

Kiley McDaniel

12:01

I have that information but cannot recall it off the top of my head

Billy Beane

12:01

Does the scouts getting fired thing make it difficult for you to get as many sources in the upper minors? It sorta makes sense to have lots of scouts far from the majors and use mostly data close to the majors, but that must make sourcing more difficult for a public team like you and Kiley.

Kiley McDaniel

12:02

It just moves the information subtly from scouts to front office people and we talk to both, so it's not amazingly more difficult. If anything, it's easier since front office people with info tend to have it across the whole game while one scout will be limited to where they've actually been to games and the days they were there.

(I am Kiley, btw)

FJM

12:02

Lauer and Urias for Grisham and Davies. Please discourse.

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