JotCast | Kiley McDaniel Chat

Kiley McDaniel Chat - 2/20/19

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Scott

1:01

Travis Demeritte - is he still a thing?

Kiley McDaniel

1:01

nah

CWS

1:01

Considering level of in-season competition, how do top tier High School bats silence hit tool questions between now and draft day?

Kiley McDaniel

1:02

well some of those guys play at huge schools that face lots of D1 arms or will be going to big tourneys with such arms, or play at an IMG/TNXL type academy with lots of D1 guys that play other academies

short of that, you have to rake, have a good approach and have a swing that looks like it'll work against velo. but not substitution for not facing velo

Flappy

1:02

Hey Kiley,

Kiley McDaniel

1:03

Hey

1:03

Is there a sense of which 2018 J2 guys may be able to go right to stateside short-season, like Franco, Pereira, and Pardinho, or is it way too early for that?

Kiley McDaniel

1:03

It's early but I will guess! hold on

1:04

So Victor Victor and Yolbert Sanchez are easy ones

Marco Luciano is a safe bet

I'd say Kevin Alcantara (NYY) and Diego Cartaya (LAD) are around 50/50

1:05

Noelvi Marte (SEA) seems likely

1:06

then I'd say Osiel Rodriguez (NYY) and Richard Gallardo (CHC) along with some of the more polished/maxed-out bats in the top 10 here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/our-week-1-college-scouting-notes/

Luciano is SFG, Mesa MIA and Yolbert TBA but probably BAL

DJ Tanner

1:06

I've read a lot of places that Kelenic has an incredible work ethic. Do you think this means he is peaking early because he has worked harder than others to reach this point, or is this something that means he will get to a higher level because you trust his work ethic will push further than others?

Kiley McDaniel

1:07

probably reaching potential earlier than cohort and more likely to reach ultimate upside

and I would agree

Flappy

1:07

Hey Kiley. I saw a suggestion on a change to avoid service time manipulation by starting the service time clock when the player reaches AA. Would it work?

Kiley McDaniel

1:08

Then they just wouldn't be sent to AA. Or if 1 day = a year then they come up opening day instead of September. Clubs are always gonna move to where the limit is. Incentive them to ignore that, like an extra pick for teams that give the most playing time to 0+ service time guys

CWS

1:08

Can Kameron Misner climb into top 5 consideration? If so, what does he need to do?

Kiley McDaniel

1:08

Excited to see him this year (OF, Mizzou). Late 1st/Comp now, big tools, some health/contact issues, didn't play over the summer, but top 15 potential

Sean

1:10

Kiley, I've been reading a lot about how "most teams" are involved in the bidding for top J2 players, but it just seems like if your team (the Tigers, for instance) never brings in any of the top guys, it's just window dressing.

Kiley McDaniel

1:11

Well fans always look at this as (# of $1M+ July 2nd signings) = (how much my team cares about int'l stuff)

Now it's easy to look at Wander Franco and Vlad Jr. from the tops of their classes and think your team doesn't have access to those players b/c they're lazy or don't care

1:12

but Victor Robles was low 6 figures, Tatis was high 6 figures, tons of top shelf dudes were there for everyone

so be more angry if your team doesn't sign players that have value b/c every team can do that

Yusei Tomato

1:12

How would Jasson Dominguez stack up against recent J2 guys like Luciano and Mauricio from a rankings perspective? Does he have a higher ceiling than last year's top guys?

Kiley McDaniel

1:12

A good way to remind people about Prospects Week

1:13

Here's the J2 rankings article with a long report and video on Dominguez, his current FV (50) and what that means: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/updated-july-2-prospect-rankings/

links to all the other prospects week stuff

and THE BOARD 2019 J2 where you can see all this stuff in one place: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-international?sort=...

Hank

1:13

What approach do you take to projecting the hit tool of really athletic but raw guys with current swing and miss issues?

Kiley McDaniel

1:14

By looking at the components of the hit tool: bat control, bat speed, pitch selection

if the first two are premium and the third one is bad, that's fixable in that you can improve, but will always be a Starling Marte type that swings a lot and would be better if he swung less

If the bat speed is premium while the bat control is average

1:15

then you have like Monte Harrison where it's never gonna be a 50 hit tool, but if there's power, he could still get to all the power

we've discussed grading each of these abilities for each prospect, but that's a lot of detail and, for the guys these distinctions matter for, we break it down in the report. Estevan Florial is a good example.

Dodger Depth TM

1:16

How'd you get involved with scouting and prospect analysis? What was your first step towards doing this for a living?

Kiley McDaniel

1:17

Worked some connections to get an internship with the Yankees baseball ops group in Tampa 14 years ago. Did a bunch of grunt work and copies and whatnot but learned how to scout and write reports in the downtime. Shouts to Mark Newman, Jackie Williams and Billy Eppler for giving me a shot

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