Pittsburgh Pirates and Milwaukee Brewers play in game 2 of series

As you know, people who are excited about him. Uh There's *** real buzz about him and what he's created around the the team here in Pittsburgh. But outside of Pittsburgh, from the national perspective, Paul Skeens, what are your thoughts? What are people saying about him? Yeah, I mean, he was the number one overall pick in the draft, obviously last year, he took *** somewhat unusual path being at Air Force for two years, being *** part time like catcher in DH while also pitching. Uh I saw him both summers with team USA after his freshman and sophomore years at the Air Force, he looked like *** second or third rounder. That was like interesting sort of untight potential, but like sort of *** nice guy to follow and then he transferred LSU and just like immediately his velocity jumped five or six ticks. He learned the best slider in college baseball. Um And then he became the number one pick as I in my eyes, the best draft pitching prospect in at least *** dozen years going back to like Garrett Cole David Price, Stephen Strasburg, these types of sort of legends of both the draft and major league baseball. And then part of the reason I wrote about him for ESPN, uh last week, I went to go talk to him when he started against the Braves. I'm in Atlanta. Uh is because he learned what is arguably the best pitch in baseball after signing after being the greatest stress prospect in the last decade, which is borderline, unbelievable that like that was also there. We hadn't even seen it yet. So II, I guess the question now is, I mean, can he keep this going? Normally *** guy goes to the league once then people figure him out? I mean, can skis just keep this pace going where he's striking out eight or nine guys per game and dominate the way he is? Yeah, that's sort of the question and I sort of covered this in the article where uh that is *** normal question. Uh It is the right question and the answer is almost always no, he won't be as good because everyone will make the adjustment because typically when *** top prospect gets to the big leagues, it's like he throws really hard. He's got *** really good slider doesn't really trust his third pitch yet. And second time through the league, he'll have to learn how to locate that start. Yeah, bats off with that, put guys away with that because they can all sit on one pitch. And if he can't throw the second pitch for *** strike, he's got to have *** third pitch and any given day, he might not even have that second pitch, you know, random unforeseen things happen to pitchers on random days. And so the idea that, you know, I had him third on my board when he went first overall because I was like, there's three guys here, it's *** three way coin flip. And with pitchers more unforeseen things happen, whether their velocity goes down, the guys will be good the entire minor leagues with one pitch and then it'll be terrible in the big leagues. Their command can desert them. Maybe they do *** thing that works in AAA doesn't work in the big leagues. Obviously, there's injuries like all kinds of things can happen. Nothing at that level really happens to position players. And so now looking back at when they had them in *** three way coin flip, um himself, uh uh Wyatt Langford and Dylan Cruz, the question was, can he stay healthy and make adjustments and will everything work the way we thought it would? And it turns out he stayed healthy, he made adjustments, everything worked even better than we thought it would and he added the best pitch of baseball. So, so there are some questions I didn't even know that that was, that could have been the answer, but the answer would be yes. And then some stuff you didn't think of was possible too. Uh So do you see him starting the All Star game on Tuesday. That's *** good question that I don't have the answer to because that is more of *** political marketing question with what is the sort of tenure, uh, who has the respect of the team? What does the manager want to do? Does the league tell the manager to do something? To me, all of those things point to they should start him if he's in this game. Uh I think he has earned it on the performance. The question I asked in my article is, is he the best pitcher in baseball right now? And *** lot of people pause and sort of balk at that, like, oh, he's only made like 10 starts. Like, how could he really be the best pitcher in baseball? But if you're the best pitcher in baseball after 10 starts, it should be obvious. And my answer was he's in the top five and it is completely defensible to say he's the best. So for some people to say like, oh, he didn't earn being in the All Star game, he's only started 10 games. It's like there's guys that have *** good first half, make an All Star game and then never play well again, the rest of their lives like this kind of thing happens, that's at an unsustainable rate. But this is incredibly sustainable. And I think he might actually be better his second time through the league than his first time through. So I think he is, like, earned it on merit. It would not be like *** handout or *** marketing thing to say that this guy went in one year from the number one pick in the draft from LSU to the Big league All Star game. Uh I think he deserves it and he should start. I think the league should want him to start. I don't know if they'll actually do that because, uh, as, you know, there's *** lot of deference to, you know, tenure and things like that in baseball that maybe they'll think that's too much, too fast. Well, you leave me to my next question. I mean, can he actually get better than what we've seen so far? Yes. So, uh, I did like ***, uh, maybe too deep of *** dive on each of his pitches and there's *** way of grading pitches for pitchers where you can look at the data and you can sort of grade it based on how much it moves and you can mix in what you see with your eyeball and how, um, you know, hitters adjust to it and things like that. Uh, the thing that I think he is capable of doing that he isn't currently doing is locating his fastball well, to left handed hitters, which he throws his fastball the most left handed hitters. If you look at just *** graph of where he's thrown it to righties, it's been very good locations against lefties he's been just ok, but he has *** plus ability to throw the ball where he wants it and he just hasn't been doing it with that specific pitch against those kinds of hitters. Those have been the home runs. He's been giving up at the beginnings of games. Most of the runs he's given up have been from bad locations on fastballs to lefties and with every other pitch against righties and lefties and everything, he's been locating it pretty well. I think it's just *** slight adjustment. It might be mechanical, it might be mental. There actually is like one more gear. Uh And if that is happening, then you might be seeing 9, 10 strikeouts *** game, 01 runs per start for like the next couple of years like that is like on the table and most of the time, like I said before, when like *** top prospect comes up and is good for five starts, I'll be like, hold your horses like this is not gonna look like this for much longer, but it is right now. Uh He might actually look like this for *** long time. Wouldn't that be nice here in Pittsburgh? Hey, uh I wanna ask you, obviously, the draft is coming up on uh Sunday. The Pirates do not have the number one pick this time around. Where do you think they'll go with their pick at, I believe, number nine? So there is *** sort of agreed upon top tier of 10, maybe 11 players in this year's draft. So picking at nine, you're like, ok, that's in the first nine or 10. Uh, so you're gonna get one of these players. The problem is you get stuck with whichever two or three are left over, which might not be the ones you're looking for. Um, so the sort of conversation about the Pirates this year has been uh the second best high school player in the draft, Connor Griffin, who I think has the potential to be *** Fernando Tatis junior level talent, but there's *** lot of risk like he might not hit and might kind of just be *** bust. That's, that's the, the very wide range of what he could be. Um, I think they're talking about him and I think there's ***, there's *** lot of college position players that fit in that range. I think James Tibbs *** right fielder out of Florida State who has *** chance to basically be above average at everything in the batter's box and be *** pretty good right fielder. Uh I think he might be the single, most likely, uh, selection I think is the guy they like the most that will probably be there. They'll have *** chance to take him. That's what I would project. But there's two or three other guys in that range that depending on the picks ahead of them, could, you know, give them *** different, um, group of guys to choose from, but I would say Tibs and Griffin would be the two to watch another sort of big gap between what you could be and what you are. Griffin could be *** lot of things. It might be nothing. Tibbs is almost certainly exactly the thing that he is right now, *** pretty good big leaguer. Um, and I think that's, you know, typically what you expected that kind of pick is to get *** college player with *** high floor and maybe not the highest ceiling in the world, but it'll be in the big leagues quickly.