The Prospect Promotion Incentive
Jul 25, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 12 segments
In this episode, Beck and Scully give their thoughts on the MLB draft and how to scout it before diving into promotions from the Triple-A level. This is part one of a two-part update. Players…
Today are national holidays.
We had a few to choose from and we each took separate ones.
My understanding is you went with national junk food day.
Who's your prospect comp for junk food day?
He's in their top ten, pushing near the top five.
He was their second-round pick back in 2024 out of high school, clearly, for the fact that he's still 19.
Shields does not boast a great fastball, and so I was looking for somebody who has success without a great fastball and maybe wins with their quote-unquote junk.
And Shields does that with a – An average right now, potential to be above average slider, and then a changeup that has flashed similarly as well, and with great command.
So Shields looking to be one of those crafty lefties that gets by with a lot of junk, but doesn't overpower anybody with his fastball.
And he's had relative success doing that at high A this year.
18 starts, has accrued 81 and two thirds innings, pitched to a 386 ERA, and a comparable FIP to that as well.
And if I get the fan graphs ads off of my screen, he has struck out 29% of batters and walked 8%.
So I'm doing a lot of good things at high a right now.
Wouldn't be shocked to see him move levels maybe at the end of the year, depending on how aggressive they want to get with him.
Yeah, I think you could pretty comfortably say David Shields is the number two pitching prospect in the Royal system behind Kendry Churio, who I prefer for a variety of reasons.
Shields has a lot of the foundational aspects you would look for in a starter, specifically a broad arsenal striker.
strong command he's only walking 2.8 per nine which is fantastic and striking out nearly 11 per nine uh the one thing that is really holding me back on him is the quality of the fastball it is unremarkable i would say in terms of velocity and remarkable in the sense uh that you could remark on how poor it is it's not great shape um and so i I've really been gravitating towards these pitchers that have a plus four-seam fastball or several fastball variations.
It's not really present in David Shields' profile today, but if you were to develop an above-average or plus fastball, whether it be just by velocity to be passable at the big league level or some tweaks to shape or develop multiple variants, that would be sort of an instant bump on his prospect stock and sort of his prognosis as an effective big league starter.
Right now, he looks a lot like a number four or a number five to me.
Yeah, and you need those too.
They can't all be frontline starters.
So I think that's a realistic outcome for Shields.
I went a different direction.
So Junk Food Day was actually Tuesday when we planned to record.
Today are national holidays.
We had a few to choose from and we each took separate ones.
My understanding is you went with national junk food day.
Who's your prospect comp for junk food day?
He's in their top ten, pushing near the top five.
He was their second-round pick back in 2024 out of high school, clearly, for the fact that he's still 19.
Shields does not boast a great fastball, and so I was looking for somebody who has success without a great fastball and maybe wins with their quote-unquote junk.
And Shields does that with a – An average right now, potential to be above average slider, and then a changeup that has flashed similarly as well, and with great command.
So Shields looking to be one of those crafty lefties that gets by with a lot of junk, but doesn't overpower anybody with his fastball.
And he's had relative success doing that at high A this year.
18 starts, has accrued 81 and two thirds innings, pitched to a 386 ERA, and a comparable FIP to that as well.
And if I get the fan graphs ads off of my screen, he has struck out 29% of batters and walked 8%.
So I'm doing a lot of good things at high a right now.
Wouldn't be shocked to see him move levels maybe at the end of the year, depending on how aggressive they want to get with him.
Yeah, I think you could pretty comfortably say David Shields is the number two pitching prospect in the Royal system behind Kendry Churio, who I prefer for a variety of reasons.
Shields has a lot of the foundational aspects you would look for in a starter, specifically a broad arsenal striker.
strong command he's only walking 2.8 per nine which is fantastic and striking out nearly 11 per nine uh the one thing that is really holding me back on him is the quality of the fastball it is unremarkable i would say in terms of velocity and remarkable in the sense uh that you could remark on how poor it is it's not great shape um and so i I've really been gravitating towards these pitchers that have a plus four-seam fastball or several fastball variations.
It's not really present in David Shields' profile today, but if you were to develop an above-average or plus fastball, whether it be just by velocity to be passable at the big league level or some tweaks to shape or develop multiple variants, that would be sort of an instant bump on his prospect stock and sort of his prognosis as an effective big league starter.
Right now, he looks a lot like a number four or a number five to me.
Yeah, and you need those too.
They can't all be frontline starters.
So I think that's a realistic outcome for Shields.
I went a different direction.
So Junk Food Day was actually Tuesday when we planned to record.
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