00:00Charlie Condon, the Colorado Rockies, is who we were talking about going into the break.
00:04The Rockies have a wide-open first-base battle happening right now.
00:08Troy Johnston is in there.
00:10Blaine Krim is in there.
00:11TJ Rumfield is in there.
00:13Charlie Condon might be the leader in the clubhouse right now.
00:16Again, the Golden Spikes Award winner at the University of Georgia in 2024.
00:20Condon has three homers already this spring.
00:23He's been insane.
00:24Why has he been insane?
00:26And I guess what were your concerns coming into this spring that he's bucked?
00:30I think he cleared up a lot of those concerns with the second half he had even last year,
00:35and I think he's carried that into the spring this year.
00:39He is destroying fastballs, and that's been his bread and butter since college, right?
00:44And then destroying the hangers, which was his bread and butter in college.
00:47My concern was, okay, better spin.
00:50He struggles to stay on stuff, sharper spin on the outer half.
00:54And in college, he did a good job of laying off of it.
00:57But in early pro ball, he was chasing that, and that's like his blue zone, right?
01:02And it was really a blue zone for him where it was often a rollover or a swing over based
01:06on his path.
01:07Now he's recognizing it really, really well.
01:09And over his final 50 games of the regular season last year, getting up to AA Hartford,
01:13where obviously that's a big leap for him, final 50 games, he only chased 16% of sliders.
01:18And I think that was a huge wrinkle for him, where it's like, I'm recognizing spin better.
01:23I'm crushing everything middle in, and on the pitches that are breaking away from me,
01:27I'm laying off of it.
01:28If you dot three sliders on the outside black, tip my cap.
01:31And Condon's leaning into what he's great at and hedging what he's not great at.
01:35And you can have a really long career when you're a six-foot-six slugger with plus-plus raw power
01:41like Condon has.
01:42So I think we're seeing that in real time here, and he's really settling into what made
01:46him great in college at the professional ranks.
01:49And that's hard to do, because sometimes you can't just copy-paste what made you great
01:52in college.
01:53And I think we're seeing Condon do that.
01:55And building off of that, man, if he can hedge the concerns around better spin even more,
02:00we had this conversation around him when the Rockies drafted him.
02:03When the Rockies took him, what did we say?
02:05We said 81 games a year, he was going to see spin that was not that good because he's playing
02:09at altitude.
02:10So it worked in his favor.
02:12You've got to worry about the 81 road games, surely.
02:14But if he is laying off of that better spin, all of a sudden, more and more of those turn
02:20into hangers or cement mixers in his home ballpark, and he gets 81 games a year, he could be the
02:26next Coors Effect guy that doesn't make a lot of money in free agency because you have a
02:30lot of concerns, like Trevor Story, right?
02:32Trevor Story probably should have been a $200 million player, but there were plenty of concerns
02:36that he couldn't hit outside of Colorado.
02:38Nolan Aranato, there were plenty of concerns when he went to St. Louis that he couldn't
02:41hit outside of Colorado.
02:43Condon, if all goes right, obviously you need to blossom into stardom and borderline superstardom.
02:48But if all goes right, he seems like that next guy.
02:51And my counter is, who cares?
02:54When you have six years, you're still going to be a nine-figure player when you hit the
02:57open market because you kill opposing pitching at your home ballpark.
03:02And again, I think the approach part is a huge way to at least chip away at the road
03:08issues as well, right?
03:09If you're drawing your free passes and anyone's going to have the Coors Effect splits because
03:13of how different it looks, you know, home versus away and just how it sets you up.
03:17But I think it's a great point.
03:18I mean, I think the Rockies, given where they've been, they've been begging for players that
03:22can even just dominate a course, let alone just be solid players, period.
03:27If you can dominate a course, that's great.
03:29They need to be great at course.
03:31And so I think Condon is one of those guys that can usher in that new era.
03:35And it takes, you know, a big power guy that's going to absolutely kill it.
03:39Coors cut that strikeout rate down.
03:41And then again, I think seeing the way that he cut the strikeout rate down in the second
03:44half of the season where it was barely above 20% in AA Hartford, if he is just serviceable
03:49on the road, to your point, there's going to be an all-star guy potentially and a solid
03:53player for them.
03:53I think there's still some hurdles to get through.
03:55And even if he's a subdued version of that, I still think this is a huge building block.
03:59For the Rockies that are going to take any building block, they can.
04:02He's got a whale of a teammate right now.
04:05And Zach Veen has two walk-off homers so far in spring training.
04:09We've got about two minutes left in this segment, but I did want to bring up Veen before getting
04:13off the Rockies and go to the other prospects.
04:15And we'll spend the next 10 minutes talking about those other prospects.
04:18But Zach Veen's two walk-off homers, 109 off the bat and 447 against Sean Boyle.
04:23And then at the beginning of spring training, 113 off the bat and 468 feet.
04:30This new look, Zach Veen, is a dream come true, man.
04:33He's got a lot more room to work with now, right?
04:36I mean, I think Veen was always going to whiff a little bit more than we thought.
04:38He's a longer levered guy.
04:39And when it was a rail-thin build, it was tough to see how he was going to be able
04:46to
04:46get his, right?
04:47And now we're seeing one of the home runs he hit was on the outside black, and he hit
04:52it 447 feet to dead center.
04:54It's the mass equals gas component side, and it works for hitters as well.
04:58And I think with Veen just being more physical now, he has more room for error.
05:02He can do damage.
05:03And I think he needs to lean into the damage side more.
05:06And I don't think it's coming at the expense of his speed.
05:08So it's been one of the best stories that we've seen so far, and I think it can continue
05:12to be an exciting story.
05:13Even if he doesn't fully reach that prophesied ceiling, I still think this is a really solid
05:18player that is building on something that could at least be a part-time role.
05:21If he's a bulk platoon guy for the Rockies with some more thump, that's a far cry from where
05:26we were at last year.
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