Mon­tero start­ed his sea­son with a banger out­ing, pep­per­ing the bot­tom of the zone, often with the same pitch over and over, stiffling a Fort Wayne line­up unable to do much of any­thing. There were stretch­es where it seemed you could tell these hit­ters the split­ter was com­ing, and it would­n’t have helped their cause. Mon­tero was­n’t rein­vent­ing a wheel here, but more so exe­cut­ing here ‘s‑my-best-pitch-try-and-hit-it. Fort Wayne mus­tered two tru­ly well-struck balls to the out­field ear­ly and a see­ing-eye ground­ball sin­gle late, but in between, they could bare­ly touch Mon­tero. Four­teen of Mon­tero’s 57 pitch­es were whiffs, which is impres­sive con­sid­er­ing the aver­age veloc­i­ty of his stuff was in the mid-80s. Tech­ni­cal­ly, there was a four-pitch mix- four-seam fast­ball, sinker, split­ter, and slid­er- but in essence, it was a fastball/splitter attack. Mon­tero was extreme­ly effi­cient and induced lots of use­less con­tact; 67% of his offer­ings earned strikes. This was a tricky watch as far as iden­ti­fy­ing pitch­es, so don’t quote me on all the pitch labels, but I inspect­ed close­ly here. I only labeled a sinker when I was 100% sure the fast­ball was the sinker, and every oth­er fast­ball got “FB.” The poor broad­cast angle can blur his slid­er and split­ter move­ment, as wild as that may seem. Mon­tero threw some split­ters when slid­ers were called, and even freeze-fram­ing and zoom­ing in on grips, because of his arm action and cam­era angle, were incon­clu­sive. The slid­er and split­ter have the same veloc­i­ty band to boot. But I’m con­fi­dent Mon­tero only offered up a few slid­ers. His split­ter, for what­ev­er rea­son, was impos­si­ble for these guys, and he refused to give in at times and give them the fast­balls they were hop­ing for. I also think 2024 Savant labeled his offer­ings poor­ly, as I look back at the fol­low­ing video, and may have mis­led me some in this depart­ment. Mon­tero got my atten­tion at the end of last sea­son because he was flash­ing a much hard­er fast­ball than he did in 2023. In 2023, Mon­tero was like an 88 fast­ball guy, and he showed up and start­ed touch­ing 96s/97s a year lat­er. There’s a bit more heat in the tank than meets the eye here. In essence, it was this big uptick in veloc­i­ty, paired with some of the abil­i­ty shown above, that made him my choice for this sea­son. Mon­tero still needs to prove con­sis­ten­cy and that his game can play against bet­ter com­pe­ti­tion before I get too excit­ed, but Mon­tero’s one of the most curi­ous arms for me in 2025. Here’s a look of him from 2024:

Ques­tad was a per­son­al favorite of the 2023 prep class. Per­fect Game ranked him 41st (and climb­ing) in the class over­all. Strik­ing out six in two innings at the nation­al event bumped his stock. Not that I saw a lot, but I did see a glimpse of an advanced fastball/slider, east/west attack. Back then, Ques­tad’s abil­i­ty to land the slid­er impressed most. His oper­a­tion’s ease, paired with con­sis­tent rep­e­ti­tion, advanced feel for sec­on­daries, and poten­tial as a high pitch­a­­bil­i­­ty-type, feels like a very Twins play. Bet on the pitch­er; sharp­en tools lat­er. It was excit­ing to see Ques­tad offer­ing up sev­er­al pitch­es and mix­ing up the sequenc­ing as he did. Such “pitch­ing” isn’t typ­i­cal from arms this age in A‑ball. It’s prob­a­bly fair to won­der how good the indi­vid­ual offer­ings are in a vac­u­um at this junc­ture, but the Twins have had as much, if not more, suc­cess help­ing these types sharp­en tools than any­one. Who had Zeb­by Matthews revving it up to 98? That being said, it would­n’t shock me if parts of the arse­nal impressed on spread­sheets, either. Ques­tad appears to enjoy the weight room, look­ing well built for a 20-year-old. At 6′1″, he isn’t the tallest pitch­er out there, but he has enough size. I had been look­ing for­ward to this debut, and it checked all the box­es I had hoped it would, maybe even more so. Look­ing for­ward to the rest of his sea­son and get­ting him on a nice Braden­ton angle to bet­ter see what he’s work­ing with. If Ques­tad keeps putting up lines like this, he might start get­ting more atten­tion from dynasty own­ers, but my incli­na­tion is that the per­ceived qual­i­ty of his “stuff” will keep inter­est min­i­mal. In the long view of things, call me more than inter­est­ed, hope­ful, and con­fi­dent Ques­tad’s got it in him to put up gaudy plen­ty more guady lines in the low­ers. I don’t have to squint too hard to see this turn­ing into my type of com­mit­ted dynasty play. To good health! Note: Decent lit­tle tri­an­gle of loca­tions with three dif­fer­ent speeds dur­ing the three-pitch strike­out vs Parks Har­ber (sec­ond to last K, 5th inning.)

The Rook tossed Rus­so out this off­sea­son as his Philly arm for 2025, (episode 42) not­ing his kitchen sink approach and abil­i­ty to attack hit­ters in mul­ti­ple ways. A poten­tial­ly bud­ding “sum of all parts/high pitch­a­bil­i­ty” prospect whose tools alone aren’t out­stand­ing, but rather the way he uses them and they work off each oth­er. His line this day feels very Rus­so. There were some offer­ings locat­ed poor­ly that led to hard con­tact. There were some walks, as he could­n’t com­plete a dif­fi­cult sequence of pitch­es. Rus­so might be the poster child for the anti-sum-of-all-parts crowd. It’s a high­er stan­dard of dif­fi­cul­ty. When he exe­cutes, well, you can see the results above. The change­up may be his best offer­ing, but it’s hard to say. Rus­so’s offer­ings tend to take turns as head­lin­er from out­ing to out­ing, inning to inning, at bat to at bat. Nonethe­less, Rus­so has my atten­tion. The Phillies have had a killer recent pipeline run­ning pre­vi­ous­ly unher­ald­ed arms from Jer­sey Shore to Read­ing and onward…Ben Brown, Samuel Aldegheri, Eiber­son Castil­lano, just to name a few. Look­ing for­ward to keep­ing an eye here. Rus­so is the kind of arm I grav­i­tate toward, keep­ing in mind a pos­si­bil­i­ty of stuff jump­ing and things tak­ing off, a la a Zeb­by Matthews of late. Don’t bet on it, but don’t rule it out, espe­cial­ly with the Phillies. Note: Don’t quote me, but I was won­der­ing if I caught a dif­fer­ent change grip the last one in our video there…a “kick” change.” Hard to say with com­plete cer­tain­ty.

Lin was one of five teenage start­ing pitch­ing prospects mak­ing their full-sea­­son debut open­ing week­end, with 2024 draftees Bryce Mecca­ge, Dasan Hill, Bray­lon Doughty, and Padre’s 2023 inter­na­tion­al free agent Jose Lopez. Lin and Lopez’ debuts were extend­ed relief. Lin signed out of Tai­wan last June and did­n’t log any com­plex league innings, so this was his first pro­fes­sion­al box score. Lin went three shut­down innings, strik­ing out sev­en, includ­ing the final six faced, allow­ing no hits, no walks, and no runs while fac­ing the min­i­mum nine over 46 pitch­es (65 strk%). Lin has spent time with the Tawainese nation­al team. List­ed at 6′2″ and 179 lbs with a broad-shoul­dered frame, there’s room to add mass. The booth relayed that the A’s have been impressed with Lin, espe­cial­ly the change­up. After an inning of set­tling in, we saw Lin start to uti­lize more of his mix. I doubt Lin will get a lot of dynasty inter­est giv­en his veloc­i­ty, but the fast­ball may pos­sess oth­er traits mak­ing it play up, so to speak. The slow spin game may need some work, but there’s an inter­est­ing mix of stuff and pitch­er here. Lin dom­i­nat­ing the Cal and putting up some pro­duc­tion does­n’t seem far fetched. In 2024 we saw Tug­boat Wilkin­son do such a thing, and I’d be curi­ous how the data com­pares the arse­nals, espe­cial­ly the fast­balls. All that said, Lin strikes me as an inter­est­ing watch who may have some excit­ing dynasty devel­op­ment left.

(Shoutout to my guy Jay for ask­ing about Balz­er and get­ting me to turn this game on.) The Padres signed a young Japan­ese-Amer­i­­can out of Japan dur­ing the Jan­u­ary 2023 Inter­na­tion­al sign­ing peri­od named Bryan Balz­er. He made his full-sea­­son debut Sat­ur­day, throw­ing 51 (59 Strk%) pitch­es across three innings. With no 2023 game action and only sev­en 2024 com­plex innings on his pro resume, a social media and Google search won’t yield much, and Ran­cho’s broad­cast won’t give us great per­spec­tive either. Balz­er got my atten­tion in a good way. Don’t scout the stat line. It’s not the great­est sto­ry­teller. Some hits and three runs hap­pened the first inning, but Balz­er was just get­ting his feet wet, almost exclu­sive­ly throw­ing fast­balls. Balz­er was jovial dur­ing a mound vis­it with the score­board on the verge of going lop­sided. The real show start­ed in the sec­ond inning, where­upon he threw only strikes. It only last­ed eight pitch­es over three bat­ters, but it con­tained 96 mph fast­balls (per booth), a change­up, and some break­ing balls. Ran­cho’s broad­cast does­n’t let us get all the signs, and this angle is hor­ri­ble for a right-hand­ed pitch­er, but Balz­er was throw­ing at least two dif­fer­ent fast­balls, pos­si­bly three. Whether his “four-seam” cuts nat­u­ral­ly or there’s a sep­a­rate cut­ter is YTD. With­out some veloc­i­ty read­ings, it’s hard to tell if there are mul­ti­ple break­ing balls or not, but I’d guess there was one. A tweet claims Balz­er has hit triple dig­its with the fast­ball. The fol­low­ing video is said sec­ond inning, plus a three-pitch strike­out of his final bat­ter faced: There isn’t a lot to take away from this look. Balz­er has a strong low­er half, great bal­ance through deliv­ery, and some pho­tos on social media show him drop­ping and dri­ving far down the mound. Col­or me intrigued and look­ing for­ward to tun­ing into his next out­ing. Balzar’s coun­ter­part, Aiden Foeller, the Dodgers’ 2024 11th round pick out of South­ern Illi­nois, got my atten­tion in a good way as well. Anoth­er right-han­der, we suf­fer the same defi­cien­cies, but again come away with a desire to see more. Foeller is good-sized, list­ed at 6′3″ 220 lbs. Per the booth, the fast­ball was touch­ing 97. Here’s the entire­ty of his ama­teur career logged on Base­ball Ref­er­ence: Foeller filled up the zone, throw­ing 74% of his 73 pitch­es for strikes, giv­ing up six hits across 4.1 IP, strik­ing out eight and walk­ing one. I count­ed 19 whiffs on the day. Here they are: A firm slid­er or cut­ter mixed in with a four-seam­er? Maybe the slid­er is slow­er or there’s a slow­er break­er? More ques­tions than answers regard­ing the arse­nal at this point, but there might be some legit nasty com­ing out of that arm slot. Look­ing for­ward to see­ing Foeller again, and if the Dodger pitch­ing love dynasty own­ers tend to have, finds its way here.

We final­ly got to see the 2024 Draft’s sec­ond over­all pick make his full-sea­­son debut Fri­day. West Michi­gan’s great angle and tal­ent­ed line­up was a bonus. I’ve nev­er seen Burns this straight on of an angle before. This could end up the best angle we get all year. I can see why the booth men­tioned a com­par­i­son to Dylan Cease. The fastball/breaking ball game does look sim­i­lar to the eye. Burns tossed four score­less, strik­ing out six, and walk­ing one. Burns threw 67% of his 57 pitch­es for strikes while he exud­ed the abil­i­ty to cruise through a very good High A line­up. The fast­ball veloc­i­ty can get up there with the best of them, but the booth did­n’t clue us into any radar gun read­ings. Safe to say he was throw­ing hard, espe­cial­ly ear­ly. I’ll be curi­ous to see how the attack adjusts as he moves up the lad­der. Burns fast­ball might raise ques­tion with some, as it isn’t a data dar­ling oth­er than velo, but this first out­ing, as green as it may be…these offer­ings, this attack and the exe­cu­tion look ready to play in the bigs. The nine mil­lion dol­lar man looks the part.

Thurs­day was our first day of mul­ti­ple dou­ble-dig­it strike­out per­for­mances (3‑J.T. Ginn, Ryan Berg­ert, and Ian Sey­mour), but it was Cade Hor­ton look­ing like 2023 steal­ing the show. Hor­ton’s dynasty stock took a hit after shoul­der issues sapped his veloc­i­ty and short­ened his 2024 to just eight starts, but Hor­ton’s fast­ball seems back. Before rain and arm fatigue chased him out of the 4th, Hor­ton’s fast­ball 97 mph on the reg­u­lar. The fast­ball earned 8 whiffs on 15 swings (53%) and a 41 CSW%. The first three innings’ 40 pitch­es lacked non­com­pet­i­tive offer­ings. Hor­ton’s two-pitch game effi­cient­ly mowed through a good AAA line­up. In total, he threw 59 pitch­es (61 strk%) across 15 bat­ters faced. A stark con­trast in this fast­ball game com­pared to yes­ter­day’s Chase Pet­ty look. If health and horse­pow­er start to prove them­selves, look for Hor­ton to start get­ting “elite prospect” praise from the dynasty world again.

The for­mer first-round pick has gar­nered some high praise in the dynasty world, espe­cial­ly head­ing into 2024, tout­ed by some as a poten­tial elite prospect. Per­haps 2024 had some unde­served results, but Pet­ty seems far from pol­ished enough to sniff the bigs. Pre­vi­ous looks have left me won­der­ing about the qual­i­ty of his fast­ball game. Don’t quote me, but I believe he had pre­vi­ous­ly thrown a major­i­ty of sinkers. Pet­ty’s first out­ing of 2025 saw four-seam­ers lead­ing the fast­ball game. All the caveats apply…first out­ing of the sea­son, young, weath­er, blah blah blah…the fast­ball game still leaves much to be desired. This out­ing had its fair share of mis­for­tunes but was also chock-full of poor exe­cu­tion. Both can exist at the same time. Cut up are the 24 fast­balls he offered up, a lit­tle over a third of his pitch­es on the day. But you can see how this aspect of Pet­ty’s game is not a fea­ture, despite its praise and high grades hand­ed out by some. There are legit­i­mate rea­sons to ques­tion the qual­i­ty and abil­i­ty to use it well. And for an arm some have hopes of being top shelf…are we sure we aren’t step­ping into the same pool of hope folks did with the Cole Winn and Mick Abel’s of recent past?

All con­tent on muddylooks.com is cur­rent­ly free. Even­tu­al­ly, we’ll have to pay to keep the lights on and at that point a small sub fee will be asked. Until then, enjoy as we get this thing in shape and pro­duc­tive.

Luin­der Avi­la has ho-hummed his way up the KC lad­der, but he start­ed 2025 with his best pro show­ing yet. Avi­la’s 11 strike­outs were a career best and his first ever dou­ble-dig­it K line. The break­ing ball was the star, gar­ner­ing 12 whiffs on 16 swings, earn­ing a 51 CSW%, and danc­ing with a mid-90s fast­ball. A clas­sic north/south attack made a cold day for Louisville hit­ters even cold­er. Avi­la exe­cut­ed his offer­ings well, with 67% of his 79 pitch­es earn­ing strikes. The show­ing above does­n’t pair with Avi­la’s pedes­tri­an K‑BB% over his career, beg­ging the ques­tion if this is an intro to a new devel­oped and con­sis­tent Avi­la or if this was mere­ly a glimpse of poten­tial. The Roy­als might be con­vinced, as they added the 23-year-old to their 40-man this off­sea­son. Cur­rent­ly ros­tered in 0% of Fantrax leagues. We shall see how Avi­la backs this up, but dang he looked mighty inter­est­ing. Hm