J.J. Cooper

He didn't need to, but she got, he improved his, you know, his,

kind of strikeouts, he improved his contact rate, and that let the power play much more as he kind of climbed the ladder.

That's an example of what you're talking about, like you mentioned.

And I know that some people listening will probably say, why is he focusing on batting average more than on base and slugging?

And while batting average is not as important, you know, it's a metric as on base and slugging at the major league level, I do think that it actually has a lot of value, especially in the lower levels of the minors, because...

You can walk a lot in class A by keeping the bat on your shoulder.

There are a lot of pitchers who are wild.

The strike zone's got a little smaller this year again, it seems like.

So you can walk a lot.

But strikeout rates, contact rates, if you have issues with those, those are going to have to be corrected before you can kind of put it all together to reach the majors.

And that's still really an issue for Mitchell.

I would say like, okay, so Curio and Shields to me kind of are two very different prospects as far as like, because their to-do lists are very different, right?

They're the best.

They're the two most successful pitching prospects, I would say, in the Royal system right now.

But Curio is just keep improving, keep and stay healthy, right?

Like he has present stuff.

He has real feel, all these things, right?

Where it's kind of like, okay,

What he's doing, he's going to have to add refinements.

He's going to probably, you know, improve several pitches over the next few years.