Now that we’re nearly one month into the minor-league season, 2017 performances are starting to mean something. The 2017 sample size is still small, but it’s large enough at least to merit a look at those prospects who may be in the midst of a breakout. This article aims to do just that by calling attention to the 10 hitters who have most improved their KATOH+ projections over the season’s first few weeks. A reminder: a player’s KATOH forecast denotes his projected WAR total over the first six seasons of his major-league career.

Juan Soto, RF, Washington (Profile)
Preseason KATOH+ Projection: 4.0
Current KATOH+ Projection: 6.9

Soto destroyed the GCL last year, prompting the Nats to send him to full-season ball at the age of 18. An 18-year-old in the Sally League is noteworthy in and of itself. An 18-year-old striking out at a 9% clip while also hitting for some power is the stuff of a blue-chip prospect. If he continues to rake, he’ll likely be place highly on midseason lists. Eric Longenhagen recently checked in on Soto as part of his daily notes.

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Episode 737
Managing editor Dave Cameron is the guest on this edition of the program, during which he leads the guest on a tour of the National League’s easternmost division. There, one finds that the Mets are infested with injuries, that the Nationals are contending with the loss of their center fielder, and that three other clubs are also present.

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Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 46 min play time.)

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On Effectively Wild the other day, I mentioned to Ben Lindbergh how so much recent news has been kind of depressing. Madison Bumgarner is super good, and now he won’t play for a while. Noah Syndergaard is super good, and now he won’t play for a while, either. Adam Eaton is super good, and he won’t play again for an even longer while. Shelby Miller is done for the season because of a torn elbow ligament. Starling Marte is serving a half-year suspension for inexplicable cheating. The Giants are disappointing, the Mets are disappointing, and so far everything I’ve mentioned directly involves the National League.

Yet for any one thing that goes wrong for a team, that can be spun as good news for rivals. Not that I think the Dodgers were specifically hoping for Bumgarner to get injured or anything, but, I’m losing track. There’s obvious downside in so many of the things that have happened in the NL. No one likes when good players can’t play. But on the plus side, doors have been opened. Thanks to the events of April and the first day of May, the National League is a lot less predictable. Which, to me, makes it a lot less boring.

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Just after sunrise on August 6, 1974, Philippe Petit began his walk across a 200-foot stretch of wire spanning New York’s Twin Towers. He and his assistants had prepared the wire overnight, using a crossbow to connect the one-inch-wide walk way from rooftop to rooftop, 1,350 feet above Lower Manhattan. Petit completed eight walks that morning before being ordered down, and arrested, by New York City police. The Telegraph (U.K.) recounted the daring feat.

[Petit] felt so confident that he took to showboating… The Frenchman is shown [via photograph] lying down on the wire while balancing his bar across his chest with his arms well away. At one point the 24-year-old hung by his heels….

He later said: “To me, it’s really so simple: life should be lived on the edge. You have to exercise rebellion, to refuse to tape yourself to the rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on the tightrope.”

Petit’s chosen line of work is not for everyone. That said, there might be some wisdom in his view on how to live regardless of your profession.

Nearer ground level this year — in fact, on a pitching mound for the Astros — Dallas Keuchel is conducting his own tightrope walk. A former seventh-round draft pick with just an 89-mph fastball, Keuchel has always been compelled to find ways to adapt and push boundaries. Last month, FanGraphs’ Jeff Sullivan noted Keuchel’s latest makeover — namely, that the left-hander is going “Full Ziegler” on us.

Wrote Sullivan:

Nearly everything has been at the knees or below, just like how Ziegler works, and at least to this point, it’s been working. As usual, I’ve made some use of Baseball Savant. Using the filter options, I selected the five lowest pitch-zone areas. There are 220 pitchers who’ve thrown at least 100 pitches in both 2016 and 2017. Among them, last year, Keuchel had the No. 31 low-pitch rate. This year, he has the No. 2 low-pitch rate, slightly behind only teammate Luke Gregerson. Keuchel’s low-pitch-rate increase of 17 percentage points is the fourth-greatest, and he already worked mostly down. Now it’s like he doesn’t even pay attention to the other spots.

Keuchel is off to an excellent start this season with the Ziegler approach, producing a 5-0 record and 1.21 ERA. But I wonder how much longer this success can last.

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Previously
Changeup: AL Starters / NL Starters.
Curveball: AL Starters / NL Starters.
Cutters and Splitters: MLB Starters.

May has arrived, and sample sizes are beginning to mount. We’ve still got a little ways to go in our review of 2016 qualifying starters’ pitch quality before turning our attention solely to 2017. We’ve already looked at changeups, curves, cutters and splitters; today, it’s the four-seam fastball’s turn. We’ll begin by looking at 2016 ERA qualifiers from the American League.

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I spend a lot of time thinking about who could be the next Mike Trout. There’s not a good answer yet. Nobody is the next Mike Trout. Francisco Lindor is not yet as good as Mike Trout. Do not under-appreciate Mike Trout! He’s amazing. Everybody take a moment to remember how Mike Trout is the very best that there is. Okay, good, thank you for doing that.

When I think about other potential 9-WAR players, though, my default is to consider elite defenders who might suddenly add some power. Because, of course, they’d be starting from a high baseline, and how many players have we seen add considerable pop over the past few seasons? I’ve had my eye on certain guys, and it’s Lindor who’s presently catching my attention. Lindor is an elite defender. Check. He occupies a premium defensive position. Check. We know he has a steady and disciplined approach. Check. Now we could be seeing the emergence of power. Lindor is 23 years old.

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Consider, for a moment, Kyle Schwarber. If you saw him in street clothes and were told that he’s a professional athlete, you would assume that he’s a football player. A linebacker, perhaps. Some sort of bruiser with the job of clobbering other players.

Schwarber’s job is not to clobber other players, however, but rather to clobber baseballs. He’s quite good at that. This year, however, has been something of a struggle for the goateed one. Last night’s 0-for-4 showing sent Schwarber under the Mendoza line and dropped his batting line to an unsightly 79 wRC+. It’s early yet, and Schwarber has just 115 plate appearances to his name so far this season, but this is decidedly not what the Cubs want from their leadoff hitter and one of their biggest (literally and figuratively) sluggers.

Joe Maddon’s usage of Schwarber in the leadoff spot is predicated upon Schwarber’s theoretical ability to get on base. To be fair, he’s done an admirable job in that. Rocking a .322 OBP with a .196 average isn’t easy at all. Getting some more hits will make that OBP go up even more, though, and Schwarber (or any hitter, for that matter) is at his best when he’s crushing the ball into the next time zone.

We know Schwarber can still do that. Exhibit A:

Schwarber hasn’t had a real chance for prolonged big-league time just yet. He played in 69 games when he first came up, and then lost nearly all of last season to his devastating knee injury. Despite his talents and his exploits in the postseason, we don’t yet have an idea of what a full season’s worth of Schwarber really looks like. We’ve got 393 regular-season plate appearances with which to work, though. So let’s poke around a bit.

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I met Aaron Judge in Tampa, Florida, this spring near his locker in the corner of the Yankees clubhouse. Prior to the interview we shook hands, that most culturally traditional way of greeting a stranger. He engulfed my right hand with a catcher’s mitt of an appendage, and a grip something like a vice tightening. Thankfully for the structural integrity of my metacarpals, he relaxed the grip.

Judge is a strong man. He is a giant among men. This is only a slight exaggeration:

It should come as no surprise that he has as much raw power as any player in the game. It should come as little surprise that he already holds the Statast record for exit velocity of a batted baseball (119.4 mph), surpassing that of Giancarlo Stanton (119.2 mph), whom is his most commonly cited, best-case comp, and a fellow could-have-been Division I tight end.

Judge, of course, is off to a tremendous start — a start documented yesterday by FanGraphs’ Craig Edwards, who notes that the young outfielder has enjoyed one of the most power-laden Aprils on record. Judge is one of the most compelling young assets Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has accumulated, a player who could be part of the next Yankee dynasty. While few expect Judge to continue his torrid pace, he has answered questions about his ability to serve as a quality regular, and he’s reduced the distance from the floor to his considerable ceiling.

The question with Judge — as with Stanton or any hulk of a player — has been clear: can he make enough contact? Can he translate more of his raw power into game power?

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Yesterday, I wrote about the Nationals’ upcoming decision in the wake of the Adam Eaton injury, talking about the pros and cons of sticking with an inferior option like Michael Taylor or making a big splash for a rental like Lorenzo Cain. In both the comments of the post and at the Pitch Talks show in D.C. last night, a number of people questioned why I focused solely on the potential acquisition of a CF, and didn’t talk about the possibility of acquiring a shortstop and shifting Trea Turner to center field as they did a year ago.

The idea seems to be fairly popular, and would expand the pool of players the Nationals could look at, putting them in a better position to upgrade without having to pay an extreme price due to the lack of quality center field options. But here’s the primary reason I didn’t devote any words to the idea in yesterday’s piece.

In theory, if Taylor doesn’t pan out, Harper could slide over to center field, where he spent most of his rookie season. Alternatively, Turner — who converted to center last year before returning to his native shortstop this season — could head back to the outfield. For the record, Baker doesn’t seem terribly interested in either of those contingency plans.

“No,” said the Nats skipper dismissively when asked on Saturday morning if he was open to the idea of Harper or Turner taking over in center field. “Leave my team alone.”

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