Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Colorado Rockies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve concluded my spring journey through the backfields and Breakout Games, which makes this a good time to drop a few more notes. As with last time, I’ve got a mix of updates on top prospects and some off-the-radar names who have played well. I’m again mostly limiting these notes to players and systems we’ve already covered; I have thoughts on Brody Brecht and will share all of them and more on our Rockies list, which is next up in the prospect list queue.

Ethan Holliday, SS, Rockies
Holliday enters the year as one of baseball’s most volatile prospects. Big, All-Star-caliber tools run into a long swing with a lot of moving parts, and the collision is producing hard-hit balls and tardy cuts in equal measure. He tends to be behind good velocity, or even average fastballs if they’re up in the zone. Conversely, he bruised a couple baseballs in his wheelhouse down and in, including a ringing hit on a pretty good cutter in the Breakout. Physically, he looks great, and while I still think he’ll need to make an adjustment to cut down on the length of his swing at some point, I’d give him all the time in the world to figure it out.

The pleasant surprise here is that Holliday’s glove has looked significantly better at short this week than it did in Fresno last August. His reactions off the bat are quick and accurate, he charges smartly, and he picked everything in his orbit. This wasn’t a long enough look to change course entirely on his defensive projection, as he’s already big and likely still growing, but for me his odds of staying at short went up this week.

Patrick Forbes, RHP, Diamondbacks
I tend to think that good spring performances are more meaningful than bad ones. For the latter, sometimes guys are just working on a pitch, battling through the dead arm period, trying a new stance, going through the motions, or otherwise focused more on “preparing” than “competing.” In that spirit, I’m not alarmed by Forbes’ outing in Arizona’s Breakout, though I do think it’s fair to note that he didn’t look great. Forbes was the first pick in the first compensation round of last year’s draft, and when he was in college, his velocity sat 94-97 mph and touched 99. On Saturday, though, he barely scraped 95 mph, sitting 92-94. He was scattered with both his heater and his slider, and while he missed several bats, he never got in a rhythm. He had trouble aligning his upper and lower halves, and in this outing he tended to pull the ball with him as he fell off the mound. Hopefully, this is just a blip, and he’s back to his high-octane self during the regular season.

Nate Snead, RHP, Angels
In last week’s notes, I covered how one Angels source highlighted Snead as a player who belongs on the main section of the club’s top prospects list. Good scouting on his part, as Snead looked sharp in their Breakout, where he struck out two (with two walks) in two innings of work. In the system overview, I wrote that Snead “regularly touches triple digits,” which is still part of his game. But I also wrote that “he needs a sharper breaking ball,” and on this look, it was evident that he’s got a very good one, a hard slider that flashes plus. That offering is substantially ahead of his curve, which looks fringy, but as a likely reliever, upper-90s and one plus breaker is all you really need. While he’s not the most deceptive guy in the world, I came away pleasantly surprised with his ability to hit a region and move the ball to both sides of the plate. Snead will jump toward the top of the 40 FVs or bottom of the 40+ FVs when I next update the Angels list, which should be soon.

Wellington Aracena, RHP, Diamondbacks
Speaking of pitchers who need to be added to a list. Aracena was the main return for the Diamondbacks when they shipped Blaze Alexander to the Orioles. He’s a big guy with elite velocity and two very hard secondaries. While he regularly touches triple digits, it’s his 97 mph cutter and 92-93 mph slider that are most impressive on the radar gun. He’s long thrown hard, but this is another step up from when we last covered him in June. Overall, the 21-year-old struck out three in his three innings of work, with no free passes. While not wild, there’s some effort in Aracena’s delivery, as he generates his velocity in part with big shoulder and hip torque as he drives toward the plate. He poses an interesting dilemma for Arizona: He has the length and stuff to continue developing as a starter, but he projects as a late-inning reliever in short stints and could be a shot in the arm for the thin bullpen. He also has the outwardly competitive disposition and attitude teams tend to like in that kind of role. It’s a good problem to have.

Sandro Santana, LHP, Diamondbacks
Of the thousand pitches Santana fired last year, only 15 were changeups — so few that I didn’t catch any in my several looks at him in 2025. I omitted the pitch in my report on him last December, as I assumed he’d either mothballed it or would soon. Looks like we’ll need to update that report, too. Santana didn’t just throw a few cambios, but he also missed a couple bats with them. He has a low slot and generates the kind of fade and tumble that that release tends to produce, with good arm speed to boot. I don’t know what my best accomplishment was this winter, but I’m sure it pales in comparison to finding an above-average changeup.

The rest of Santana’s game looked sharp, as well. In two innings, he didn’t allow a baserunner and struck out two. He touched 96 mph, and his slider was again above average, long with good spin, and lefties looked very uncomfortable against it, flinching or waving weakly at it several times.

Yilver De Paula, SS, Angels
De Paula stood out in this winter’s deep dive through the Angels’ DSL club, even though he only played a handful of games. I got only a quick look at him live. (Disappointingly, he didn’t appear in their Breakout even though he was on the roster.) In person, he looked athletic with clean actions at short and an arm that could be plus at maturity. At the plate, he’s quick to the ball and made hard contact a couple of times against older pitchers. He’s not the biggest guy, and there’s a chance he’s neither quick enough to be an elite defensive shortstop, nor strong enough to hit for enough power to be a lineup regular. Were I scouting for a club, though, with the caveat that I’d need to see him a little more to have adequate conviction, I’d be leaning toward a high-variance everyday grade.

Lucas Ramirez, OF, Angels
Manny’s son was a late scratch on my Angels list because I didn’t love his swing or how jumpy he looked in the box. He’s such a twitchy guy, though, and he belongs on the list in some capacity. His hands are fast and he roped a double in a backfield game 111 mph off the bat — three ticks higher than his max output a year ago. His power looks like a potential carrying tool, and while I still have reservations about his swing and approach — particularly with respect to how he identifies and attacks spin, which has eaten him alive as a pro — this is the kind of athlete to stay on even if he struggles early in his career.

Dauri Fernandez, MI, Guardians
Fernandez, while still a lean middle infielder, looks like he’s bulked up in a positive way this spring. It’s the kind of physical projection we were hoping to see, and while he’ll need to continue getting stronger, it’s fair to mentally lump him in with the tier of guys like Robert Arias, Juneiker Caceres, and Gabriel Rodriguez, young Guardos with hit tools and everyday upside.

Cam Day, RHP, Dodgers:
Day was an honorable mention on our Dodgers list this winter due to middling production and a history of wildness. His stuff is diabolical, though, and this spring he’s been sitting 97-99 mph (up from 93-97 last season). That extra velo has burnished both of his breaking balls, and the curve in particular looks like a 70. Day’s delivery is still high maintenance with some excess movement and a wobbly back leg, and he’s probably never going to be a great strike thrower. His arm speed and stroke look a tick faster and quicker this spring. Is that a meaningful change for him? Am I just seeing things, dizzy from the triple-digit heat coming from the sky and radar gun? Let’s check back soon.

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I’ve been bouncing around spring training camps for a little more than a week now, which makes this a good time to drop a few notes. I’ve mostly kept to the backfields, but I’ve taken in a couple big league games as well, and these observations draw from both sources. I’ve got a mix of updates on top prospects, some off-the-radar names who have played well, and a few thoughts on a notable recent graduate.

Roki Sasaki, RHP, Dodgers
I caught Sasaki on Tuesday night, where he looked similar to how he did last season. His splitter is absolutely devastating, perhaps the best split I’ve ever seen live, but it’s also the only reliable pitch for him right now, and even that didn’t generate the same kind of chase his second time through the order. Meanwhile, he still doesn’t command his fastball well, and it got hit hard when he left it out over the plate. Sasaki looked great at times in a relief role last year, and with his arm strength and split, he could be a monster closer. I wouldn’t be shocked if he winds up in relief sooner rather than later.

Carson Whisenhunt, LHP, Giants
Whisenhunt was a late cut from our Top 100 list, as we ultimately determined that his lack of a breaking ball was leading to deep counts, predictable pitch selections, and ultimately too much traffic on the bases for him to project as a mid-rotation starter despite a monster changeup. His quest for a better third pitch led him to a cutter this spring, a low-90s offering that to my eye flashed average, but lacked the late bite or tight velo separation from the fastball to change the calculus for him much. The rest of the package looked as it has for a while. He had his good velo back, up to 96, and generated swings and misses up in the zone. His change, as ever, looked excellent. Read the rest of this entry »

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Atlanta Braves. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re putting a bow on Prospect Week with a post-hype look at one of last season’s top farmhands, Kristian Campbell. This time last year, Campbell was the biggest riser on prospect lists across the industry, a consensus top 10 player who had gone from relative obscurity to the cusp of the big leagues in just a year. Now, as we head into the spring’s first contests, he’s fallen out of the lineup and is likely to begin the 2026 season in Triple-A. His career path serves as a good reminder that growth isn’t linear, and that a player’s development path doesn’t conclude when he reaches the majors or exhausts his status as a rookie.

After playing just one season of college baseball, Boston selected Campbell in the fourth round of the 2023 draft as a toolsy player with contact skill but also a quirky, choppy swing. He put on 15-20 pounds of muscle that offseason, which helped spark an offensive explosion. His power shot from average to plus overnight, and he started lifting the ball more, both of which he managed without ballooning his whiff rates out of proportion. He posted a 178 wRC+ across three levels that season, with 20 homers and a sub-20% strikeout rate. Though little about his operation in the box looked conventional, plenty of evaluators — including, critically, the Red Sox brass — fully bought in. The Red Sox put Campbell on the Opening Day roster and then inked him to an eight-year, $60 million extension less than a week into the season.

Initially, all went well. Campbell won AL Rookie of the Month honors in April after hitting .301/.407/.495 with four homers. His strikeout rate crept north of 25%, which wasn’t itself alarming, as it came with power and a 15% walk rate; it’s perfectly normal for rookies to swing and miss a bunch as they adjust to the league anyway. Defensively, Campbell was primarily playing second base while also filling in left and center. He didn’t look great at the keystone, and the jury was still out on his long-term defensive home, but if nothing else, his versatility was itself a boost for the ballclub.

On April 30, Campbell went 0-4 in a game against the Blue Jays, and then missed the next three games with rib discomfort. We can’t know to what extent that injury bothered him. Campbell, for his part, said it wasn’t an issue by late May: “No. That’s all clear. There was just a little side discomfort, but it’s all good.” Regardless, it was a turning point in his season:

By mid-June, the Red Sox had seen enough and sent Campbell to Triple-A for the remainder of the season. Critically, his dip in production coincided with a sudden and complete inability to pull the ball.

April:

May:

Campbell wasn’t mauling good velo over the Green Monster even in April, but he did hit some heaters hard to the left of second base and had no trouble driving spin out to left. He got back to that in Triple-A, though somewhat troublingly all of his pull-side damage came on hanging breaking balls. As Campbell gutted through an unspectacular summer in Worcester — 118 wRC+, 26.7% strikeout rate — the Red Sox lineup hummed without him. A mix of players capably filled in at second, Romy Gonzalez most notably among them, while Boston had more good outfielders than room to play them. All over the headlines in March and April, Campbell ended the 2025 campaign a forgotten man.

Even at his peak, Campbell was a somewhat divisive player. While some scouts were willing to overlook his unorthodox swing, others were apprehensive about his mechanics. He had a double toe tap and then a big front hip leak that worked in part because he has huge hip-shoulder separation and was able to keep from flying open even as his lower half crept toward third base. The upper half was also concerning for some evaluators, as Campbell’s violent and rotational hack came with a lot of head movement and often left him off balance. Plus bat speed and good hand-eye coordination helped, but not everybody loved what they saw.

Having literally bought the breakout, it’s fair to wonder if Boston is now taking the collapse at face value as well. There are signs, if you want to look at it that way. The Red Sox sent Campbell to winter ball this offseason, hoping that quieter movements in the box will again let him get to his power. Between those adjustments, the trade for Caleb Durbin, and unsettled defensive plans that initially seemed to focus on the outfield but then made room for him to take groundballs once back in camp (all of this just a few months removed from when he started working in at first base), you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s not in the club’s immediate plans. Fair enough, given last season’s production and this season’s lineup.

But all of the tinkering raises more questions than it answers. Were Campbell’s struggles last May and June really the inevitable result of an unconventional swing? Is it possible that the league’s adjustments to the young upstart, possibly combined with a nagging rib issue, did a number on a rookie already shouldering a difficult defensive load after very little collegiate and minor-league seasoning? You can make arguments for, against, or in between on those questions; the guy is in limbo, after all.

Last year, just after Campbell’s demotion, Eric wrote, “I, like most everyone, entered 2025 convinced that this weirdo swing would work for Campbell even though it’s unconventional. Though he was demoted shortly before [list] publication, I still think it will… two years ago, this guy was playing in his lone college baseball season and now he’s facing the best pitchers in the world. He deserves time to adjust and hopefully get stronger so it doesn’t take his entire body winding up for him to swing hard.”

I’ll sign on to that idea, and the comment about increased strength in particular. It’s a long season, and all the moving parts in Campbell’s swing mean that a minor disruption to one area of the body might just throw off the whole operation; having the strength to withstand the rigors of the schedule is important for everyone, but perhaps him especially. And let’s not lose sight of the talent here. However unusual, Campbell’s bat speed, short swing, and good approach were, for a time, effective. The history of this sport is full of guys who went the other way with fastballs and tugged breaking balls, and for a month it looked like Campbell had found a way to follow those footsteps. I still think he can; whether or not he will is for us to find out.