Something about the the gut-wrenching way Tarik Skubal’s final Tigers start ended — with Detroit coughing up a big lead as it desperately clung to its playoff hopes — made it easier both to accept that he’d be traded and to understand that dealing him would probably be the right move.
Indeed, it was a sobering microcosm of the team’s season for Skubal’s final inning to end awkwardly rather than in triumph, and then for things to go sideways in unexpected fashion. Like a lot of us, I picked the Tigers to make a deep postseason run. For several reasons, including so that I might look smart (not dumb, like they say, but smart), I hoped during the last several weeks that the Tigers would stay hot enough for it to make sense for them to keep Skubal. As the schedule reached this weekend’s checkpoint, and Detroit stumbled deeper into a very crowded AL Wild Card field, it became clearer what the front office had to do. Late on Saturday night, the Tigers traded Skubal to the Dodgers for Triple-A starting pitcher River Ryan, Double-A outfielder Zyhir Hope, and Low-A pitcher Brady Smith. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Hi hello how are you, it’s another 115+ degree day here in Tempe, time to chat.
12:17
Big Fan: Philosophically, do you feel like contenders value their prospects too much? Not enough? The right amount? I’m sure the answer varies by team, but it’d be interesting to hear which teams typically fall in which bucket.
12:19
Eric A Longenhagen: It varies by executive even more than team. The small market teams covet the surplus value, and the way GM trees have grown the last 20 years has made it so the folks who helm those teams have migrated to the bigger markets, and those philosophies are then employed by the Dodgers, Mets, etc. One’s need to hug prospect is inversely related with their ability to draft and make more. WHen you’re a well-oiled machine like the Rays, you should be more aggressive and push the chips in now and then.
12:20
aglossman: I have no interesting or original questions to ask. Do you think the Sox will trade Arias? I hope not
12:20
Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, if they do it’d have to be for someone so good you might feel otherwise after it’s done.
12:20
Big Fan: The Braves have recently promoted a handful of prospects. Do you think the timing was to juice their value in models without giving a player long enough to be exposed at a new level?
As August 3 nears, we are taking a fresh look at the farm systems of some of the clubs we expect to be buyers at the trade deadline. These teams are both contending for a playoff berth and in position to make a buyer’s-style trade for a star big leaguer, the kind that will likely require parting with a top farmhand or two. Today, I’m covering the Philadelphia Phillies.
In tandem with an evaluation of the team’s needs and deadline posture, I’ve updated Philly’s prospect list to account for graduations, incorporate the team’s new draftees, and reflect developments on the farm. The Phillies have a top-heavy system with a few key, arrow-up pitching prospects. Read the rest of this entry »
As we approach August, now is a good time to take a fresh look at the farm systems of some of the clubs we expect to be buyers at the trade deadline. These teams are both contending for a playoff berth and in position to make a buyer’s style trade for a star big leaguer, the kind that will likely require parting with a top farmhand or two. We kicked things off with the Atlanta Braves, and we’ll continue today with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In tandem with an evaluation of the team’s needs and deadline posture, I’ve updated Los Angeles’ prospect list to account for graduations, incorporate the team’s new draftees, and reflect developments on the farm. The Dodgers have a great farm system, heavy on outfield prospects and pitchers who throw hard but who might just be relievers.
The Situation
The Dodgers have a comfortable 12.5-game lead in the NL West. They’ve successfully weathered injuries to several key cogs on offense (Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernández, and Will Smith) through a combination of their older stars remaining productive, and Andy Pages and Dalton Rushing improving. On the pitching side, their younger hurlers, especially Justin Wrobleski and several of the sophomore relievers, have stepped up after many of their other arms went down (including Edwin Díaz, Tyler Glasnow, and Blake Snell), and despite a full injury ward, Los Angeles has a top six pitching staff in most statistical categories. More reinforcements are on the way from within, as a few of the injured Dodgers (Díaz, Snell, and Enrique Hernández) are on rehab assignments as the trade deadline approaches, creating a bubble that will force some action on the margins of the big league roster. They may have to play musical chairs a bit as they decide how aggressively to pursue star-caliber improvements to their few weak spots. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is my final mock draft, which is based on information I’ve continued to gather over the last couple of days. I’ve offered analysis in places where I believed new dope merited it; otherwise, it’s just names. There’s more background for many of these picks in the first mock from a few days ago.
1. Chicago White Sox Pick: Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA
Yesterday, teams picking behind Chicago began to believe the White Sox had narrowed their options down to only Cholowsky and Grady Emerson. If the White Sox view Cholowsky and Emerson as equals and the “tie breaker” becomes about bonus money, such that the player being willing to take the lower bonus will help facilitate a bigger, more robust overall draft class for the White Sox, then the pick should be Cholowsky.
If Emerson doesn’t go here, my information indicates he’s going second to Tampa. If Cholowsky doesn’t go here, it’s believed that the Rays prefer Lackey to Roch, with Roch going third to Minnesota. Multiple people have insinuated to me that the Cholowsky camp would rather that not happen. I don’t think the Twins are going to blink, no matter how much money the Giants are willing to offer Cholowsky. They’ll just take him and dare him to go back to UCLA if he truly doesn’t want to sign with them, which is how I would approach the pick. And so maybe there is some symbiosis here, where Roch can land in a spot he prefers and take more than he’d get at pick three (slot there is $9.74 million), but at enough of a discount below the slot at no. 1 ($11.3 million) that it’s worth it to the White Sox. Chicago acquiring an extra pick from the Pirates last night (34th overall) suddenly makes that kind of savings more relevant to the rest of the White Sox draft class than it was 24 hours ago.
Then again, I’m sitting here thinking about Billy Carlson. The idiosyncrasies and vulnerability of Cholowsky’s swing are similar to Carlson’s. How are the White Sox feeling about Carlson so far? Are they emboldened by the changes they made to Jacob Gonzalez’s swing, and confident they can do something similar with Roch if they need to? They just traded Gonzalez. This is conjecture and speculation, whereas the incentives I outlined in the paragraph above are more concrete. Also worth noting here: Emerson and Cholowsky are both represented by Wasserman. That end of the phone line is operating with perfect information; the two players can’t really be played against one another. This scenario where Roch goes first (for $9.74 to $10 million) and Emerson second is the best Wasserman can do for their both clients.
2. Tampa Bay Rays Pick: Grady Emerson, SS, Fort Worth Christian (TX)
If Emerson goes first, I’d expect Lackey to go here.
3. Minnesota Twins Pick: Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech
It sounds like the Twins will take whichever of the three top players remains. Lackey is the top player on my board, but with the same 55 FV grade as Emerson (no. 2) and Cholowsky (no. 3). I did have Drew Burress‘ name mentioned here late last night, at a discount (obviously). Burress’ next realistic homes are rumored to be toward the back of the top 10, so if this is true, Minnesota is looking at a cut of about $2 million and then can flex with their picks in the 70s.
4. San Francisco Giants Pick: Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara
No change from my first mock, where you can read my reasoning. I think pick nos. 4 and 5 will be Flora and Eric Booth in some order. Jacob Lombard is falling.
5. Pittsburgh Pirates Pick: Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove HS (MS)
I think Pittsburgh dealing the 34th pick last night had a little bit to do with them wanting to improve the big league team and a little bit to do with them waving the white flag at the notion that they were going to be able to leverage their bonus pool into a top-tier player. If Booth goes ahead of them, there’s some late buzz about them possibly diverting away from Flora because the Buccos have “too much pitching,” something that you famously can’t have enough of, and that the Pirates know firsthand to be fragile and volatile. I’d be incredulous if they passed on a guy who I consider to be clearly better than the other options, but the rumored names if they go that route are college outfielders Drew Burress or Derek Curiel.
6. Kansas City Royals Pick: Jared Grindlinger, TWP, Huntington Beach HS (CA)
Kansas City might happily take Booth or Flora here if either of them falls, but I think part of why the Royals have seemingly been kicking the tires on a creative line of play here is because they don’t think that’s likely to happen. Grindlinger’s other homes seem to be in the pick 10-13 range, where the bonus slots are around $6 million. If the Royals can get a deal done with Grindlinger for about that much, their second pick (30th overall) could theoretically be for a nearly $5 million player, though the Giants pick right in front of them and could be a landmine if they try to do that. Grindlinger might be the second- or third-best high school hitter in this class, and to take a player with that kind of upside while simultaneously tee’ing up the rest of your class is a move that takes real moxie given how difficult it is to gauge Grindlinger’s ability compared to the others.
7. Baltimore Orioles Pick: Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech
This might be Eric Booth Jr.’s floor if he’s somehow still here. Burress fits with Baltimore’s style of taking high-performing college hitters with their earliest picks and is also a rumored target of their’s.
8. Athletics Pick: Ryder Helfrick, C, Arkansas
The loudest feedback following my first mock was that I had Arkansas catcher Ryder Helfrick entirely too low, with the A’s mentioned as the earliest and likeliest landing spot.
9. Atlanta Braves Pick: Chris Hacopian, 2B, Texas A&M
This is a linchpin pick in this draft that will likely set off a chain reaction for the half dozen or so teams picking immediately behind Atlanta. There’s a scenario where the Braves’ pockets are picked and there’s no one guy left who they love, so they cut an under-slot deal (to buff their options at pick 26) from a short list of players based on which of them would otherwise go latest, as that player has the most incentive to cut. This sequence, where Burress is off the board, spawns that scenario. There’s going to be a run on college hitters immediately following this, and it’s possible Atlanta can get a sense of which of them is falling the deepest throughout the day and make him their target. Hacopian’s injury stuff might be a thing that forces him to the rear of this cluster of college hitters, so I have him speculatively put here. It feels more solid to say that high school lefty Gio Rojas and Virginia outfielder AJ Gracia would otherwise go in the late teens at the earliest, but I think it’d buck Atlanta’s historical trends of caring a lot about pretty deliveries and defensive ability for them to do that. By it’s very nature, the strategy of cutting here to do more at 26 is one of risk mitigation, so taking a guy whose only issue is injury risk feels less scary.
10. Colorado Rockies Pick: Derek Curiel, CF, LSU
I had Curiel off the board ahead of Colorado in my first mock, with Zion Rose here.
11. Washington Nationals Pick: Tyler Bell, SS, Kentucky
I have Washington with college bats, with one source indicating to me they aren’t as strong on Hacopian. Bell would be great value here.
12. Los Angeles Angels Pick: Ace Reese, 3B, Mississippi State
I’m not sure how the late changes atop Los Angeles’ power structure are going to impact this pick, but it feels silly to put the Angels with anything other than college players in the first round until they prove they’re willing to take a high schooler.
13. St. Louis Cardinals Pick: Zion Rose, OF, Louisville
I think this could be a college pitcher if the contact-oriented college hitters are gone at this point, like if Zion goes the pick before this rather than Reese.
14. Miami Marlins Pick: Jacob Lombard, SS, Gulliver Prep (FL)
I think enough teams are scared of Lombard’s contact performance for him to slide. Whether this is actually his backstop I don’t know, but the Marlins have taken high schoolers with hit tool risk pretty consistently, and the optics of this pick would be favorable because they’d get a Floridian who some consider to be a top five pick. Lombard terrifies me, but I still have him ranked ninth because of how big the tools are.
16. Texas Rangers Pick: A.J. Gracia, OF, Virginia 17. Houston Astros Pick: Justin Lebron, SS, Alabama
I think Lebron is gone by one of these two picks. I have very little dope on Texas this year and just consider Gracia as the most stable college hitter left at this point.
18. Cincinnati Reds Pick: Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida
No change, though Trevor Condon’s name has been mentioned here too. With Gio Rojas is still sitting here in this scenario, I wonder if he’d be in the mix for the same reasons (he’s from Florida, and the Reds have been fine using premium resources on high school arms).
19. Cleveland Guardians Pick: Cameron Flukey, RHP, Coastal Carolina
Cleveland takes a Bayesian approach, and Flukey was thought of as a top-10 pick entering the year, then dealt with injury. This is a Gavin Williams sequel if it works out for them.
20. Boston Red Sox Pick: Bo Lowrance, 3B, Christ Church Episcopal (SC)
There have been whispers about Boston cutting here with a contact-oriented college guy, and I wonder if that could be NC State center fielder Ty Head based on their tendencies targeting contact-driven players. This is the middle of where Lowrance’s range is assumed to be.
21. San Diego Padres Pick: Gio Rojas, LHP, Stoneman Dougles HS (FL)
The Padres have been very open to the high school pitching demo and get even better value than they normally would here with Rojas, who becomes the Mick Abel/Andrew Painter of this draft, where it feels silly that arguably the best high school pitcher falls this far.
22. Detroit Tigers Pick: Connor Comeau, 3B, Anderson HS (TX)
Detroit likes projectable, left-handed high school hitters. Bo Lowrance is also a fit, but is off the board in this scenario.
23. Chicago Cubs Pick: Logan Hughes, OF, Texas Tech
24. Seattle Mariners Pick: Tegan Kuhns, RHP, Tennessee
Seattle seems to be on pitching here, of any demo. Liberty’s Ben Blair might be an interesting option with whom to cut a deal. He’s athletic and throws strikes, which is the Mariners’ type. They can do prep pitching later if they cut, maybe Kaiden McCarthy. Here I have them with a player whose fastball is really going to play, and whose secondary stuff they’ll need to develop.
25. Milwaukee Brewers Pick: Cade Townsend, RHP, Ole Miss
The Brewers like guys with great breaking balls or hitters with huge power. Either Townsend or Cole Carlon.
26. Atlanta Braves Pick: Carson Bolemon, LHP, Southside Christian (SC)
No change.
27. New York Mets Pick: Cole Carlon, LHP, Arizona State
The Mets value breaking ball quality and velocity despite relief risk, and Carlon is like a turbo-charged version.
28. Houston Astros Pick: Daniel Jackson, C, Georgia
No change
Eric A Longenhagen: Good afternoon from a hotel room in the City of Brotherly Love! I feel a special sense of appreciation for being able to do this for a living, coming home to PA ten years after I was hired. I’m sure you guys know where to find the draft content. Remember I’ll be chatting here tomorrow during the draft which, if you’re new, is a buck wild time and you don’t wanna miss it.
1:18
nebravesfan33: Have you heard anything on DSL Braves RH pitching prospect Martires Polanco? Struck out another 9 today – seems to be performing well and the Braves have done very little w/ Latin prospects over last decade. Thanks!
1:20
Eric A Longenhagen: Listed at 6ft 190, looks a little bigger than that, sitting 95-97 with bad shape, slider has been dominant. Nice prospect, little old for the DSL, belongs toward the bottom of their list because he’s a DSL pitcher but still a good development for the org.
1:21
maxjusttyped: Do you think the White Sox are just posturing or could they really not know who they’ll take at 1?
1:23
Eric A Longenhagen: I think some measure of it is posturing because, at the end of the day, you have to agree to a bonus with the guy and keeping all three of them alive helps you do that.
1:23
Eric A Longenhagen: I don’t think they scrambling to decide who they like best, even though it’d be natural if some of that group had slightly different notions about who they consider to be the best guy.
The 2026 MLB Draft begins tomorrow. Dreams will come true, and the course of baseball history will be altered not just by the talent of the players, but by the collective decisions of hundreds of hard-working people with teams and agencies who have been preparing for this since long before last year’s draft even began. Even though the current CBA negotiations and the owners’ proposal to maim the draft’s current format casts something of a shadow on this year’s event, it’s an exciting time for everyone, myself included. I not only get to learn about this class of players and share opinions about their baseball futures with our readers, I also get to highlight the strategies teams might use to maximize the talent they come away with. The bonus pool system, and the ways that teams, players, and their representatives navigate the “game” of the draft, is one of the things that separates baseball’s selection meeting from those of other sports. It rewards strategy, creativity and the cultivation of information that has nothing to do with hard baseball data. In this post, I’ll talk about the makeup and quality of this year’s class, take you through the pockets of players that pose difficult questions for clubs, and discuss a couple potential draft strategies, as well as which teams might best be able to execute them.
You’ll find the scouting reports and tool grades of 146 players over on The Board. Of that group, the 75 with a 40+ FV or above grade have an ordinal ranking, with the balance grouped by demographic. Brendan and I may still pepper that space with additional players between now and the draft, but they’ll be guys who fall lower on the list. The hard-ranked players are the ones who we’re most excited about. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is my first mock draft of the year, compiled with rumors sourced from scouts, executives, agents, and sometimes educated guesses based on team/personnel tendencies from the recent past. If there is enough new information between now and the draft (there usually is), I’ll publish an updated mock on Saturday morning, before things fire off. You can find updated scouting reports and tool grades for over 100 players on The Board, including all of the players mocked below. I’ve hard-ranked all of the 40+ FV and above players, with the others currently grouped by demographic. Later this week, I’ll offer my thoughts on the class as a whole; we’ll also release our final rankings. Brendan and I are working on expanding and augmenting the draft rankings for players likely to go in the middle rounds, so aspects of that part of the website might have an “under construction” look at times during the next few days as we shuffle things around and fold the demographic groups into a final ordinal ranking.
1. Chicago White Sox Pick: Grady Emerson, SS, Fort Worth Christian (TX)
The top tier of this draft is generally seen as three players deep: Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson, UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, and Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey. Teams picking behind the top three believe the most likely scenario is that those guys will come off the board in some order, with Roch and Emerson having been mentioned up top with Chicago, while Lackey has not been. The White Sox attempted to sign Cholowsky out of high school and no doubt like him, but everyone has the same question about Roch: Will his swing work in pro ball as well as it has so far? There really aren’t questions like that about Emerson. We might learn pretty quickly that Cholowsky is going to strike out more than we want him to, whereas that seems unlikely for Emerson. Conversely, Emerson might surprise us and get stronger than we expect, at which point he’d pretty clearly have the best ceiling of this trio, and you can’t really say that about the college guys, who can either meet our expectations or fall short of them.
2. Tampa Bay Rays Pick: Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech
This seems like a match made in heaven for both player and team. The Rays have been looking for their catcher of the future for a long time, and they value the things Lackey does well (like throw and play defense) as highly as any team. He’d move quickly and aid a perpetually competitive roster, and perhaps exorcise the Buster Posey/Tim Beckham demons. If the Rays want to cut an under-slot deal, Tyler Bell is the player I would both recommend and predict the Rays do it with given that they drafted him coming out of high school. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, chatters. We’ll get underway in 10 minutes, or so. Get your questions in.
12:27
Eric A Longenhagen: Okay, good morning everyone. Thanks for your patience. Quicker chat today due to a vet visit.
12:27
liljebbie10: Do you think Seth Hernandez makes it to AA by the end of the year? Do you think he could debut by the end of next year? Is his upside Bubba Chandler but throws strikes more consistently?
12:29
Eric A Longenhagen: I think they’ll make him sustain success with Greensboro before promoting him, but I do think the end of next year (late enough for him to retain rookie eligibility in 2028) is possible. Don’t give up on Bubba throwing strikes yet, he’s too young to be this impatient and conclude he won’t.
Eric A Longenhagen: To an extent. I think his ceiling is limited by his breaking ball quality. I don’t think he’s an ace or anything like that, but lefties with good changeups and command tend to be nice rotation pieces.
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. 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 »
