Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 10/23/26
Howdy from the kitchen table in Tempe where I'm being serenaded by a symphony of leaf blowers just over the back wall.
Sorry that this is my first chat in a couple of weeks, I've been dealing with some still-undiagnosed health stuff that seems to be abating. Pretty sure I'm okay. Had some illuminating experiences with our health care system though, and I'm pretty sure that's not. Anyway, I've still been at a ton of Fall League games and have a midway point post and Board update brewing, which might run as soon as later today but more likely Monday. For now, we chat.
He has as much upside as he can add strength without compromising the things he currently does really well. I think he's always going to be a sub-.400 SLG guy who plays awesome defense and makes a ton of contact. I think he has better long term upside than what Sal Frelick has been, but that what Frelick has been able to do is a lot like what Lara's skillset looks like right now.
All of that is to say: I feel comfortable with the 45 we put on Lara, but less comfortable with it than the 45 we put on Pratt. Both feel like solid role players rather than stars.
We do have that, just click on the "Show All" tab and you can set filters for age: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board-scouting-and-s…
I would ordinarily tell you that they'd give him a good amount of big league reps during spring training and then decide whether to start him at High-A or Double-A based on how he looks, but I think a lack of MLB spring training means we should take the "under", so to speak, on these guys' assignments. Reese probably isn't an offseason top 100 guy, I'm not one to be moved by an SEC hitter going to the Cal League after the draft and crushing it there. He should, it would have been alarming had he not. Send him to Everett and he'll probably do more of the same. He can't really play defense so I wanna see him crush in Arkansas before buying it, personally.
I can't speak for the fantasy "community" and I want readers to remember the way opinions spread online and how they can cloud what the array of opinions would be if everyone were sequestered before arriving at one. I can tell you that Zion looks damn good in the AFL, and that Brendan and I both agreed we should just 50 him this offseason. He's stock up. Booth is a hold. What your dynasty team needs (do you need a solid regular soon? Or do you need to take a shot on a potentially freaky stud who might also bust?) should dictate how you line them up on your FYPD board.
This has been what Baumann has called me since the Crashburn Alley days, back in… 2012? Sheesh.
Hey John, I remember. You were a good candidate and interview. I worry that scouting isn't exactly a growth industry, especially on the pro side. It's more stable on the amateur side because of how much more valuable and actionable "dope" is, and the fact that teams are guaranteed to acquire players via that market, whereas pro impact is more situational. So I'd try to stay on the amateur side. I also think it might be fruitful for more scouts to transition into college baseball as recruiters/GMs. Depending on how things turn out with the pending legislation around college sports, and where things settle post-lockout/CBA with regard to draft processes, it might suddenly make more sense for colleges to have more scouting and recruiting personnel than they already do. Find out what scouts have left pro ball for a job at a college and see if you can reach out to them for counsel. It might be cool to be the transfer portal scout for Miami, or something like that.
You can pretty easily marry the data change flag with a look at the wing on video to get a better feel for whether or not there has actually been a change. If you have a way of flagging changes in the data over a short (but statistically significant) window of time and then running down the flagged targets with your eye balls, that's ideal.
Yeah, I think as long as he has options he'll be rolled out as a starter enough to keep his innings count within a reasonable distance of full-time starting once his option years run out. The guys who tend to stick as starters are the ones whose bodies and deliveries look like Kendry's.
I think they've had some success but it hasn't been sustained success. Steele popped and then got hurt and looked like a shell of himself during rehab in AZ. I can say that their style of development tends to include velo spikes and pitch additions. Everyone suddenly has a cutter and a sweeper when before they had just one breaker, and they might throw a few ticks harder. But they haven't tended to develop or improve command. The Naz Mule's of the world don't need two more pitches, they need control. So maybe there hasn't been cohesion with what the draft has fed the dev group. Some teams, like the Brewers' pitchers, show similar trends where they all of a sudden have five pitches. And others, like the Rays, basically have guys throw 2 pitches the whole time they're in the minors and don't really care to flesh out repertoires as much.
He's back from the dead, imo.
You should ding my "party/hang" tool grade because I can't drink until I'm done with this run of medication. It was already a 40, unplayable now.
I think catching depth is important enough that, unless they think he's totally bunk from all the K's, they should probably hold onto him. If you think it's enough K's to make him a binary "no" as a hitter, than sure you can sell high on him coming off a 30 homer season.
This chat interface is so rad.
I saw his first start and haven't run into him since (I went to see the Fielder/Holmes movie last night) but he looked like Diet Bumgarner to me in the first game. Graceful, repeatable, deceptive, feel, good breaker quality. Starter all the way, mid rotation upside. Think we'll leave the 45+ on him, though, and make him a Pick to Click rather than hondo him right now.
This is the classic "predicting vs scouting" question. We have to assess the player in a vacuum, but you should feel free to put your thumb on the scale of predicting the outcome based on what orgs you think/know are better at developing players, or putting them in position to succeed. Like Andrew Vaughn changed orgs after he graduated, there's nothing we can do about retconning our grade, things just happen and it plays out and you hope you're directionally correct on the player.
Just watch the initial transition and see how natural it is for the player to do the things he needs to do at the OF position. Then give it time to breathe and check in a few months later on whether there's been progress. Some guys take to it right away, others need time/reps, and some will never get comfortable doing it.
I think the very aggressive 50 we have on him is still appropriate. Real power and feel to hit, probably a corner OF in the end. To go from "new signee" to "guy we feel pretty strongly is a future everyday player" is really impressive. I don't think he's Acuna or anything like that.
Thanks, idk why, we've asked Sean and I'm sure I just goofed something when I built the post because it's my first time chatting solo with this interface.
Yeah, I think he's a top 5 prospect and will be a consistent 3 WAR catcher.
Seems possible, yes. Swing changed, more power without sacrificing a ton of contact. Contact was actually better in '26 than before, even with the more aggressive swing. Obviously has profile-altering arm strength and defensive profile. Could be 40 hit with 45 or 50 power and big time defense. That's at least a good platoon guy (45) if not an everyday player. We had him graded as an extra outfielder, basically a pure defensive replacement.
Yeah, the number of sub-70% contact guys keeps climbing and it's at the point where I need to reassess my baselines for viability, or at least try to separate the guys who aren't gonna hit enough to matter from the ones who will somehow. There are still guys with 65% contact who just aren't going to hit, it isn't like all of a sudden those guys are good to go.
But why Murakami (who sucked down the stretch btw, he might be due for a regression and all of this will be moot) and not Jack Cust, or whoever.
Nah, they're *my* rankings. Susana it's 99-102 with bad shape, bad strikes, and an elite slider. He's probably a reliever but one of the ten best relievers in baseball. Zazueta it's velo, ride, command, changeup, but no good breaking ball. Mid-rotation guy with a flaw that prevents him from being a no. 2 or better. Flora could be the most complete guy of that group if he can stay healthy and throw strikes across 140+ innings, Eyanson is a little closer to having done that with 100 IP in pro ball this year.
Yes, I think the more vertical breaker will play against lefties and there are enough strikes. He's probably a five-and-dive type, though.
Arquette had three IL stints this year. In order: Sports hernia (which is what I thought I had two weeks ago), thumb sprain, then oblique.
I'd say like 90% bullpen now that he's on the 40. Conversion arms tend to be in the bullpen.
I want Grindlinger
This has been fixed
I'm still on Longford, Carter I think is just okay.
I'm only good at cooking and writing anymore.
I've seen deGrom in person three times and was blown away all three times. Acuna's balls in play made retirees at AFL games moan in kind of a scared way. Teenage Tatis BPs were crazy. Watching Gerrit Cole's Fall League debut was crazy. Stephen Strasburg Harrisburg home debut with so many fans taht they ran out of food, had a brown out and a rain delay, and hearing his breaking ball spinning through the humidity throughout the whole ballpark was crazy.
Even Ray Kerr. Like, Kerr is "just" a middle reliever but he's here in part because he's pretty freaky.
Whenever anyone does high-end stuff of any kind, I wanna hopefully be sensitive to that and bet that will play in the big leagues. It doesn't have to be guys who run fast or jump high or who are built like underwear models. It can be Alejandro Kirk framing pitches like he does.
I think you need at least a 70.
Brooks was big for me in college.
Contact rate doesn't come from the game logs liek the other data, that's Statcast/Hawkeye/Trackman stuff that I source from team people. I'll approach Sean and Co. about integrating it into the board somehow, but it'd be an end of year data point rather than something that could update in real time.
Still digesting it, in the 65/70 area for me. OJ Made in America is the 80.
Not a ton of prospect quotes from me, I talk to some kids at the Combine every year and have some questions for kids on occasion, but those questions are almost always to glean information about how they're being developed rather than the player himself. Jake Burger is really funny, JJ Wetherholt impressed all of us at the combine a few years ago, JA Happ was nice to be around when I was a kid at Lehigh Valley back in '08.
Yeah, it's roughly 50 players who I ranked, and probably another 15 or so who I didn't, who get signed out of high school now but wouldn't if HS players are no longer draft eligible. In the bucket of the college player population it isn't a ton of bodies. But it is a lot of the most talented kids. All it takes is one Rocker/Leiter duo to make some noise and grab people's attention, and it would ensure those guys do some version of that, even if it's just for a year or two like in the NBA. But the things that make college baseball tough to watch (all the walks, lack of pitching depth, midweek games that go 4 hours because of all the runs, a bloated run environment because the bats are like golf clubs) would remain.
Oh yeah, that's interesting. I wonder if there might be barriers to coding that retrospectively because affiliates change?
There's a Divish article about Julio completely changing his eating and workout habits you should dig up.
Healthy, mobile, fast. Ends up playing next to Walcott a bunch, so also looks more human.
Man, that's a tough question. It's super relevant. Can we just assess BABIPs and have an okay enough notion?
Frias, Gomez, Caceres, Renteria.
Lever/swing length (which is kind of a double-edged sword because it's easy to say the longer guys will shorten up as they get stronger {Walcott has} but sometimes they just can't) and feel for altering their hands to help them make contact. Like the way Judge tucks his hands in to shorten up against stuff near his torso. That's how you avoid being too long to make contact in there. Rainer isn't doing that right now, it's realy really long.
Selfish, cynical, douche behavior.
Some of it is acquisition related, some of it is player dev, and some of it is deployment. Yes, Cleveland makes pitchers better. They draft strike-throwers and turn them into harder-throwing guys without killing their command. Milwaukee seems to know what kind of bat these guys should be using. Bauers, Turang… they've all changed their gear in meaningful ways. I think bat design/weight/shape cab be tailored for each individual's swing and Milwaukee has done that. Their international department also finds dudes via a "go-wide" strategy, which they also emply in the draft by taking all these HS guys spread across lower seven figure and mid sic figure bonuses. WHen you have great dev, it makes sense to want more bites at the apple and they have that locked in. Tampa deploys guys in the ways they're best suited to succeed. When you have Manny Margot and Corey Dickerson and their skillsets compliment one another, you can put both in the best position to succeed on a rate stat basis. You're turning 45s in a vacuum into 55s on a rate basis, and then creating trade value as if the players are 50s and 55s, dealing those guys when they become expensive and snowballing similar prospects to ensure you always have enough guys around to do this…
Kiley and I wrote a whole chapter in Future Value about this. Obviously that was seven years ago and things are different. We try to do a version of this every year in the System Overviews of the prospect lists to give you an idea of what we think teams are good at.
Okay friends, 90 minute chat today feels like a good re-entry after two weeks off. Thanks for coming, enjoy the world series.
