Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe, where we’ll hit 100 degrees again today, hopefully for the final time this calendar year.
12:22
Eric A Longenhagen: I did an end of year update to the Top 100 Prospects list. The piece with all the writing is still with editing and will be published at some point today, but for now you can view the fresh list over on The Board.
Eric A Longenhagen: Today is Fall League Media Day and also one of the last days remaining on the instructional league calendar, so this will likely be more of a 45 minute chat today so I have the option of hitting both.
12:24
Rube: What happens in an expansion draft and what excites you about it?
12:27
Eric A Longenhagen: It probable the rules would be different from the last time MLB had one (like ’96 ish I wanna say?) but essentially teams got to protect 15 players on their roster from selection. The expansion team(s) gets to take a player from each other club in “round one”, and then those clubs get to protect a few more of their players before round two (I think it was three more guys)…
Wrigley Field and its patrons are accustomed to day baseball, as the club still honors its once electricity-free history by playing Friday home games in the afternoon rather than at night. And so despite having not hosted playoff baseball since 2020 (and a playoff win since 2017), the scene on Wild Card Tuesday, a day that saw Chicago bathed in gorgeously clear fall light while still enjoying lovely late-summer temperatures, was a familiar one, as the Cubs dispatched the visiting Padres 3-1 in a brisk Game 1. The afternoon’s action was headlined by back-to-back home runs by Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly, as well as the perfect 4 2/3 innings worked by the Chicago bullpen.
Much like ABC’s broadcast, both offenses struggled to make sustained noise (was anyone else’s volume constantly fluctuating?) in this game. The teams combined for just 10 total hits, and the Cubs didn’t have a single hit with a runner in scoring position all afternoon. Under the hood, it was the Padres who made more frequent, high-quality contact, even though they managed just four hits. San Diego was responsible for 14 of the game’s 21 hard-hit (95 mph or more off the bat) balls in play, many of which were struck right at Cubs defenders. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy from the gear-covered kitchen island in Tempe. We did it, guys. It was 105 yesterday and the high today is 87. It’s over, we earned it, party at the FG Desert Vista Compound on Sunday.
12:03
Jeb: Out of all the Pirates young pitchers, which one would you trade for a bat? What could they fetch back in return?
12:05
Eric A Longenhagen: I wonder if Chandler is the best candidate to trade, it might take him longer to polish up and make big impact than the current FO group has to make the team good.
12:06
Eric A Longenhagen: What would the return be? In a space like this, I feel like I’d just be bs’ing you if I offered names.
12:06
APBA Baseball 4ever: Hagen Smith and Noah Schultz – how many starts do you see each of them getting in the majors next year? If the answer is zero for Smith, that’s okay. Could you see Schultz getting 15+? Could you see Smith coming up in September?
12:06
Eric A Longenhagen: Schultz I’d put on pace for a September call up and Smith I don’t think will see the bigs until late the following year.
Mark Zaleski / The Tennessean-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Now that the lower minor leagues’ regular seasons are over, teams have commenced with instructional league activity in a traditional sense, with a select group of players from several of their affiliates working out and scrimmaging at their spring training complexes. While “Bridge League” (the unofficial period of scrimmage activity that occurs after the late-July conclusion of the Complex Level schedule) frequently includes some newly drafted players, most of the rosters are made up of the guys who have been on the complex all year. But once “instructs” begin, the talent and quality of play of these games ascends to a different level as teams test their most interesting young players or get an intimate look at prospects who might be up for a 40-man roster spot during the winter. The snowbirds haven’t returned in full because the weather here in Arizona is still pretty gross, so driving across the metro is easier now than it will be in a few weeks (and during next year’s spring training). For that reason, I decided to focus my early looks on teams based in the western half of the Phoenix metro, farther from the house. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning, everyone. I just got back from visiting family in PA and am looking forward to starting the mental lawnmower again. Let’s get to as many of your questions as possible in the next hour-ish.
12:01
Taker55: Can Spencer Jones fake it in CF enough for the Yankees to run him out there next year? The price tags for Grisham and Bellinger go up by the week.
12:03
Eric A Longenhagen: I think you add him to the 40-man but need redundancy at the position in case he can’t make enough contact to be good. They should try to re-sign one of those guys or seek an alternative option. I don’t think it’s advisable to just hand the job over to a guy striking out as much as Jones does with no other option.
12:04
Rob: With Lara getting promoted today, what looks good with him despite the awful AAA numbers?
12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: This is Jhancarlos Lara, btw. He throws really, really hard. I wouldn’t add him if you’re in your fantasy championship series or anything, he’s too wild to trust in that way.
12:04
Pudge: How much has your view on Connelly Early shifted in the last couple weeks?
Eric A Longenhagen: Hello from stormy Tempe, we’ll probably have a shorter chat today so I can batten down the hatches before this enormous cell hits the city.
12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: This week I wrote about the defense of more shortstops
Jeb: Konnor Griffin, whoof. AA doesn’t seem to be phasing him at all so far. As a pirate fan, can he actually work out and be great? What does his ceiling look like? What can we dream on?
12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: Yeah, he’s quite good. I still think it’s a round down hit tool to some degree, but the power/speed combo is great. He’s a top 5 prospect.
This is the second post in a series I’m working on in which I not only do a deep dive analyzing shortstop prospects’ defense, but also cut together a video package so that you can too. The first installment can be found in the navigation widget above. Today, I’m tackling Red Sox prospect Franklin Arias, Yankees prospect George Lombard Jr., Cardinals prospect JJ Wetherholt, and Reds prospect Edwin Arroyo. Let’s get started. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning everyone, let’s dive into your questions immediately.
12:00
Ben: Hey Eric, love these chats! We have two exciting SP debuts tonight. If you only could watch Tong or Tolle tonight, which would you choose and why?
12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: If you have to pick one (both *matchups* tonight are also incredible, Tolle vs Skenes, Tong vs Eury) I’d go Tolle just because we’ll get to learn more about him tonight than I think we will Tong. Tolle’s power fastball will play, how about the other stuff? How does he approach big league hitters the second and third time through? Tong’s question marks are more going to be answered over longer period because it has to do with him sustaining big stuff at his size.
12:03
Drew: Is Eduardo Quintero really a top 50 prospect like I’ve seen in other publications?
12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: That’s rich for me, clearly, or I’d have him in that area.
12:04
Rob: What have your impressions of Cam Cam been this year?
I’m not telling our readers anything they don’t already know, but defense is a very important part of baseball, especially at the up-the-middle positions. You probably watch enough baseball to list the best and worst couple of defenders at each position with a fair amount of accuracy; I bet you’d nail most of them off the top of your head (aside from Trea Turner, I think the 2025 FRV list is damn good), and that you have a proper appreciation for the importance of defense at the premium positions, even if it comes with some amount of sacrifice on offense.
In the prospect realm, though, things are trickier. Prospect hit data from TrackMan and Hawkeye has become common in public-facing analysis and discourse, but defense remains something of a black box. There aren’t many publicly available minor league defensive stats, and so much of evaluating defense is still best done visually, at least in my opinion. I wrote a version of today’s piece a few years ago, wherein I performed the same sort of video deep dive that I use to evaluate top shortstop prospects’ defense, and ripped and edited together key plays from that deep dive to share with you.
This year, I’m turning that exercise into a series. I’m going to batch together a few players at a time until I’ve gone through all of the 50 FV shortstops, as well as a few key prospects with lesser grades. That will include all of the players linked here, plus a few more. Read the rest of this entry »
Eric A Longenhagen: Hello from sweaty, stormy Tempe where we’ve had a weird mix of 110+ degree heat and moisture the last few days. There were several heat-related incidents with players at Bridge Camp yesterday. Looks like it’s going to break next week and our weather patterns will change.
12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: Let’s get to your questions, might be a shorter chat this week as the only game in town is west valley today, which means a longer commute for you friendly neighborhood prospect writer.
12:02
Mike: Minnesota going to keep Abel and Bradley in the minors to lose every game?
12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: Their deadline was the only one that felt like a true, complete bottoming out, so maybe? I can see them wanting to give Zebby all the runway, but Urena and Hatch idk. Did Hatch tweak something in Japan they want to see vs MLB hitters for an extended spell? Trying to take the most generous read of the situation but yeah they might just be tanking. Which, ok.
12:05
Alex: Do the Braves have a chance to have more than one(Didier Fuentes) Top 100-ish prospects for 2026?
12:06
Eric A Longenhagen: Ritchie’s had a good year and held his stuff even though his innings load has doubled. Will they be as aggressive with him as the other young arms, or will they be gun shy because AJSS and Fuentes were clearly undercooked?
