Because there are so few minor league baseball games on Mondays this year, you’ll see me play with the format of the Tuesday Daily Prospect Notes. I’m lucky that the top prospect in the sport, 20-year-old Tampa Bay Rays infielder Wander Franco, is likely to debut against the Red Sox this evening. The Franco report from the Rays/Top 100 lists still applies, and folks looking for a general overview of his talent should go jam on the clipboard here and read that if you haven’t already done so. Today I’m going to be breaking down his 2021 season using Synergy Baseball, a pitch-by-pitch video software program that is often used by MLB teams.

We made a decision to allocate scouting travel budget toward Synergy Baseball during the offseason, when the timeline for vaccines was still hazy but the presence of COVID was not. Unsure if/how much I’d be travelling again this year, we funneled money into Synergy in case I could not. It was initially useful for watching action in foreign pro leagues and during Spring Training as I worked on prospect lists, but Kevin Goldstein and I also have access to pitch-by-pitch video from Triple-A games (not the whole minors, just Triple-A), as well as metadata from each pitch. I can’t share video with you here (or anywhere) or I’d be in violation of MiLB.tv terms of service, but I can share with you some of the Franco metadata to illustrate the specific nature of his skills and put them in a big league context.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Oakland Athletics. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Kevin Goldstein and I have updated the pro portion of the Top 100, which means we quickly reviewed the placement of players in the 50 FV tier and above, and considered who was not yet in those tiers but should be based on how they’ve looked during the first month of the 2021 season. I still have three total org audits to do — Milwaukee, Oakland and the Cubs — before I start peeling graduates off the list. Those will be completed shortly. You can find the updated list here.

Also, if you missed it, Kevin and I updated our draft rankings and posted a Mock Draft on Monday.

The lone change up near the top of the 100 is Riley Greene moving into the top 20; he’s in the mix with several other similarly-aged players with the talent to be consistent All-Stars, like Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodríguez, and Corbin Carroll.

DL Hall moved into the 55 FV tier on the strength of his stuff. He’s still walking a fairly high rate of opposing batters but just on the strength of his three plus pitches, could be a Haderesque relief weapon even if he can’t start. Read the rest of this entry »

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These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

From games on June 8

Luis Campusano, C, San Diego Padres
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A El Paso  Age: 22   Org Rank: 3   FV: 55
Line: 3-for-4, HR, 2B, BB

Notes
Recall that Campusano was thrust straight into the big leagues from High-A during the bizarre 2020 season, then found himself unexpectedly in the big leagues again early this year when Austin Nola was hurt. Even Campusano’s struggles during his first few weeks settling into Triple-A (remember, this is a 22-year-old whose last full season was in A-ball) are, you know, just a couple of weeks and he’s hitting .296/.387/.556 since the calendar flipped over to June. I’m not inclined to move off of him at all based on a couple of weeks of poor surface-level performance, especially when dry periods of surface performance are common for catchers because of the physical beating they take behind the plate. This is one of the more talented hitting catchers in all of pro baseball, a well-rounded offensive player at a position that might be the thinnest in all the big leagues. If you’re a dynasty fantasy baseball player who plays in a league with people who overreact to small samples or who struggle to put performance in proper context, you should pursue Campusano. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here. Today’s notes feature thoughts on three college hitters who played in the NCAA Regionals, as well as three pitching prospects currently in the big leagues.

Reed Trimble, CF, Southern Miss
Draft Class: 2021  Age: 21
Regional Line: 14-for-25, 4 HR

Notes
When I named Trimble one of Conference USA’s top prospects in a tournament preview post from a couple weeks ago, I made a mistake with respect to his draft eligibility. He’s indeed a (COVID) freshman, but his 21st birthday was Sunday, so he’s a draft-eligible freshman. Trimble hit .345/.414/.638 this year, and the Southern Miss schedule was no cakewalk even though they’re a mid-major. It included 12 games against eventual regional host and top-16 team Louisiana Tech, as well as games against Mississippi State, Alabama, Florida State and Ole Miss, and four against South Alabama, who made a deep regional run. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Ethan Small, LHP, Milwaukee Brewers
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Biloxi  Age: 24   Org Rank: TBD   FV: 45
Line: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
Small had a sketchy spring with the big club and has walked an uncharacteristically high number of hitters early on this year, but his last couple of starts have been more in line with expectations as he blows his low-90s fastball (which has big time carry) past opposing hitters. Small’s best secondary pitch remains his changeup and there were doubts about him ever finding a competent breaking ball when he was drafted. So far, his slider and curveball remain below average but that there are now two distinct breakers here is meaningful. He still projects as a No. 4/5 starter with a shot to make the back of the Top 100 as a 50 FV if the command and/or breaking balls tighten up. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Santiago Florez, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Bradenton  Age: 21   Org Rank: 36   FV: 40
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K

Notes
We’re starting to enter an uncharted evaluation context for young pitchers. Big league fastbll usage has been trending down over the last several years but breaker-heavy approaches to pitching haven’t been as pervasive in the minors during prospect development. Especially for pitchers like Florez, who are at best on the starter/reliever line, teams generally make an effort to try to develop fastball command that will give the prospect a chance to start. Per Savant, Florez got 20 swings and misses last night, most of them on his curveball, which he threw a ton. Of his 84 pitches, only 27 were fastballs. He threw about a dozen changeups, while the rest (nearly half his total pitches) were curveballs. I have conflicting thoughts around increased breaking ball usage — how much of the improved results generated by more breakers is coming from what is essentially per-pitch stuff quality, how much is from increased unpredictability as we exit the era of “establishing the fastball,” and is there a point where so many breaking balls are being thrown that the unpredictability piece regresses? — but seeing it on a Low-A arm forces me to view his performance in an unfamiliar context as the Pirates have a 21-year-old lean into what he’s already good at rather than try to improve what he’s not. Now, for Florez specifically, taking this approach at this point in his developmental track makes sense because even though he’s only 21, he’s Rule 5 eligible this offseason and a year from now all he and the Pirates may care about is how he gets outs coming out of a big league bullpen, which will feature him throwing a ton of his breaking ball. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Adrian Hernandez, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Dunedin  Age: 21   Org Rank: NR   FV: 35
Line: 3 IP (relief), 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 7 K

Notes
The 21-year-old Mexican righty induced 14 swings and misses last night, per BaseballSavant, by far the most in the game and an especially high number for someone who only pitched three innings. Of the 52 pitches Hernandez threw last night, a whopping 24 of them were changeups, which is how he garnered most of those whiffs. Interestingly, Hernandez’s changeup is of the high-spin variety and tends to finish to his glove side, which at first glance made me wonder if it was being labeled correctly by Savant, but this is indeed Hernandez’s changeup and it has been very effective. His strike-throwing has been a bit of an issue this season and there’s little body projection here, but Hernandez is a young-ish arm with an out pitch and viable arm strength, so he’s worth monitoring. Read the rest of this entry »