In roughly 24 hours, the San Diego Padres traded away a total of six players who, were they dropped into the amateur draft tomorrow, would come off the board somewhere in the top 50 picks. It’s the kind of talent few orgs have in their systems at all, never mind in such excess that they can ship it away without totally nuking the farm. Rumors that the Padres were in pursuit of Yu Darvish spread through the industry a few days before Christmas, but it’s taken years of focused rebuilding through the draft, international signings, and trades for pro prospects, and the GM himself sometimes roaming the backfields looking at raw, young players, to build toward a week like the one the Padres and their fans have had. On Monday, the rumors became an in-principle agreement to swap Darvish and C/1B Victor Caratini for several exciting young players most recently scouted on the Peoria, Arizona backfields: Reginald Preciado, Ismael Mena, Yeison Santana, and Owen Caissie. I was lucky enough to see more Padres instructs action than any other club’s, and other than Caissie, I’ve had year-over-year looks at all of them.

You can see where I had all the prospects involved evaluated before my Instructional League looks for some context to the movement I’m about to describe, because two of the traded prospects have moved up quite a bit, and a third might still. Let’s start with Panamanian infielder Reggie Preciado, who is the best prospect in the trade and will be on this offseason’s top 100 prospect list as a 50 FV player. Preciado has the overt physical traits that teams have traditionally coveted in the international market. He’s a big-framed (about 6-foot-4) switch-hitter who is athletic enough to stay on the infield. Players like this have a wide range of potential outcomes, and one is for their body to develop in the Goldilocks Zone where they remain agile enough to stay at shortstop, but become big and strong enough to hit for impact power. Though some teams have shown evidence of a philosophical shift in this area, prospects like Preciado are the ones who typically get paid the most money on the international market, and indeed Preciado received $1.3 million, a record for a player from Panama.

When Preciado came to the States for 2019 instructs, he looked like you’d expect a 16-year-old his size to look: raw and uncoordinated. He still had not gained athletic dominion over his frame, and he looked much more like a third base defender than a shortstop. Fast forward a year (because there was no minor league season) to the Fall of 2020 and Preciado now has a batting stance and swing that look an awful lot like Corey Seager’s. It allows him to be relatively short to the baseball despite his lever length, and whether it had to do with the swing change or not, he looked much more comfortable in the box this Fall than he did last year. Because of the missing minor league season, most teams in Arizona brought an older contingent of player to instructs than they usually would, and still Preciado (who is just 17) was striking the ball with consistency and power from both sides of the plate. I still think he ends up at third, but there’s rare hit/power combination potential here and it just takes confidence in one’s eyes to see it might already have arrived. I now have him rated ahead of Cubs first rounder Ed Howard and, barring any more deals, Preciado is likely to rank third or fourth on the Cubs list this offseason. Read the rest of this entry »

Late last night, the Padres and Rays consummated a blockbuster trade that is a microcosm of the two orgs’ approaches to contention. Tampa Bay sent electric lefty Blake Snell to the pitching-hungry Padres for a collection of four young players: Luis Patiño, Blake Hunt, Cole Wilcox, and Francisco Mejía. The move bolsters a San Diego rotation that was beset by injuries so late and so severe in 2020 that the club’s rotation depth and quality for next season was clearly still lacking despite their trade deadline efforts to improve it. The Padres have spent most of the last several years building one of the most impressive collections of minor league talent in the sport and, now that they’ve closed much of the gap between themselves and the Dodgers, have begun cashing in their prospect chips for elite big leaguers, while the Rays continue to bet on their ability to scout minor leaguers who can turn into long-term pieces for their club given its limited payroll. Below are my thoughts on the prospects headed back to the Rays in the trade; Ben Clemens will assess the Snell side of the deal later today.

The obvious headliner here is Patiño, who turned 21 in October. He’s coming off a rocky rookie year during which the Padres promoted him to work in a multi-inning relief role. In mostly two-ish-inning outings, Patiño threw 17.1 innings, struck out 21, walked 14, and amassed a 5.19 ERA. Despite the poor surface-level performance in a small sample, Patiño’s stuff was strong. His fastball sat 95-99 all year, his mid-80s slider was often plus, and his power changeup, which is often 87-91 mph, also has the look of a bat-missing pitch.

Despite his velocity, Patiño’s fastball wasn’t generating frequent swings and misses, perhaps because it sometimes has a little bit of natural cut, especially when Patiño is locating it to his glove side. Fastballs with cutting action tend to run into more bats than ones with a combination of tail and rise. The Rays altered Pete Fairbanks’ heater in such a way that they were able to correct this for 2020 and got an extra gear out of him. It’s possible they’ll do the same with Patiño. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cincinnati Reds. 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 altered begin by telling you so. For the others, the blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside the org than within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there. Lastly, in effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both in 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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago White Sox. 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 altered begin by telling you so. For the others, the blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside the org than within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there. Lastly, in effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both in 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.

Editor’s Note: Yoelqui Cespedes and Norge Vera were added to this list after they agreed to deals with the White Sox on January 15.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers. 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 altered begin by telling you so. For the others, the blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside the org than within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there. Lastly, in effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both in 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.

Editor’s Note: Jesus Galiz and Wilman Diaz were added to this list after they agreed to deals with the Dodgers on January 15.

Josh Sborz (previously ranked 39th on this list as a 35+) was traded to the Rangers in exchange for Jhan Zambrano. Sborz will appear on the forthcoming Rangers list. Zambrano sat 86-91 in 2019 and would not have been ranked on the Rangers list.

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Like most baseball fans ranging from prospect-curious to prospect-obsessed, I too have been awaiting Nate Lowe’s first extended big league opportunity. It appears he’ll finally get one, as the Rangers acquired him on Thursday as part of a five- or six-player trade with Tampa Bay that involves Top 100 prospect Heriberto Hernandez. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020 Rule 5 Draft was conducted via conference call on Thursday, with 18 players selected during the Major League phase. Pre-draft chatter was focused on whether more young, inexperienced players would be picked this year due to an anticipation of expanded rosters, and a few picks appeared to be made with that in mind. Here are my thoughts on all those selected, as well as some on those picked during the Minor League phase. Remember you can venture over to The Board for more info on several of these players.

But first, my annual refresher on the Rule 5 Draft’s complex rules. Players who signed their first pro contract at age 18 or younger are eligible for selection after five years of minor-league service if their parent club has not yet added them to the team’s 40-man roster. For players who signed at age 19 or older, the timeline is four years. Teams with the worst win/loss record from the previous season pick first, and those that select a player must not only (a) pay said player’s former club $100,000 ($24,000 in the Minor League phase), but also (b) keep the player on their 25-man active roster throughout the entirety of the following season, with a couple of exceptions, mostly involving the Injured List; players taken in the Minor League phase aren’t subject to roster restrictions. If a selected player doesn’t make his new team’s active roster, he is offered back to his former team for half of the initial fee. After the player’s first year on the roster, he can be optioned back to the minor leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

This fall, during the little bit of Instructional League ball to which I was personally privy, I saw a small school reliever who was taken on Day 2 of the 2019 draft. He was sitting 96-99 and threw several great sliders. We are about a year and a half removed from when Nick Robertson was drafted, and he’s turned into the sort of prospect who, with comparable stuff, would get a bonus close to a million dollars.

Because the 2020 Draft was only five rounds, there are literally hundreds of players who would have gone in rounds sixth through 10, as well a few dozen who would have gotten a bonus well over-slot on Day 3, who are now (or again) playing college ball (and will be for a while), while many have spilled over into junior colleges or have transferred. That’s a few hundred players who may make a leap in the same amount of time Robertson did.

The group of players who was supposed to be in the 2020 Draft class was deep with talent, and so the 2021 Draft class will be very deep, too, but the industry will be working with less information, or at the very least will have one hell of a time trying to acquire it. We’ll likely still be dealing with COVID-19 in February when the college season begins, and we have yet to see all the schools where college baseball programs will become collateral damage as a result of fewer football games being played. Also remember that both COVID and the operational budgets imposed upon MLB scouting staffs will likely discourage travel next spring, just as they did during the summer. So teams will lean on data, which, remember, now gets shared. More on that in a minute. Read the rest of this entry »