The baseball-loving world held its collective breath last year when Adell went down with two freak leg injuries on the same spring training play (while going from first to third, he strained his left hamstring, then sprained his right ankle trying to stop himself when he felt the pull) and was shelved for a couple of months. While his gait appeared compromised during Extended spring rehab outings, Adell was asymptomatic throughout the summer and during the Arizona Fall League. After a brief jaunt in the Cal League, the Angels sent him to Double-A Mobile, where he’d had a strikeout-laden cup of coffee the year before. He adjusted, cut the strikeout rate down to a very livable 22%, and hit .308/.390/.553 over two months before he was sent to Triple-A in August. Again, Adell struck out a lot when he was challenged, and there are people in baseball who worry about how often he K’s, but he was just 20 years old and has had success amid many swing changes since he signed, a common theme among Angels prospects.

Adell’s leg kick has been altered; he now raises it even with his waist at apex, and the height at which his hands load (as well as the angle of his bat when they do) was quite nomadic throughout last year. By the time Adell was done with Fall League and had joined Team USA’s Premier12 Olympic qualifying efforts, he had a Gary Sheffield-style bat wrap. Adell is one of the best athletes in the minors (there’s video of him box jumping 66 inches online) and the fact that’s he’s been able to manifest these adjustments on the field at will is incredible. Even if something mechanical isn’t working in the future, chances are he’ll be able to fix it. I’ve settled on projecting Adell in left field. The arm strength he showed as an amateur, when he was into the mid-90s as a pitcher, never totally returned after it mysteriously evaporated during his senior year of high school. He has a 40 arm and is such a hulking dude that he’s just going to be a corner defender at maturity. Strikeouts may limit Adell’s productivity when he’s initially brought up, but I think eventually he’ll be a middle-of-the-order force who hits 35-plus homers.

It’s possible the wait is over and that Marsh’s swing is now in a place that will enable him to hit for power more in line with the thump he shows in batting practice, but his in-season slugging performance (.428 in 2019, up from .385 the year before) is not the evidence. Marsh still hit the ball on the ground a lot during the regular season and only averaged about five degrees of launch angle, but by his Fall League stint things clearly looked different. Like Jo Adell showed late in the fall, Marsh’s hands loaded a little farther out away from his body and he had what some scouts called a “wrap” or “power tip,” where the bat head angled toward the mound a bit, setting up more of a loop than a direct path to the ball. I thought he lifted the ball better during that six week stretch and did so without compromising his strong feel for contact. Marsh is a better outfield defender that Adell and projects as a clean fit in center field, which, so long as this development holds, should enable him to be an above-average everday player.

Adams was seen as a football-first prospect until late March of 2018. He played at a couple of showcase events in the summer of 2017 and had some raw tools, but wasn’t yet under consideration for the top few rounds of the baseball draft. He was, however, a top 100 football recruit, set to head to North Carolina to play wide receiver, where his father was on the coaching staff. Then in March, Adams had a coming out party at the heavily-scouted NHSI tournament near his high school. Multiple scouts from all 30 teams watched him against strong competition for a few days, and he looked very, very good, much more comfortable than expected given his level of experience. Scouts were hesitant at first, worried they might be overreacting, but eventually they came to think that Adams’ only athletic peer in recent draft history was Byron Buxton. Teams assessed his signability and the Angels were comfortable using their first rounder on him.

He didn’t play much during that first pro summer, but the Angels surprisingly skipped him over the Pioneer League and sent him right to full-season ball, even though he’d only been solely focused on baseball for a year. Adams had a slightly above-average statline there, which is incredible for someone who only just picked up a bat. He is built like you probably expect a D-I wide receiver recruit to be built, he’s an 80 runner, and while the swing foundation isn’t great, the Angels are one of the most proactive, swing-changing orgs. Adams’ rare physical gifts make him a potential star, though more advanced pitching will probably be a real challenge for him this year.

When he was drafted, Paris was closer in age to many international free agent prospects than he was to some of the older high schoolers in his class, and he’s still younger than a bunch of the high schoolers slated to go in the 2020 draft. Paris’ pre-draft profile existed at the intersection of traits a lot of models seem to prioritize (chiefly, his age) and old school scouting (this was one of the 2019 draft’s best athletes with one of its most projectable builds). Paris is really fast, might be capable of staying at shortstop (and should stay on the middle of the diamond if he can’t), and his feel to hit was much better during his draft spring than it was the summer before. Some teams thought it was just a product of him facing weaker pitching, while others thought he was truly emerging and cited his age as evidence that the late improvement was legitimate. A broken hamate limited Paris to just three games after last year’s draft. He arrived to camp this spring looking absolutely yoked, and he has a chance to hit for some power sooner than I anticipated a year ago. I still consider him a slow-burning prospect with a high ceiling (a leadoff hitting middle infield or center fielder) but it’s possible things will come together sooner than I initially anticipated based on how physical Paris worked to become during the offseason.

It’s hard to find prospects who have an infielder’s grace and athleticism as well as a big, projectable frame. He’s currently skinny as a rail, but Vera is one of these prospects and has a chance to mature in the Goldilocks Zone, where he stays lithe and athletic enough to remain at short but also grows into impact power. He took some good cuts in the Fall during intrasquads, but if Vera worked deep into counts and swung several times during the same at-bat, his later swings weren’t as controlled and strong. He needs to get stronger. I’m a bit less confident in Vera filling out than I was with Ronny Mauricio at the same age just because Vera’s physical composition is a little narrower and more slender, but if he does, his swing is already in a better spot to hit for power than Mauricio.

I’m taking Sandoval’s 2019 big league walk issues with a big grain of salt because the Angels altered his release point during last season (which you can see in the graph section of his player page), lowering it slightly. It created a bit more tail on his changeup, which Sandoval has surprisingly good arm-side command of despite his vertically-oriented slot. Assuming his strike-throwing regresses to career norms, I have Sandoval evaluated as a big league ready No. 4/5 starter.

Jackson’s swing has already been tailored for extreme lift and power. He only hit 29% of his balls in play on the ground last year (down from 42% the year before) and averaged a 20 degree launch angle (second highest in the org behind Trent Deveaux), which would put him among the 10 steepest swingers among qualified big leaguers last year. He hit 23 homers in 65 games, and while that number was inflated by the league’s hitting environment, to the naked eye, he clearly has explosive hands and big power. Scouts who saw him last summer were all scared of this swing, with one going so far as to say it’s “jacked up.” They worry the lack of contact (33% strikeout rate last year) won’t enable him to get to that power against upper-level pitching, and that as Jackson slides down the defensive spectrum (he’s likely to move to third base), it might make it tough for him to profile.

That he has a chance to stay at short, or on the infield at all, and hit for big game power means Jackson’s got an airplane hangar’s ceiling, but he’s a prospect of extreme risk. I’m optimistic that, because he’s already been able to make adjustments, he’ll continue to do so.

Yan is like a mirror image of Freddy Peralta. Like Peralta, he’s best-suited to attack hitters with a lot of fastballs. Several aspects of Yan’s delivery enable his heater to dominate even though he only averaged 92 mph last year. He’s a long-armed side-armer with a cross-bodied delivery, which means he is releasing the ball way behind the backs of left-handed hitters, and his fastball has weird angle in on the hands of righties. The rest of the repertoire isn’t great. Yan’s slider lives almost entirely off of his arm slot and really only works against left-handed hitters, and he doesn’t throw his changeup with conviction yet. I think he’ll move to the bullpen where I believe he’ll experience a velo bump and work with a 70-grade heater. He’ll still need to develop a way to deal with righties to pitch in high-leverage spots. If he does, he’ll be a high-leverage arm.

A stress reaction in his back cost Rodriguez all of 2018 and 2019 (he made three starts in April before he was shut down again and had surgery) but when healthy, he has the best stuff in this system, a pitch mix befitting a top 100 prospect. Prior to Rodriguez’s shutdown in 2018, he had experienced a velo spike (93-97, up from 91-94 the year before) and lowered his arm slot. Both of his breaking balls were excellent, but his changeup had regressed a bit compared to his first year (or at least, he lacked feel for it the last time I saw him). The injury adds fuel to the speculative fire that Rodriguez’s violent delivery will eventually limit him to the bullpen. It didn’t prohibit him from having starter control, but scouts were concerned about injury. Now, there’s been one. If health eventually moves Rodriguez to the bullpen, he has high-leverage stuff. If not, and his changeup returns, he could be a No. 3 or 4 starter.

So young is Ramirez that he had to wait almost two months after the July 2 signing day to turn 16 and become eligible to put pen to paper on his pro contract, which included a $1 million bonus. At the time, he was a typical, frame-based power projection outfield prospect at a lean, high-waisted, broad-shouldered 6-foot-2. But Ramirez has grown into serious power more quickly than anticipated. In fact, his 95 mph average exit velo was the highest in the entire DSL last year. He also struck out a lot, and corner bats who punch out at this rate at any level, let alone against bad DSL pitching, are inherently volatile. I saw Ramirez in the fall and I don’t think he’s 6-foot-2 anymore; to me, he looked closer to 6-foot-4 and didn’t look maxed out physically. I think he still has a ton of room on his frame and a chance to grow into elite raw power, but of course the feel to hit really hasn’t been tested yet, and it’s a necessary component for corner players.

Jones had the worst offensive season of his career in 2019 and arrived in the Arizona Fall League having made yet another swing change. He ran an unusually low BABIP last year, his underlying TrackMan data was still favorable (39% of balls in play hit 95 mph or above), and he was a college-aged player who spent all of last year at Double-A. I’m still betting on Jones’ makeup and athleticism, and think he’ll find a way to be a 1.5 to 2 WAR role player who sees time at second base and in left field.

Knowles has electric tools — a plus arm, plus-plus speed, sneaky power for a guy his size — and is the same age as several players who the Angels left back in the AZL. He didn’t hit especially well — .240/.310/.387 — but was 2.5 years younger than the average player in that league. That’s not to say Knowles’ bat doesn’t need polish. His left-handed swing (this system has a lot of switch-hitters) is pretty grooved, and I think he’s likely to be strikeout prone from that side for good. From the right side, he might be able to do real damage. Knowles needs more reps in center as his reads on balls are mixed. Again, Knowles is a 19-year-old switch hitter and it’s possible that his feel to hit from the left side still develops. If it doesn’t, he easily projects as a fourth outfielder who could be the short half of a platoon at any outfield spot.

Many teams considered Holmes to be one of the, if not the, best on-mound athletes among high schoolers in the 2018 draft, but many of them also thought he was sushi raw as both a hurler and an outfielder, and that he would end up at the University of Tennessee. A $700,000 bonus brought him to Tempe for a summer free of pitching in games, an approach the Angels have taken with several recent draftees. He’s begun to emerge as a pitching prospect, showing refined command of three viable pitches late last summer. He’s a No. 4/5 starter if he can continue to do that consistently, and perhaps as he continues to focus on pitching, there might be late-blooming raw stuff quality, too.

Soriano had Tommy John in February. It was already pretty clear that his future would be in the bullpen, but the surgery, and what it does to his developmental timeline, make it even more likely. He experienced another velo bump last year (not as huge as the jump from 2017 to ’18) and was touching 99 as a starter at Low-A Burlington.

I wrote last year that I thought Deveaux’s horrendous 2018 season was largely caused by the constant mechanical changes he was asked to make. His 2019 swing was still noisier than a Dinosaur Jr. concert in a giant aluminum dome, but he seemed to get a better feel for syncing it up and timing fastballs late last summer before the club promoted him to Orem for the last week of the season. He remains a high-risk prospect whose hit tool might be disqualifying, but if he finds a swing that works for him and is allowed to keep it, he has a shot to be a power-hitting center fielder.

Kochanowicz is a physical beast from a cold weather locale. He has surprisingly advanced feel for locating his curveball, and for a changeup that I think has a chance to be his best pitch at maturity. He was 90-94 during his pre-draft spring and didn’t pitch after he signed.

Franco’s velocity spiked last year — 90-94 in 2018, 93-96 and touching 97 in 2019 — and he’ll flash a plus breaking ball. He’s small but athletic, an indication he can hold the velo and also refine his command. I think it’s more likely he ends up a power reliever, living off of velo and that two-planed power curveball.

It took a $100,000 bonus to sign Hermosillo away from a football scholarship to Illinois. What with two-sports and a cold-weather background, he was understandably raw when he entered pro ball, and it took Hermosillo three years of adjustments before he finally experienced a statistical breakout in 2016. Since then, he has continued to make mechanical tweaks to reshape his skillset, and was rewarded with brief major league stints in 2018 and 2019. He likely would have graduated last year had he not missed a big chunk of the season recovering from hernia surgery and post-op issues with scar tissue. He’s likely to be Brian Goodwin’s platoon partner this year.

Placencia’s left-handed swing is the sweetest-looking cut in this system, and his righty swing is the second. He has feel for lengthening his path to create good angle on pitches at the bottom of the zone, but he can also keep things short and direct to catch pitches near the top of the zone. This kind of bat control is rare for anyone, let alone a switch-hitter this age. He’s a smaller-framed kid who may not grow into much power (though I’m cautiously optimistic about him developing enough pop to keep pitchers honest), and ends up painted into a bit of a corner at second base.

It’s very possible that Rivas’ elite feel for the strike zone won’t translate to upper-level play. He owns a 16% career walk rate, but Rivas and his childlike, Lilliputian frame lack even a modicum of over-the-fence power, and advanced pitching may choose to attack him rather than nibble and let the speedy infielder reach without putting the ball in play. Even if his walk rate comes down, Rivas does enough other stuff to contribute to a big league roster. He won’t hit homers, but he stings high-quality line drive contact to all-fields and can slash doubles down the third base line. He has sufficient speed and range for the middle infield, and has experience at every position but first base and catcher, though he hasn’t played the outfield since 2015. Rivas’ most realistic path to everyday production involves him retaining something close to his current walk rate, but he’s more likely to become a valuable utility man who can play all over the field, and is a fairly high-probability prospect in that regard.

Signed out of Cuba at 19, Martinez has hit .280/.337/.433 in two pro seasons, though the bulk of that has been in the Pioneer and Cal Leagues. He has a balanced and well-timed cut, above-average bat control (though he sometimes sacrifices contact quality), and average raw power. The physical tools are modest, short of a corner regular, but Marintez could play a well-rounded platoon role.

Hernandez has good secondary stuff but his control is raw for a 23-year-old, and he hasn’t been able to make up the reps he missed in college (he made just 19 starts in three years) due to a 2019 injury and, ya know, the pandemic. He probably also needs a bit of a velo boost, since he averaged about 92 last year, which I think he has a shot to find in one-inning bursts.

A growing number of teams shut down their newly-drafted pitchers during their first pro summer, which is what the Angels did with Stallings (it’s why he doesn’t have a player page yet), who threw a career-high 103 innings at Tennessee during the spring. In 251 career collegiate frames, Stallings walked just 37 hitters, and he didn’t issue a single free pass during his summer on Cape Cod. You’d think an extreme strike-thrower like this would have the most vanilla, stock footage delivery, but Stallings’ is actually kind of funky, and helps his stuff (which is very vanilla) play up a little bit. He’s a low variance fifth starter prospect.

The Angels are one of what is now a majority of teams that don’t have a traditional instructional league and instead play brief intrasquad scrimmages in the fall. It was there that Tapia popped, showing the group’s most polished feel for pitching even though he was the youngest guy on the roster. Tapia has a semi-projectable frame, so hopefully his fastball, which currently sits 88-91, has an extra gear as he develops in his late teens and early 20s. If it doesn’t, his advanced command may enable it to play anyway. Most impressively, Tapia’s changeup is already plus pretty often and he shows mature usage of it, working it down-and-in to righties for whiffs, and running it back onto the outside corner against them for looking strikes. His 73-77 mph curveball is loose and blunt right now, but has good shape. He has a shot to be a rotation piece.

Walsh may pitch in mop-up duty, but his primary role will be as a lefty bench bat with power. He had among the highest average exit velocities in the minors last year at just under 96 mph.

Pina pitched out of the bullpen in 2018, then moved to the Low-A rotation last year and struck out 146 hitters in 108 innings despite pitching with diminished velocity in the starting role. He has a prototypical 6-foot-4 frame and generates nearly seven and a half feet of extension down the mound, which helps that fastball get in hitters’ kitchens. He has both breaking ball consistency issues (though it flashes plus) and mechanical consistency concerns, so I have him projected in relief, where I think the fastball will live in the mid-90s.

Ortega had a breakout 2019, striking out 121 hitters in 94 innings at Hi-A Inland Empire before finishing his year with five rough starts at Double-A. Most of those strikeouts were accrued via Ortega’s mid-90s fastball, which lives in the top of the strike zone, and a low-80s, vertical curveball. Ortega doesn’t repeat his delivery consistently and I have him projected in up/down relief.

Scouts like Soto because of how hard he plays, and some analysts like him because of how hard he is to strike out (he had a measley 7% swinging strike rate last year), but I don’t think he has big league physicality. At the same time, he does have speed, defensive versatility, advantageous handedness, and is only 20, so if he gets stronger, he could be a good bench piece.

Bonilla has a mature build (which is why I’ve got him projected at third rather than short, where he mostly played last year) and approach, as well as a plus arm. He’s not likely to grow into huge power and instead has a shot to profile with a balanced combination of contact, on-base ability, and modest pop.

Aquino missed 2018 due to TJ and his velocity wasn’t quite back last year, living in the 90-94 range rather than at 92-96. His fastball has relevant backspin but because Aquino doesn’t get down the mound very well, it has hittable, downhill angle. He’s still a good-framed 21-year-old, and I wonder where the fastball would live in relief.

Higgins’ stuff was up and down in college, peaking in the upper-90s during his underclass stint in the Alaskan Summer League. Arizona State didn’t have a pitching coach (seriously) for part of his college tenure and Higgins might only now be thriving in a more stable developmental environment. He’s a vertical slot lefty relief prospect.

Turang has two profile-carrying attributes in his ball/strike recognition and defense, while the rest of the profile struggles because he doesn’t square balls up very well. He has a chance to be a plus defender who reaches base a lot, which is basically what J.P. Crawford‘s skill base was, even when he was struggling. It’s possible that upper-level pitching challenges Turang with impunity and his walk rates tank, at which point I’ll move off him. If his frame, which is broad-shouldered and quite projectable, fills out and suddenly there’s relevant pop, he’s an everday player.

Feliciano hit .273/.324/.477 with 19 homers as a 20-year-old in the Carolina League, a level he was semi-repeating, as he’d spent about a month there in 2018 but missed much of the rest of that year due to injury. He is one of the more talented offensive catching prospects in the minors thanks to a potent combination of power and barrel feel. When Feliciano puts balls in play, they’re very often scorched — just under 50% of the balls he hit last year entered play at 95 mph or above, which is a 65 on the 20-80 scale if you curve out big leaguers’ hard hit rates. All of that seems likely to be hampered by Feliciano’s hedonistic approach. The dude likes to swing, and has only walked at a 6% clip as a pro.

Scouts also have tepid opinions about his defense, but let’s remember that he’s essentially a JUCO-aged player who missed a year of development due to injury. I anticipate some defensive improvement, and think we’ll have a electronic strike zone a year or two after Feliciano hits the 40-man, which will help him stay back there. His approach is kind of scary and there’s a chance his contact profile bottoms out against big league pitchers who prey on his swing-happy nature, but I have Feliciano evaluated as an everyday catcher based on how much power I think he’ll hit for, even if he’s running OBPs close to .310.

For the second straight year, Lutz got off to a slow start before righting the ship and hitting .271/.354/.446 from May onward. His skillset remains the same: big power, some stiffness and limited bat control, and an ability to crush lefties. Lutz’s overall performance in two full pro seasons has been just shy of what I’m comfortable with 50 FV’ing but he’s been very young for his level and only took three at-bats off of pitchers who were younger than him last year. He has a good shot to be an everyday corner outfielder who hits 25 homers annually.

Small is a mechanical doppelgänger for Clayton Kershaw and, like late-career Kershaw, he’s blowing fastballs with mediocre velocity past opposing hitters because he hides the ball well and creates pure backspin, helping it carry at the top of the strike zone. Small has a bat-missing changeup but needs to find a better breaking ball to really max out as a prospect. He could be a 50 FV, league-average starter if he does, but otherwise is likely to slot toward the back of a rotation.

Ashby has nasty, left-handed stuff and reliever’s control. He was up to 94 during his first pro jaunt in 2018, then was up to 96 last year as a starter, velo I think will climb in the bullpen. His two breaking balls need better demarcation, but they each flash plus and Ashby will even show you an average changeup on occasion. Since he has viable starter’s stuff, it’s logical for the Brewers to continue developing him in that role just in case he develops starter’s control later than is typical, and also to refine that secondary stuff with more reps than he’d get in the bullpen. Coming off his age-21 season, Ashby was on pace to reach Double-A during the back half of this year before the world turned upside down. He has a shot to debut in 2021, especially if Milwaukee ‘pens him.

Unsigned by the Padres after the 2018 draft, Kelly’s velocity spiked into the mid-90s in 2019. He’ll bump 98 and has a big, athletic frame and fluid delivery, but Milwaukee will need to develop the rest. Fastball location seemed to be the developmental focus for Kelly after the draft. In both my look and those of several scouts, he featured something like 80% fastballs. Teams have disparate opinions of Kelly. Some are intrigued by the canvas he presents, while others think painting it will be a chore. He need only develop one pitch to be a power reliever, which I think is pretty realistic.

Lazar sits just 86-89 but his deceptive, funky, over-the-top delivery combined with the extreme length of his stride down the mound (nearly 7.4 feet of extension, among the top 50 in all the minors) make him an uncomfortable at-bat for opposing hitters. If there’s an Oliver Drake delivery comp in the minors, it’s Lazar (though he gets much lower to the ground), and like Drake, he can somehow turn over a changeup from this arm slot. We’ve seen fastballs thrive despite mediocre velocity before. Often it’s from someone who has an extremely vertical arm slot, like Drake or Josh Collmenter, or huge extension and a flat approach angle, like Yusmeiro Petit, guys who can successfully remove the table cloth without disturbing the place settings. Lazar has both of these, and has a bat-missing changeup, too. I’m not as confident in the breaking stuff, which often finishes high in the zone — it’s that aspect of the skillset I’m scared will be exposed by upper-level hitting. Even if they don’t develop further, Lazar has two legit weapons that would work fine in relief, and he throws strikes at such a high rate that he could be a multi-inning piece. Based on how Milwaukee deployed him last year — 10 starts, nine relief outings, highly variable pitch counts — it appears he’s being groomed for a non-traditional role of some kind.

Garcia broke his ankle and didn’t play in games at all last year, so other than that, my report on him remains the same. Garcia had an eye-opening 2018 instructional league. His range, hands, actions and arm are all easy fits at shortstop, and he could be a plus glove there at peak. His entire offensive profile depends on his frame filling out. Garcia’s lack of strength is evident with the bat in his hands, but you can go kind of nuts projecting on much of his skillset, including the speed and arm strength, because he so clearly has lots of physical growth on the horizon and is an above-average athlete. He’s so young that he wasn’t even eligible to sign immediately on July 2nd because he was still 15. Were he a domestic high schooler, he wouldn’t have been draft eligible until 2020, and he’s still just shy of 18. His development may initially be slow, but he has significant literal and figurative growth potential and a non-zero shot to be a well-rounded everyday shortstop at peak.

Ray has pretty severe strikeout issues that, at nearly age 26, are ridiculous to expect him to remedy. Instead I think what lies ahead for him is a career similar to Brian Goodwin’s, a whiff-prone lefty power stick with a good approach.

Perez is a physical, lefty-hitting outfielder with a swing that is compact but still has some lift, especially to his pull side. He runs well, has advanced feel to hit, and is generating more power on contact than is typical for a hitter his age. He doesn’t have big, frame-based power projection but might hit enough that it doesn’t matter. He’s likely four or five years out, but has the tools of an everyday corner guy if, in fact, the bat is as advanced as it appeared after he signed.

Rasmassen became famous for some dominant starts in college but had medical issues that led to a failed physical after the 2017 draft and two subsequent Tommy John surgeries. His velocity is back after the second of those, comfortably in the upper-90s during what have primarily been 40 to 50-pitch outings, mostly as a starter. He was 96-99 out of the bullpen this spring. He’s a 40+ FV relief prospect on talent, the second or third best guy in a good bullpen (a set-up type for the traditionalists), but I’ve got to account for his injury history, perhaps more so than for all but a handful of pitchers in the minors, and so he’s shaded down a little bit.

Brown was Milwaukee’s 2018 Minor League Pitcher of the Year, then had such a rough 2019 that he was passed over in the Rule 5 Draft. It’s worth noting that while Brown had no velo decrease from the year before, his fastball spin rate dropped from 2300 rpm on average to 2000 rpm. Drops in spin rate seem to occur as part of injury-related stuff regression, but that’s often paired with a downtick in velo, and there wasn’t one here, nor was there an IL stint. Instead, it’s possible a change was made to intentionally reduce Brown’s fastball spin, since his arm slot and fastball spin axis are more conducive of sinker movement. The point is, there was a change amid Brown’s struggles, something that may be undone or further adjusted. It’s why I’m staying on him despite the age and the offseason indication (via the Rule 5) that a big chunk of the industry is not. I have Brown projected in middle relief.

I was skeptical of Gray’s hit tool when he was an amateur but because he’s missed so much time and dealt with the physical aftermath of pneumonia (2018) and a severe hamstring strain (2019), it’s premature to declare his hit tool specious. Gray has big present power, power projection, and the instincts to stay in center field despite not being a real burner. He’s a high variance prospect but still has everyday talent.

A senior sign reliever coming out of Virginia, Bettinger experienced a velo bump in his second pro season and also developed better movement separation between his curveball and slider, which has enabled both of them to play better. He still only sits 89-92 but he gets way, way down the mound and generates about seven feet of extension, causing his heater the jump on hitters and create flatter approach angle. His fastball is also spin-efficient and has plus vertical movement. He’s gone from elder org-filler to back of the rotation prospect in half a season.

Andrews is a plus on-mound athlete with a plus changeup and breaking ball. In 2019, the Brewers let him return to playing some center field and take a few dozen at-bats (he played two ways in college and barely ever struck out), which actually went pretty well (.333/.391/.381 in 70 plate appearances). He’s a great athlete and has surprisingly good instincts in the outfield, though he’s not likely to play a real role as a position player. Instead Andrews projects as a middle reliever, but his unique blend of secondary skills may enable the Brewers to use him creatively. The new three-batter minimum rules make that harder.

Rodriguez is a plus-plus-running center field prospect with a slash-and-dash approach at the plate and outstanding feel for contact. He is currently unable to turn on pitches and do any real offensive damage, but his defensive profile, speed, and hand-eye coordination give him a chance to be an everyday player if those skills are all plus at maturity. Barring a swing and approach change that better enables him to turn on pitches, I think a fourth outfielder role is more likely, but that’s what I thought about Luis Arraez, and Rodriguez is a better defensive player.

File throws strikes at will and has already reached Double-A because of it. He hides the ball really well and it helps his otherwise pedestrian fastball sneak past hitters at the top of the zone for the occasional swing and miss, while his two-plane curveball also garners the occasional swing and miss. He’s a high-probability fifth starter who might generate more WAR than is typical of someone with this level of stuff because File works so efficiently.

Henry’s groundball rates have now fallen for two consecutive years, reinforcing optimism that he’ll get to enough of his considerable raw power in games to play some sort of big league role. A bat-first high school catcher who was considered a long shot to stay behind the plate, Henry has made sufficient developmental progress as a defender and now projects to stay back there, especially since most of the industry thinks arm strength is likely to drive catchers’ defensive profiles once we have robozones. Henry’s peripherals are scary — about 30% strikeouts, 7% walks, and he was hit by pitches nearly as much as he walked last year — but as long as he continues to actualize that raw power in games, I think the total package fits in a backup role.

The owner of one of the most entertaining hacks on the planet, Dilly takes big, uncompromising swings from both sides of the plate. He hit .286/.419/.505 at Ole Miss while walking at an 18% clip. Though he caught some in college, Dillard played mostly left field and first base, and projects to do the same in pro ball. Because he’s so committed to hitting nothing but tanks (Dillard’s footwork is actually pretty conservative as a left-handed hitter, he just has big time uppercut), he’s probably going to swing and miss in pro ball more often than he did in college, but he’ll likely reach base and hit for enough power to play some kind of corner role.

Williams has been hurt a lot and is now 25 and still walking lots of batters, but his heater touched 100 last year and his breaking stuff fits in a relief role. He’s big league ready.

In high school (he and Lutz were on the same Area Codes team), Hamilton was a terrific defensive shortstop with some feel to hit, but some teams didn’t think his narrow frame would fill out in a way that generated relevant power, so he ended up matriculating to Texas. He had a rough freshman year, then rebounded as a sophomore and was in the third to fifth round mix following his summer on the Cape. Then Hamilton tore his Achilles tendon and missed not only his junior year at Texas, but the entire summer as well. His first pro at-bats came during 2020 big league spring training. He looked considerably stronger coming out of rehab and I think he has a shot to have a breakout 2020 if given the opportunity to play.

Castaneda pitched in relief during the summer and was stretched out as a four-to-five inning starter during the Fall League, where he continued to have success. His forkball is an obvious out pitch and he held his average velo in the longer Fall League outings, but the get-me-over curveball only works situationally (often to garner strike one) because it’s easy to identify out of his hand. As such, I think Castaneda profiles as a reliever, long-term.

Kahle is a thick-bodied catcher with limited tools, but he is great at diagnosing balls and strikes (he had twice as many walks as strikeouts as a junior at Washington) and his approach should allow him to hit for enough pull power to make a 40-man.

A 2018 seventh round senior sign, Fry’s combination of power and a chance to play several positions (including catcher) makes him an interesting potential bench piece. He seemed to be undergoing a swing and approach change late last year, as he was a dead pull hitter for all of 2019, and struggled to turn on pitches in the fall, instead peppering the opposite field gap.

Supak is a strike-throwing backend starter who has now had success up through Double-A. His velocity was down a bit last year but his fastball has a lot of spin for how slow it is, as well as other traits that bolster it. He’s a bigger-bodied guy whose athletic longevity is a question.

Bello signed for an under slot $550,000 as a second rounder. He’s a polished, contact-oriented center field prospect without typical big league physicality. He has several tweener traits, and might end up as a bench or platoon outfielder. A path toward everyday reps involves Bello developing a plus bat or glove, which are both in the realm of possibility as he has great breaking ball recognition and bat control, and good instincts in center field. He is one of several Hawaiian players drafted by Milwaukee since 2014 (Kodi Medeiros, Jordan Yamamoto, KJ Harrison, Kekai Rios).

Howell was a pleasant, toolsy, post-draft surprise whose combination of speed and crude bat control was too much for AZL defenses to deal with. He went to Low-A for his first full season and had less offensive impact, but still projects as a speedy, up-the-middle bench player.

Taylor made a relevant swing change in 2018 and probably would have exhausted his rookie eligibility last year had he not dealt with injuries, which have been pervasive throughout his career. He has bench outfield tools and is big league ready.

Perdomo was in Toronto’s system for seven seasons, then left for Milwaukee on a minor league deal after 2018. He had posted gaudy strikeout rates before then, but never in the 34-35% range for an extended stretch. He struck out 14.33 per nine at Triple-A, doing most of the damage with his fastball (a 17% swinging strike rate), which sits at about 93 and touches 97. He’s on Milwaukee’s 40-man and likely to play a role this year. I have him in as an up/down reliever.

Milwaukee’s 2019 sixth rounder is a four-pitch lefty with a funky, noisy delivery and a breaking ball-heavy approach to pitching. His slider has length, his curveball has depth, and Bennett sits 90-93 with the heater. It’s a backend starter mix with a delivery that likely pushes Bennett to the bullpen.

Long a notable amateur prospect due to his projectable, wide receiverish frame, Ward has made mechanical progress and is already much more of a refined baseball player than he was as a senior in high school. He’s still mostly a lottery ticket frame you’re hoping grows into big power, and even if he does, there are still swing plane issues the Brewers need to address, but Ward’s underlying skills have started to develop.

Ramirez is a super loose and fluid (but also inconsistent) righty with big arm strength and some breaking ball feel. He projects in the bullpen, where there may be even more velo.

Abreu has an interesting power/speed combination, which the Brewers sent him to the Fall League to stress test last year after he missed most of 2019 due to injury. He didn’t look great, and has strikeout and swing efficacy issues undercutting his power. Barring a significant improvement in his bat-to-ball performance, he’s unlikely to be added to the 40-man or Rule 5’d this offseason, but he is a 20-year-old with relevant tools and a chance to play a premium defensive position, so he’s still in this tier for now.

Webb was a rare draft-eligible freshman because he had Tommy John as a senior in high school, then missed all of what would have been his freshman year at South Carolina while he recovered; he was a 21-year-old redshirt freshman when he was drafted in 2016. His measurables don’t properly capture his size; his broad shoulders mimic the shape and proportions of a generic minor league batter’s eye. He has a mid-90s fastball and upper-70s curveball that pair well together, as the latter has sharp, vertical action and bat-missing depth when he’s healthy. In 2019, he wasn’t. After a rocky start and demotion to A-ball, he was shelved for two months and returned as a reliever, rehabbing in rookie ball late in the year. Milwaukee has stubbornly continued to develop him as a starter but I think he fits as an up/down reliever.

Robinson works in the low-90s with a flat-planed fastball that plays at the top of the zone, and a snap dragon, 12-to-6 curveball. He’s not that projectable, but he’s athletically built and has a good arm action. He needs to refine his strike-throwing pretty badly and it would be nice if he ended up throwing harder, but the repertoire works well together, and I think he has a good shot to be a big league bullpen piece.

Stephenson puts on quite a show during batting practice but has a more contact-oriented approach in games. Per a source, he has one of the better in-zone contact rates in the minors, which is quite the opposite of how most of the amateur side of the industry thought he would develop as a pro. He’s still a fringy receiver with a big arm, but that may become less of a problem soon. Barring a tweak that brings more of his raw power to the party, Stephenson looks like a solid everyday catcher and he’d be one of the few prep catching draftees to actually pan out.

Greene is a generational on-mound athlete whose 2018 season ended with an elbow sprain that eventually led to Tommy John. A strong two-month run of starts in the early summer culminated in a seven-inning shutout (2 H, 0 BB, 10 K, and all in just 69 pitches) on July 2 at Lake County, and a Futures Game appearance. Eleven days later, Greene’s season was over. He had a PRP injection and rehabbed the sprained UCL in Arizona with broad plans to start throwing during the winter, but he ended up having surgery and did not pitch in 2019. His pre-injury report was heavy on velo and secondary projection, and it was (and is) especially important for him to find a better breaking ball, which he seemed to be doing before the injury.

Between his lack of reps during the ’16-’17 Series Nacional in Cuba and the arduous process of defecting, followed by slowly working out for teams, then waiting for the 2018 season to start, Garcia played very little baseball for the several months leading up to last season and it showed when he finally put on a uniform. Then he had a breakout 2019 in the Florida State League (.280/.343/.436) and was watched closely by the whole industry throughout an Arizona Fall League assignment. If Garcia’s tools were installed in a 21-year-old college shortstop, he’d be very famous. Power, speed, arm strength, and flashy defense are all here, and Garcia has a chance to be a star if his approach isn’t his undoing.

Drafted and unsigned by the Pirates as a 2016 first rounder, Lodolo took a bit of a circuitous route to the top of the 2019 class. He had iffy freshman and sophomore years but flashed a tantalizing blend of stuff and feel at times, keeping him in the first round mix despite inconsistent performance. Everything clicked for him during an early-season college tournament in Houston, where Lodolo worked in the mid-90s with a plus breaking ball and changeup.

He’s more apt to throw his curveball for strikes than bury it in the dirt for swings and misses, but he showed better grasp of the latter late in the year. While Lodolo will sometimes go entire outings without throwing that many changeups, there have been stretches where it’s his best pitch. His frame is ideal, his delivery elegant and repeatable. The stuff isn’t dominant, but some teams are still projecting on it because of how big and lean Lodolo’s frame is, which makes them think it might be eventually.

India was hit by two pitches last April — one struck his wrist, the other got him in the back — and the Reds claim that though he didn’t miss any time during the season, his wrist bothered him all year and could have been to blame for his lackluster 2019 power output. He looked aloof and sluggish in the Fall League, where he started 2-for-35 and was eventually shut down due to continued wrist issues. He has generally shown a well-rounded skillset that includes good feel for contact and defense.

How teams value India varies depending on how they contextualize the wrist injury. It could be viewed as a short-term issue that obscured his physical talent in 2019, but some teams are scared by it being described as “nagging” and having ended his season, while others just think India’s junior year at Florida (the only time he’s ever hit for real power), is the anomaly, and don’t have him projected as an everyday player either way. I think that, primarily via the contact skills, India profiles as a second-division regular (45 FV) at third, but if the wrist is truly why the power hasn’t played, or should he eventually prove capable of playing second base (which is what the Fall League assignment was for), he has a great chance to be a 50.

Perhaps no high school pitching prospect from the 2018 draft has moved toward the “low variance” end of the spectrum quite as quickly as Richardson, which is especially surprising considering he was a two-way prospect for quite a while. Once he started touching 96 and 97 early in his senior season, he moved into the second round picture as a pitcher. His stuff dipped a bit before the draft and, later in the summer, the Reds shut him down due to elbow soreness. He pitched at 89-93 all last year and made a Midwest League-leading 26 starts without incident.

Richardson found ways to get outs with diluted stuff last year and then arrived to 2020 camp throwing really hard, back into the mid-90s. He’s athletic, new to pitching, competitive, often emotional and demonstrative on the mound and responded to adversity in his first season, a potential 2021 Top 100 arm.

Siani is fast and his defensive instincts are excellent, so he has a chance to be one of the better defensive center fielders in baseball at peak. On offense, Siani creates a lot of infield action (oppo liner pokes and slaps, high infield chops, some bunts) but probably won’t grow into relevant power. I have him projected as a low-end regular in center field based on the quality of his defense, but I think he’ll end up hitting toward the bottom of a lineup.

He’ll likely wind up at first base eventually, but in the interim the industry is still searching for where on the defensive spectrum it might be able to shoehorn Callihan in an effort to make him as valuable a prospect as possible. He’s mostly played third base, but there were some pre-draft calls for him to catch, and the Reds gave him post-draft reps at second. The bat is the carrying tool, of course. Callihan was one of the most polished (and oldest) high school hitters in the 2019 class, and performed against his elite peers on the showcase circuit. To get to all of the raw power, he probably needs to improve his feel for lifting the ball, either naturally via reps or with an explicit swing change. That’s especially true should he need to move to first sooner than later. It’s a scary defensive profile and Callihan’s age takes away from some of my confidence in the bat, but I still think it’s a high-probability hit tool with an outside shot of standing at second base.

Santillan’s strike-throwing regressed to his career norms in 2019 and his velocity is now squarely in the low-90s. He was also put on the IL twice with shoulder and triceps injuries. It’s possible a bullpen move will cause Santillan’s high school and early pro velo to resurface and he could pitch in leveraged relief, but if he continues to start, he’s looking more like a backend guy than a potential mid-rotation piece.

Hinds is a massive third baseman who had the most raw power in the 2019 draft’s high school class, but there are significant concerns about his hit tool. Players this size typically move to the outfield, and considering how slow Hinds’ development might be paced due to the contact issues, he might be out there before he reaches the bigs. He has star-level talent, but is a very risky type of prospect.

Fairchild’s swing has a little more going on now than it did while he was in college, but it’s still pretty simplistic relative to a lot of other hitters’. Once extremely stationary, he now has a baby leg kick and is actually loading his hands. His groundball rate has dropped from 50% during his first pro season, to 40% during the first half of 2018, to the 30%-37% range in the three half-seasons since then, and somehow his strikeout rate dropped all the way to 12% during his six-week stint at Double-A Chattanooga. I don’t think that’s a sustainable rate but I do think it makes sense that Fairchild would become more comfortable with the swing over time. He doesn’t have overt everyday physical ability but he is a plus athlete who has been able to make mechanical adjustments, so he might yet get better.

Antone’s stuff has been steadily improving since he returned from Tommy John, and he was up to 96 as a starter last year. He goes at hitters with the kitchen sink. His flight of fastballs sits in the 89-93 range, he’ll cut it and sink it. He also has a slider in the 82-84mph range that has really odd angle running away from right-handed hitters, who struggle to pick up Antone. He’ll also drop in an occasional curveball, the changeup lives in the 82-85 range and is viable. He gets ground balls with the fastballs and misses bats with the slider. I think he fits in a multi-inning relief role, maybe the back of a rotation.

Kuhnel wasn’t a top draft prospect coming out of Texas-Arlington; he had a maxed-out, bulky frame, inconsistent command, and just average stuff for a right-handed reliever. In 2018, he took a big step forward. His fastball jumped 3-4 ticks and hit 101, and his slider improved into an above-average pitch, though he really struggled to get it to his glove side last year. He’s a major league-ready power relief prospect.

The Reds skipped Cerda over the AZL and made the Appy League his first domestic assignment. There he struck out a bunch (34% in 165 PA) but also hit for power and walked. Compared to the other young power hitters in this system, Cerda’s approach is by far the most coherent, and he also has the group’s best feel for airborne contact. He’s a three true outcomes right field prospect.

Johnson didn’t play much, or all that well, as a freshman at Georgia and transferred to Chipola for his sophomore season, where he hit .400/.520/.620. Explosive and physical, Johnson has plus bat and foot speed, but limited feel to hit. He’s raw, but that’s to be expected for a switch-hitter this age who barely got at-bats during his age 19 season.

Once an out-of-control prep prospect up to 98 mph, Ashcraft went to Mississippi State, had a pair of hip surgeries, then transferred to UAB. He had a pedestrian 2019 season with the Blazers but lo, Ashcraft has TrackMan-friendly spin rates on his fastball and breaker. His fastball has natural cut at times, but Driveline Baseball has had success getting pitchers like this to pronate better on release and create carry rather than cut, which seems fair to project will happen with Ashcraft now that Driveline’s founder is the team’s pitching coordinator. He could have a breakout 2020 (if he gets the opportunity) and profiles in a power relief role.

The circumstances surrounding his signing bear repeating: Friedl slipped through the cracks as a 2016 draft-eligible player, then blew up as a member of Team USA that summer, and signed with the Reds for $700,000 worth of leftover bonus pool money. From a tools and performance standpoint, Friedl is a low-variance bench outfield prospect.

Even amid a substantial innings increase in 2019, Solomon held mid-90s velo for the entire season. He’s a 50 athlete with a 70 body and can just kind of muscle fastballs and cutters near the zone. Those two pitches might be enough in relief if Solomon’s velo jumps in single-inning outings, but his curveball is serviceable, so there’s a third pitch, and Solomon is a Northeast JUCO arm just a year and a half into his pro career, so some of the pitchability traits might come late. He’s got 40-man quality stuff with some late-bloomer possibility.

Davis had a big pre-draft summer on Cape Cod but blew out just a few starts into his junior year at Santa Barbara. The Reds drafted him and finished his TJ rehab in 2019, then sent him to Billings. Most of his pre-surgery velocity returned and Davis was sitting 91-94 in his first few appearances before touching some 95s later in the summer. More importantly, he returned with two quality breaking balls (he was slider/changeup as an amateur) that have fairly significant projection since one of them is new, and Davis missed a huge chunk of time rehabbing from the TJ.

Pitchers whose best attributes are their command and a changeup often outperform industry expectations, and even though Naughton’s fastball only averaged 89 mph last year, I think he’ll do the same. He’s funky and deceptive, hides the ball well, creates tough angle in on righties’ hands, and then drops that changeup on them. Naughton’s curveball isn’t great, but he can throw it for strikes. I like him in a multi-inning relief role a la Ryan Yarbrough.

Gutierrez is a plus athlete with a four-pitch mix, and after sitting 90-93 last year, he was suddenly sitting 94-96 in one- and two-inning outings this spring prior to the shutdown. He has a drop and drive delivery that creates a really flat approach angle on his fastball, especially at the top of the strike zone, but Gutierrez’s heater currently has other attributes (its spin rate and axis are indicative of sink/tailing action) that don’t suit this style of pitching, and he’s been homer prone throughout his career. There are several potential solutions. He might be able to just bully the extra velocity past hitters in a relief role, or he may eventually lean into the sink/tail aspects of the fastball and work off a two-seamer (Julio Teheran is actually a pretty clean athlete/delivery comp for Gutierrez), or the new dev regime might tweak something — perhaps his hand position or stride direction — to try to shape how the fastball moves.

My high speed video from the spring shows a four-seam grip with pretty lousy seam uniformity and an axis like the one the 2019 data indicates, and Gutierrez was still doing towel drills this spring, so I assume the new dev group hasn’t really touched him yet. Based on his athleticism, arm strength, and the quality of his secondary stuff, I still think Gutierrez has a chance to be an relevant big league arm, but it is kind of scary that he still needs some kind of rebuild at nearly age 25 and his most likely outcome is in relief.

Acquired last summer for Tanner Roark, Hannah is a contact/speed outfield prospect who will have to make more contact than I have projected in order to play an everyday role. He hit .340 in college and has hit .280 in pro ball, his extra-base hit production consisting almost entirely of doubles. I have him as an average center field defender but think he could be plus in left, a diet Brett Gardner profile lacking the elite plate discipline. It’s a bench outfield look.

Medrano was acquired from Texas in exchange for international slot money during the Rangers’ pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. He spent the following two years simmering in advanced rookie ball (first the Appy, then the Pioneer League) as a pretty advanced righty with a good changeup. There’s a chance Medrano ends up with a plus changeup and command, which would make it pretty likely that he pitches in a rotation. If only one of those comes to fruition, then he’s more of a fringe 40-man guy since he probably needs the change to be an out pitch and the command to make the fastball playable.

Hendrix has been the same prospect for a while now: relief only, 93-96, plus breaking ball. The fastball has not played like the velo would indicate it should (only a 5% swinging strike rate on the heater in 2019) and he’s also had some elbow trouble. He’s now on the 40-man and will probably be an up/down taxi squad reliever this year.

Salvador has the potential to wield power lefty bullpen stuff — a riding fastball and hammer curveball — if he can throw harder. He’s only 20 and skinny as a rail, so it’s reasonable to project that he will.

Yang had more walks than strikeouts at UC Santa Barbara and saw a big uptick in power production in his draft year, though he does lack impact raw. He projects as a contact-oriented back up.

Heatherly has had trouble throwing strikes in affiliated ball and he missed almost all of 2019 with a shoulder injury. Catch him on the right day on the back fields and he’s filling the zone with a sinker in the 92-94 range and flashing two above-average secondaries. It’s No. 4/5 starter stuff, but Heatherly has had lots of hiccups and speed bumps since his excellent pre-draft summer.

I think the loose and lanky Peguero has late-budding velocity projection (both his fastball and slider velocity climbed throughout last year). He projects as a slider-slinging reliever with plus command.

Bautista had a rough 2019. He hit .233/.303/.332 in the Midwest League (an 87 wRC+, by far the lowest of his career) and missed nearly a month due to a shoulder injury. He also seemed to regress athletically, and the odd swing he seemed to be succeeding with in the low minors looked more out of place in full-season ball. He was passed over in the Rule 5. I’m still on Bautista to some degree because of his raw power, straightline speed, and previously-evident bat-to-ball skills, but this won’t work unless Bautista becomes much more selective, or undergoes some kind of swing change, or both.

He has experience at third base and might be tried there early on, but I have Triana projected to first base (and relatively soon) based on his immense size and general stiffness. He has gargantuan power, enough to profile at first if he hits, but he’s been seen either in a showcase environment or against much younger competition, so I have skepticism regarding the hit tool that won’t be remedied unless this kid moves through the low minors quickly.

Prior to the shutdown, the Reds had planned to start De Leon in the Triple-A rotation. He was 90-93 as a starter last year (93-96 at his prospect peak) but up to 95 out of the bullpen late in the summer. He’s a spot starter in his final option year.

Zabala has been traded a couple of times (Seattle to Los Angeles for Chase De Jong, then to the Reds for Dylan Floro) and he still throws really hard, but hasn’t missed as many bats as one would think given that velocity.

Santana is a right/right corner power bat with a plus arm. He’s a 40 athlete who may need to move to right field, but regardless of where he ends up on the defensive spectrum, Santana needs to be more selective and lift the ball more consistently if he’s going to tap into all that raw power and play some kind of corner role.

Lantigua’s approach was unhinged last year — 3.4% walk rate, 47% strikeout rate — but he’s got freaky power for a switch-hitter. The only other switch-hitter under 21 to hit a ball 108 mph last year was Wander Franco.

Mey already throws pretty hard for his age and has a great frame, but he has very little feel for his secondaries right now.

Contreras looks great in the uniform, has some pop, and he’s a shot to stay on the left side of the infield based on his arm strength and athleticism, but he is sushi raw as a hitter and was the most mistake-prone defender I saw in the AZL last year. It’s rare to find someone with the athletic capability to play short and a chance to have relevant power, but there’s a big developmental gap to try to close here.

Jones has light tower power and has kept his sizable frame in check enough to have retained at least short-term projection at third base. His surface-level stats are strong, especially the OBP (he boasts a career .409 mark) because Jones walks at a career 17% clip. His splits against lefties are very troubling, such that some of my sources thought it would limit Jones’ role enough to move him toward the back of the overall top 100 list. I think the plate discipline will offset that enough that he’s a corner infield regular with among the highest three true outcomes percentages in the big leagues.

Born and raised to the brink of adolescence in New York, Valera’s family moved to the Dominican Republic when he was 13. Injuries sustained in a car accident necessitated that metal rods be inserted in Valera’s father’s limbs, and the move was a way of providing him physical comfort in a warmer climate. It also meant Valera became an international prospect rather than an American high school draftee, and when he was eligible, he signed with Cleveland for $1.3 million.

As they’ve done with their advanced complex-level hitters in recent years, the Indians sent Valera to the Penn League, which is full of college pitching. He thrived for a month and then started to strike out a lot, whiffing in 28% of plate appearances overall. He has a sweet lefty swing with natural lift and he has considerable present power, but most of the industry sees him as a corner guy who has had strikeout issues the little he’s played away from Goodyear. I like his instincts in center field and think he has a shot to stay there, but teenagers built like this typically do not.

A young, polished, but relatively unexplosive high schooler, Freeman was a bit of a surprise second rounder in 2017 but has quickly became more interesting as he started generating pro statistics. One trait that runs thick in Cleveland’s system is high-end bat-to-ball skills and Freeman has perhaps the best of all of them. He had the 16th-lowest swinging strike rate in the minors last year, one of four Cleveland hitters hovering around the 4% mark. The rest of the profile is very vanilla, but elite contact on a middle infielder has been enough to profile before.

Rocchio’s 2019 triple slash line at Mahoning Valley (.250/.310/.373) is not all that impressive at first glance, but it was enough for a 107 wRC+ at the level, and Rocchio was just 18. The physical development that might lead to a real breakout (and his ascension up the top 100) has not yet materialized, and because Rocchio is a smaller-framed young man, it may never come. But even if it doesn’t, switch-hitting shortstops with bat-to-ball chops have a shot to profile everyday as long as the bat isn’t getting knocked out of their hands.

Karinchak is a plug-and-play impact reliever right now, and he’s the sort of backend bullpen arm some teams are willing to pay a premium for. His fastball — 96-98 with plenty of spin, and a near perfect backspinning axis that creates elite vertical movement — generated a nearly 27% swinging strike rate in the minors last year.

There are baseball executives who have comfortable everyday grades on Johnson, who has one of the more impressive collections of tools in the minors. The loudest of those are his elite arm strength, premium speed, and, to a lesser extent, above-average raw power that manifests as doubles in games because Johnson’s swing really only enables home run power to his pull side.

At one point, Johnson was so raw that some scouts wanted to see him on the mound, but he’s performed consistently all the way through Triple-A, slashing .284/.344/.460 as a pro. That’s close to the league-average line for outfielders, so why not include Johnson on the top 100? His relative lack of defensive instincts make him more of a fit in right field than in center and I think big league arms will be able to pitch to him in a way that limits his power output below the corner outfield average. His line may be elevated by Cleveland’s propensity for platooning, which would limit his role/output from a volume standpoint. I have Johnson as a second-division outfield regular or favorable platoon piece — almost always a 45 FV — and I’m rounding up a bit on his grade because his tools are so electric.

Aside from some person-to-person variation on how to contextualize Espino’s prodigious arm strength, he is universally lauded by scouts. But their enthusiasm is almost always tempered by fear of the profile: a teenager with elite arm strength, a long-ish arm action, and a big, hulking upper body similar to Brady Quinn’s. If Espino continues on his current track, he’ll be an All-Star. In limited post-draft innings — one or two frames per outing for his first several pro appearances, then three to four for his final few — Espino sat 94-97 and touched 99 with two plus breaking balls and starter’s command. Whether he retains that level of heat over an entire season’s worth of innings on regular rest (he was 92-97 in longer starts before the draft) we simply don’t know, but there’s no reason to think Espino is any more of an injury risk than other teenage pitchers unless you twist your brain into knots and conclude that his velocity is somehow a negative. Even if he loses some gas with a pro innings load, Espino could still have three plus pitches at maturity and pitch near the top of a competitive rotation.

He had plenty of high-level amateur experience against good high school (and even some pro) pitching, but it’s still remarkable that the Indians felt comfortable sending 19-year-old Naylor, about nine months removed from catching Canadian high schoolers, to a full-season affiliate in 2019. More impressive still, though perhaps not surprising, was that Naylor responded and performed, slashing .243/.313/.421 (good for a 110 wRC+) while dealing with the physical toll of catching 80 games.

Not only has Naylor kept his body in check as a pro (Bo’s older brother, Josh, is a bigger guy who is limited on defense, and the amateur side of the industry was somewhat worried Bo might develop in a similar fashion), he’s actually more sculpted and athletic now than he was in high school, and he’s likely to catch, if unspectacularly, long-term. So long as that remains true, Naylor has a good chance to be an everyday player. His swing’s a little grooved, but it is electric and produces big power for anyone, let alone a catcher. If he gets to most of it in games, and he has so far (he had strong amateur statistical performance, as well), there’s plenty of room for him to profile even if he ends up as a 40 bat, which I think is possible considering the lack of barrel variability.

Torres checked a lot of amateur scouting boxes — the body, athleticism, stuff, and makeup were all lauded — and he was a model-friendly prospect due to his age, so while issues with fastball command caused some clubs to project him in relief, he was still a clear top two round talent. Perhaps Torres’ control is behind because, as a cold-weather amateur prospect, he hasn’t pitched all that much. He only threw around 40 innings during his senior spring, and bad suburban high school hitters in New York couldn’t catch his fastball. As a result, Torres had little cause to use his changeup during varsity play — some national evaluators would go whole starts without seeing it — but it flashed 55 or 60 during his showcase summer and was easy to dream on.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Torres’ post-draft performance was how regularly he located his slider down and to his glove side. He has mid-rotation components if you’re willing to dream based on his athleticism, age, and geographic background, even coming off of last year’s surgery – the date of this list’s publication is a year and a few days removed from the TJ.

McKenzie’s TrackMan data on The Board is from the 2018 season since he did not pitch in 2019 due to lat and pec strains. It was his second straight injury-riddled campaign, as he missed the spring of 2018 with upper back issues, and performed beneath career norms when he returned (33% K% from 2015-’17, 24% in ’18), though in fairness to him, he was a 19-year-old pitching at Double-A for the first time. There was pre-draft consternation regarding McKenzie’s frame, which, much like Kevin Durant’s coming out of Texas, was so lean that it existed somewhere between “projectable” and “concerningly thin,” causing some scouts/teams to worry about durability.

In the five years since he was drafted, McKenzie has added five pounds of reported weight (he was listed at 160 on draft day, and is now 165); his fastball, at peak, was 90-93, touching 95 (88-92 in high school) and was 90-94 in camp this spring before the shutdown. The way his delivery and fastball work — it’s deceptive, creates flat angle at the top of the zone, and really carries — makes me think it’ll play at that velocity, and the same is true of McKenzie’s curveball, which has good depth despite bad spin rates. He needs to find a third pitch, and hasn’t really had a chance to do that for two years because of the injuries. At this point, I think it’s more likely to be a slider/cutter than a changeup, which I think would be further along now if it were going to work.

If he can’t find a third pitch, I’m not sure what the role is. McKenzie throws a ton of strikes, so you want him to start, but without a viable third offering that’s pretty tough. High-leverage relief types typically have a better two-pitch mix than even a healthy McKenzie does, so a single-inning relief role doesn’t seem like a great option, and the bulk relief role is often occupied by lower slot changeup guys, not overhand curveball types. I’m willing to bet on the athleticism here to fill in the blank.