A highly entertaining example of the timeless “you can’t predict baseball” maxim, in three years Lux has tranformed from a glove-first high school shortstop (there’s a version of reality in which Lux, Bo Bichette, Hunter Bishop, and Spencer Torkelson are all on the same college team, though sadly, it’s not this one) into a superstar offensive talent. If you want a visual example of “twitch,” watch Lux swing. His feet work slowly, and his right knee draws back toward his left hip like the string of a bow (different than his high school swing’s footwork, which was more Sammy Sosa-ish, with ground contact in both directions) while he remains balanced and poised to strike. Then he strides forward, his hips clear, and his hands, which are looser and freer than they were as an amateur, ignite. Once Lux’s hands get going, everything is over very quickly. He’s tough to beat with even premium velocity but also identifies pitch types while they’re in flight and can punish secondary stuff that catches too much of the zone. The other swing changes aside, Lux’s bat path is relatively similar to what it was when he was a skinnier, gap-to-gap hitter with doubles power, except now he’s very strong and balls are leaving the yard. He has pole-to-pole power and is going to get to it in games even though he’s still a relatively low-launch angle hitter (nine degrees in the minors, 13 degrees in a small big league sample).

What happens with Lux defensively is somewhat immaterial. He’s publicly admitted to having the yips, which impacts the accuracy of his throws. Pure arm strength is not really an issue, but if he keeps one-hopping easy throws to first base, he might need to move off the infield. I have the arm graded as a 45 because of the accuracy issues and think there’s some risk Lux needs to move to the outfield, but even if that’s the case, I feel better about him hitting than all but one other prospect in all of the minors.

Once you’ve gotten a look at his stuff, May’s flamboyant ginger curls and Bronson Arroyo-esque leg kick might be the third and fourth most visually captivating aspects of his on-mound presence. His fastballs, both the two and four-seam variants, are parked in the 93-97 range and peak at 99 mph. His low-ish arm slot gives his heater sinker shape, which means it’s more likely to induce weak groundballs than it is to miss a lot of bats, though May occasionally uncorks two-seamers that run off the hips of left-handed hitters and back into the zone like vintage Bartolo Colon. Based on how he worked in the big leagues last year, May’s out-pitch is going to be his low-90s cutter, which he commands to his glove side (he has great east/west command of everything). This is despite the fact that his vertically-breaking slider (May calls it a slider, but it has curveball shape) has one of the better spin rates in the minors and enough vertical depth to miss bats against both left and right-handed hitters. He’s shown an ability to backdoor it to lefties and it was a finishing pitch for him in some of my minor league viewings, but it was de-emphasized in the big leagues, perhaps because it doesn’t pair well with his fastballs. After trying several different changeup grips in 2017, it seems like May is still searching for a good cambio, but his fastball and breaking ball command should suffice against lefties for now, though I’d like to see more backfoot breaking balls against them this year.

This is nit-picky, but May’s leg kick can make him slow to home and he can be vulnerable to stolen bases as a result, which forces him to vary his cadence home in an attempt to stymie runners. Regardless, he projects as an All-Star, mid-rotation starter.

Gray is an athletic, undersized conversion arm with big time arm-acceleration. His arm action is a little stiff, but it’s fast, and generates a fastball in the 92-96 mph range (mostly 3s and 4s) with riding life. Gray’s size and the drop and drive nature of his delivery combine to create flat plane that plays well up in the zone. He’ll miss bats at the letters with his heater. Thanks to his athleticism, Gray repeats, and throws more strikes than is typical for someone fairly new to pitching who has this kind of stuff, with a notable proclivity for locating his fastball to his arm side.

The slider can slurve out and even get kind of short and cuttery at times, but when it’s well-located and Gray is on top of the ball, it’s a plus pitch. His changeup, which he seldom uses at the moment, is easy to identify out of the hand due to arm deceleration, and is comfortably below average.

Because the strike throwing, fastball efficacy, and ability to spin the breaking ball give him a good shot to play a big league role, I’ve moved Gray up beyond where Kiley and I had him pre-draft. The athleticism, small school pedigree, and position player conversion aspect of the profile indicates there’s significant potential for growth as Gray gets on-mound experience. He projects as a No. 4 starter, with a chance to be more because of his late-bloomer qualities.

A two-way college player, Gonsolin was a ninth round senior sign whose velocity spiked in pro ball when he focused on pitching, moved to the bullpen (he has since moved back into the rotation, after he was yo-yo’d back and forth in college), and was touched by the Dodgers’ excellent player dev group. At times his fastball has been in the upper-90s, cresting 100, but last year he was 91-96 from a very deceptive vertical slot.

Gonsolin’s four-pitch mix looks like it was designed in a lab and considering the way his stuff works together, it may have been. He’s an extreme overhand, backspinning four-seam guy, and he works up at the letters with it. It’s complemented by a deep-diving, 12-6 curveball. He’ll also work an upper-80s slider to his glove side and it has shocking, horizontal length considering Gonsonlin’s arm slot. But the headline offering here is the changeup, a split-action cambio that bottoms out as it reaches the plate. Gonsolin uses it against both left- and right-handed hitters and it’s one of the best changeups in the minors. It’s a non-traditional style of pitching for a starter, so some eyeball scouts think he ends up in the bullpen. If so, it’s probably in a valuable multi-inning role.

This was one of the tougher calls on the Top 100. Ruiz is a skills-over-tools catcher, an acquired taste some scouts like and others don’t. The hand-eye coordination and bat-to-ball skills are very strong, but the contact quality is not. Reviews of his defense — in my looks he’s been a good receiver, the game appears slow and comfortable for him, and all of his throws have been right on the bag — have become more mixed over the last year. Catchers with any sort of offensive ability, especially high-end contact skills, are rare, but athletic longevity may be an issue because of Ruiz’s build.

Graterol signed for $150,000 in 2014 out of Venezuela and had Tommy John surgery within a year. He popped up on the radar a few seasons later when he was throwing upper-90s gas in Fort Myers during instructs, and only began making noise in full-season ball in 2018 when he pitched well as a teenager at Hi-A.

At that time, it appeared Brusdar had a frontline starter future. He was sitting 96-99, touching 100, his slider was already very good, and he had started to develop changeup feel. Graterol thickened considerably during this stretch and is now listed at 265 pounds after he signed at 170. This, combined with some release point variance and injury hiccups (three IL stints in the last year and a half, including some shoulder stuff), have led to relief risk in the eyes of some clubs. Indeed the Twins put Brusdar in the bullpen late in the year and had publicly declared their intent to put him there again this season before they traded him to the Dodgers (after initially sending him to the Red Sox) as part of the Mookie Betts musical chairs deal.

He de-emphasized the changeup during his 2019 relief stretch, but of course he may be subject to more tweaks with his new org. I think the slider command gives him a puncher’s chance to start even with a limited repertoire, but I think he winds up in high-leverage relief.

He’s not an advanced receiver, so a large slice of the confidence that Cartaya will stay behind the plate is derived from the assumption that we will soon have an automated strike zone, but his run-stopping arm strength and accuracy as well as his prodigious field general presence mean he’s likely to have a defensive impact. Cartaya is not afraid to backpick runners, which is rare for a catcher this age, especially when the infielders are typically not reliable recipients of such lasers. For such a large catcher, his exchange is very quick and remarkably consistent. He’s out of his crouch fast and, in one fell swoop, unfurls, releases, and then folds forward, bent at the waist, as the ball sizzles on a line to the base.

Cartaya is also a balanced, explosive hitter with feel for hitting the ball in the air. He expands the zone a bit too much right now, but he has the physical ability to hit and hit for power, which is rare for catchers and catching prospects. The rate of failure for teenage catchers is high but Cartaya has an All-Star ceiling.

There was support for Pages’ inclusion on my overall top 100 list, and he was to be part of the Joc Pederson/Ross Stripling deal with the Angels until, as Arte Moreno has stated publicly, the Angels owner nixed the deal. While his statline was definitely caricatured by the hitting environment in the Pioneer League, Pages does indeed have substantial power and based on his feel to hit the ball in the air, he’s likely to get to it in games. Pages’ average launch angle in 2019 was a whopping 25 degrees, which would be the highest among major league players (Rhys Hoskins‘ averaged an angle of 24 degrees last year) and was in the top five across all of pro baseball last year.

As you would probably expect for a hitter with such a steep swing, Pages strikes out quite a bit. His speed and defensive instincts give him a chance to stay in center field, though, which gives Pages a little more margin for error as a hitter. If he stays in center, he has a star-level ceiling. If not, then he has a whiff-prone, traditional right field profile. Even if the latter occurs, it’s very likely Pages not only gets to all of his raw power but that he might outhit it because of how often he’s able to lift the baseball. He’s a launch angle unicorn with the power to take advantage of it and a non-zero chance of staying at a premium defensive spot (though I don’t think it’s likely).

Every year, a college player who was draft-eligible the year before takes a sudden leap, performs at an elite level, and forces teams to consider whether there’s been a real uptick in his skill or if the player is just beating up on competition, in essence repeating a level. Hoese was the 2019 case. After putting up an .803 OPS in his draft-eligible sophomore year (he went in the 35th round and didn’t sign), he put up a 1.276 OPS in his junior year, with 23 homers and a 38:30 BB/K ratio. He was handled with care by the Dodgers after he signed, spending a lot of time in the AZL and DH’ing due to wrist and forearm tendinitis. He dealt with more wrist trouble this spring and had just been totally cleared and begun throwing to bases a week before the shutdown.

Hoese’s exit velo data was way down in pro ball, something I’m dismissing because of the injury and therefore excluding from The Board (his college avg/max was 88/104, pro was 84/100). He’s not tooled up and doesn’t have huge raw power or bat speed, even with a healthy wrist. Instead he’s a very athletic swinger whose swing is geared for airborne contact. That should help him get to power in games even though there’s not huge raw. Hoese’ll need to get to all of it to profile at third base, but the Dodgers have had internal conversations about trying him at shortstop, which is obviously an easier bar to clear.

The Dodgers plan to continue experimenting with Busch as a second baseman. He played the keystone for an extended stretch on the Cape in 2018 but spent his career at North Carolina playing mostly first base and some corner outfield. The Dodgers announced him as a second baseman — other teams considered doing the same thing, and it makes sense that the teams that think he can do it were also the ones who liked Busch most — and that’s all he played for 10 games during the summer before his hand was hit by a pitch, ending his season. He played mostly first in his brief Fall League jaunt and looked bad there, but it was after he had not seen in-game reps for a couple of months, and I think that context is important.

Los Angeles’ plan is to start Busch at second base most the time, but even if he proves passable there with time, he probably won’t play there exclusively as a big leaguer. He’s more likely to be a bat the Dodgers move around depending on matchups the way they do with Max Muncy. And if Busch can’t play second he may just hit enough to profile in an outfield corner or first base, as he’s patient, tracks pitches well, and has big, strength-driven power.

On last year’s Dodgers list, I wrote the following:

“So conservative was Vargas’ swing when he first arrived in the States that Dodgers coaches were trying to make adjustments to his lower-half use in the middle of games in the hopes that it would unlock power that was clearly dormant in his hands. He has good control of the strike zone and feel to hit for a teenager but despite playing some second and third, he may ultimately wind up at first base. If that’s the case, a change that enables the power is necessary.”

In an unsurprising development, the Dodgers did just that. Vargas has added a bit of a leg kick and begun hitting the ball in the air a little more often, with his average launch angle moving from 10 degrees to 14. After two and a half months of strong offensive performance at Low-A Great Lakes (where Vargas struggled during a cup of coffee the prior year), he was promoted to Rancho and kept raking. He has terrific hand-eye coordination and bat control, still deriving most of his in-game power from quality of contact rather than big pull and lift. He gets an occasional start at second base but projects to (maybe) play third, and a lot of first. From a raw and game power projection standpoint, I’m not ready to lump Vargas in with the 50 FV first base types at the back of my overall Top 100, but if the hit tool keeps distinguishing itself at Double-A, I will be forced to consider it.

A $250,000 11th rounder from a high school east of Los Angeles, Amaya is a diminutive infielder with excellent secondary skills. Though not especially rangy at shortstop, Amaya has plus hands and actions and enough arm strength to stay on the left side of the infield. On the surface, a lack of power and physical projection makes him appear like he’ll max out as a utility guy, but he makes up some offensive ground because his eye for the strike zone is so good. Instinctive and fundamentally sound, even if Amaya is only a utility type, his chances of getting there are high, and if his secondary skills hold water into the upper levels of the minors perhaps he’ll be more than that.

In my opinion, his posture, violent delivery, and the way it impacts his command make it likely that Carrillo’s destiny lies in high leverage relief. From a pure stuff standpoint, he’s comparable to many of the top college prospects slated to go in the top 20 of June’s draft. It’s a well-comprised four-pitch mix led by two demarcated breaking balls and a hellacious, sinking fastball that was up to 100 in the Fall League.

De Jesus signed for $500,000 as a slow-but-graceful big-framed infielder with feel for airborne contact. He became more agile and twitchy between when he signed and when he made his pro debut in the DSL. It was quickly evident that DeJesus was too advanced for the DSL and the Dodgers pushed him Stateside, where his swing decisions were poor. The physical tools and body projection (DeJesus body comps to Manny Machado) are exciting, though. DeJesus has seen early-career time at shortstop, when on the day he signed, it seemed like a foregone conclusion that he’d only play third base. He may end up back at the hot corner eventually but has a fair chance to stay up the middle. If he does, and he grows into all the raw power I think he will, he could be a star. If he kicks to third base, then hopefully the swing and miss rates from the 2019 are only a result of him being 17 rather than a sign of things to come.

Like many of the prospects on this list, Jackson missed time as an amateur due to Tommy John and also entered pro ball under-developed because he played both ways at Utah. Over two pro seasons, Jackson and the Dodgers have moved his repertoire from two viable pitches to four, including a fastball that has been up to 98 and a hard cutter/slider that has quickly developed into Jackson’s best pitch. He projects as a No. 4/5 starter but I’ve rounded his FV down a tad due to his age, though you could argue there are fewer miles on Jackson’s arm and that his relative inexperience means he actually has a better chance of holding his stuff into his 30s than that adjustment assumes.

After dominating for most of March and April, Pepiot struggled closer to the draft and his stock, which had risen to that point, leveled off. If Pepiot was just gassed and, going forward, is what he was during the breakout, then he could have a pair of out pitches in his changeup and sweeping slider. If not, then he’s more of a fifth starter.

Rodriguez, who signed for $2.6 million last July, is a feel and instincts center field prospect with advanced feel to hit and a medium frame. Though it caps his power projection, Rodriguez’s modest size gives him a better chance of staying in center field. He has table-setting, leadoff man characteristics, but is probably four or five years away from the big leagues.

Had this list been done last fall, Ortiz would have been toward the middle of the 40 FV tier. Instead, he arrived to spring training with a leaner lower half and was touching 98 in the bullpen before the shutdown. His delivery has been tweaked, his stride direction altered to help him get over his front side and on top of his breaking ball. He appeared to be plateauing as a low-slot changeup guy with stagnant command development, but has a chance to break out now that his curveball has better action and Ortiz can more easily work east and west.

Grove was working 92-96 with a good slider when he blew out his elbow two months into his sophomore season at West Virginia. Aside from some pre-draft bullpens, he didn’t pitch as a junior, and spent the rest of the year finishing rehab and working on secondary stuff in the ‘pen.

In his first year back, the Dodgers sent him straight to Hi-A to work in abbreviated starts over the course of a whole season rather than pitch five-plus innings every start and be shut down mid-year. He was 90-93, touching 95 with the fastball and working with two different breaking balls, a low-80s curveball and an upper-80s slider. It’s not big velocity, but Grove creates weird angle on his fastball and it has near perfect backspin and carry at the top of the zone. At present it’s a fifth starter look, but Grove’s fastball is sneaky and he’s barely back from serious injury, so I think there might still be more in the tank.

Peters is another in a long line of strikeout-prone outfielders with game-changing power and speed. Drew Stubbs, Michael A. Taylor, Carlos Gómez… all are (or were) capable of spectacular plays and displays of power, sometimes for months at a time. Then there are the equally long (seemingly longer) stretches of whiffs and frustration. It’s this type of high-variance big leaguer that Peters projects to be. He has huge power, he hits for it in games, and he is a plus runner underway, which makes him capable in center field. On crowded rosters like the Dodgers’, players like this often end up spilling over to teams that are willing to take a chance that their tools actualize late, the way Toronto has with Derek Fisher-types.

Lewis is a classic Texas projection righty: broad-shouldered, sculptable 6-foot-6, with a low-90s fastball and feel for an above average slurve. It’s a report that reads an awful lot like Dustin May’s did when he was drafted, though Lewis’ situation is complicated by a labrum tear that cost him most of 2019.

Uceta is already a capable 40-man arm and projects as a No. 4/5 starter. He’s athletic, his delivery is well-balanced, he hides the ball well, commands his fastball to both corners, can both bury his breaking ball and throw it for strikes, and in his best outings, his changeup also has bat-missing fade. Uceta reached Double-A as a 21-year-old and is very likely to be added to the Dodgers 40-man this offseason.

Barely 22 years old, Estevez has already reached Double-A and posted a .268/.322/.405 career line, and he’s slugged better than that over the last two years. He has had some injuries, including a shoulder issue prior to baseball’s shutdown, and he’s already quite heavy-footed for his age. I have him as a 1-to-2 WAR, bat-first infielder.

Sborz is your typical middle relief prospect. He sits in the mid-90s and benefits from mechanical deception. His primary breaking ball, a mid-80s slider with bat-missing, glove-side action, doesn’t spin a lot but it’s spin-efficient and has depth even though it lived near the top of the zone in Sborz’s brief 2019 big league time. He’ll also occasionally flip a mid-70s curveball into the zone or a strike.

A two-sport athlete in college, Thomas has really only been playing baseball full-time since 2016, so while he’s advanced in age he isn’t in experience. With that in mind, Thomas’ 20 annual homers despite sky-high strikeout rates are pretty impressive. He has power, he runs well, and he throws well. It’s a traditional right field profile on its face, just one that is behind the developmental curve and of high risk because of the strikeouts. I’m higher on Thomas than is typical for a prospect who was passed over in the Rule 5. He has yet to fail on a baseball field and you could argue his profile is identical to DJ Peters’ and that Thomas’ handedness is more favorable. I like him as a platoon option.

Post-shoulder injury Santana is a bit of an oddity: a high-spin, low-slot sinkerballer who doesn’t throw all that hard but has great command of his secondary stuff. He was used in a bullpen capacity last year and projects to a middle relief role.

Gonzalez signed at the same time Julio Urías and, for a while, was valued similarly as a prospect until Urias’ stuff blew up and Gonzalez’s did not. He was sitting 88-92 coming out of Tommy John rehab and entered 2019 on the minor league roster bubble. His velocity rebounded, he added a curveball, and Gonzalez had a breakout season, traversing three levels all the way to Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he moved to the bullpen. He profiles as a multi-inning/swingman member of a staff.

He had a significant power production increase last year but McKinstry’s big league role is likely tied to his defensive versatility and excellence, especially at second base, where he’s a plus defender. As a multi-positional lefty stick, he’s a high-probability bench piece who likely doesn’t do enough damage to play every day.

At a hulking 6-foot-3, Rios body comps better to taller NFL running backs like Eddie George than your typical baseball player. He has arguably the most raw power in this system but has struggled to get to it in games because his swing is grooved and he’s a bit of a free swinger. He’ll be a powerful bench bat/corner depth option for the next half decade but likely won’t hit enough to be a regular.

At times he’ll show you three plus pitches, but White has had fluctuations in stuff and missed lots of time with injury, dating back to his underclass years of college when he had Tommy John. It’s been enough of an issue that it colors how I see his trade/prospect value. He’s a lightning-in-a-bottle sort who may come up and pitch really well for a stretch, but I’m scared of the stuff roller coaster and health track record enough to prefer other arms in the org with slightly inferior stuff.

Vivas has a strong heuristic profile: he’s a lefty-hitting infielder with advanced feel for contact. He’s also got a swing that is both short and compact (making him tougher to strike out) but also includes some natural lift, giving Vivas a chance to both hit and hit for whatever power he ends up growing into. At a small-framed 5-foot-10, it’s not likely to be much thump. Vivas may be a second base-only defender, which means his only path to a role would be to hit enough to play every day, but early indications are that he may do just that if he grows into more power than I have projected based on his size.

A teenage Leviathan, Duran has present arm strength (he’ll bump 96) and spins the occasional plus curveball. His arm slot creates sinking movement on his fastball, which should pair well with his change if that becomes more consistent. After he threw a ton of strikes in 2018, his control regressed last year, and his fastball shape doesn’t pair well with his curveball, so there’s more relief stink on the profile now than there was a year ago, but Duran still has rare size, arm strength, and breaking ball talent for a teenager.

Several of the next few hitters on this list are talented, if flawed, corner infield bats. Santana’s flaw is his approach, as he’s posting near bottom-of-the-scale walk rates of about 3%. There’s little to no recent precedent for a third baseman who is this aggressive having sustained success as a regular unless they have elite bat-to-ball skills, and while Santana has big time bat speed, he’s not a contact savant. He has shown some ability to make mechanical adjustments, though, much to the chagrin of those entertained by his former cut, which looked like a Vaudeville comedian miming a baseball swing. So hapless is Santana’s current approach that some scouts want to see him put on the mound. He’s a FV tier higher than I typically rank players this age with a flag as red as Santana’s approach because his tools are just so loud, and I’m intrigued by the idea of a conversion.

From a present pitch grade standpoint, Rosario is very similar to Hyun-il Choi, a few spots behind him on this list, but he’s two years younger and a superior athlete, which is why I have his fastball projected a little better than Choi’s. He has No. 4/5 starter upside barring a more significant breaking ball/velo uptick than I have projected.

I like-a de Geus, whose name is sadly not pronounced like “juice” but with a hard “g” and vowel sound like in “geist.” He moved to the bullpen last year and his velo spiked considerably, which, when paired with the work the Dodgers have done on his secondary stuff (cutter/slider and changeup to curveball and slider), now has de Geus profiling as an up/down reliever, one who might be ready for the big leagues in the next year.

Sheffield has real weapons and among the highest fastball and breaking ball spin rates in all of baseball, but he also has a pretty lengthy injury history (though his 2019 stuff was better than it was in an injury-impacted 2018) and 30-grade control, which led teams to avoid him in the Rule 5 Draft even though he was available.

Predictably, he had trouble adjusting to advanced rookie and full-season pitching late last summer, but the Dodgers have an interesting late-blooming prospect in Lewis, who has one of the more bizarre amateur career paths in pro baseball. At one point Lewis weighed 285 pounds and struggled to get big programs to even consider him. He reshaped his body and transferred from Pierce College in Los Angeles to UC-Irvine, where he had one very strong year prior to signing with the Dodgers. Though he had a limited statistical track record, Lewis was one of the younger draft-eligible college players in his class, which, combined with his relative inexperience (not only did Lewis not have much high-level experience, he also played two-ways for a while), lets you project more on skill growth than is typical for most college prospects. He’s an interesting third base dev projet for an org that excels at it.

Kasowski’s delivery, which resembles that of former big leaguer and current Auckland Tuatara righty Josh Collementer, is arguably the most deceptive in the minor leagues. The ball just suddenly appears from behind his head, Kasowski’s arm slot almost perfectly vertical, creating bat-missing fastball carry at the top of the zone and making it hard to identify his curveball out of the hand. Kasowski has had injury and strike-throwing issues amid a very strong 107 career innings (177 strikeouts, just 59 hits), otherwise he’d be in the 40 FV tier.

Mann’s swing was altered and he had an unexpected power breakout at Hi-A in 2019, hitting .280/.357/.500 before going down with a mid-July injury. His hands work well, but he’s otherwise a pretty stiff-legged athlete. If he can be an inoffensive defender at second and third, then perhaps Mann can play a Wilmer Flores type of role as a somewhat versatile part-time bat.

Kendall repeated Hi-A in 2019 and somehow struck out more often than he did the year before, whiffing 36% of the time. It’s unlikely that he ever hits enough to be the everyday player the industry once projected him as, but Kendall’s tools — his speed, what his speed enables him to do on defense, and his above-average raw power — can still have a situational impact on games, enough that he’s an interesting 26th man candidate.

Martinez fills the zone with three average pitches that lack bat-missing movement, and instead move late enough that hitters often make lousy contact against them, typically on the ground. All the strikes give Martinez a shot to pitch at the back of a rotation if one of his secondaries can become a true out pitch. I think the changeup has the best chance of getting there based on Martinez’s fastball shape. If it can’t, he’s more of a spot start 40-man arm.

Reks has taken a scenic route to the upper levels of the minors. He did not comport himself well as a freshman at Air Force, so he transferred and took two years away from baseball before walking on at Kentucky as a junior. He was the Dodgers’ 10th round senior sign in 2017 and was quickly assigned to Hi-A Rancho Cucamonga, the first of three consecutive, mettle-testing years to which Reks has responded. He hit 28 homers split between Double- and Triple-A in 2019, an uptick in power production that coincided with a multi-year shift in his batted-ball profile, throughout which Reks has more often hit the ball in the air. He really can’t play defense, but I think he has some current trade value as a lefty reserve bat.

Reks’ 40-man timeline makes him a potential churn trade target for teams that, like San Francisco last year, are cycling through older, upper-level performers to see if any are for real.

Raley is a plus runner underway despite his size, and has big raw power the Dodgers did well to tease out of him in games before trading him to Minnesota as part of the 2018 Brian Dozier deal, only to later reacquire him in the awko-taco Kenta Maeda trade. While explosive in some ways, Raley is stiff and unathletic, and at times an adventure on defense. He could end up as a bat-only bench outfielder, or low-end platoon option.

The mixture of Morillo’s velo, his fastball’s secondary traits, and his breaking ball give him a good shot to profile in a bullpen, but his 40-man timeline (he needs to be added in December) combined with the shutdown are going to make it hard for him to prove to the Dodgers or any other team that he merits an add.

Choi’s fastball velo and breaking ball are each below average, and I don’t consider him particularly projectable from either a frame or athletic standpoint, but he does have an out pitch in his nasty, late-biting splitter and he’s an advanced strike-thrower. Many of the pro scouts with AZL coverage thought he was one of the better starting pitching prospects in the league, but unless his curveball gets better I think it’s more likely Choi ends up in a bullpen role, where I think he could live off that splitter.

Outman is a pull-and-lift hitter whose best tool is his speed, which helped him swipe 20 bases last year and enables him to play a good center field. His contact issues (a 25.1% strikeout rate as a college-aged hitter in Low-A last year) mean he could bottom out, but he plays a premium position and the lift in his swing should enable him to hit for some power as long as he’s not striking out all the time.

Zuniga is a big-bodied power arm (his velo was actually down a little bit last year, but he still sat comfortably in the mid-90s) with a nasty breaking ball. He’s not athletic enough to project him to have starter command, and probably not enough for a good tertiary pitch, so I have the fastball projected up a half grade based on a move to the bullpen (which Zuniga has to this point been in and out of), where he can work with it and his hard, mid-80s slider.

Not only was Robert finally healthy throughout 2019 (thumb and hamstring issues cost him most of 2018), but he and the White Sox made successful changes to his swing and his power production skyrocketed. The changes, based on my notes, are subtle. A narrower base, a little bit deeper load to the hands, and a front side that stays closed a little longer. These are relatively small tweaks to a swing that is comically simple, but the results — his 2018 groundball rate was between 44-50% depending on the level, while his 2019 rates were 26-32% — were astounding. It’s terrifying that Robert can generate the kind of power he does with such a conservative stride back toward the pitcher, and it juxtaposes with many of the movement-heavy swings that have been pervasive throughout baseball since Josh Donaldson and José Bautista broke out.

Robert does have plate discipline issues. He chases a lot of breaking balls out of the zone and it took a lot of convincing from industry folks to move him as high on my Top 100 as I did even though Robert has the surface-level traits that tend to make me irrationally excited. He has one of the best physiques in pro sports, he’s a plus-plus runner, and his instincts in center field are terrific. The power production and OBP may be somewhat limited by the approach, very similarly to how Starling Marte’s have been, but Marte is a 60, so here we are.

Just as Kopech seemed to be harnessing his hellacious stuff, he blew out. In the seven minor league starts before his big league debut, he walked just four batters, and was similarly efficient in his first few big league outings. But in his final start, the Tigers shelled him and his velocity was down; an MRI revealed he would need Tommy John. The timing was particularly cruel, not just because things had started to click, but also because late-season TJs usually cost the pitcher all of the following year, and indeed, Kopech didn’t throw in a game environment until the 2019 instructional league. His first fastball in the fall? Ninety-nine miles per hour, and he sat 94-99 on the Camelback Ranch backfields.

His stuff is great, headlined by a mid-90s fastball that often crests 100 mph. The command inroads Kopech made late in 2018 are especially important for his ability to deal with lefties, because his changeup feel is not very good. He’ll need to mix his two breaking balls together to deal with them, and his slider feel is way ahead of the curveball. So long as Kopech’s stuff returns, he has No. 3 starter ceiling if the command comes with it, and high-leverage relief ability if it does not.

So polished and consistent was Vaughn that even though he provides little defensive value and had a “down” junior year (yes, .374/.539/.704 was well below Vaughn’s .402/.531/.819 Golden Spikes sophomore campaign), the entire amateur side of the industry loved him. Vaughn started seeing a lot of breaking balls once conference play began — about 15% fewer fastballs to be more exact. He was pitched around and unable to make as much impact contact, but all the tools were still there. Vaughn has a very selective approach, letting strikes he can’t drive pass him by unless he has to put a ball in play, a skill I compared before the draft to Paul Konerko’s (I mentioned this to a Special Assistant who scoffed and said he thought Vaughn was way better). He has a very athletic swing despite being decidedly unathletic in every other way, enabling all fields power and high rates of contact.

There’s no margin for error for right-handed hitting first baseman, but if there’s one prospect to be confident in hitting as much as is necessary to profile at first, it’s someone with this combination of visual evaluation and statistical track record. Vaughn’s post-draft TrackMan data is also supportive, and suggests he could be a .300/.400/.500 hitter. How fast he comes up and where he plays when he arrives (it’s 1B/DH but José Abreu exists, Edwin Encarnación is on a one-year deal, Eloy Jiménez might have a DH body soon, Micker Adolfo already does, and Nomar Mazara was added this winter) will be dictated by those around him.

Madrigal had the lowest swinging strike rate in the minors last year at a miniscule 2.2% — only Luis Arraez (2.8%) came close to that in the big leagues. Short players have short swings and Madrigal is no exception. He pulled and lifted the ball more last season than he did the year before, but unless the big league baseball is particularly kind to about a dozen of Magic Man’s wall-scraping fly balls, he doesn’t project to hit for more than doubles power. That’s fine, though. Second base has the lowest league-wide wRC+ of all the non-catching positions right now and several punchless contact hitters have had good careers (Arraez was a 2 WAR player in 90 games, Joe Panik was a 50 FV, etc.), and most all of them are nowhere near the runner or defender that Madrigal is — he has some of the fastest hands I’ve seen around the bag, and he’s going to steal outs because of how quickly he turns feeds from Tim Anderson around to first base. He doesn’t have a high ceiling because of the lack of power but I consider Madrigal a low-variance, above-average regular at second.

Dunning was an intriguing projection arm in high school who flashed average stuff and had a good blend of size and athleticism. He took a big step forward during his freshman year at Florida, though the rest of the talent on that pitching staff pushed him to a bullpen/midweek/spot starting role for much of his career. The industry still valued him in the first round by the time he was a junior, and Washington selected him 29th overall in 2016, before trading him that winter for eventual title contributor Adam Eaton.

Dunning had a very strong 2017, when his prospect value hit its pinnacle; he was viewed as a near-ready No. 4 starter and a core part of Chicago’s rebuild. Then he missed the second half of 2018 with an elbow strain and tore his UCL during 2019 spring training, which required surgery. He was slated to be back midway through 2020 and in late February was throwing live BP, during which his fastball velo sat in the low-90s. He’s thrown side sessions since baseball’s shut down. It’ll have to involve backfield rehab outings during whatever weird, abbreviated season we’re about to have, but I think it’s likely Dunning plays some kind of role on the staff this year, even if it’s just as a spot starter. His long-term outlook is that of a no. 4/5 starter.

During 2019 spring training and the early part of the season, Stiever’s fastball sat in the 89-92 range. As the temperature climbed, so too did Stiever’s velocity, and he started pounding the zone with 92-95, peaking at 97. In a season split between Low- and Hi-A, Stiever struck out 154 hitters and walked just 27 in 145 innings and became one of the org’s better starting pitching prospects. The velocity (assuming it holds), Stiever’s plus curveball, and his strike-throwing ability all already fit a big league bullpen role, and potentially a significant one if one-inning, max-effort outings enable more velocity. For Stiever to profile as a league-average starter, his slider and/or changeup need to improve. Those two pitches were slated to be a developmental focus for the right-hander this season, but we didn’t get a look at them during the spring because Stiever was shut down with a forearm soreness.

He remains a frustrating defensive catcher who the team need only live with in a part-time capacity now that Yasmani Grandal is in Chicago, but Collins has some impact offensive ability. Both his elite approach (a 19% career walk rate since his freshman year at Miami) and power still exist and drive what should be a valuable part-time role as a first baseman, (bad) catcher, and DH. He and Yermin Mercedes are arguably redundant and project to play a similar role, with Collins’ lefty bat and the two year age difference between them driving me to order them like this.

I believe Mercedes will one day be a Chicago sports cult hero. He’s highly entertaining and talented enough to play a relevant big league role despite being a total defensive misfit. Stout and beefy, Mercedes is built such that he looks ripped and fat at the same time. He has a needlessly noisy, punk rock swing (until he has two strikes, which I’ll get to) with a big leg kick and all kinds of pre-swing bat waggling, but it always pauses with Mercedes balanced, his hands in good position, ready to unload on the baseball, which he often does. Mercedes ditches the leg kick with two strikes, but he’s so strong that he puts balls in play — hard — without it.

His route to the precipice of the big leagues has been scenic. After three years with Washington, Mercedes was cut and spent 2014 in Indy ball, including time in the Pecos League with the White Sands Pupfish. Baltimore signed him and had him for two years before losing him to Chicago in the 2017 minor league Rule 5 Draft.

Mercedes has now hit his way up the ladder (a .302/.366/.491 career line, including those mediocre years with Washington that brought about his release) and has big league offensive ability — he just cannot catch. While he presents strikes to umpires well on occasion, he’ll also just totally whiffs sometimes and is constantly running to the backstop. Craig Littleman, a former coworker of mine who played for White Sands with Mercedes in 2014, told me even that team was trying to hide him on defense. He also said Mercedes was by far the team’s smartest, most talented hitter. I’m not anticipating Mercedes will be able to catch every day once automated strike zones come about, but I do think it gives him a better chance to do so once in a while and that he’ll hit enough as a DH/1B to play a part-time role anyway. Plus, he has real value as a trade chip if the universal DH is ever instituted. He’s a good, relevant hitting prospect despite his age.

Similar to Orioles prospect Zach Pop and the Giants’ unkempt sidewinder Camilo Doval, Heuer presents hitters with an odd, low-slot look and also throws very hard for someone with that arm slot. His fastball has impact tailing movement — among the most lateral movement in the minors — and he also has a weird, high-spin changeup that could be plus. I think he has a shot to be a set-up type.

Adolfo has been around for so long that even though he’s missed a lot of time due to injury, we still have a pretty good idea of what he is. Here’s the rundown: Adolfo missed most of 2015 due to a gruesome leg fracture, broke his hamate a month into 2016, played through an elbow injury that required Tommy John in 2018, then missed most of 2019 due to arthroscopic surgery on that elbow. Amid these long stretches of inactivity, Adolfo got big and buff (he nows tips the scales at a listed 255 — as a comical aside, Eloy Jiménez is listed at 205) but also pretty stiff, and while the White Sox have maintained that they’d like him to play the outfield, he’s one of several heavy-footed DH types on the 40-man.

Adolfo has the raw power to clear that (or any) offensive bar, but he’s had strikeout issues throughout his career and except for the last few, injury-riddled seasons (small sample alert), he’s been a hedonistic free swinger. He’s run close to an 11% walk rate in his last 550 plate appearances, which is double the rate he posted from 2014 to 2017. It would give him a better chance of playing a consistent role if that increase in patience is real and sustains. The power gives Adolfo a chance to have some 2019 Jorge Soler type seasons while his whiffs make him a high variance hitter likely to have several replacement-level campaigns as well. He’s younger than Collins and Mercedes but I’m more confident that their headlining skills will play in big league games.

Thompson’s stuff didn’t take a step forward during his senior spring, but he was still sitting in the low-90s with average breaking stuff, and he has one of the most elegant deliveries in baseball. He’s a malleable, athletic developmental project with a realistic fourth starter outcome.

Dalquist has a semi-projectable frame and a graceful, repeatable delivery. He’s been up to at least 94, but mostly sits 89-92 and has good feel for a slower, 12-6 curveball. His arm action portends a better changeup. The key variable here is the velo. If it comes, Dalquist has No. 4 starter upside. Pro workloads tend to disallow that, but Dalquist’s feel to pitch gives him a shot to be an effective starter even if he only ever sits 90-93.

Burdi’s velo continues to yo-yo, most recently in the right direction. Sitting 97-101 before surgery, 90-92 after, Burdi was back in the 94-96 range in his four 2020 spring innings before the shutdown. His slider quality also enjoyed a bit of a bounce back, though not anywhere near the knifing 2700 rpm version from its peak. The elite relief projection is gone without the elite velo, but Burdi is back to looking like a good middle relief piece.

Mendick had a strong, BABIP-driven cup of coffee late last year despite pretty lousy at-bat quality during that stretch. It was anomalous for the shortstop, who has been a disciplined, contact-oriented hitter for his entire minor league career. He lacks the power typical of an everyday player, even on the middle infield, but is ready to play a versatile bench role right now.

Rutherford’s skillset is typical of a platoon corner outfielder, in his case the larger half of one thanks to his handedness. The Platonic ideal of this sort of player (45 FV) is Seth Smith, who I think has more raw power than Rutherford. Also, Rutherford’s swing is geared for low-ball contact, which is less useful in the game now than it was five or 10 years ago, as pitchers more often attack with velo at the top of the zone. For these reasons, I’ve rounded him down beneath the Smith archetype’s typical FV.

Gonzalez and Rutherford are stacked next to one another yet again, both lefty-hitting bench outfield types with different hitting styles. Gonzalez has the better bat-to-ball skills. He stands way off the dish, which creates some quality-of-contact limitations on pitches away from him in exchange for an ability to open up and turn on inside pitches with authority. It’s an approach that’s typically shiftable, but Gonzalez is also a good bunter and runs well to combat this.

Bailey’s stats in the DSL should pique curiosity and cause one to dig on his tools, but they are not, on their own, very meaningful. He is a huge-framed, corner outfield projection bat with pretty advanced feel for contact, though. He’s a below-average athlete at present but perhaps has not fully grown into his body, a square-shouldered 6-foot-4. There’s not a ton of power projection on the body since Bailey is already 215, but there is some, which, combined with the feel for contact, puts Bailey in a tier above the other interesting teenagers in the 35+ FV tier, who mostly have one-note offensive profiles.

Compact but punchy, Rodriguez has an interesting mix of playable power, speed, and defensive fit. His frame limits the power projection more than is typical for an 18-year-old, but he also has pretty advanced feel to hit. He has a shot to be a well-rounded regular.

Sanchez is an above-average runner, defender, and thrower, but scouts aren’t completely sold on him offensively, projecting him as a gap-to-gap hitter with modest power. Baltimore had the trump card to sign him last year and wouldn’t top the rumored $2 million price he was offered to wait for July 2, 2019 when he signed with the White Sox. Visa issues kept him in the DSL for the rest of the summer, making it hard to learn anything new about him. He has utility infield projection based on reports from the international arm of the industry.

Likely in need of a swing change to profile at first, Sheets’ cut too often slices down at the baseball, and he can only get to his considerable raw power in certain parts of the strike zone. He has good bat control and makes mid-flight adjustments to breaking balls, which he has the raw strength to punish even if the timing of his lower half has been compromised. He’s a good hitter, just one I’m skeptical will clear the offensive bar at first base without trading some contact for power, which hasn’t happened yet. He could be part of a first base platoon for a team that has great flexibility throughout the rest of the roster (Tampa Bay’s type) or someone’s pre-arb plug and play, especially because the White Sox have so many guys ahead of Sheets on the 1B/DH depth chart.

Pilkington missed an SEC bat per inning during his stay at Mississippi State, and seemed like a potentially quick-moving, low-variance backend starter prospect when the White Sox made him their third round pick in 2017. Physically mature and wielding vanilla stuff, Pilkington’s upside is limited, and most of his draft value was in perceived certainty. His stuff was sometimes down in the mid-80s during the 2019 spring, though. Ideally, he’ll move to the upper levels pretty quickly and at least function as viable depth before eventually taking a turn as the fifth starter.

Basabe shredded the Carolina League for the first two and a half months of 2018 — hitting .266/.370/.502 — then had one of the year’s most impressive feats of strength when he turned around a 102 mph Hunter Greene fastball at the Futures Game, and deposited it 10 rows deep to right-center field. His second half with Double-A Birmingham was less successful, and just as Basabe appeared to be adjusting to the better pitching in August, he would again struggle in the 2018 Arizona Fall League, then again throughout 2019. Basabe’s instincts in center field are not great, and he may be better suited for a corner despite his speed, which would make him the lesser half of a platoon since he’s better as a righty hitter than as a lefty.

Because Johnson was hurt for most of the pre-deadline part of the 2019 season he wasn’t widely seen until the Fall League, where he struggled to throw strikes. Thompson is athletically built but doesn’t have an athletic delivery. He has a very casual, very terse stride that cuts him off and forces him to throw across his body. It’s weird and disorienting the first few times you see it, which makes the 93-95 fastballs Johnson throws catch you off guard. He’ll flash a plus breaking ball, but that was also inconsistent in Fall. He’s a 40 FV from a stuff and deception perspective, though industry feedback (the AFL look was bad) mostly had him in the tier beneath this one.

Seby is going to strike out a lot, so much that it will be detrimental to his offensive output relative to the average big leaguer, but that’s true of a lot of backup catchers. Zavala is a viable defensive catcher with above-average raw power, and I think he’d run into as many as 10 homers as a full-season backup. Where he sits among a crowded catching situation in Chicago depends on how the org views Mercedes and Collins defensively. He’s likely the third catcher during his option years and someone’s backup once those expire.

Thick and tightly wound, Burger was already a tenuous bet to stay at third base for very long before he twice ruptured his Achilles tendon, once during a spring training game and again while rehabbing in late May. The 12 month timetable for return from Achilles tears was reset, and puts Burger on track to come back sometime in June.

While there are questions about his defense, Burger was one of the top college bats in the 2017 class. He has quick, explosive hands that generate big bat speed, and he has unusual bat control for someone who swings as hard as he does. He has sizable ceiling, especially if he can find a way to stay at third base, but we just won’t know what kind of toll the injuries have taken until Burger starts playing games again, a date that keeps getting pushed back because of stuff beyond anyone’s control.

This part of the system has a handful of interesting young hitters whose bonuses mostly fell in the mid-six figures. Several of them have an imposing physical presence, perhaps none more than Ramos. He is also the most reliable defensive infielder of this group and very likely to stay at third base, though the Sox also experimented with him at second during instructs after watching him operate around the bag during shift-related drills.

For his age, Ramos is already a sizable guy. Perhaps tricked by the way his fire engine red batting gloves stood out against Chicago’s black and grey instructional league threads, I thought he had the most explosive hands of the instructs group, and I like how bold his stride is, even though some of his swings are reckless. Ultimately, like the other hitters in this tier, he’s a risky corner prospect a long way from the big leagues.

Delgado is built like a top-heavy college linebacker, bigger and faster than a lot of same-aged college players in this year’s draft. His approach is a problem and it’s important that he learn to attack the right pitches because his bat control is also limited. He’s mostly played shortstop to this point but projects to third base long term. He’s a tools/body lottery ticket.

I like the way Sosa’s hands work in the box and think he has a good knack for finding the barrel even though he doesn’t have great bat speed. He’s not a very good second baseman and I wonder if he might end up adding a bunch of weight and power to counterbalance what he lacks in selectivity.

Hamilton has thrown very hard dating back to college and has maintained that kind of velo despite having one of the longer arm actions in baseball. His upper-80s slider is a gravity ball that spins at just 1600 rpm. It seems to work as long as Hamilton locates it, but his delivery is pretty hard to repeat. He profiles in fastball-heavy up/down relief.

As a hitter, Beard is more like a five o’clock shadow, one of the least-experienced hitters to appear on a team’s list this year. But of all the young hitters in this org, he has the greatest chance of staying up the middle because his speed almost guarantees he’ll stay in center field forever. He’s a half-decade dev project with the speed to be a leadoff pest.

Thompson had parts of two consecutive seasons, ’16-’17, when he struck out lots of hitters but still carried an ERA near 5.00. In 2018,that abated and he was dominant, quickly moving to Double-A. Last year, again, Thompson looked good from a stuff perspective but got hit around. His fastball/slider combination is 40 FV worthy but he just hasn’t performed like a slam dunk relief piece and the industry passed on him in the Rule 5.

Gladney presents an interesting case for splitting actual age away from other Traits of Maturity in draft models, since he was young for the class in age and reps (another possible Trait of Maturity), but not in body (a third). He’s a strong guy who strides way open as he tries to pull everything with power, an all-or-nothing approach. Like Bryce Bush before him, Gladney will be tried at third base for a while but may not stay there. He’s a high risk corner power prospect.

A late-round, cold-weather high school flier who signed for $290,000, Bush played in some of the big prep showcases during his final amateur summer, and was clearly overmatched against the better pitching. But he put on an absolute show during batting practice and has one of the best raw power projections among potential future Sox. He had a strong pro debut on paper and continued to look good with the bat during the spring of 2019, then struggled during the summer. The general scouting consensus is that Bush will not stay at his current third base and will have to move to an outfield corner or to first, which immediately makes his whiffs troublesome. He’s a high-risk, long-term developmental prospect with some of the louder offensive tools in the system.

What a roller coaster of a career it has already been for Hansen, who looked like a possible top three pick as a college sophomore, faltered as a junior, appeared reborn once free of seemingly poor college instruction, before collapsing again in 2018 when he was hurt for a time (forearm), and had more walks than innings pitched. It was more of the same in 2019 as Hansen, now in the bullpen, continued to struggle with walks and was eventually passed over in the Rule 5. That we’ve seen 94-97 with a plus breaking ball in the past means we may again, but the 2019 velo/command combo isn’t going to cut it.

Lambert’s strikeout rate exploded from 16% in 2017 to nearly 29% in 2018. The cause? A slight uptick in velocity paired with an arm slot change that has him coming straight over the top, creating more life on his heater. It also creates more vertical action on his breaking stuff. This delivery appears tough to maintain, as Lambert has to contort his body to get to that slot, but he hasn’t been wild since making the change. Lambert tore his UCL after 11 starts and needed Tommy John last June, which likely would have cost him all of 2020. He probably would have been close to Pilkington on the list without the injury and has similar role projection.

Laureano had a huge 2019 repeating the DSL. He has a sizable frame, he runs well enough under way to continue playing some center field, and he generates good power on contact, though much of it is currently on the ground.

Freeman only threw 16 innings during his junior year at Lubbock, and they weren’t very good (he walked 15 guys). After he signed, Freeman was excellent. He sat 92-95 and touched 97 in rookie ball and flashed a plus breaking ball.

I’m staying on Mieses to some extent because I think he has freaky bat-to-ball ability that has thus far been made moot by excessive swinging.

It is not without some injury-related terror and self-skepticism that I have Rodriguez atop this deep, messy, and surgery-scarred system, a conclusion I came to while working on the overall 100 and after comparing the totality of his profile across the entire baseball landscape, against which it stacks up quite favorably. Rodriguez checks all but two significant boxes. One is the “totally healthy” box, as he was shut down with an elbow issue in July. The other is the thoroughly modern “vertical slot/backspin” box typical of starters whose fastballs I’m more confident in. But this is not a vanilla, three-quarters slot. Rodriguez is well below that, and his upright, short-armed, slingy arm action presents almost a side arm look. It’s unique, and creates an awful lot of tail on his fastball. Sitting 92-95, up to 98, and weaponized by Rodriguez’s advanced east/west command, it’s a potential plus pitch. A split-action changeup is currently his best secondary, while his slow curveball lacks sharp-looking movement but has plus raw spin.

I think a fully-formed Rodriguez has a different breaking ball than this one, so in this instance I’m making an abstract projection based on Yerry’s talent for spinning the baseball. He needs something he can work inside on lefties, either a cutter or a more traditional breaking ball with better back foot angle. From a performance standpoint, Rodriguez has 167 K and 29 BB over the 136.2 innings he’s thrown the last two years. He has the best combination of stuff and pitchability in the system.

It’ll be interesting to see where in the field the Rangers end up deploying Solak given that they’re already rostering a few DH-types like Willie Calhoun and Shin-Soo Choo. Solak is a high-effort player but effort alone won’t solve his defensive issues, which have been apparent wherever he’s played. That’s mostly been second base with some left and center field, the last of which Texas revisited this spring. He can really hit, though, and the lowest single-season batting average he has posted since his freshman season at Louisville is .282. He’ll likely hit for pretty average power, but if Texas can hide him day-to-day wherever opponents are least likely to put balls in play, he’ll essentially be a multi-positional player with a plus stick.

Yes, future rule changes would make it more likely that Hernandez could one day catch in a part-time capacity, but he doesn’t have a great arm, either, and he has a chance to race to the big leagues if the Rangers just let him go hit while learning first base or an outfield corner. The on-paper stats, underlying TrackMan data, and my visual evaluation of Hernandez all indicate that this might be a very special hitter whose hit and power combination will clear the high offensive bar at those positions. His little T-Rex arms enable Heriberto to be short to the baseball, but he’s so strong and rotates with such ferocity that he still hits for power. I’ve seen him make mid-at-bat adjustments to quality offspeed stuff, swinging over a particularly good splitter only to recognize the next one, located in the same spot, and rope it into the corner for a double. He covers the whole plate (something that’s gotten better since my first looks in 2018) but is tough to beat on the inner half, and after watching him rake all last summer and fall, I’m all in on him despite not generally favoring corner guys several levels beneath the big leagues.

If he’s going to get to all of his considerable raw power, then Jung (pronounced ‘young’) is probably going to need a swing change that enables him to pull the ball more consistently. He inside-outs an awful lot of pitches and doesn’t even really get around the ball during batting practice, though his strength and feel to hit enables a high quality of contact despite this atypical style. He was a .346/.452/.562 career hitter at Tech and had more walks than strikeouts during his last two years with the Red Raiders. Originally thought to be a risk to move to first base, Jung not only allayed those concerns but also played a passable college shortstop last season. He comfortably projects to third base in pro ball and is a potential everyday player, but I need to see him pull pitches with power before I 50 FV him.

There are no changes to Tejeda’s report as he missed most of last year with a sublexed shoulder. He is rangy and athletic, and has good defensive footwork and plenty of arm for the infield’s left side. His hands are not as consistent and some scouts have wanted to see him tried in center field, which he has the speed to play, though Texas has largely kept him at short and he’s now one of two and a half shortstops (I’m counting Isiah Kiner-Falefa as a half) on the Rangers 40-man.

Tejeda has plus-plus bat speed and his hands work in a tight, lift-friendly circle, but he’s so explosive that at times he’s out of control (this is where the strikeouts come from). He managed to get to the power at Hi-A in 2018, when he homered 19 times, and if he can stay at shortstop and continue to mash like that in games, he’ll be a good everyday player. He’s in the same FV tier as high-variance shortstops with power, such as Greg Jones and Bryson Stott.

After a few years of mediocre statistical performance, the Rangers finally asked the 20-year-old Taveras to repeat a level, in this case Hi-A. He responded by posting a contact- and walk-driven 117 wRC+ in the first half, earning a promotion to Double-A Frisco for the second, where he proceeded to produce an unremarkable line that (here’s a familiar phrase) is reasonable to forgive considering his age. 2019 was Taveras’ best BABIP season in some time, notable because during the last few years scouts had sometimes described him as aloof or bored. His speed and center field defense are both excellent, which creates a floor of sorts, but scout opinions regarding how much Taveras will hit have varied and, more and more, are diverging from stat-based analysis when they’re favorable. I think Leody has above-average feel for contact as a left-handed hitter and that his right-handed swing is almost unusable. I also think the power display he put on at the 2018 Futures Game was a caricature created by the event’s baseballs, an opinion his TrackMan data supports. He’s a glove-first, second division regular based on how he’s tracking, but there’s a subset of the industry who still thinks the bat is coming and hasn’t shown up in the statline yet because of Leody’s age.

Because he had advanced command and application of a four-pitch mix, Winn was viewed as a polished cut above his high school pitching peers in the 2018 draft, arguably a prospect teams could run to for safety as if he were a college arm because of how advanced he was. He didn’t pitch the summer after he was drafted as a workload precaution, threw a little in the fall, then was uncharacteristically wild the following year, walking 39 hitters in 69 innings. Feel for his release point had evaporated and Winn spiked an awful lot of non-competitive secondary pitches in the dirt. His stuff is still good, and his repertoire is still quite robust and visually good-looking, but Winn’s stock is down due to this unexpected speed bump.

From a pitch data perspective — only spin and velo in this case — I actually have Palumbo’s stuff as down half a tick from the year before, but the way he missed bats at Double- and Triple-A (he struck out 33% of hitters) is an indication that it doesn’t really matter. He utilizes a power-pitcher’s approach, working at the letters with his fastball while mixing in lots of overhand curveballs, both of which are quite effective. Palumbo’s changeup also has nasty-looking sink and tail but he doesn’t really locate his fastball anywhere other than the top of the zone, which I think he’d have to be able to do to set up the change, so that pitch plays closer to average right now. Palumbo lacks traditional starter command and pitch utility, but he could work in a Lance McCullers Jr. sort of role or, because of repertoire depth, in effective, multi-inning relief.

Apostel was pilfered from Pittsburgh as the PTBNL in the 2018 Keone Kela trade. I had been hopeful that, despite his size, Apostel would be able to stay at third base for a good chunk of his big league career, but while I still think his arm will help him stay there for a little while, he’ll move to first base by his mid-20s, though there’s still enough going on offensively that I have him projected as a second division regular there. His feel for the strike zone and his timing are both impressive for his age, and he is adept at attacking early-count pitches he can drive, while taking tough strikes. It helps him run deep counts (part of where the strikeouts come from), and walk as well as hit for power. He’s performed on paper since first appearing on FanGraphs prospect lists in 2017 and at this point he’s a low-variance corner role player who should put up 2 WAR seasons for as long as he can play third base.

The mercurial Crouse pitched through a bone spur last year and still sat 92-95, about a tick below where he sat for me coming off biceps tendinitis in the spring (92-96, touch 99). It’s the recent injury history paired with the industry’s mechanical xenophobia that fuels the relief projection here, not Crouse’s command or repertoire depth. His changeup now comfortably projects to average, while his fastball/breaking ball combination has been excellent since he was a high school underclassman. And even amid his injuries Crouse has attacked hitters in games. He incorporates all kinds of crafty veteran wrinkles into his delivery’s cadence on occasion. An extra shoulder wiggle, a Travoltaian gyration of the hips, the occasional quick-pitch — all sorts of things designed to take hitters by surprise. Lefties get a good look at his fastball because of Crouse’s low slot, and the velo he would theoretically gain out of the bullpen (he was up to 102 out of the bullpen in a 2017 All-Star Game) would give him the margin for error he needs to not be crushed by them. I think he’s a late-inning bullpen arm, for which his personality seems well-suited.

Especially now that he’s part of the one-knee’d receivers fad, and that rule changes de-emphasizing framing seem imminent, the likelihood that Huff can catch is growing. Instead, the questions now surround his ability to make contact. Even during his torrid, 30-game stretch to start 2019, Huff was striking out about 30% of the time, his career rate. It’s a problem caused by the combination of his aggressiveness and middling barrel accuracy, and he looked overmatched against big league arms this spring, striking out in half his at-bats. But Huff has superlative power that plays when he does make contact and he can play not only a premium position, but the most barren offensive position in the game right now. I think his offensive production will look similar to Jorge Alfaro’s.

Acosta had an impressive instructs from a bat-to-ball standpoint and generated stronger reports among pro scouts who saw him there than the lukewarm ones amateur scouts filed from their workout looks. Acosta’s tools aren’t showcase-friendly. He has uncommon barrel control and his swing is not only suited for him to make contact at the top of the strike zone, it’s also where he does most of his damage. He’s vulnerable down and away, where he ends up cutting at balls on a decline and driving them into the ground, but lower-level pitching won’t be able to exploit that consistently. For a someone still shy of age 18, Acosta is pretty stocky and strong. If his build stays this way, it improves his chances of staying on the middle infield but also caps his raw power close to average. Regardless of which marginal side of average his power ends up settling on, the contact is what’s going to drive Acosta’s prospectdom, and based on fall looks that aspect could be special.

Lora is a traditional corner outfield power bat with big present raw power and a somewhat mature build. There are some long-term questions about that build because Lora is so huge for a prospect his age and reports about his conditioning while he was an amateur were mixed, but he looked svelte last fall and his relative physical maturity also gives him a better chance of moving quickly through the minors. He often has clumsy in-the-box footwork but deft hitting hands. Last fall, he took several ugly-looking, unbalanced swings but still found a way to get the barrel there, and even when he miss-hits balls they’re still put in play hard because of how strong Lora is. His future depends entirely on his hit tool as it’s pretty clear the power to hit in the middle of an order is going to develop.

There are always a few little toy cannon hurlers with light speed arm actions floating around, and Henriquez, who spent 2018 in the DSL and then skipped several levels and performed at Hickory, is the latest. Despite measuring maybe — maybe — 5-foot-10 (maybe), his arm generates mid-90s velocity he has relatively advanced command of. He’s not a touch and feel strike-thrower; he comes right after hitters at the letters. He also has great feel for locating a breaking ball (though it lacks impact movement), his split/change has natural tumble, and he’s so athletic and well-balanced throughout his delivery that you can kind of go nuts projecting on his command. If the breaking ball improves, he’ll be on next year’s top 100. If not, he’s likely a power reliever.

The Rangers have wasted no time in beginning to move Ornelas all over the field — shortstop, second base, third base, left field — cementing the notion that his future rests in a valuable super utility role. He hit pretty well despite skipping the Northwest League and heading right to full season ball as an 18-year-old, slashing .257/.333/.373 with a bunch of doubles. I’m still not entirely keen on Johnny O’s bat path, which I think will make it hard for him to hit for everyday power if left unaltered, but he’s an excellent rotational athlete who I think will find ways to hit the ball hard all over the field, while he plays several different positions.

Basabe is a fiery little shortstop who takes full-body swings, leading to surprisingly hard contact from someone so small and young. He’s not a discerning hitter yet, and he isn’t a viable shortstop defender right now. Most aspects of the profile are still hazy, but there’s feel for contact and some pop here, as well as a shot for this 60 runner to stay up the middle and play center field if he doesn’t improve as an infielder. The twitch and feel for contact are exciting, but you have to project on lots of technical components (defensive actions and hands, any amount of selectivity) to see a regular.

It’s odd for a player’s profile to do a 180 before he turns 20, but Moss has gone from a speedy, up-the-middle amateur with a Lilliputian build to a positionless, switch-hitting thumper in just two years. The gap power Moss currently generates from both sides of the plate is surprising considering how physically overmatched he was when he first came stateside for 2018 instructs. Perhaps more impressive is how deft his bat control is as a teenage switch-hitter. He pairs an athletic leg kick with very simple hitting hands that he simply guides toward the ball, turning his wrists over through contact and whacking low-lying contact to all fields. Moss can still run, but his infield hands are not good. Optimistic scouts have him eventually passing at second base, while I have him projected to the outfield.

Wendzel was a draft-eligible sophomore in 2018 and had a strong offensive season, but he wasn’t drafted high enough to sign (there were body and defense-related concerns he has since worked to remedy) and had to swim upstream against draft models as a junior as he was over 22 on draft day. He also dealt with a thumb injury late during his college career that shelved him for some of last summer. By the late summer and during instructs, Wendzel was not only fully healthy but clearly in peak physical condition, and he and his tawny Amish beard and mullet were instrumental in the Rangers AZL title run. Though he has a high maintenance build, Wendzel’s hands and actions might enable him to a play a passable shift-aided middle infield spot if he remains as agile as he looked late last year, which again is much different than just a few years ago when he was built more softly and playing some first base and left field. He doesn’t have the huge power typical of a corner spot but he has a chance to play some kind of everyday role as a well-rounded tryhard.

Evans has elite, late-inning stuff (a power curveball and a mid-90s fastball with bat-missing carry and angle) and one of the more imposing on-mound presences in pro baseball, almost as terrifying as his walk rates. He’s on the Texas 40-man now and could seize the closer role at some point, though chances are this guy is going to have Rangers fans clutching their chests and biting their nails frequently if he does.

Acquired from the White Sox for Nomar Mazara during Winter Meetings, Walker spent 2019 in A-ball as a 22- and 23-year-old and slashed .284/.361/.451 in his first full pro season against pitching that was a little bit better than what he saw in the Big 12. He’s a muscular, 5-foot-11 stick of dynamite with plus raw power he likely won’t get to fully in games (from a home run production standpoint, anyway) because of how the swing works. He can turn on balls in, but anything away from the short-levered Walker he tends to either punch somewhere or roll over the top of. He does hit the ball hard (43% of his balls in play last year were hit over 95 mph according to a source) but he can be pitched to in a way that limits the damage he does.

In many ways, Walker projects to be a player quite similar to the one Mazara has become. His platoon splits have been rather significant to this point and his in-game power production is likely to end up beneath his raw (albeit for reasons different than Mazara’s, which have to do with pitch selection more than swing plane issues), though Walker is a superior defender. He can play a passable center field, though whatever big league roster he ends up on will probably have a superior option who pushes him to a corner.

Phillips fills the zone with four pitches and projects as a groundball-getting fifth starter. He has a chance to outproduce this FV grade by eating whole sleeves of innings and generating WAR that way (he’s thrown 130 innings each of the last two years), but other than his changeup, Phillips doesn’t have a weapon that misses bats.

White still hasn’t thrown a pitch in an affiliated game because the Rangers shelved him after his draft (he threw during 2018 instructs and looked fantastic, sitting 93-95, locating a consistently above-average curveball, and displaying nascent feel for a mid-80s changeup). Somehow, he still needed Tommy John in May of last year, though. He has a big, projectable frame, is an above-average on-mound athlete, and his arm action is loose and mechanically efficient. He likely would not have begun to get into games until the middle of the summer anyway, so while the shutdown has impacted Texas’ oversight of his rehab, White’s big league timeline is less affected by the shutdown than most minor leaguers’. When healthy, he had several significant components already in place (velocity, fastball movement, breaking ball quality) and White’s other traits (changeup proclivity, athleticism, and feel for location) indicate he’s poised to grow and develop into a well-rounded arm. He’s a mid-rotation pitching prospect who is likely several years from the majors.

A lat strain (the right-hander had a PRP injection) limited Alexy to just 19.1 regular season innings before he picked up some reps in the fall, during which his stuff looked fine. He was sitting 94-98 in my looks with an above-average curveball and usable changeup. Alexy’s high-effort style of pitching fits in the bullpen, but repertoire depth might enable him to pitch multiple innings.

Vanasco was 90-92 during the 2018 fall instructional league, then leapt into the 92-96 range in 2019. His delivery is ultra-violent, but his fastball/curveball combo give him high-leverage bullpen potential. He’s very similar to Alexy, just several rungs below him on the ladder.

Hernandez has not, as of yet, corralled the velocity he suddenly found a few years ago. When he first arrived in the U.S., he was an interesting pitchability sleeper but, as if the baseball gods had made some kind of continuity error with his career, became a rough-around-the-edges flamethrower, and remains so as he enters his final option year. Some of the two-seamers he throws are unhittable because of their combination of velocity and tailing action, and Hernandez’s arm strength lets him get away with imprecise location in the zone, but the rest of his stuff is closer to average and I think he’s a fastball-heavy bullpen fit long-term.

Garcia went to the Northwest League as a teenager and hit .277/.351/.435 while only catching 38 games as the Rangers continue to handle the physically immature catcher with care. He was so frail early on that he struggled to handle pro-quality stuff on the backfields when he first arrived in the States, but Garcia has now thickened to the point that he appears better able to deal with the physical grind of catching. I’m not sure he’ll retain the viable power on contact he showed last year once he’s subject to a full-season beating behind the plate, and until that’s proven, I’m inclined to project Garcia as a backup who has a puncher’s chance to play everyday.

Cody had a rocky career at Kentucky, always tantalizing scouts with stuff but struggling with health and control. The Twins made him their 2015 second rounder, but he didn’t sign and fell to the sixth round as a 2016 senior. Texas simplified his delivery in 2017, which probably contributed to a breakout year. He seemed likely to spend most of 2018 at Double-A and perhaps reach the majors in 2019, but he had elbow issues during the spring and didn’t break camp with an affiliate. His Arizona rehab was successful enough for Cody to get on a mound in games for a bit, but he felt continued discomfort and needed Tommy John. The mid-summer timing of the surgery means he missed all of 2019 aside from some autumn bullpen sessions that weren’t widely known about, probably just in case Texas decided not to 40-man him and expose him to the Rule 5. He was 94-97 in the bullpen and added to the Rangers roster. If healthy, he’ll grab hold of a middle relief job.

Skilled and versatile, Hernandez is a likely big league role player whose abilities can impact a game in many situations. He’s tough to strike out and has reached base at a career .390 clip because he walks a lot and has an effective slash-and-dash offensive approach. He’s also an acrobatic multi-positional infielder. Hernandez will give a big league team a good at-bat off the bench and an upgrade on the bases, and he can competently spell or sub for any of your bat-first infielders later in games.

Slaten signed for about $200,000 under slot in the third round, then proceeded to light up radar guns in the Northwest League and look like a steal. He was sitting 92-97 there and flashed a plus, two-plane, sweeping breaking ball and tailing changeup. Like many other arms in this system, Slaten has a violent delivery that creates injury concern and relief risk.

Acuña is a small-framed infielder who takes big, whole-body swings that generate more power than you’d expect for someone his size. His size doesn’t allow for a lot of raw power projection but his style of swinging — which includes a bold move forward and a gorgeous hand path similar to his brother’s, though without that kind of explosion — might enable him to hit for some. Unless Acuña outgrows my raw power projection, it puts pressure on him to have a premium hit tool in order to be an impact regular. I think that’s possible but not something we’ll know until Acuña proves it.

Garcia has below average velocity that his TrackMan data indicates might play up because of spin axis. His secondary pitches are all average and Garcia has advanced command. He projects as a fifth starter.

Florentino is a sinewy, athletic, and arguably undersized catcher and first baseman who is likely to stay behind the plate. He has a keen eye for the strike zone and some bat control, but there’s some risk that his offensive tools won’t withstand a full-season grind due to a lack of physicality.

I came away from Thompson’s Fall League jaunt very skeptical about his bat. It’s possible the reps he’s lost due to injury are at least partially to blame for his struggles (Thompson lost chunks of time to a fractured hamate and recovering from a wall collision), but the gap between the average pitcher in the Fall League’s pitching and what Bubba seemed capable of handling was pretty vast. His ceiling is the same, I just think it’s less likely he gets there and sustains it because of the hit tool issues.