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.

Gonzalez continues to have swing-and-miss issues related to his lever length, which the industry sees as enough of a problem that it passed him over during last year’s Rule 5 draft. He hit 23 homers and stole 14 bases while repeating Low-A in 2019, and I’m still betting on his tools and frame to some degree. Gonzalez’s talent might enable him to have a few years where he produces like an everyday player, but for most of the six-year window I consider at FanGraphs I think he’ll strike out a lot and be limited to a platoon and extra outfield role, à la Jake Marisnick but without the elite defense.

The hope that injuries had slowed Hearn’s development and that he’d develop starter traits late has now evaporated as he approaches age 26 without a swing-and-miss secondary. He now profiles as a fastball-heavy reliever.

It’s rare for a 40th rounder to have seemingly imminent big league relevance at all, let alone just about a year after they were drafted, but here’s Uvila, whose funky, three-pitch mix, headlined by a curveball with elite spin, should at least enable him to be a valuable reliever.

While he had a down 2019 with the bat, I still have White projected as a multi-positional bench piece. Where the Rangers end up sticking him is up in the air. Before they traded him to Texas, the Athletics had started to play White at second and third base, while the Rangers kept him at shortstop and center field in 2019, both of which I think are stretches for his ability.

Herget’s fastball averaged close to 90 mph as a college starter but it spiked into the mid-90s out of the pro bullpen, giving him uncommon velocity for a side-armer. He commands his cuttery slider to his glove side and has enough of a changeup to be viable against lefty batters and avoid any role issues caused by three batter minimums.

Gonzalez was acquired from Kansas City for international pool space. He’s a power bullpen arm with a mid-90s fastball and two quality secondaries that both have similar downward movement. He’s a likely winter Rule 5 add and long-term bullpen piece.

Speas is one of many prospects for whom the 2020 season was to be the fulcrum of their pro career. He’s Rule 5 eligible this winter, and Speas’ stuff was so good when he returned from Tommy John rehab last summer (he was 95-99 in his first outing back, then was up to 102 in the next one before being shut down because the Rangers thought he was throwing too hard) that it seemed plausible he’d mow through several levels of the minors this season and earn a 40-man spot. A short season, or perhaps no minor league season at all, makes it unlikely that Speas has the multi-month opportunity to do that, and teams would likely be hesitant to pop him in the Rule 5 considering how little he has pitched the last couple of years. He has late-inning relief potential because of the stuff, but I’m not sure Texas bridges the developmental gap caused by his misfortune and gets him there.

2020 was going to be a big year for Arias, who likely would have gone to Double-A and either earned a 40-man spot or not based on his offensive performance, which to this point in his career has been strong. I like him as a contact-oriented infield bench piece who plays all four spots.

Bannister is a sushi raw athletic marvel who needs as many reps as the Rangers can give him to polish his feel to hit. His route to pro ball was unique. Bannister was born in the Bahamas and grew up there, then moved to Maryland and played at West Nottingham High School until 2017 when he moved to the Dominican Republic to train, before going back to the Bahamas during the summer of 2018. I’ve only ever seen him swing right-handed, including against righty pitchers, so I think his roster status as a switch-hitter is now obsolete. He’s a physically gifted developmental project.

Burke had an odd 26-inning big league stint last year as he barely struck anyone out and worked primarily off his two- and four-seamers, which he commanded to his glove and arm side, respectively. He struggled to finish his breaking ball during his time in the majors; the pitch lacked relevant movement and just hung near the top of the zone. Then Burke had shoulder surgery this spring. His ultimate role will depend on what his stuff looks like coming out of rehab, but based on how it looked when he was last throwing, it’s much more likely that he’s a reliever than starter.

Seise remains interesting from a size and power projection standpoint, but his last two seasons have ended due to shoulder surgeries (right rotator cuff in ’18, left labrum in ’19) and he struck out 30% of the time before each injury. He needs to prove he’s healthy and will stop swinging at balls before he reclaims significant prospect value.

Ragans was 14 months removed from Tommy John when his elbow barked at him again and he needed a second. His surgery came at a time that threatened most of his 2020 season, too. When healthy, he looked like a No. 4 starter with a plus changeup.

Pozo has some off-field baggage because of a hazing incident he participated in early in his career, but on talent, he’s a backup catching prospect with a compact swing. His peripherals are Astudillo-esque.

Ovalles is a smaller-framed first base and corner outfield prospect whose build and limited raw power are the sorts normally found in the honorable mention section of this list. But I’ve seen him do some precocious defensive stuff at first base and I think he has a chance to be plus there while also making enough contact to offset his limited raw juice. He’s a long-shot, but I value him more than is typical because of the bat-to-ball and projected defense.

Barlow has a fastball/curveball combination worthy of a big league middle relief spot, but he’s had strike-throwing issues throughout his career. They briefly abated early in 2019 before returning in the second half, when Barlow walked more hitters than he pitched Triple-A innings. He was laboring again this spring while competing for a bullpen job. I have him as an up and down reliever.

A high-effort, switch-hitting grinder who puts balls in play, runs well, and can play all over the infield, Chavez projects to play a role off a big league bench.

The Rangers moved Mendez to the bullpen when he returned from his spring 2019 UCL sprain, one of several injuries that have kept him prospect eligible despite pitching in parts of four big league seasons so far. He projects as a fastball/changeup reliever.

Bueno (an 80-grade pitching name) was slated to be ASU’s Friday night starter as a junior when the injury bug bit; he’d eventually need TJ. His velo is way up since returning but a bird’s eye view of the profile is a wild, injury-riddled, 24-year-old reliever in A-ball.

Bradford has three average to slightly above pitches and good command but missed almost all of his draft spring at Baylor due to thoracic outlet syndrome.

The blisters that disrupted Gore’s first full season in pro ball were not an issue in 2019, and he reached Double-A after 15 dominant starts in the hitter-friendly Cal League, during which he surrendered just nine measly runs. Gore pitches the same way a great horror movie villain lurks and ambushes from the shadows. The strange, balletic way he hoists his leading leg and hands as high as he can before he peddles home builds fear of the unknown, and dread anticipation the same way eerie music portends someone’s cinematic demise. Then Gore lunges home with a huge stride, one that takes him slightly down the first base line, and gets right on top of hitters, creating more discomfort. Then, suddenly, the jump scare. The ball explodes out from behind Gore’s head and blows past flailing hitters at the letters, banishing them to the dugout until their sequel at-bat a few innings later.

Gore generated a 16% swinging strike rate overall last year and a 15% swinging strike rate on his fastball, which is amazing for a heater that only averaged 93 mph. Several other traits — Gore generates nearly perfect backspin and seam uniformity on his fastballs, which you can see in the video that corresponds to this player capsule, and the flat approach angle of his stuff contributes, too — help the fastball play up, including Gore’s command which projects, at least, to plus. Spin efficiency also enables his curveball to be good even though it lacks big raw spin, he has glove-side command of his slider, and his changeups, though they’re of mixed quality, are typically well-located. You can go wild projecting on Gore’s secondary stuff, especially the changeup, and his command because he is such an exceptional athlete, and the fact that he can repeat and maintain such an odd and explosive delivery is clear evidence of that.

The 2018 blister problems created some short-term workload issues that San Diego’s dev group tried to solve by shutting Gore down for most of August. He threw side sessions for most of the month before returning for one last in-game outing before the Texas League playoffs, which he didn’t pitch in. He had a 40-inning increase from 2018 to 2019, when he threw 100 frames. It puts him on pace to throw 120-140 innings this year, though it only makes sense for San Diego to push him if they’re contending for the playoffs. Based on how they handled Paddack and Tatis last year, such an approach seems possible.

If not for Sam Huff‘s game-tying two-run shot in the bottom of the seventh inning, we would not have gotten to see Patiño chuck heaters past Royce Lewis and Jo Adell at the 2019 Futures Game. It was a coronation of sorts, an indication that the then-teenager would be ready for the bright lights of Petco Park when the Padres call on him, which might happen in 2020, even if it’s out of the bullpen at first. (There are some executives who think that will be Patiño’s ultimate role.) He’s smaller, and his changeup and command are not very good yet. But this is one of the best on-mound athletes in the minors, one who hasn’t been pitching all that long, and has had premium velocity for an even shorter span of time. It’d be unreasonable to expect a 20-year-old to be fully realized when he’s only been pitching for about four years. Patiño’s velocity came on in a huge way as he got on a pro strength program and he’s added 40 pounds of good weight and about 10 ticks of velo since he signed. He’s a charismatic autodidact who has taken a similarly proactive approach to learning a new language (he became fluent in English very quickly, totally of his own volition) as he has to incorporating little tricks and twists into his delivery (he’s borrowed from Mac Gore) to mess with hitters.

Were this a college prospect, he’d be in the conversation for the draft’s top pick, and I’m very comfortable projecting on the command and changeup because of the athleticism/makeup combination. I expect Patiño will reach the big leagues this year in a bullpen capacity and compete for a rotation spot in 2021.

The .401/.442/.662 line Abrams posted after signing isn’t sustainable, buoyed as it was by the interaction that players as fast as he is have with defenses at the lowest levels of the minors (he had a .425 BABIP), but Abrams can absolutely rake. He had no trouble with the leap from amateur to pro velocity, though some of the top high school pitching he saw the summer before his draft year was probably better than what he faced in the 2019 AZL. He has a knack for impacting the baseball in a way that creates hard contact even though his swing is currently pretty flat, and he can do this all over the strike zone. Of the trio of elite AZL prospects (Abrams, Bobby Witt, and Marco Luciano), Abrams has the most polished hit tool and the most room left on his frame. Even without a swing change, he’s going to grow into more power just through maturity, which is pretty scary considering his exit velos are already above big league average (though, again, AZL pitching wasn’t good last year).

I don’t think he’s a shortstop. When he has time to step and throw, Abrams has enough arm for the left side of the infield, but ask him to contort his body and make tough throws on balls he has to go get and the results are mixed. Most players with this issue end up in center field, where Abrams could be a plus defender because of his speed, assuming his instincts there aren’t terrible. He has top-of-the-order traits right now and is a virtual lock to play somewhere up the middle, even if it isn’t at short.

Campusano was a bad-bodied catcher on the summer showcase circuit, but then he completely remade his body for his senior spring. He showed above-average power, some bat control, and improved agility behind the plate, boosting his stock to the late first/early second round of the draft. He didn’t catch much velocity in high school and struggled receiving pro arms at first, but that has improved to a place of acceptability. More importantly, he’s continued to hit. Though his Hi-A statline was aided by the Cal League’s hitting environment, Campusano’s 11% strikeout rate was the second best rate among qualified, full-season backstops in 2019 (Yohel Pozo was first) and his exit velos (89 mph on average) are great for a 20-year-old. He is rumored to have been the centerpiece of San Digeo’s Mookie Betts negotiations with Boston and while young catching has a tendency to take a beating and fall short of expectations on offense because of it, right now Campusano looks like a potential star offensive catcher.

Trammell sees a lot of pitches, he has gap power, and he can really run, which helps him run down more balls than a lot of left fielders. He’s very competitive, and is similar in many ways to Brett Gardner. He was utilizing a narrower stance during the spring, which forced him to take more of a stride than he had been during his days with the Reds. This was probably done to see if Trammell would end up hitting for more power but there’s no way of knowing if it worked yet.

You can frame arguments such that Morejon compares favorably to most of the college pitchers available in the 2020 draft. He’s parked at 94-97, his changeup is heavy enough to get groundballs when it’s not missing bats, and Morejon has a shapely, low-80s breaking ball that he can throw for strikes. 21-year-olds rarely have this sort of stuff or such a good idea of how to deploy it, let alone both, but for me, Morejon still exists in the Jonathan Loaisiga FV bucket.

He’s been shut down an awful lot. Last year, after just three starts, a shoulder issue sent him to the 60-day IL. It was Morejon’s fourth IL stint in the last two years, and he was later scratched from a Fall League start for back tightness. He pitched in relief upon return, which changes the context for the velo. A few other nits. Morejon babies his breaking ball into the zone, and his arm speed changes in a way I think is noticeable. From a spin axis/efficiency standpoint, his fastball is the sinking type that tends not to miss bats, which is part of why I think he’s been hittable in a small big league sample, including a nuclear spring outing in Peoria that he followed (and rectified) with a bat-breaking clinic in Tempe against the Angels’ varsity squad. Some of this seems imminently correctable, especially considering Morejon’s age, but the way the injury history interacts with his relief risk and the fastball traits put him in the 45+ FV bucket with a bunch of other guys with mid-rotation ceilings who I’m scared to really bet on.

The Padres have been unafraid to stick their necks out and use high picks on high school players who weren’t fixtures on the summer showcase circuit for one reason or another (injury, participation in football, etc.), players who may be under-scouted (and perhaps undervalued) by clubs who are more comfortable with prep hitters who’ve performed against curated competition. The results have been mixed. Mason House and Sam Keating are not on this prospect list, while Blake Hunt has climbed it, and Mason Thompson has yo-yo’d. Now 2019 draftees Hudson Head and Josh Mears enter the fray, with Head doing so after receiving a $3 million bonus, a record for a third-rounder.

The pitching he saw in the AZL was the best he’s seen in his entire life, and Head not only allayed concerns about that competition-quality chasm by hitting .283/.383/.417, he also occasionally did some freaky, elite stuff that got me very excited about his prospectdom. Head is ambidextrous, and swings and throws a baseball with his left hand but quarterbacked primarily with his right, occasionally using his left when he rolled out that way. For someone with so little high-level experience, his bat control is remarkable. A pronounced arm bar caused him to be late on some of the good velo I’ve seen him face but Head’s feel for opposite field contact enabled him to strike those pitches with authority anyway. I think he needs polish from a mechanical standpoint, but there’s rare natural bat-to-ball proclivity happening here. There’s also much more measurable power than I would have guessed — Head’s exit velos last summer were more akin to those of heavy-hitting corner guys his age than someone who looks like a wiry leadoff sort. Still a high-variance prospect because of his short track record of hitting, Head has a shot to be a leadoff-hitting center fielder, an above-average regular.

Aside from Gabriel Arias, Santana is the cleanest defensive fit at shortstop in this org and projects to be an above-average defender there at peak. He also has good feel for contact and rarely swings through pitches in the zone. Couple that with a frame that really looked like it was starting to fill out last summer and fall (especially in the shoulders), and Santana’s ability to rotate with uncommon looseness and explosion, and we have a potential above-average regular here. Because the feel for contact is already seemingly in place, Santana stands a good chance to hit for whatever power he grows into, while also staying at short.

Some combination of randomness and the excitable Triple-A baseball played a role in Cronenworth’s unsustainable 2019 power output at Durham, but the other aspects of the offensive profile are real. He doesn’t give away at-bats, he makes a ton of contact, and he plays a serviceable shortstop with experience at several other positions. He’s a super utility sort who might have also played a more significant bullpen role had MLB not instituted rules that put a damper on some of the creative uses teams were considering for players like this. Instead, Cronenworth may throw an inning or two per week in low-leverage situations as a way to save someone else in the bullpen. The thing to focus on is the bat and defensive versatility, which will allow the Padres flexibility on other parts of the roster while Cronenworth performs like a 1.5 to 2 WAR sort of role player.

A combination of injury (back and shoulder) and the lack of an impact breaking ball were the primary drivers for Baez’s 2019 move to the the bullpen, and while the Padres planned on revisiting him as a starter this year, my long-term projection has him in relief. After he rehabbed from shoulder soreness in Extended, Baez went to Double-A and dominated for two months, working two innings at a time every fourth or fifth day. He was promoted to San Diego in late-July and fell just a few days shy of graduating from this list based on his non-September days on the roster. Though Baez now operates with two different breaking balls, neither projects to be an impact pitch. It’s possible he can still start anyway; Chris Paddack is close-at-hand evidence of this. But Baez doesn’t go at hitters with the same sort of efficiency as Paddack does, and his back and shoulder issues add to the relief likelihood, which is basked into his FV. The upshot here is still a league-average No. 4 starter but I think late-inning relief is more probable.

Similar to how they’ve experimented with Ty France at second base as a way of shoehorning his bat into the big league lineup, the Padres gave Potts a few reps at the keystone in 2019, and it’s one of a few reasons I’m not inclined to move off of him despite his whiff-prone campaign. The other is that we’re still talking about a college-aged player who was pushed through the system quickly, and whose 2019 struggles came at Double-A Amarillo, where Potts was just 20 years old, nearly four year younger than the average Texas League player. His low-end outcome is still in the Juan Francisco/Matt Davidson realm, while a middle-of-the-road projection is that of a big power/low on-base four corners role player, and the high end is now a shift-aided, multi-positional infielder with more power than is typical for that type of role.

Because he shares mechanical similarities with many pitchers whose fastballs overachieve relative to their velocity, I’m fairly confident that Cantillo can succeed even if his heater continues to live in the 87-91 mph range, though because he’s a big-framed 20-year-old, he may yet throw harder. If that’s the case, he could have a dominant fastball. He also has a changeup that is plus right now. Not only does it have bat-missing movement but Cantillo’s arm speed really sells hitters on the notion that they’re getting a fastball; A-ball bats flailed at it in 2019. The carry on his fastball enables Cantillo to compete for swinging strikes in the zone, and that, plus his ability to throw lots of competitively-located changeups mean he can work back into any count. His breaking ball usage is ahead of its quality, something that might change if Cantillo does start throwing harder and adds power to his curve. The breaking ball and development of velo are now the two variables driving Cantillo’s potential future FV movement, but for now I think he has the tools to go right at hitters and be a No. 4/5 starter.

After two consecutive years of above-average offensive performance relative to his league and continued resolve that he is a viable defensive catcher, Hunt now looks like he has a real chance to be an everyday backstop. I’ve seen him pop as low as 1.88 on throws to second and, despite his size, he’s agile enough and has sufficient hands to receive and frame big league stuff. Hunt also has a contact-oriented approach at the plate, one that’s quite conservative (zero leg kick) and doesn’t take full advantage of his movement skills. It relies entirely on Hunt’s hands to generate power, and that will likely result is 12-ish homers and a bunch of doubles. It’s a second-division look to me, but I think there’s more ceiling on the game power if Hunt’s lower half gets more involved in his swing.

Weathers continues to present the industry with a tougher-than-usual evaluation. As an amateur, perceptions about what his husky build would do to his athletic longevity fought with his underlying athleticism and stuff, both of which were very strong. After a dominant beginning to his first full pro season, Weathers’ stuff seeped away and he was eventually shut down with a dead arm and missed most of May. When he returned, the mid-90s heat from early in the year did not, and Weathers’ strikeout rate fell during the dog days. When I saw him later during instructs, he sat 86-90 for much of his outing, albeit with excellent command. This spring, before the shutdown, Weathers was once again living in the mid-90s. The hard-throwing version of Weathers has mid-rotation upside, while the soft-tossing version would be a secondary pitch and command-oriented backend starter. This evaluation splits the difference.

This is what the upper crust of international free agents look like, those for whom a Goldilocks Zone of development exists. Preciado is a strapping 6-foot-4 and has infield hands, feet, and actions, which means he may grow into huge power as that frame fills out but remain agile enough to stay at short, which would make him a superstar. Though that outcome is not the likeliest (based on how Preciado is built, I have him projected to third and think he’ll end up there before he reaches the bigs), the several that exists below that optimal scenario are still very good. Preciado has precocious barrel feel for a 16-year-old hitter his size, let alone one who switch-hits. He’s not very balanced, especially from the right side, comfort that hopefully comes with reps.

Arias looks like a stud at 5 o’clock when he’s taking batting practice and infield, but his in-game swing decisions have been a problem, and were even during a statistically impressive 2019. The Padres threw every developmental trick in the book at him during the offseason, including virtual reality training, to try to get him to better identify balls from strikes and chase less often. In a small spring sample, it appeared to be working — Arias played some spring games in the place of Fernando Tatis Jr., who was one of several Padres to miss time with flu-like symptoms during the spring (tugs collar) before baseball shut down. The importance of Arias’ approach extends beyond his on base ability to his power production. His swing is grooved, making the parts of the zone where he can do real damage limited, so for Arias to get to his power in games he’s not only going to have to recognize balls and strikes, but also learn what he can actually hit. It’s possible this will occur, and Arias will be a star if it does, but I think an Orlando Arcia trajectory, where there are growing pains and frustration amid flashes of spectacle, is more likely.

Acquired from Boston for Drew Pomeranz in July 2016, Espinoza has only thrown 32 innings of affiliated ball for the Padres since the deal. Espinoza was 94-97 and flashed a plus changeup and curveball during his final spring training start of 2017. Between that outing and his first regular season start for Hi-A Lake Elsinore, he felt discomfort in his elbow and was shut down. After several weeks of rest and rehab, it was decided that he needed Tommy John surgery, which he had early in August. The timing wasn’t great, and Espinoza missed all of 2018 working back from surgery, then re-tore his elbow during the spring of 2019 and needed a second TJ. He has front-end stuff but even if it returns, he’ll have missed three years of reps he desperately needed to polish his below-average control, increasing the likelihood that he’s a reliever or backend starter.

Munoz’s arm action evokes Joel Zumaya, Billy Wagner, and Craig Kimbrel‘s. His limb whips around at such speed and with such flexibility that it almost skips past enthralling and strikes one as grotesque, but the heat that emanates from his right arm is among the best in pro baseball. He’ll routinely sit 97-99 and has touched as high as 103 (the slo-mo pitch in the linked video was 100 mph). It’s a blistering, elite pitch that had upper-level hitters taking flaccid, defeated swings this spring, and helped Munoz strike out two hitters per inning early on in 2019.

He has yet to harness the fastball and throw consistent strikes (he’s walking a batter per inning, too) and his breaking ball quality is also inconsistent. If both of those issues improve, Munoz will be an elite relief option. If one of them does, he’s probably still a high-leverage arm, just one who makes you sweat after surrendering a couple of walks. If neither do, then Munoz will go the way of some other recent fastball-only prospects like this, such as Thyago Vieira and Mauricio Cabrera. Tommy John in late March of 2020 means Munoz likely returns to action late during the 2021 season.

Ornelas underwent a swing overhaul in 2019 in an effort to get him to lift the ball more, and things came undone. Pre-change Ornelas cut down at the ball, had a big leg kick, and a deep, high spot where his hands loaded. New-swing Ornelas had less of a kick, and his hands loaded out away from him a little bit, but were still high, and he was still cutting down at the ball. It’s possible that Ornelas can’t hit for sufficient power to profile at first base without a swing change and that there are more woes to come, but he is a reputable worker, and he has plenty of juice and a pretty advanced feel for balls and strikes. I think the band of potential outcomes is narrower because premium game power seems less likely now that relevant adjustments are not manifesting in games, but there’s still a big league hitter here somewhere.

Even in center field, there really aren’t any impact regulars who don’t hit for at least some power, and barring something unforeseen, I think the lack of thump will keep Rosario from being a true everyday player despite his very interesting, and in some ways very special, skillset. This guy walked in nearly 17% of his Hi-A plate appearances last year as just a teenager, and he has a chance to be a special defender in center field. Rosario is also very tough to get to swing-and-miss in the zone, but some of that is because he’s very conservatively poking, slapping, and slashing soft contact all over the infield and not really trying to hit for power. I think he’s one of the minor league’s more entertaining players because he’s often at the center of plays that have the very specific baseball aesthetic I enjoy, and I hope he gets a chance to be someone’s 8-hole hitter in the NL so he can take advantage of being pitched around and walk a ridiculous amount. Realistically, he’s a low-end regular in center field, or some sort of weird meta-game role player if the plus defense finally materializes.

Marcano is tracking a lot like Rosario, except as a middle infielder. He too has nearly elite feel for contact but lacks power, and in Marcano’s case, he’s just such a rail that I don’t think much will ever come. This high-contact, up-the-middle sort is traditionally undervalued, but I think I’ve blindly overcorrected for that in recent years. That’s why I’ve folded more of the visual physical components back into evals like this and now have separation between short but muscular players like Vidal Brujan and Brayan Rocchio, and the more slender Jose Devers and Marcano types.

Perez is a physical teenage outfielder with a more mature frame and an athletic swing that reminds me of Spencer Torkelson’s (visually, not in terms of the raw power). Perez can tag fastballs at the top of the zone but has a tendency to be very upright in his legs and swing over top of curveballs he might be able to go down and lift if he were more flexible. Even though he doesn’t have significant, frame-based power projection, I think he has a chance to hit enough to be a regular in a corner.

Some teams moved off of Lawson when he had some injury issues as a high school senior, but the Padres found themselves flush with pool money after taking underslot prospects (Hudson Potts and Eric Lauer) late in the first round, which enabled them to give Lawson $1.9 million in the second, $1 million above slot. Lawson filled out, began throwing harder, added power to a curveball that has ticked up nearly 10 mph since he was an amateur, and stayed healthy until May of 2019 when he was shut down and given a PRP injection in his elbow. He made a few Fall League appearances during which he looked fine, sitting 93-96 with the usual above-average curveball and sinking, mid-80s changeup. Then this spring, after a big league outing against the Cubs, Lawson was shut down again and eventually opted for Tommy John surgery in late-March. He had No. 4/5 starter projection before the surgery, which now increases the odds that he eventually works out of the bullpen.

As Guerra struck out more and more during his final few seasons as a shortstop — he K’ed in at least 30% of his at-bats each year since the Padres acquired him from Boston as part of the Craig Kimbrel deal — he frequently appeared despondent, sullen, and visibly affected by his struggles in ways that were often obvious and concerning. While his defensive actions remained enticing — especially around the bag, they were some of the smoothest and quickest some scouts had ever seen — Guerra also became error-prone. He seemed a mess, a potential DFA candidate.

Last spring, Guerra moved to the mound. His first bullpen session, which took place in front of a very small contingent of Padres front office folks, was electric. The first fastball was clocked by Rapsodo at 97 mph, and a few fastballs later, Guerra touched 100.4 mph. I saw an early iteration of Guerra when he was 95-98 with natural cut and had pretty impressive slider feel for someone who has only been pitching for a few weeks. The Padres reconfigured his fastball and it’s now a two-seamer with huge armside movement, enough that in 2020 spring games it was making lefty hitters flinch and stare at pitches that ran back across the inside corner. When conversion projects like this work out in a big way it typically happens quickly, and Guerra’s had rapid success.

The wave of teenage talent currently at Hi-A drove San Diego to push Miller straight to Double-A to start his first full season, and he rose to the occasion, hitting .290/.355/.430 with more power than the industry anticipated. A minimalistic swing enables him to make high rates of contact, while the strength in Miller’s hands generates doubles power. It’s not an exciting, athletic style of hitting but on an inoffensive, fundamentally sound defensive shortstop, it’s a pretty interesting skillset. Barring a significant swing change, Miller’s offensive output will likely cap his ceiling in the 40/45 FV range, but for a third round pick who moves quickly, that’s a great outcome.

Mena was bullied by some older instructional league pitchers, especially ones with ugly, deceptive deliveries, but he’s clearly a plus runner with a great chance to stay in center field and has some promising bat-to-ball qualities. Chief among them is plate coverage. Mena will reach out and spoil pitches on the corner away from him, and he’ll hit the ball hard the other way if it catches too much of the plate. He was billed as a leadoff type center fielder by his proponents on the amateur side.

About a year ago, Ruiz was a Pick to Click who I anticipated would be on this year’s top 100. Instead, his offseason included him being passed over in the Rule 5 Draft. I didn’t make a Ruiz-to-Alfonso Soriano comp casually last year: he swing looks similar and I’ve seen pole-to-pole power from Ruiz in the past, as well as the speed to steal a bunch of bags. Some of his issues are approach-related, but there are other components affecting the bat-to-ball issues that became worse last year, and Ruiz also has defensive questions that might force him to the outfield (another Soriano parallel).

The barrel-chested Bednar has developed a good split in pro ball, making him an excellent three-pitch option out of the bullpen, probably one who will be rostered all year rather than being constantly optioned. He throws in the mid-90s (he was 89-92 as a starter in college) and has a snappy, 12-6 curveball. The curveball is probably what got him drafted, while the fastball/split development are driving a modern relief profile.

Despite his fantasy-relevant stats — he has averaged 15 homers and 25 steals the last three years — I’ve been skeptical about Olivares truly having everyday tools. But now he’s performed up through Double-A and the 40-man center field picture is suddenly very different for this team. I’m still not buying the power production — I don’t see 15-20 homer bat speed here — but rather a contact/defense fourth outfielder.

Shoulder surgery derailed what might have been a breakout year for Oña, who averaged 93 mph off the bat during his torrid 25-game, pre-surgery sprint. We don’t know a lot about the hitting environment in Amarillo but it seems favorable based on Oña, Olivares, and Miller’s lines. There’s an interesting power/speed blend here but it’s still a corner outfield fit with some swing-and-miss issues. Oña homered in his only big league spring start before the shutdown.

It’s not often that “hard-throwing” and “kitchen sink” end up in the same player report but here is Bolaños, who will touch 99 (sit 94) and work with both four and two-seamers, plus a slider, curveball, changeup, and even a mythic, rare eephus curveball in the upper-60s. Among them is no clear out pitch, a problem if Bolaños ends up in the bullpen. His walk rates had been toward the high-end of what’s typically acceptable for starters. There’s a puncher’s chance he’ll find something new — a split maybe? I think Bolaños’ delivery has a Jose Contreras look to it and he ends up as a set-up type. Otherwise he’s a fifth starter.