Finally, a healthy season from Pearson who had yet to throw more than 20 pro innings in a season until 2019, when he threw 101 across 25 starts. I wasn’t worried about Pearson being a true injury risk because his maladies (an intercostal strain, a fractured ulna due to a comebacker) have been unrelated to the typically concerning elbow and shoulder stuff. Instead, I wanted to see if he could hold his elite velo under the strain of a full-season workload, and what his secondary stuff would be like when he was forced to pitch through lineups multiple times. Not only did the velo hold water but Pearson’s repertoire is very deep. Yes, he’ll chuck 101 past you, but he’ll also pull the string on a good changeup that runs away from lefty hitters, dump a curveball in for strikes to get ahead of you before gassing you with two strikes, and tilt in one of the harder sliders on the planet, a pitch I’ve personally seen him throw at 95 mph and that regularly sits in the low-90s. Does he need to throw well above 100 innings to be a true front-end arm? Yes, but that he was able to retain his stuff amid a huge innings increase in 2019 is a sign he’ll be able to do so with even more innings folded in. A source with offseason intel tells me Pearson also remade his body and has gotten a little leaner. We won’t truly know until he reports to camp, but if that’s true, it bolsters my confidence in him sustaining this level of stuff for several years.

An athletic, outwardly competitive two-way high schooler, Woods Richardson would also have been a prospect as a power-hitting third baseman were he not so good on the mound. His vertically oriented release point makes it hard for him to work his fastball east and west, and several teams had him evaluated as a future reliever before the draft because they saw a lack of fastball command. But this vertical release also enables him to effectively change hitters’ eye level by pairing fastballs up with breaking balls down, and he has a plus breaking ball.

Woods Richardson works so quickly that it often makes hitters uncomfortable, though scouts love it. He’s developed a better changeup in pro ball, pronating really hard to turn the thing over and create tailing movement. Though he was one of the 2018 draft’s youngest prospects, his frame is pretty mature, so this is a player who might look a little too good on a pro scouting model.

Groshans immediately stood out to scouts on the showcase circuit, looking like a Josh Donaldson starter kit with similar swing mechanics, plus raw power projection, a plus arm, and a third base defensive fit. He comported himself well during a 23-game jaunt in the Midwest League (.337/.427/.482) before he was shut down with a left foot injury that kept him away from baseball activity until just after the New Year. The mystery and severity of the injury, combined with Lansing’s tendency to caricature hitter’s stats, has much of the industry in wait-and-see mode here, though the power is for real.

Martinez was one of the most explosive talents in the 2018 July 2nd class, getting the second highest bonus at $3.5 million, behind only 22-year-old Marlins center fielder Víctor Víctor Mesa. We ranked him behind a number of players in his class because of concerns about his contact skills, and those remain due to wild variation in the way Martinez’s lower half works during his swing. His footwork is all over the place and he takes a lot of ugly hacks. But the bat speed, Martinez’s ability to rotate, is huge. He projects for at least 60 raw power, and he should stick somewhere in the infield, but this is a kid with a high-variance hit tool.

Manoah is a big-bodied late bloomer from South Florida who wasn’t a top notch recruit out of high school, but developed into an elite prospect throughout his sophomore year in Morgantown. Once softer and relatively unathletic, he’s transformed himself from a high-effort relief type into a possible workhorse mid-rotation starter.

Manoah still leads with his fastball/slider combo, and remains hulking and somewhat stiff-looking. That power fastball/slider approach to pitching and the Sal Romano body comp creates an air of bullpen risk, but that was the case with Nate Pearson once upon a time, and isn’t anymore. Manoah can back foot his slider against lefties and his changeup flashed averge in college, so he has platoon-fighting weapons at his disposal. He showed no ill effects from a big innings increase from 2018 to 2019 and was still 93-96 with his heater late in the summer after he signed. Changeup and command consistency will reinforce the mid-rotation forecast, which is currently a right-tail outcome rather than the likeliest one.

A Jeremy Brown situation is brewing here, as Kirk has several elite statistical markers (a tiny 5% swinging strike rate, more career walks than strikeouts, power production in the FSL) and strong TrackMan data (a 91 mph average exit velo, a 48% hard hit rate), but also generates skepticism among eyeball scouts looking at athletes and bodies. Kirk is built like Chris Farley and, like Farley, has moments of surprising grace and athletic brilliance despite his size. But there’s no precedent for someone this big having a robust major league career. The closest comp I could find from a height/weight standpoint is José Molina, who was listed at 6-feet, 250 pounds late in his career. Molina was nearly 40 then, while Kirk — 5-foot-8, 265 pounds — is only 21, and it’s hard to predict what will happen to his build and agility as he ages into his 20s, because pro athletes like this (John Daly, maybe?) don’t really exist.

His age makes the statistical track record even more impressive, though, especially when you consider that Kirk missed a year due to a hand injury and has been young for every level at which he’s raked. He has an all-fields, doubles-oriented approach that prioritizes contact and walks. He’s a 20-grade waddler from base to base, and even visual evaluations of his swing (which features conservative footwork) are mixed despite his numbers. He can turn on balls in and hit balls hard the other way, but this isn’t like Andrew Vaughn, who scouts will acknowledge has defensive limitations and whose mobility they’ll knock, but about whose athleticism in the batter’s box they all rave. This is a weird one, perhaps a prospect who will be aided by coming changes to the way balls and strikes are called in the event that he begins a physical regression very early, as most scouts believe he will.

Lansing is the most hitter-friendly park in the Midwest League and it aided Moreno’s 2019 power output. You can’t fake an 11% strikeout rate, though, which was especially impressive considering Moreno made that much contact as a teenager in full-season ball. Even though he is young, it’s relatively unlikely that he develops much more raw power, both because catching takes such a physical toll on the body that it often dilutes offensive production, and because Moreno is a smaller-framed young man. But I think there’s a chance for relevant game power if he can rotate a little better, which might be accomplished if his stride were a little longer and enabled his front side to have more flex.

Right now, Moreno’s all hand-eye/bat-to-ball, punching airborne contact to all fields and running unusually well for a catcher. He has a shot to be a well-rounded, everyday backstop based on the contact and defensive projection (Moreno converted to the position around when he signed and hasn’t been doing it for very long), even more so if he makes an adjustment that helps create more pop.

Twenty-one months elapsed between when Kay signed his pro contract and when he finally threw a pitch in affiliated ball. UConn rode him hard during his junior year in Storrs. He faced 36 hitters in a March game the Huskies won 18-1. During conference tournament play, Kay threw a complete game, then pitched again during the tournament on three days rest; he threw 90 pitches amid an hour-long lightning delay. That heavy usage made it unsurprising when he blew out in the fall of 2016.

When Kay finally returned, he looked markedly different than he did in college, when he was a lefty changeup monster with mediocre velocity. Kay’s fastball ticked up and now sits at about 93 mph instead of peaking there, and his two-plane curveball got better. His once-dominant changeup regressed but is still comfortably average, and he has great feel for locating it down, and to his arm side. He was shut down late last year with a back/side issue, so perhaps there’s some extra injury risk here, but otherwise this is a major league-ready, strike-throwing No. 4/5 starter look.

Hatch started using a cutter more (or perhaps he was altering his slider’s shape) later in his Cubs tenure, then upped his changeup usage after he was acquired from Chicago for David Phelps ahead of the 2019 deadline. He has premium fastball spin, and his heater’s performance might take a leap with a slight axis change. I had previously misevaluated Hatch’s control/command, which is clearly in a fairly stable, starter-friendly realm. He’s also been remarkably durable. He repeated Double-A as a 24-year-old last year and his age dilutes his FV by a shade, but there are several major league-quality pitches here and evidence Hatch can handle the workload. He’s a No. 4/5 starter with heightened risk of hitting his decline phase during his arb years.

After his dominant 2018 in the DSL, the Blue Jays pushed the physically mature Hiraldo right past the GCL and sent him to the Appy League at age 18; there he hit .300/.348/.481 with 28 extra-base hits in 56 games. He has a short, high-effort swing, and his hands load high and take a curt, direct path to the ball with plus bat speed that Hiraldo generates with effort and violence. It’s a swing-happy, pull-heavy approach to contact that would ideally become more polished, but there’s rare bat speed and vertical plate coverage here, so Hiraldo has a talent-based shot to both hit and hit for power.

Hiraldo is stocky and strong in general, let alone for his age, and even though he’s playing lots of shortstop right now, I think he’ll end up as a shift-aided second or third baseman at physical maturity. He has physical ability to profile every day in that sort of role but the approach needs to develop.

All of de Castro’s defensive attributes (his range, footwork, hands, and actions) are fantastic, and he has a chance to be a spectacular, athletic defensive shortstop at maturity. All of what he ends up doing with the bat depends on how his body develops. Right now, like most fresh-faced prospects about to embark on their first pro season, de Castro has room on the frame for 20 or 30 pounds. His swing has good foundation, from both a mechanical and a timing standpoint, but he has to get stronger or that’s not going to matter very much. There’s plenty of time for that, and a chance for an everyday role if it happens.

Some of my and Kiley’s sources projected huge increases in fastball velocity for Kloffenstein while he was a high school prospect, and just a year removed from his draft, he’s now relatively filled out and working with heavy sink in the low-to-mid-90s. There are definite starter components here, led by two breaking balls with different velocities (their shapes are relatively similar) and some nascent changeup feel. The changeup development will be of particular importance because of how it will pair with the sinking action on most of Kloffenstein’s fastballs. Because he doesn’t generate big-breaking spin, Kloffenstein’s slider and curve will depend on his ability to locate them. He’s looking like a backend sinker/slider guy.

Williams had one of the biggest frames among the high school prospects from the 2019 draft, standing in at a very projectable-looking 6-foot-6. He was much older than the typical high school prospect (he and Adam Kloffenstein, who was drafted the year before, were born nine days apart), and that colors the fastball projection, but what is lost there might be gained through a better delivery. Williams had some cross-bodied mechanical violence as an amateur that might be ironed out in pro ball, and already may have been. He had a Mike Clevinger look in the bullpen this spring.

Whether or not more velo comes, Williams is already a big, strong kid whose fastball has been up to 96, and he creates vertical depth on his breaking ball. There’s sizable relief risk here because of the delivery, but No. 4 starter ceiling if that’s corrected or overcome.

Perhaps the industry opinion of his ability to hit is warped by the context of its looks (the Canadian Junior National Team often plays advanced competition), but, like a lot of northern high schoolers, Brown has raw feel for contact and is viewed as a high-risk prospect as a result. He does have many electric, catalytic qualities, though. Brown is twitchy and has elite speed, and his swing is compact and has a chance to enable a contact-oriented leadoff skillset if Brown matures as a hitter. His speed gives him a shot to be an absolute black hole in center field, which would take a lot of pressure off the bat.

Conine looked like a sure first round pick after an exceptional 2017 sophomore year and subsequent wood-powered summer on Cape Cod. During his .330/.406/.537 tear on the Cape, he started to strike out more often. That carried into his junior year at Duke in very concerning fashion, as his strikeout rate spiked from 16% the year before to a whopping 26%, a rate that most teams consider a red flag, putting hitters on the wrong side of binary hit tool evaluation.

The strikeouts continued in Low-A but, boy, does Conine have mood-altering power. His exit velos and hard hit rate were on par with Yordan Alvarez’s last year, though Conine is older than Alvarez and played several levels below him. This performance — .283/.371/.576 with 22 homers, 19 doubles, and a 36% strikeout rate — came in just 80 games because Conine was popped for PED’s (ritalinic acid, a stimulant) and served a 50-game suspension to start 2019. He has 35-plus homer power if he hits enough, but typically guys who strike out this much don’t.

Zeuch doesn’t have dominant stuff but he’s a keen sequencer with a firm grasp on how best to deploy his pitches to efficiently tally outs. He mostly pitches to contact with a low-90s sinker that has very steep downhill plane thanks to his height and fairly upright delivery. It has helped him generate groundball rates near 60% as a pro. Both of his breaking balls survive because Zeuch locates them. He’ll get ahead of hitters with his curveball and keep his slider just off the plate away from righties. He may be a candidate for a true splitter, or a modified version of it, rather than a straight changeup if the Jays want to try to turn him into Doug Fister, with whom Zeuch shares several other traits. Barring something unforeseen, like a new grip giving Zeuch a dominant secondary pitch, he projects as a backend innings eater.

A physical, lefty corner bat with some thump, Rodriguez generated average big league exit velos as a teenager in the GCL last year. Some of his swings are beautiful, left-handed uppercut hacks. He’s not all that projectable and will have to have a potent hit/power combo to profile. That appears to be in play.

Though not remotely similar to him as a prospect, Smith projects to produce similarly to Freddy Galvis on offense. He has above-average raw power and speed, a rare combo at short, with the thump created by really explosive, lift-friendly hitting hands. But Smith’s grooved swing limits his ability to make contact. He’ll hit for power but be a low average, low OBP middle infielder without the excellent glove work of Galvis, who has been a 45-grade big leaguer.

A heady, workmanlike multi-positional infielder, Jimenez comported himself well in the Appy League last year, hitting an empty .298 with a BABIP-aided .377 OBP. He’s a polished defender with advanced feel for contact, but he lacks an impact offensive tool and there’s not much frame-based projection on the power. Unless he out-hits my projection on the contact skills, he profiles as a utility infielder.

Famous at 15 thanks to his World Baseball Classic performance, Pardinho later signed with much fanfare and the second largest bonus among his class’ pitching peers, behind only Shohei Ohtani. At that time, he was more present stuff (he was into the mid-90s at the WBC, which is why he went viral) than physical projection, an atypical look for the J2 market. Based on this, Toronto pushed him to an affiliate quickly, and he pitched at Bluefield as a 17-year-old in 2018, his first pro summer. He dealt with injuries throughout 2019 and his stuff was very average, with the fastball resting in the 90-93 range. He had elbow soreness during the spring of 2019, pitched in Extended for a while, got to Lansing late, made seven starts, then was shut down in mid-August. His elbow barked at him again this spring and Pardinho had Tommy John in mid-February.

What made Pardinho appealing as an amateur — his polish and potential to move quickly — is now gone after the two years impacted by injury, and it’s been a while since his stuff was exciting. What his body and stuff look like coming out of rehab could wildly alter his standing in the prospect landscape in either direction.

Machado is a very flashy, very compact middle infielder with precocious barrel feel for a young hitter, let alone one who switch-hits. The contact ability and defense may need to carry the whole profile because Machado is a smaller-framed player.

He had a breakout 2017, then needed surgery before the 2018 season began, but Merryweather was back late in 2019 and looked ready to make an immediate bullpen impact. He has an unusually deep coffer of pitches for a reliever, and both the fastball and changeup will miss bats. His FV is punished by his age but teams have traded big prospects for high-leverage relievers with lots of team control left, and Merryweather might have proven to be one quite soon.

McGuire projects as a glove-first backup catcher (his 45-game big league statline is impressive, but the visual evaluations still indicate a defense-oriented profile) who might steal a start from Danny Jansen here and there because of his handedness. He has a mid-March court date following an arrest during spring training for misdemeanor exposure of sexual organs, which GM Ross Atkins has said will not impact McGuire’s standing with the team.

Curiously, the Blue Jays narrowed Lopez’s defensive responsibilities from six different positions (all but catcher and first base) to just three (2B/SS/LF), with most of the reps coming at short, where Lopez is below average. Yes, his numbers were likely aided by Lansing to some degree, but you can’t fake a 12% strikeout rate, which is in line with Lopez’s career rates. Lacking impact power at present and the physical projection to anticipate it in the future, Lopez’s realistic future role is that of a contact-oriented, multi-positional role player. It means Lopez will have to become a playable defender at short and (hopefully) center field, because without more power, he’ll end up in the Eric Young Jr. roster fringe area.

A high spin rate, backspinning axis and flat approach angle give Murray’s fastball big time carry in the zone, and it blows past hitters even though it only sits in the 88-91 range. It has enabled Murray to reach the upper-levels of the minors in just one year, and he finished 2019 having made eight good starts at Double-A. He can pair the fastball with both breaking balls, and he throws a lot of strikes. I’m skeptical of it working in a rotation but a Yusmeiro Petit sort of relief role has precedent.

The continued development of Diaz in the rotation has improved his changeup enough that it’s a viable third offering on the eve of three-batter minimums. Otherwise Diaz has the look of your standard fastball/breaking ball middle reliever. He held mid-90s heat over a 140-inning workload last year and should live there out of the ‘pen, while his upper-70s curveball has average movement, but plays well because of how Diaz hides the ball.

At a chiseled 6-foot-4, Adams has a rare catcher’s build both in terms of sheer size and in body composition. This creates some issues for him — the lever length has led to strikeouts, and Adams can be slow out of his crouch when throwing to second — but it bolsters confidence in his durability and athletic longevity. I think it’s possible for Adams to simplify his swing in a way that looks like what Alec Bohm has done, which is a contact-oriented approach that derives power from the hitter’s strength rather than a lot of movement. I have him projected as a bat-first backup.

You can compare Robertson’s 2018 wood bat Cape statline — .300/.380/.435 — to his mid-major, composite bat power output at Creighton — .307/.401/.560 — and get a feel for what the performance drop-off is like when smaller-school mashers face cream of the crop pitching with pro-style bats. He has corner-worthy power, but Robertson’s swing and general stiffness detract from the confidence that he’ll tap into it in pro ball. He has a 1B/LF/RF platoon projection.

Injured several times as an amateur, Rees bounced from a California JUCO to Hawaii, where he had two vanilla seasons as a starter. Undrafted, he signed with Toronto, raised him arm slot, moved to the bullpen, and now has a deception/curveball combo that’s very difficult for hitters to parse in one-inning stints. He’s a likely relief piece.

Taylor has now been traded twice — the Rays acquired him from Arizona for Brad Boxberger then flipped him to the Jays for Eric Sogard — amid a quick climb to Double-A (the Rays moved him quickly after they acquired him) and intermittent elbow soreness. Taylor was shut down and given a PRP injection to remedy a UCL strain without surgery and didn’t pitch the second half of last year. Before he was shelved and traded, he was typically throwing 35 to 50 pitches once every three to five days, seemingly in preparation for some kind of multi-inning role. He works in the mid-90s, generates huge extension, and bends in some above-average sliders.

D’Orazio is a lean, projectable catcher with advanced feel for contact. He received a mid-season promotion from the DSL to the GCL and his production sputtered, but I’m in on the frame and bat-to-ball skills.

After a totally healthy 2018 (he’s endured myriad severe injuries dating back to high school), it seemed like Murphy would finally reach the big leagues and enjoy the spoils of his perseverance last year. But in June, the Umpire’s Association ruled that his delivery was illegal (his front leg would kick up, then come all the way down and make contact with the mound and the front of the pitching runner before he’d stride toward home), and Murphy’s performance fell apart as he tried to make an adjustment that would satisfy them. And that was before he got hurt again (shoulder). Healthy Murphy pounds the zone with upper-90s fastballs and breaks off an occasionally nasty curveball. He profiles in middle relief.

Hernandez is an arm strength-only, 22-year-old relief prospect with a shot to develop a viable, bat-missing slider.

The sexy, fantasy baseball-relevant tools remain (power and speed), but Alford’s strikeouts, injury history, and inability to get to his power in games continues to be a problem. He’s now 25 and the two-sport late-bloomer cuckoo clock is nearly at midnight.

As is typical of hitters transitioning from Lansing to Dunedin, Young’s surface-level production declined significantly in 2019, but his .247/.315/.347 line was still average for the Florida State League. A lack of pop will likely be a barrier to regular playing time, but Young has rosterable bench outfielder traits. He’s a switch-hitter (better left than right) who can pinch run and play all three outfield positions well (an instincts-driven center field, plus defense in a corner).

Morris’ track record of hitting well dates back to high school and he had more walks than strikeouts in his two years at Virginia (he was a draft-eligible sophomore). He doesn’t really have a position — he played shortstop all through college but fits in left field athletically — and lacks impact power, which puts a ton of pressure on the hit tool and plate discipline to carry the freight of Morris’ offensive production. To this point, he’s performed as if they may.

Paulino is a converted outfielder currently sitting in the low-90s with big time carry on his fastball. He’s a smaller-framed guy, but is loose, and I think there’s a chance more arm strength comes with maturity. His breaking ball has bat-missing action at times but needs to become more consistent. He’s a long-term bullpen prospect.

Toronto ran Perez out as a Double-A starter in 2019, his first option year on the 40-man, but he continues to project in relief because of control issues. Curiously, while he has several traits indicative of an effective fastball (its spin rate is above average, and it has backspin and plus-plus vertical movement), his heater only generated a 6% swinging strike rate last year. He’s lost a tick on his heater each of the last two seasons and has gone from sitting 93-97 to sitting 91-96, but again this has been as a starter rather than in the short-outing, piggyback-style usage Perez enjoyed before Houston traded him to the Jays in the Roberto Osuna deal. The velo might come back if Perez ends up in relief, but he still probably needs to throw more strikes to stick in the bullpen permanently rather than be shuttled back and forth from Triple-A.

There are workload worries surrounding Garcia because he’s 5-foot-9, 165 pounds, and, more relevantly, saw his walk rates spike last year. But one could argue there’s a selection bias for height in the pitching population, perhaps one that’ll melt away as we keep learning about approach angle, and, because part of the formula for torque (which could theoretically be used as a measure of stress on the elbow) is the distance from the fulcrum, that longer-armed, usually taller pitchers might actually be more of an injury risk than a little guy like Deivi. It’s unusual to project heavily on the command of a Triple-A pitcher but it isn’t strange to do so on that of a 20-year-old, so even if there are some growing pains related to Garcia’s fastball command it’s good to remember he’s the age of most college pitchers in this year’s draft.

Garcia has big stuff. He works 91-95, mostly at the top of the zone when he’s locating, and backs up that pitch with a knee-buckling, old school 12-to-6 curveball that has big depth and bite. He sells his changeup by mimicking his fastball’s arm speed but doesn’t create great movement on that pitch right now. A better third offering during the early part of his career will probably be his mid-80s slider, though that will be more dependent on command to play. It’s possible for a starter to be a 55 when they only throw 120 or fewer innings (Brandon Woodruff and Blake Snell did it last year) but it’s much easier if you inch closer to 140. We may find out about Garcia’s ability to do that in 2020 if the Yankees increase his innings as they have the last two years, or the big club may need to stick him in a lower-volume role immediately.

There’s as much industry intrigue surrounding Dominguez as there is interest in a Yankee-obsessed public because so few scouts have seen him at all, and even fewer have seen him against live pitching. One director told me Dominguez is impossible to evaluate for a list like this, while a former GM told me he was too low. The Yankees spent almost all but $300,000 of their initial $5.4 million international pool on Dominguez. He is a hyper-sculpted, switch-hitting athlete who could fit at a number of defensive positions, probably either second base or center field. He has plus tools across the board, including power from both sides of the plate. Dominguez has also largely been seen in workouts and not against live, high-quality pitching, so we don’t know much about his feel to hit, but the swing elements are there. There’s perhaps some Mike Mamula risk here, and Dominguez is physically mature for a recent J2, but I don’t know of another 16-year-old on the planet with tools this loud, and struggle to think of a historical example.

Athletic 6-foot-6 outfielders who can rotate like Alcantara can are rare, and this young man might grow into elite power at maturity. He is loose and fluid in the box but does have some swing and miss issues, though it’s not because lever length is causing him to be late — it’s more of a barrel accuracy issue right now. This is one of the higher ceiling teenagers in the minors, but of course Alcantara might either take forever to develop or never develop at all.

Duran bounced back after his horrendous 2018 and hit for power in the Penn League as a 20-year-old. He’s a stocky guy who only really fits at second base, and as he continues to age he’ll likely only be able to stay there with the aid of good defensive positioning. But boy, does he have power. Whether his contact and approach issues will hinder his ability to get to it in games is debatable. If he overcomes them, he has everyday ability.

Most teams had multi-million dollar evaluations on Vargas while he was an amateur based on how he looked in workouts. He ran a 6.4 60-yard dash, had electric infield actions and a plus arm, as well as surprising ability to hit despite his stature, at the time weighing just 143 pounds. He was twitchy, projectable, looked fantastic at shortstop, and was old enough to sign immediately. The Reds were interested but needed Vargas to wait until the following signing period to get the deal done, so the Yankees swooped in with comparable money and got it done sooner.

Vargas’ name was often the first one out of the mouths of scouts who saw New York’s talented group in the DSL, and he was one of several the Yankees promoted stateside in the summer. He’s a potential impact defender at short who also has uncommon bat control for such a young switch-hitter.

Schmidt throws four average or better pitches and enough strikes to start. Both breaking balls play up against righties because of Schmidt’s rather funky delivery, but the arm action also creates some fear about his long-term health, and those fears are supported by his college injury history. He profiles as a No. 4 starter.

Medina appeared to grow into a starter’s control throughout last year. In his first nine starts, he tossed 35 innings, walked 41 batters, and threw 53% of his pitches for strikes. His next five starts included 23 innings, 14 walks, and 57% strikes. His final eight starts were incredible: 45 innings, 63 strikeouts, and just 15 walks. 60% of those pitches were strikes. Mixed into the back half of his season were still some clunky four and five walk outings, so is this trend a sign of things to come or just a blip in a sample too small to trust?

Medina’s stuff is fantastic and has been for a while. He was up to 96 mph as a 15-year-old amateur, eventually going unsigned on July 2nd due in part to his horrendous command. Then he hit 100 mph as an amateur with improved feel, which is when the Yankee scooped him up for $300,000. He still sits 94-98, has hit 101 mph, has a dominant power curveball that’s projects as a plus-plus pitch, and his sinking changeup moves enough to miss bats when it’s located competitively. The highest walk rates among qualified big league starters are in the 9-11% range, which is where Medina’s walk rates were during the second half of 2019. Reds righty Luis Castillo (10%) is a dominant, two-pitch template for Medina’s projected ceiling, and unless he once again becomes prone to nuclear strike-throwing meltdowns, his stuff will play in high-leverage relief.

Florial is officially in the Franchy Cordero Zone, wielding several high-end physical tools, the development of which have been at the mercy of injuries and strikeout issues. He missed a chunk of 2018 with a fractured right hamate then suffered a non-displaced fracture of the right wrist that cost him April and May of 2019. He struggled when he returned, and had an OBP just beneath .300 across 74 Hi-A games, whiffing 33% of the time. It’s correct to be weary of Florial because of the strikeouts and injuries — despite having the physical ability of a top 10 overall prospect, Florial has existed in the 45-50 FV tiers his entire pro career because of the K’s — but it’s too early to be dismissive of or fatigued by his stagnant development. He’s still just 22 and over the course of 140 games at Hi-A as a 20- and 21-year-old, Florial’s .250/.330/.380 line is actually above the Florida State League average.

And he seems to have done at least some of that while undergoing a swing change. Florial’s older swing was stiff-wristed (I’m unsure if it had to do with, or was because of, the injuries) and long, and he was often beaten by fastballs near the top of the strike zone and and swung well inside on soft stuff away from him. His newer swing enables him to get around pitches better and his groundball rate dropped for the second straight season last year. What’s more, his minor league spray chart, per Baseball Savant, showed less contact peppering the shortstop area and third base line. His TrackMan data indicates the strength and power were intact coming off of the wrist injury. All of this is evidence that Florial remains a talented work in progress capable of making adjustments, which he clearly needs to continue doing.

Peraza has emerged from a group of prospects who, on last year’s list, we evaluated as likely utility or second division regular types, including Peraza, Oswaldo Cabrera, Thairo Estrada, and Pablo Olivares. All are smaller, contact-oriented hitters with good feel for the game and up-the-middle defensive profiles. Now Peraza is a plus shortstop defender with what looks like a future plus hit tool. Plus, he’s only 19 and his exit velocities are beginning to climb. There are lots of infielders in this system with a frame similar to Gleyber Torres‘, stout and strong, and that’s the way Peraza is tracking. It limits the raw power projection, but if Peraza’s rate of contact holds up, he’s going to hit for power by virtue of the quality and amount of contact he’s making. He’s tracking like a lot of the contact-oriented shortstops currently toward the back of the overall Top 100, and is a potential regular.

Gil’s velvety smooth delivery belies his control problems, which are concerning and will likely banish him to the bullpen. Mechanical ease is often an indicator for scouts to project on command/control but there are Neftalí Feliz sorts of exceptions, and I think that’s what we’ve got here. The effortlessness with which Gil generates upper-90s heat is unbelievable, but his release point waivers and he walks guys.

His presence on the 40-man makes it more likely Gil gets fast-tracked as a reliever, though he should continue starting a) just in case things click, because the ceiling is huge if it does and b) the reps will help sharpen his secondary stuff, which is good but not quite as good as his dominant fastball. There are very few big league pitchers with this combo of velocity and spin and a bunch of them throw cutters. Gil’s heater had a 20% swinging strike rate last year and would probably be harder if he were in the bullpen. He’s going to have a dominant offering that I think eventually spearheads a high-leverage relief future.

He looked like a cutter/changeup pitchability guy a year ago, but Yajure has since enjoyed a velo spike and was bumping some 97s late last summer as he climbed all the way to Double-A. A Yankees source credits the velo bump to a foundation laid during Yaure’s 2017 Tommy John rehab. Additionally, Yajure’s changeup has become a plus pitch. It’s a firm, sinking offering in the upper-80s. He works his cutter away from righties for swings and misses, and can dump his curveball in for strikes the second and third time through the order to get ahead of hitters with something new. His huge 60-inning workload increase from 2018 to 2019 was a bit surprising, and assuming Yajure doesn’t come out of the chute sitting 88-92 from the aftershocks of that uptick, he’s tracking like a 50 FV arm.

The steadiest infield defender among the high schoolers in the 2019 Draft, Volpe compared similarly to Oakland A’s shortstop Nick Allen when he was a high schooler. Volpe will likely be a plus shortstop defender — his feet, hands, and actions are all plus, his range is average — and has good feel for contact, but he lacks both strength and the physical projection that enables teams to anticipate strength will come. Keep in mind this is what Peraza’s scouting report read like last year, and he appears poised to make so much contact as to render his relatively modest raw power projection irrelevant. That path is the one Volpe could take toward an everyday role, but it’s more likely that he ends up a glove-first utility type.

Abreu’s 2019 was like any other year. He missed time with a strained bicep (he’s now had elbow and/or shoulder issues for three straight years), but still made 23 appearances averaging just under five innings per outing, a 30-inning increase from 2018. And Abreu’s stuff remains incredible — 94-99 as a starter, 70-grade changeup, two good breaking balls — but strike-throwing consistency has never materialized here, and he projects as a nasty bullpen piece. He’d be a 45 FV if not for the multi-year injury history.

It’s ironic that the Yankees didn’t want to slow down Cabello’s bat development by asking him to catch (he did as an amateur, and his build and arm strength are both visual fits behind the plate). Instead, his offensive development stalled on its own. Most of the physical tools are intact, Cabello’s swing just looked out of whack, and he was coming off of a dislocated shoulder that truncated his 2019. His front side was leaking way down the third base line (which happened during his incredible 2018, too), and his swing was described as long to me, which is odd for a hitter this size.

This is still a rare blend of skills, especially if catching is ever revisited. Cabello still runs well, and last year he inspired one of my favorite scout quotes of all time when I was told that he has a “grinding gait, full effort, kicking up grass as he runs like the rooster tail of a speed boat.” In addition to potential plus hit and run tools, there’s above-average arm strength, and what was billed as above-average raw power that hasn’t shown in the exit velos yet. Though Cabello’s top end exits are still good for his age, his averages are not good for someone as physically developed as he is, a piece of evidence that supports the visual assessment of his swing. Still, I’m not out after one bad year, and think Cabello has everyday physical ability.

Not only did Contreras hold his stuff over a longer season (he threw more than twice as many affiliated innings in 2019 as he did in 2018) but his velo was actually up a tick, and his walk rate came down, too. We’re not talking about premium arm strength, but Contreras should end up with three quality offerings (intentionally or not, he can vary the shape of his breaking ball enough that he functionally has four) and plenty of strike-throwing ability to start. Barring continued development of his changeup, which already looks better than we projected a year ago, he won’t have a plus pitch and therefore fits in the No. 4/5 starter area rather than as a plus, mid-rotation type.

Cabrera went from looking physically overpowered at Charleston in 2018 to generating one of the org’s top exit velocities in 2019. He added mass in his lower half and traded some contact for power, resulting in 29 doubles. It will be interesting to see how Cabrera’s new physicality interacts with his defensive fit. He has some of the best defensive hands in the entire org and should at least be a shift-aided multi-positional infielder even if he continues to thicken and slow.

Cabrera sometimes swings at suboptimal pitches because he can move the bat head around and make contact with pitches all over the place, but this will limit his OBP and power output if it continues. He’s got a shot to be an everyday player of some kind but it’s more likely he becomes a super utility infielder.

A velo bump and uptick in changeup quality (he now has one of the nastier cambios in the minors) were the cornerstones of a 2019 breakout for Vizcaino, who was promoted to Hi-A Tampa for his final five starts of the year. While he now has 70-grade fastball velocity, his long arm action and three quarters slot create sinking action on the pitch that ends up generating groundballs more than swings and misses. The whiffs are going to come from the changeup, which bottoms out as if a trap door has opened beneath it just as it approaches the plate. At this age, I think the breaking ball refinement necessary to make Vizcaino a starter is unlikely, but I would have said the same thing about his fastball and changeup last year.

The baseball gods gave Yoendrys Gomez a velo bump, which is like giving an Austrian composer a Les Paul. A year ago, Gomez was being described as a pitchability righty who could effectively vary his fastball’s movement. Now he’s touching 98. Talk of the fastball cutting and sinking has stopped and now Gomez is taking a power approach, working his fastball at the top of the zone in concert with a curveball at the bottom. He still needs a weapon to deal with lefty hitters and to repeat his delivery better, something that should come as his limbs fill out. And Gomez has sort of an odd build. His limbs are skinny but his trunk is not, and his shoulders are rounded and pitched forward. It’s perhaps irrelevant because he is already throwing hard, but the build is similar to Jorge Guzman’s, whose strike-throwing hasn’t materialized. Last year Gomez’s stuff looked like it projected to be close to average but now he may end up with at least one plus pitch and the curveball has a shot, too.

I’d classify the reports on Escotto from my sources who saw DSL action as “mixed/positive.” Once he started generating industry curiosity through his statistical performance, expectations were high for scouts went in to get a look at him and the rest of the Yankees DSL players. Proponents saw big pull power for a teenager, coherent ball/strike recognition, and a 2B/3B defensive future. Detractors saw third base-only, a mature build, a pull-only approach to contact, and some swing length. The power and infield future, regardless of where it is, is enough to like Escotto more than Josh Breaux (if you think he’s a first baseman, certainly) and the powerful corner outfield types in this org.

He was viewed as a polished hitter with middling tools as an amateur but Pereira swung through a lot of pitches in the zone last year, albeit in a small statistical sample and at a level much higher than is typical for a hitter his age. Pereira went to the Penn League as an 18-year-old and whiffed in over a third of his paltry 74 plate appearances before injuring his ankle and getting shelved for the summer. His swing seemed more uphill than it was before he signed, and he’s the first of several recent prominent amateurs on this list dealing with developmental growing pains. 2019 was basically a wash for Pereira, who had a reasonable shot to be an everyday center fielder just 12 months ago.

Smith body comps to late-career Kirby Puckett, just at 6-feet tall instead of 5-foot-8. He’s a tank, the absolute unit, a lefty-hitting thumper with the most fully actualized combination of game power and approach on this entire list. Smith went to full-season ball as a young 20-year-old last season and raked. His hitting hands work such that Smith pushes a lot of contact the other way, and he’s so strong that he often whacks those for extra bases. Smith also has an intelligent approach and advanced ball/strike recognition. His power demands that pitchers work him carefully and Smith has been exploiting this fact since high school. It’s a left field profile (Smith runs well underway but at his size at this age, he’s moving to a corner) but the requisite raw power and on base skills for that seem to be here.

Gomez stood out as a 15-year-old because of his one, truly freakish ability: he has a stone-cold 80 arm (clocked in the mid-80’s with a radar gun) and a quick release that allow him to regularly post pop times below 1.80 in games, which is generally a 70-grade time. Gomez is a mature-bodied prospect and a 30 runner presently, someone who appears “unathletic” on the surface. We often talk about football and baseball athleticism as being two different things, and Gomez is not football athletic, but he definitely is baseball athletic. Instead of timed speed or visible strength, he displays quick-twitch movement, first step quickness, and overall explosion through strength in the forearms, wrists, and hands. Gomez is an ideal case study in the differences, as he’s got soft hands and is mobile behind the plate, and has solid average raw power with similarly graded bat control. The Yankees may have a 5 defensive catcher with a 5 bat, 5 raw power, and an 8 arm here. That would be quite a find for $600,000, especially given the current wasteland that is big league catching.

Since signing, Seigler has been snakebitten by various injuries and has barely even played, catching just over 40 games in parts of two seasons amid hamstring and quad issues, a concussion, and a fractured patella. This was once the most interesting prospect on the planet, a baseball oddity: a switch-hitting catcher who was also an ambidextrous reliever. Unlikely to develop relevant power, Seigler needs to actualize both his high school contact skills and ball/strike recognition to make enough offensive impact to play every day. But right now the goal is just for him to play every day at all.

Smith hit a career .313/.420/.478 at LSU and had a huge summer on Cape Cod after his freshman year. A stress reaction in his back nixed his sophomore campaign, including the Cape, but he returned and allayed any concerns about his back remaining an issue. Though not especially toolsy, Smith is a capable infield defender with an advanced approach and above-average feel for the barrel. He plays really hard and is procedurally polished. His pathway to becoming an everyday player likely involves him developing a plus or better bat, but he’s a high-floor infielder who should play a key bench role at least.

Sikkema is lower slot, sinker/slider/changeup pitchability lefty who projects to the back of a rotation. He was up to 95 pre-draft but was more 90-92 after he signed.

Rodriguez was shut down for almost all of 2019 and was only sitting 86-90 when he threw, his body got soft. This comes after he had a pretty long track record of chucking 94-97 in international competition. He pitched as a 14-year-old for the 15-and-under Cuban team, and posted a 69 IP, 32 H, 2 XBH, 20 BB, 102 K line for that squad. The ceiling here is still higher than the relief-only types who follow on this list because I’m not as certain Rodriguez can’t start as I am the Kriske/Otto sorts, though if the velo isn’t back (I’m told it is, that Rodriguez is throwing hard right now) he belongs beneath them.

The tightly-wound Green has filled out and gotten a little stiffer since he was signed away from a Vanderbilt commitment for just shy of $1 million in the 2018 draft, but he now also has two solid years of statistical performance under his belt, an important feather in the cap of a prospect who had strikeout issues in high school. He still strikes out a lot, but we can point to two seasons of promising plate discipline results from him, and his speed gives him a shot to stay in center field, both of which make the whiffing less worrisome. He remains a high variance power/speed prospect with the arm for right field should he need to move.

There’s clearly still some breaking ball tinkering going on here, but Nelson has about average raw breaking ball spin and should end up with a viable big league version of some kind given time. For a 24-year-old, he hasn’t been pitching that long, as he didn’t focus exclusively on pitching until he got to his JUCO. If the breaker and another half grade of control fail to develop, Nelson should still end up as a bullpen stalwart. He sat 94-97 as a starter for a while and that velo may come back if he’s pitching in relief. Plus, his splitter is already an out pitch.

Kriske was the last pitcher added to the Yankees’ 40-man last offseason, presumably chosen over top Rule 5 Draft pick Rony Garcia, in case you were wondering if this org has pitching depth. Kriske was a standard, two-pitch middle relief prospect until he added a splitter last year. He sits 92-96 (which is up from a couple of years ago) and his fastball has plus-plus carry and life (it generated a 16% swinging strike rate last year). He had an average, two-plane slurve and now has a big league out pitch in the split.

Otto was a reliever at Rice (winces) who the Yankees wanted to develop a changeup and try to start, but he missed nearly the whole 2018 season with blood clot issues in his shoulder. He was up to 98 mph and flashed a 70 curveball in short stints before the injury, then last year was sitting 92-94, albeit with other traits (spin rate and axis) that enabled it to play better than that. Otto’s arm action is NC-17 violent but his is a relief profile anyway.

Cue the Pete O’Brien comps. Breaux is a very physical hitter with huge raw power, red flag peripherals, and stuff that might prevent him from catching. When he was a two-way JUCO prospect, he was in the upper-90s on the mound. A sore elbow cost him a bunch of 2019 and may also have sapped some of his arm strength, depending on when you saw him. Even a fully operational Breaux has some footwork and exchange issues that can slow his release or impact throw accuracy. He’s a relatively inexperienced defender so those things may still come, but if not then the K/BB stuff needs to improve because we’re talking about a 1B/DH.

German was a solid middle-round college pitching prospect going into the 2018 draft, with most clubs treating him as a sixth to eighth round talent who could possibly be a target for the 11th-12th rounds and a $125,000 bonus, as cheap senior signs fill in the latter stages of the top 10 rounds. Then German (Dominican-born and whose name is pronounced like the European country) had one of the latest pre-draft velo spikes possible, suddenly hitting 95 mph during the Atlantic Sun conference tournament in his final college game just two weeks before Day One. Miles per hour are a dime a dozen these days, but German had the athleticism and arm action of a starter and had put on about 15 pounds in the previous 12 months, so some thought this could be coming. Clubs who had scouts at that final start shot him up their boards, and the Yankees jumped to the front of the line to take him in the fourth round.

The velo spike held throughout German’s first summer in pro ball — he sat 92-95 and touched 97 mph in the fall instructional league, and put on about 10 additional pounds after signing — and then moved yet another tick last year — 93-96, touch 98 — even though German is still starting. The length of his arm action and the gap between where his secondary stuff is (German’s college breaking ball was scrapped, and his changeup is now his best secondary) and what it’d have to be to play several times through the order means German is likely a fastball-heavy reliever.

King probably would have graduated from this list last year if not for a stress reaction in his elbow and a subsequent setback during his rehab. He can manipulate the shape of his fastball and locate it where he wants to generate weak contact, but lacks swing-and-miss secondary stuff. This is a low variance fifth starter profile.

For some international scouts, Salinas was ahead of Cabello and Pereira, and was the top prospect in their 2017 signing class; he got the biggest bonus of the group at $1.85 million. Salinas’ 2018 season was ruined by a broken ring finger and knee bursitis that limited him to 11 games; last year he was healthy and just didn’t look great. He’s still a plus runner with a plus arm and a chance for plus defense in center field, but his swing and approach have become questions. It’s too early to move all the way out on him, especially because the injury stole a year of reps, but Salinas is firmly in the high risk hit tool category now.

Garcia missed just about all of the 2019 summer with a quad injury, and scouts’ looks at him during Extended reinforced last year’s report. He’s 6-foot-6, switch-hitting, and if he doesn’t have 80 raw power now, he will in the next few years. For now, he’s an average runner underway, though his first step isn’t great and he’ll lose a step or two with maturity. Garcia has the arm to profile in right field, but down the road, he’ll likely be an average glove there at best and might need to move to first base. There may be some late bloom to the hit tool because we’re talking about a huge switch-hitter, but swing-and-miss will likely always be part of the profile. How much that matters will depend on how much power Garcia is getting to, and his early-career performance is promising on that end. He’s a high-variance corner outfield prospect who might turn into a Steven Moya type, or may hit 40 bombs.

Stephan’s cross-bodied delivery compares closely to that of Brewers righty Freddy Peralta, as both get way down the mound (Stephan gets nearly seven feet of extension on his fastballs) and have lower arm slots that make right-handed hitters very uncomfortable. He makes heavy use of a hard slider that at times looks like a cutter. It has enough movement to miss bats if Stephan leaves it in the zone, and he’s been able to back foot it to lefties. I have him in as a middle relief piece but changeup development is arguably still important here because of three-batter minimums taking effect.

His frame and questionable quickness are strong indicators that Cabrera will move to third base, but more power should also arrive as he fills out and Cabrera is a strong early-career performer with the bat despite his long levers. He’s a power projection third base prospect.

He’s only up to 94 right now but Larrondo is long-limbed, projectable, and one of the better athletes in this system. He has among the best 10- and 20-yard sprint splits in the org and played a good center field as an amateur. But Larrondo’s future is on the mound where, still just 17, he has elite fastball and breaking ball spin rates. His delivery is a work in progress, but that’s true of most 17-year-olds. He’s a velo spike away from climbing this list.

Estrada rose as high as the 45 FV tier on this list before tumbling after he looked sluggish in the aftermath of a pair of surgeries (the first was botched, the second took place months after) to remove a bullet lodged in his thigh when teens shot him during an attempted robbery in Venezuela. The contact rates from his peak value days were gone last year, and Estrada now looks like more of a fifth infielder than a premium utility or low-end regular.

Mejia is yet another of the several interesting prospects the Yankees moved from the DSL to the GCL in the middle of the summer. He’s a medium-framed center field prospect with more present power than you’d expect for someone his size. He’s seen time in the corners because of the presence of other center field prospects, and has some contact issues that need remedying, but the base of tools and athleticism was appealing to scouts who saw him in the DSL at the start of the season.

The Yankees moved Whitlock up the ladder very quickly in 2018, and he looked like a soon-to-be backend starter or swingman sort based on his ability to locate an average sinker/slider/changeup mix. Then he blew out his UCL in the middle of last summer and had surgery. Whitlock began throwing in January but will miss most (if not all) of 2020 and is likely on track to compete for a spot on the staff in 2021, when he’ll be nearly 25.

He’s not especially lanky or big-framed but Diaz is a plus on-mound athlete with an athletic build, clean arm action, and plus-flashing curveball.

Chirinos’ 2019 line was much more in line with his tools than his pro debut. After the Yankees moved him around to various positions in an instructional setting, he started seeing time all over the infield in actual games last year, and some scouts think his body, arm strength, and toughness would be an interesting fit at catcher, even in a part-time capacity. Realistically he profiles as a utility infielder, but the catching possibility is intriguing.

A college-aged spin rate monster who pitched in the Pulaski rotation last year, Vasquez’s realistic projection is in the bullpen, where his fastball velo would theoretically tick up and he could rely more heavily on his tornadic curveball. His size and 40-man timeline both funnel him toward the ‘pen, too.

Garcia was in the midst of a breakout 2019 when the Rockies dealt him to the Yankees for big league-ready reliever Joe Harvey, who was on the 40-man fringe for New York. Even though he had pitched well at Low-A Asheville, the Rockies demoted Garcia to the Pioneer League not long before they traded him. He’s a big-framed lefty with average stuff, though the changeup is often above and projects to be his best pitch.

Sauer experienced wild fluctuations in stuff as an amateur and first-year pro, which reinforced concerns about his somewhat Scherzer-y, violent delivery and culminated in Tommy John surgery last April. At his best, Sauer will sit 93-95 (he was up to 96 in his two outings before the surgery) and pitch with a plus curveball, a two-pitch duo that could close games. If Sauer’s changeup and command improve, he has mid-rotation upside, but he’s barely had pro reps because of injury and it’s more likely he ends up in relief if his stuff comes back. He began throwing off a mound in mid-February.

He struggles to repeat it, but the flexible Rodriguez has a loose, explosive delivery, and he arrived for camp this spring looking much stronger. The skinnier version sat in the low-90s last year and his fastball has high-end spin. I have him projected in a two-pitch relief role, and he’ll move up the list once the velo does, which, considering the shape Rodriguez was in when he reported, might be this summer.

Santos is a toolsy, frustrating prospect with above-average bat speed. His swing is often unbalanced and his weight is often forward much earlier than it needs to be, but he has the hand talent to make impact contact anyway. He needs considerable polish but the speed and raw power are interesting, and while Santos’ issues are somewhat severe, they’re at least easy to diagnose.

Agnos was up to 96 during his stint with Team USA but sat 88-92 as a starter the following spring, and that’s where his post-draft velo was as well. Unless the pre-draft summer velo returns (which is more likely if he ends up in the bullpen), Agnos projects as a fifth or sixth starter with three average pitches.

Released by Minnesota after a just over a year in the DSL, Munoz is now an interesting, bite-sized arm strength prospect. The Yankees lowered his arm slot last year and he started throwing really hard and throwing strikes. They also gave him a slider rather than curveball. Munoz is likely a relief prospect, but it makes sense to develop him as a starter in hopes that either his slider or changeup become an out pitch.

His feel to hit is behind, but Perez is an athletic, no-doubt shortstop with a projectable body, and his swing foundation is workable.

A former two-way player who used to tip the scales at a cool three bills, Gittens is now hitting for huge power in the upper levels of the minors. Based on the data I have, he led all minor leaguers in 2019 average exit velo at a whopping 96 mph. Gittens was a 25-year-old repeating Double-A, and he struck out nearly 30% of the time. Those two things make it unlikely that he’ll carve out a big league career, but he might be either a) an interesting depth piece in the event of a bunch of first base injuries (a phenomena the Yankees have dealt with in recent years) or b) a flier for a rebuilding team.

Waldichuk is a loose, lanky lefty who gets way down the mound (he generates nearly seven feet of extension) and has big carry on his fastball. It’s a three-pitch mix that fits in a swingman or long relief role.

He has a traditional bullpen power arm repertoire but Alvarez is scarily wild and needs to develop a full grade of control to profile at all.

Hayes is perhaps still a swing change away from really breaking out, as he continued to hit the ball hard at Triple-A last year, but often into the ground. He remains a very intriguing prospect not just because the quality of the contact is good but because he’s a plus-plus third base defender with rare speed for the position. It’s possible to attribute what appear to be some plateauing traits to the previous Pirates regime’s issues with player development and perhaps what is in essence a fresh start will unlock something that’s currently lying dormant. At age 23, it’s looking a little less likely now than at this time last year when we 60’d Hayes, with the currently sky-high offensive bar at third base contributing to that sentiment.

Somehow, over the past year, the ratio of scouts who believe the 6-foot-7 Cruz might actually stay at shortstop has grown. It’s more within the realm of possibility for those who think a lot of issues with lateral agility can be masked through some combination of arm strength (Cruz has a freaking hose) and good defensive positioning. What if this guy, who I’ll once again body-comp to Harold Carmichael and Brandon Ingram before I search for a less instructive baseball avatar, actually stays there and grows into 80-grade raw power? How bad would the contact issues need to be for him not to be a great player if that’s the case?

Indeed there are folks in baseball who are skeptical of Cruz’s hit tool because of his lever length, and those concerns are exacerbated by how often he likes to swing. There are several vastly different ideas as to how his body and game will develop as he fills out, and scouts who think Cruz is destined to slow down and move to right field or first base, and who also have concerns about the contact, don’t even think he belongs on this list. But consider this: At this age Aaron Judge, who is as close as we’re going to get to a physical peer for Cruz, was striking out 21% of the time at Fresno State. Split between Hi- and Double-A, against competition way better than Mountain West Conference pitching, Cruz whiffed 25% of the time. That’s not bad for someone this age and this size. I will concede that the approach is bad and that the swing needs polish if Cruz is going to get to his power in games. I’ll also concede that the Fall League look was bad (he missed several weeks with a foot fracture), and his LIDOM performance was, too. This is one of the — if not the — highest-variance players in the minors, but there aren’t many who have a chance to be what this guy might. Even the outcomes more toward the middle of what is likely — a center fielder with a hit tool in the 35-40 range with huge power, a right fielder or third baseman with the same, a gigantic target at first — are still fine. I’m way, way in on Cruz even though he has clear issues that make him one of baseball’s riskier players.

We’ve all been waiting around for Keller and the Pirates to figure things out, and it seems they’ve gotten much closer with the addition of a slider, which has become Keller’s primary out-pitch. (His fastball still has a little less life than would best pair with his curveball, but I don’t have him on the high speed camera yet to see if he’s pronating behind the baseball.) Keller quickly got comfortable locating that slider, which has an awful lot of sweep for a pitch in the upper-80s, to his glove side. He can throw competitively-located changeups against left-handed hitters, but in big spots a well-placed slider is just a nastier option. Aside from the little bit of carry that might be added to his heater, Keller is now a four-pitch strike-thrower with a state-of-the-art repertoire.

Swaggerty is a good defensive player whose offensive performance, specifically his power output, continues to fall a little short of what someone with his physical talent could be doing. Are you noticing a common theme surrounding Pirates hitters on this list? Even if Swaggerty never dials in his swing and actualizes his power, his secondary skills (mostly the defense) should help lift the profile to that of a regular anyway.

An athletic conversion arm with a big, broad-shouldered, projectable frame and almost no miles on his arm because of the conversion, Thomas has been pitching in relative obscurity to this point because he’s been on backfields and in the Appy League. He may be the most anonymous 100 mph arm in baseball. He snaps off some promising breaking balls and has pretty significant command projection because of his athleticism. There aren’t many young, high-variance arms on this list, but Thomas’ frame, his fresh arm, his elite velo, and how enthused I am about the breaking ball, changeup, and command projection because of how athletic he is gives him a chance to attain some nutty right tail outcomes.

Aside from the semi-frequent body comps we issue to give readers a better idea of what a player looks like physically, we tend to shy away from making overall comparisons between prospects and current or former big leaguers unless it’s very apt. We have one here in Liover Peguero, who is a Jean Segura starter kit. His sloped shoulders, short torso, and the high, thick butt and thighs map to a slightly taller version of Segura. More significantly, like Segura, Peguero is remarkably short back to the baseball; his barrel enters the hitting zone in the blink of an eye, giving him an extra beat to decide whether or not to swing. It also makes it hard for pitchers to beat him with velocity, since he’s rarely late on anything and has quick enough hands to get on top of pitches near the top of the strike zone. He’s also remarkably strong in the hands and wrists for a teenager and is already producing average exit velos above the big league average, though Peguero cuts down at the ball and is currently groundball prone. His swing may get longer as his attack angle changes.

Perhaps the place where the Segura and Peguero Venn Diagram does not overlap is on the defensive end of things. Peguero is a plus athlete with above-average hands and arm strength, which could make him an above-average defender at short in time. If his lower half thickens and Peguero slows down, he’ll look more like Segura does now on defense.

You can take your pick between Priester or the recently-acquired Brennan Malone. Malone’s repertoire is a bit more fully realized but Priester has more room on his frame, better natural ability to spin the ball, and comes from a cold-weather background that often leaves a greater developmental gap between present and future pitchability traits. Pretty early in high school, Priester was firmly on the radar as a big-framed righty with a good breaking ball. His stuff ticked up closer to the draft, when he was consistently in the mid-90s, and he was 91-95, touching 96 after he signed, and his changeup showed late growth, too. It’s a high-variance, mid-rotation profile, similar to most teenage pitchers with this stuff and build.

Malone was on the scouting radar for awhile, standing out in North Carolina for his clean, quick arm speed and above-average breaking ball. For his draft year, he transferred to IMG Academy in Florida and took another step forward, reminiscent of how Touki Toussaint added feel elements to his profile in his draft year. Malone switched to a more controllable version of his breaker, a 55-grade slider that flashes 60 for some scouts and that he can dot anywhere. Malone hit 99 mph in his last outing of the spring in front of a lot of heat and sits in the mid-90s for full outings. His curveball and changeup are both about average, giving him a mid-rotation starter look, with the usual injury caveats for a power prep righty.

Among the league’s hitters, Oliva had one of the better Arizona Fall League performances and lots of scouts now think he’s got a shot to be a big league regular. He went undrafted as an eligible sophomore at Arizona because he was too raw and inexperienced due to a total lack of reps while in high school. He emerged as a speed/raw power flier as a junior, but slid to the Pirates in the seventh round and signed for slot. His performance in 2018, his first full pro season, exceeded all expectations: in his 172-game college career, Oliva produced nine homers and a .773 OPS, while in 108 games at Hi-A, he hit nine homers with a .778 OPS despite skipping Low-A. He has a flatter swing that doesn’t enable his raw power to play but the on-base ability and speed might enable him to be a center field regular anyway.

Bolton had a strong start to his 2018 season before he was shut down in July with a shoulder issue and didn’t pitch for the rest of the summer. While a groin injury interrupted an otherwise healthy 2019, his stuff was wholly intact when he pitched, and his velocity was actually up a tick from the year before. Healthy Bolton touches 97 and will show you a plus slider and average changeup. He sat 86-90 as a rising high school senior but has since altered the timing of his arm swing for the better, and the resulting velo is fairly new, which makes Bolton’s cogent strike-throwing more impressive. Because his delivery is somewhat grotesque and Bolton has had a shoulder problem, there’s apprehension about his health, but he has 50 FV stuff and could reach the big leagues in the next 12 to 18 months.

Bae’s teenage years were quite tumultuous off the field. He was wrapped up in the Braves’ international indiscretions and had his deal with the club voided by MLB. (The New York Times reported that although Bae had agreed to sign for $300,000, the Braves planned to pay him an additional $600,000 by reallocating money promised to other signees to him.) Because he had skipped the KBO’s draft to sign with an MLB team, the KBO barred him from signing with any South Korean pro team for two years. When he hit the market again, Bae signed with Pittsburgh for $1.25 million. He was found guilty of and later suspended for assaulting his former girlfriend in an incident that occurred on New Year’s Eve 2017. After the suspension and a treatment/education program, Bae returned to the field and was skipped over two levels and sent to full-season ball at age 19, where he hit .323/.403/.430.

His domestic assault conviction impacts how teams (and people, in general) view, value, and interact with him, but purely on talent, some clubs think he belonged on my top 100 list. Bae’s arm may prevent him from playing shortstop, but if that’s the case he’ll still fit at second base and he has the speed to play center field. It’s possible his lack of power hurts his on-base skills as he climbs the minors and pitchers attack him without fear of him doing extra-base damage (he has no minor league home runs yet), but Bae’s gotten stronger, his exit velos took a leap last year, and he has premium rotational ability. He should develop enough thump to keep pitchers honest and become a table-setting regular at second or in center field.

Switch-hitting middle infielders with power are very rare, and while Castro’s approach makes him a volatile prospect (and may also make him a frustrating, low-OBP big leaguer), his pop and defensive fit give some real ceiling. Castro has a good chance to add strength as he ages without compromising his ability to play second base. His hitting hands are explosive but still pretty uncoordinated, especially from the left side of the plate, though that’s pretty common for switch-hitters this age. Even though it doesn’t always look pretty, Castro’s batted ball results indicate he actually has good feel for consistently hitting the ball hard (43% of his balls in play were hit at 95 mph or above, a 60 on the scale) and in the air. He’ll probably be a low-OBP hitter so he needs to out-slug that deficiency, but he has a chance to do that.

Discovered in the Northwoods League after he slipped under draft radars for various reasons (including an early-career TJ), Mears was signed as an undrafted free agent and a year later, has reached the upper levels of the minors. He throws really, really hard, has a vertical slot that creates carry at the top of the zone, and though his curveball lacks huge depth, it does play well with the heater due to its vertical shape.

Because of when he signed, Mears doesn’t need to be added to the 40-man for a couple of years, and the rebuilding Pirates have incentive to slow-play this one. But Mears’ stuff is probably ready right now, and I think he has a shot to be a high-leverage option.

Mitchell owns one of the prettiest swings in pro baseball, a Griffey-esque lefty uppercut stroke that enables him to leverage pitches toward the bottom of the strike zone. The lift in Mitchell’s cut enabled him to golf out 15 homers in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League even though Mitchell doesn’t have much raw power right now. His frame isn’t very big and it’s unlikely he’ll ever grow into impact pop, but whatever power Mitchell ends up with, it’s a fair bet he’ll get to it in games because of his feel for lift. His swing-happy approach is a bit of a problem. Above-average feel for contact has enabled it to this point, but the way his peripherals moved last year is somewhat concerning. Either the raw power or patience need to take a leap, but if one of them does, Mitchell has a good shot to be an every day player.

Siani is the younger brother of Reds prospect Mike Siani, and while Mike’s speed and defensive instincts made him a million dollar prep hitter, Sammy has more of a shot to hit for power. His hands work in a short little loop that creates lift without also creating length. From a tools and body standpoint, Siani has some tweener traits similar to eventual college outfielders Daniel Cabrera, Adam Haseley, and Dominic Fletcher when they were preps. Most of their tools live at or near average and they don’t have obviously projectable builds — they’re simply well-rounded players and good athletes who tend to perform in high school games.

There could be give (power) and take (speed) that pushes Siani to left field, or he may end up with a lighter hitting center field profile. You’re just betting on the swing foundation and athleticism here. Siani’s exit velos look really scary but he has generated very little data on that end, so little that the sample probably isn’t relevant.

Martin hit 35 dingers in 2019 and while his strikeout rates are indeed concerning, his blend of raw power and selectivity is potent, and quite impressive for a hitter his age at his level. Martin hits the ball very hard and hits it in the air regularly. The threat of his power is going to force pitchers to work carefully when he’s in the box, which I think gives his walk rate (career 14%) a good chance to hold water as he climbs the minors. Typically, first base-only profiles, even ones I like, with any sort of blemish get relegated to the 40 FV tier, but Martin’s premium raw power, the lift in his swing, and his approach make me more bullish about him profiling as a three true outcomes first baseman than most players with similarly-shaped skillsets.

Many of the international prospects Pittsburgh has signed over the last two years have become of interest to opposing teams, and this is especially true of Nolasco, who has quickly added mass to his frame (his shoulders are huge, as if he’s got cantaloupe halves perched on either side of his neck) and grown into considerable power. His swing is not presently geared for the kind of in-game power you hope for based on Nolasco’s raw juice, but the barrel feel and ball/strike recognition are fairly advanced for a player this age. Corner outfield profiles are tough but the early indicators here are strong.

His delivery is a little bit clunky, but after experiencing a significant velocity spike last year Florez now has better stuff at a younger age than most of the other prospects in this system. His fastball has grown from the 88-92 range to the 92-95 band in about a year and it has other characteristics that enable it to play in the strike zone. His breaking ball, which has always had length, now has more power and velocity as well. He has some nascent feel for creating sinking movement on a changeup, but he doesn’t often locate it competitively right now. That’s true for most of his offerings at the moment and there’s an awful lot of relief risk here, but the notion that Florez might throw even harder in short bursts combined with a shot to have three major league-quality offerings means that even if he ends up in relief, he could be dominant. His pitch grades assume bullpen projection. Florez is Rule 5 eligible at the end of 2020, which I think increases his chances of being ‘penned and pushed quickly.

The timing of MacGregor’s 2018 Tommy John meant he missed all of 2019 regular season play and was limited to throwing in sim games on the Pirates’ complex in the fall. His velocity spiked late during his high school career and the Pirates jumped on him earlier in the draft than he was expected to go; he was only sitting 90-91 and topping out at 94 at the time. Before the elbow went, he was 90-94, touching 97, and locating a quality breaking ball. He has mid-rotation upside if his stuff comes back after surgery.

After he tore through the minors, hitting at every stop, Kramer has now had two bad September cups of coffee and didn’t have a great 2019 at Triple-A Indianapolis. He did, however, begin to branch out defensively and see reps in the outfield. I still like him as a versatile lefty bench bat.

Burrows is a spin rate monster. He has a medium build but is already throwing pretty hard and might throw harder in a relief role, which is what I think is most likely. The variance on the command portion here is a little higher considering how new this arm strength is (Burrows was sitting in the mid-80s during parts of his high school senior season) and while a couple of the prospects behind him on this list have a better chance of starting, he has a better chance to be anything at all because of how good his stuff is right now.

Triolo hit .317/.406/.447 in college and those numbers include a relatively punchless freshman season. He didn’t hit for power with wood on Cape Cod, nor did he last summer in the Penn League, but his exit velos are above big league average. Triolo has a pretty simple swing. His front foot is down early, he’s short to the ball, and at times he opens his front side up too much and gets beaten by breaking balls down. At third base the very average hit/power combo is a tough profile, but Triolo is a very good defender there, and that will help. He saw some reps at shortstop last summer and may get some at second base this year. He profiles as a multi-positional infield utility guy, much like Kramer, who is several levels ahead of Triolo.

How much velocity can we still hope for Jennings to grow into? He’s 21 now and isn’t especially projectable, but he has had non-arm injuries (an ACL tear in high school, a broken rib) that have cost him reps and compromised his physicality for long stretches. He can still really spin it and his fastball, which was in the 88-92 range last year, has other traits that give it some room to breath at lesser speeds. There’s a small chance more velo arrives, but I’m more inclined to project Jennings as a strike-throwing fifth starter who relies on his secondary stuff quite often.

A two-sport star in high school, Ashcraft kind of got lost amid the many talented prep arms in the 2018 class, but he was in the second tier, wire-to-wire, for the clubs that emphasize athleticism and projection. The Pirates need to find a way to get his fastball to play better than it did last year when it barely induced any swings and misses despite perfectly serviceable velo for the Penn League. Ashcraft remains a premium body/athleticism projection prospect with arm strength, but now that we have some pitch data, it seems that the developmental gap between where Ashcraft is and where he needs to be to be a viable big league arm is pretty wide.

Brubaker had been remarkably durable up until a forearm strain interrupted, then ultimately ended, his 2019 season. His fastball was predictably down a tick from the prior season, when he was the Pirates Minor League Pitcher of the Year after posting a 2.81 ERA over 28 Double- and Triple-A starts. His relatively new curveball is his best secondary pitch and it pairs with a hard slider in the 88-90 mph range. Brubaker’s fastball doesn’t have bat-missing life or ride, but he knows how to attack hitters with his two breaking balls and should fit in the back of a rotation or in a relief role. His health may dictate which.

Burdi’s injury history (a Tommy John and surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome) is a concern, but he’s touching 100 mph again, and his lower half is now more involved in his delivery. He’d be in the 40+ tier with Mears if not for his injury rap and age.

Herman skipped a couple of levels and kept his head above water at Greensboro in his first full pro season, striking out a lot (he was a 30th rounder out of a New Jersey high school the year before) while hitting for power. His stroke is comically simple and it’s amazing how he’s able to rotate and generate lift and power with such minimal activity before his hands fire. It’s going to be a tough right field profile and some hit tool questions will eventually need to be answered, but the raw and game power look like they’re going to clear the right field bar if Mr. Herman hits.

Though he’ll occasionally show you an above-average changeup and slider, Cederlind’s bread and butter is his upper-90s sinker. He’s going to work off of that pitch about 70% of the time en route to a middle-relief role. I think he’ll be more of a groundball reliever, like Scott Alexander or Jared Hughes, than one who misses bats.

Lolo is really tough to evaluate. His swing has changed several times, his 2019 Low-A numbers (he slugged .450) are wholly unsupported by his TrackMan data (82 mph exit velos, a 30 on the scale), and we didn’t see him play much center field after he was promoted to Bradenton because of Travis Swaggerty’s presence. Some of his poor performance there, and historically, needs to be considered with his age (20, young for every level he’s played at) in mind. The pull-heavy approach here doesn’t make sense given the speed and contact rates but I still like that Sanchez is as fast as he is and has displayed precocious feel for the barrel. I think the outcome here is probably that of a bench outfielder but my degree of confidence is lower because Lolo’s development to this point has been so strange.

Injuries (including a TJ) limited De Los Santos to just 27 innings over a three-year span, and 2019 was his first healthy, full season since 2015. In 2019 he was back, throwing hard, and has a typical middle relief fastball/slider combination. He probably could have used a promotion last year, but keeping De Los Santos at Low-A at his age perhaps successfully hid him from model-driven teams with a Rule 5 spot. Now the Pirates have to hit the gas on his assignment to stress test his stuff for a 40-man addition in the fall.

Since a 2016 swing change increased the angle in his swing, Martin had performed at every level until reaching Triple-A in 2018. He’s a tweener defensive outfielder with a collection of average tools, and he profiles in a bench/platoon role.