These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Luis Robert, CF, Chicago White Sox
Level: Hi-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 4   FV: 55
Line: 2-for-4, HR, 2 HBP

Notes
Off to hot start, Robert has multi-hit efforts in each of his first four games and has already stolen three bases and homered three times. After watching LouBob a lot last year (first while he rehabbed multiple injuries, then in the Fall League), I grew concerned about how his bat path might limit the quality of his contact (he sometimes struggled to pull pitches he should have) or his rate of contact, which we don’t have a large-enough sample to properly assess because of his injuries. So far, the pull-side stuff hasn’t been founded, as all but two of Robert’s balls in play so far this year have been to the right side of the field, and those were both pop-ups to the second baseman. He’s one of the more physically-gifted players in pro baseball.

Darwinzon Hernandez, LHP, Boston Red Sox
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 2   FV: 45
Line: 5 IP, 2 H, 4 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
We do not think Hernandez is a long-term starter and instead think he’ll be an elite bullpen arm. His fastball often sits in the upper-90s when he’s starting so it should at least stay there if he’s moved to relief and, though his feel for it comes and goes, his curveball can be untouchable at times. Maybe the strong early-season performances of Matt Barnes, Brandon Workman, and Ryan Brasier has stifled some of the disquiet about the Red Sox bullpen, but in the event that they need an impact arm, I think it’s more likely to be Hernandez than a piece outside the org. Some of this is due to the quality of the farm system, but Hernandez might also just be better than a lot of the options that will eventually be on the trade market. Read the rest of this entry »

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Tuesday, the Rockies and 24-year-old right-hander German Marquez reached an agreement on a five-year, $43 million contract extension, with the deal first reported ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The contract includes a club option for a sixth year, though that becomes a mutual option if Marquez finishes at or near the top of the Cy Young voting twice during the life of the extension, which runs through 2023.

The deal encompasses one pre-arb year (this season), all three of Marquez’s arbitration years, and either one or two of his would-be free agent years, depending on what happens with that club option. He’s now on track to hit free agency at age 30.

Marquez is a pro scouting success story and an example of how development often continues after players have reached the big leagues. Th Rockies acquired him from Tampa Bay along with Jake McGee in exchange for Corey Dickerson (who Tampa later traded for fringe prospect Tristan Gray) and Kevin Padlo (who did not make our Rays prospect list). Marquez reached the big leagues in his first season as a Rockie.

Then just a competent strike-thrower with two plus pitches — a fastball and a curveball — Marquez was in the middle of our 2017 top 100 prospects list in anticipation of him developing a third pitch, which occurred during his 2018 breakout in the form of a new slider. After tinkering with his seldom-used changeup and a hard slider during the spring and first half of 2018, he leaned more heavily on the slide piece down the stretch in 2018 and was dominant toward the end of the season.

What’s next? Perhaps increased two-seamer usage, which could be especially meaningful as a way of keeping the ball on the ground in Coors Field. It’d be ideal for Marquez to continue refining his changeup but, despite his strike-throwing prowess, he has some issues with release consistency (it was better last year, but is still relatively varied) that might impede development in this area if you buy that things like feel and release consistency are indicators of change development, which I do.

We don’t know how a new CBA might have impacted Marquez’s free agency were he not to have signed a deal and hit the market at 28. The financial security afforded by extensions makes more sense for pitchers, who are at greater risk of suffering a career-altering injury. But Marquez hasn’t been injured since 2014 and is built like a tank, so perhaps he’s at less risk of breaking than, say, Blake Snell, who seemed to set the market for this type of extension a few weeks ago.

A 2.7 WAR contributor in 2017 and a 4.2 WAR arm in 2018 (who was trending up late in the year), Marquez is clearly part of a Rockies very long-term core that includes recently-extended Nolan Arenado, Kyle Freeland, David Dahl and whomever among the Ryan McMahon, Garrett Hampson, Brendan Rodgers, Raimel Tapia, etc. group turn out to actually be good. Daniel Murphy and Charlie Blackmon have deals running through 2021, and Trevor Story is under team control during that stretch, too.

Other than Ian Desmond, who has been a replacement level player for the last two years, there are no scary long-term deal on the books, so the Rockies should be free to pay to add to this competitive core while it’s together for the next three seasons, especially while 40% of their division is rebuilding. The most likely trade chips on the farm are Tyler Nevin and Colton Welker, who are blocked by Arenado, and McMahon/Murphy.

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Late Tuesday night, Ken Rosenthal reported that the Tampa Bay Rays had agreed to a six-year, $24 million contract extension with 24-year-old second baseman and outfielder Brandon Lowe. Lowe is our 46th overall prospect, the top one in the 50 FV tier, and the No. 5 prospect in a loaded Rays system.

According to the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin, the deal also includes two club option years, which, along with incentives, could bring the total value to $49 million; if those options are exercised, Lowe will be 32 when the deal ends. Lowe will now obviously be making much more during his pre-arb seasons than he would have with standard contract renewals, but the possibility of overarching changes to baseball’s compensation structure in the next CBA currently make it impossible to evaluate the latter parts of the deal on Lowe’s end.

If he becomes the type of player I expect him to be — Lowe has power, walks at an above-average clip, and plays several positions including a passable second base, all of which makes me think he’s a two to three win player — a $4 million average annual value would make Lowe a bargain for the Rays. Based on Craig Edwards’ work at our site (and Driveline Baseball’s recent attempt to refine that research), 50 FV position player prospects like Lowe should be valued at $28 million, quite close to the value of his deal, excluding of the team option years. The AAV of the two option years, which would encompass Lowe’s age-31 and 32 seasons, is $12.5 million, almost exactly what D.J. LeMahieu received this offseason (age 30, two years, $24 million), and LeMahieu has been what we’d call a 50 in prospect parlance, as he was on average about a two win player during his tenure with Colorado. Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, we considered the catcher position. This afternoon, the positional power rankings take us out to left field.

Has batted ball data and modern defensive positioning altered the defensive spectrum? It likely won’t surprise readers to learn that the average wRC+ by position starts with first base and right field, but it may be revelatory to learn that the gap between right and left field has been pretty wide. The last four years, the average right fielder has produced an average wRC+ 4.75 ticks higher than his counterpart in left. The offensive bar at third base has also been higher on average than in left field during the last four years.

Why? Perhaps improved defensive positioning on the infield has enabled more bat-centric players to play third base when, in years past, they’d be at first. Most hitters are right-handed, and increased focus on pulling the ball in the air could have quickly made defensive range in left field more important than it has been in the past. The average sprint speed among left fielders is now on par with that at shortstop. Is it a long term, tectonic shift that should impact things like prospect evaluation? It’s hard to say definitively at this point because so much about the game is changing and still has the potential to change. But it’s worth discussing — eventually. For now, here are our current left fielders. Read the rest of this entry »

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Prospects “graduate” from prospect lists when they exceed the playing time/roster days necessary to retain rookie eligibility. But of course, that doesn’t mean they’re all in the big leagues for good. Several are up for a while but end up getting bounced back and forth from Triple-A for an extended period of time. Others get hurt at an inopportune moment and virtually disappear for years.

Nobody really covers these players in a meaningful way; they slip through the cracks, and exist in a limbo between prospectdom and any kind of relevant big-league sample. Adalberto Mondesi, Jurickson Profar, A.J. Reed, and Tyler Glasnow are recent examples of this. To address this blind spot in coverage, I’ve cherry-picked some of the more interesting players who fall under this umbrella who we didn’t see much of last year, but who we may in 2019. Read the rest of this entry »