This is a series of scouting thoughts on high-school prospects eligible for the 2017 MLB Draft based on observations from summer showcases. Today’s positional group is right-handed pitchers. Links to other positional groups appear below.
This kid might go 1-1 and he’d be the first high-school righty in the history of the draft to do so. His fastball is absolutely electric, sitting in the mid-90s and touching as high as 98 with good extension and movement that plays in the zone. I think Greene’s heater would be effective in the big leagues right now and, though the rest of his repertoire is middling, his body and athleticism make the entire package worthy of top-of-the-draft considertation.
Eric A Longenhagen: G’day everyone. We’re likely to have an annotated chat today as I tie up loose ends before heading to an instructional league double header this afternoon and then to Florida, apologies ahead of time.
2:02
Slamboni: Tyler O’Neill just finished a second consecutive great season. Is it unreasonable to expect he is a big spring away from the bigs? The Seattle OF is nothing to write home about..
2:04
Eric A Longenhagen: Don’t think that’s unreasonable. He’s answered every challenge thrown at him. I have no issues aggressively promoting players who have performed and O’Neill has. If he rakes in Fall League I’d absolutely let him run with the big leaguers next spring and see hot things go.
2:04
Sailor Jerry: Have you seen Ryon Healy this year? Do you think this sort of production is sustainable?
2:05
Eric A Longenhagen: I have. The power is definitely real, it’s approaching 7 raw power. I don’t think he’s going to make as much contact as he has thus far, though.
2:05
MetsFan: Who will be the first 2016 draft prospect to hit the majors?
This is a series of scouting thoughts on high-school prospects eligible for the 2017 MLB Draft based on observations from summer showcases. Today’s positional group is corner infielders. Links to other positional groups appear below.
The position du jour is corner infielders. This is a weird group. I shuffled the names around quite a bit before publication and am still not sure that I’m okay with what I have because beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder when it comes to all of these prospects. Without further adieu…
Adisyn Coffey, 3B, Delta HS (IN)
Height: 6’2, Weight: 170, Commitment: Arizona State
Coffey had the coolest looking bat at Area Codes and put on quite a display with it, making hard, airborne contact in several at-bats. He has above-average bat speed and great feel for generating lift because of a cute little backside collapse that creates some uppercut in the swing without overdoing it and eating away at his ability to make contact. Coffey loads his hands quite high and it can take a good bit of time for his barrel to find the baseball in the hitting zone, but he moves the bat around pretty well, I like his chances to hit and, eventually, hit with some power.
Eric A Longenhagen: Morning, everyone. Gonna let Szym finish his chat before I get going here. Fell free to pump questions into the queue and I’ll get rolling when he’s done.
1:39
Eric A Longenhagen: Okay everyone, let’s get rolling.
1:39
CJ: Tell me how to feel about Dylan Cease and his ridiculous stuff.
1:40
Eric A Longenhagen: I think you should feel excited but I caution you to let your guard down because the guy has a pretty lengthy injury history. Only allow yourself to be vulnerable if you can deal with a broken heart.
1:40
LA: How do you like the possibility of Yohander Mendez helping out the Texas rotation as early as spring training next year?
1:41
Eric A Longenhagen: Non-zero chance, the stuff is certainly good enough, but I think it’s more likely he starts next year in the minors.
This is a series of scouting thoughts on high-school prospects eligible for the 2017 MLB Draft based on observations from summer showcases. Today’s positional group is center fielders. Links to other positional groups appear below.
Center field is a difficult position to play. It requires special straight-line speed but also the ability to read ball trajectory off the bat and hunt down said ball while making in-flight adjustments at a full sprint. As it is such a difficult position to play, not many humans are capable of it and this year’s group of high-school prospects are no different. Below are most all the prospects I’ve seen during summer showcases who I think have a prayer to remain in center field. For the uninitiated, the players who have their own sizeable sections are ranked in the order in which I’d draft them were I forced to do so today, while the players below that are just in alphabetical order.
Jordon (or “Jo”) Adell has the best hit/power combination among high schoolers in the 2017 class and has a non-zero chance of playing center field. If that sounds like a player worthy of consideration in the draft’s top 5-10 picks, that’s because it is.
This is a series of scouting thoughts on high-school prospects eligible for the 2017 MLB Draft based on observations from summer showcases. Today’s positional group is middle infielders. Links to other positional groups appear below.
If this is the first post in the series that you’re checking out or just need a refresher, the players who have full paragraphs below are listed in the order I prefer them based on my summer looks. That order will very likely undergo changes between now and June. This year’s group of middle infielders is a little cloudy. The top two prospects for me who are arguably capable of playing SS/2B are likely to be picked at other positions; other than those two players, the group lacks a splashy talent worthy of top-10 or -15 consideration.
Scarce though quality shortstops may be, we’ve been fortunate to have at least one talented enough to merit top-20 consideration in each draft this decade (’10: Manny Machado, ’11: Francisco Lindor: ’12: Carlos Correa and Addison Russell, ’13: J.P. Crawford, ’14: Nick Gordon, ’15: Brendan Rodgers, ’16: Delvin Perez would have gone top 10 if not for failing his pre-draft drug test and Gavin Lux went 20th overall), but that streak may end this season. Players “of note” in the second section are listed in alphabetical order.
Royce Lewis, ATH, J Serra HS (CA)
Height: 6’2, Weight: 188, Commitment: UC Irvine
Lewis played all over the place throughout the summer and is such a good athlete that I think, with time, he could make it work at whatever position he was asked to, save for maybe shortstop. I like him best in center field but also saw him work at second base, where his actions, especially around the bag, are raw but workable. Regardless of position, I think his bat is worthy of first-round consideration. I’ll talk more about Lewis when we cover the outfielders because that’s where I think he ends up, but there’s a non-zero chance he’s drafted as an infielder and I wouldn’t disagree with it.
Yesterday, preliminary rosters for the 2016 Arizona Fall League were released. Below I’ve provided a brief rundown of the many of the more prominent or interesting names included in this year’s class. Between now and October 11th, when the league kicks off, rosters will inevitably change — just as they will throughout the course of the league itself. If I’ve written about a player below recently because they were traded or because I’ve seem them lately, I’ll have a link to that report tagged in the post.
East Valley Teams
Mesa Solar Sox (CHC, CLE, MIA, OAK, TOR)
Franklin Barreto and Ian Happ are the big names in an infield chock full of bat-first infielders. Yairo Munoz and Yu-Cheng Chang (report) fall into that category, as well. Mesa’s outfield has perhaps the most impressive collection of talent since Scottsdale’s Mike Trout/Bryce Harper/Gary Brown triumvirate from 2012. Cubs OF Eloy Jimenez has easy 70-raw-power projection. Indians CF and 2016 pop-up guy Greg Allen (report) gets a chance to prove that his breakout year is for real (I think it is), while Cleveland OF Bradley Zimmer and Toronto OF Anthony Alford, two high-upside talents with serious swing-and-miss issues, have a chance to receive instruction from a new set of coaches as they attempt to close holes in their offensive profiles.
Sleeper: Marlins RHP Jeff Brigham fell in the 2014 draft because of concerns about his size and health but has been up to 99 in the past and pitched well in the FSL this year. I also like Cubs C Victor Caratini’s bat.
In February of 2015, 19-year old Cuban infielder Yoan Moncada agreed to a contract with the Boston Red Sox that included a $31.5 million signing bonus. In the 18 months that have elapsed since then, the baseball world has anticipated his arrival to its biggest stage and, this weekend, it’s going to get what it wants.
While we’ve all understandably been following and analyzing his progress and development in anticipation of things to come, possibly lost on us has been that Yoan Moncada is already a significant historical figure in baseball’s history. His departure from Cuba with the country’s unexplained blessing came at a time when the public was just beginning to understand what his predecessors and their families endured during their defections just as relations between the island and the United States began to change. He symbolizes the end of a historic era of Cuban baseball excellence, the most remarkable talent in a wave of defectors who have left the country, at least momentarily, dry.
His delivery to America and, eventually, the major leagues was preordained. There was too much money on the table for all parties involved for Moncada to take a bow behind an isolated archipelagian curtain. Unlike several supreme Cuban baseball talents who preceded him, American baseball fans are fortunate that they don’t have to ask themselves, “What if?” as they do with players like Yulieski Gurriel, Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez who debuted stateside past their primes, in their 30s. They instead have been asking, “When?”
Moncada’s relevance extends beyond international baseball popular culture and deep into the business end of things. He is so talented that, at the age of just 18, he shined a very public light on a multi-billion-dollar business’s flaccid and discriminatory system designed specifically to suppress the wages of teenage Latin American ball players by single-handedly pushing it to its limit. He forced Major League executives to confront a once-in-history scenario, a stoned sports fan’s hypothetical question about loopholes and generational talents: “How much money is the best teenager on the planet worth, up front?”
Leading up to the trade deadline, there was quite a bit of discussion at this website about Atlanta RHP Julio Teheran regarding his value and whether or not it was prudent for the Braves to move him at this juncture. I was often asked in chats about what I thought about the situation, Teheran’s value, etc. I responded that, going forward, I thought Teheran was a league-average starter, a No. 4 worth around two wins annually. There was some adverse reaction to that, which is understandable given that Teheran has made two All-Star teams before turning 26 and had already contributed about 2 WAR this season when I opined. Conversely, he’s also got a career FIP approaching 4.00 and has seen a drop in his average fastball velocity this year.
The Braves came through Arizona for a four-game set with the Diamondbacks last week and I was in attendance for Teheran’s start on Wednesday to get an in-person look at an arm that has undergone a substantial metamorphosis since his days as a prospect and one that will likely be on the market this winter. I try to hit a major-league game every now and then, just to remind myself for what I’m supposed to be looking in the prospects I see. I thought evaluating Teheran would make for an interesting piece, so I did it.
Eric A Longenhagen: Morning all. Going to be a shorter chat than the usual hour and a half as the Rangers and Padres AZL game for today was moved up to 10am and I want to see Alex Speas. I’ll give you a couple more minutes to get questions in since so far an overwhelming ratio of the ones in the queue are about 25 year olds.
11:06
CarrotJuice: Do the Orioles have any prospects that could be if any use for this season? (Sorry, but I accidentally clicked send before I finished the question before)
11:07
Eric A Longenhagen: If you would have asked my this before the season I would have said Tanner Scott and Jason Garcia could come up late in the year and add some juice to the pitching staff but neither has been very good this year. I suppose Park Bridwell? Not really any clear candidates.
11:07
GPT: You’ve seen Sandro Fabian over the course of the season, final thoughts? His stats have held up. Is he a top 15-20 in the system type player?
11:09
Eric A Longenhagen: Body lacks projection (I think) but solid bat speed, natural loft and timing. Not a CF for me but a solid little prospect. 15-20 in the system feels right, would be ahead of the system’s pure relief arms and Clayton Blackburn for me.
11:09
Great8: Morning! Which young Rays SS do you think has the brighter future? Rondon or Fox? Do you think either will be Allstar quality players? Thanks