We’re continuing a series of scouting reports on 2017 draft-eligible high-school players. I’ve already filed reports on left-handed pitchers, which you can find here. Today we’re discussing catchers.

High-school catching is often one of the draft’s most fruitless positions and 2017 looks like an average group.

M.J. Melendez, C, Saint James School (AL)

Height: 6’, Weight: 160, Commitment: Florida International

Melendez’s father, Mervyl, Sr., is the head baseball coach at Florida International and indeed that is where M.J. (Mervyl, Jr.) is committed to play ball in college. At this point, it’s unclear to scouts whether or not that will have any impact on Melendez’s signability.

This is the best prep catcher I saw this summer but it’s hard to glean anything from a statement like that because depth at premium positions (especially among high schoolers) is very volatile, draft to draft.. Melendez has special defensive traits. He is lithe, loose and twitchy with uncommon athleticism and movement skills for a catcher, as well as an average receiver with plus raw arm strength. I had pop times as low as 1.94 to second base and 1.5 flat to third. Melendez also has some potential with the bat (which I’ll get into later) but he’s very raw offensively and is going to be drafted primarily because of his defensive ability. So where are catching prospects like this typically selected? Here’s a brief rundown of early-round high-school catchers from recent years:

2016: Cooper Johnson is the best defensive prep catcher in the class but falls due to weird signability issues. Of the 30 catchers taken in the first 10 rounds of the draft, only five of them are high schoolers and all of them (Andy Yerzy, Ben Rortvedt, Mario Feliciano, Payton Henry, Sam Huff) are bat-first prospects.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The time has come for me to start spitting out scouting notes from the summer showcases I’ve been attending for the last several weeks. During that time I’ve seen a few hundred high-school players who are eligible for next year’s MLB draft. While a handful of prospects who did not participate in any of these events will inevitably pop up next spring, the lion’s share of next year’s high-profile prep draftees are already immortalized somewhere in my notes. I’ve sifted through them and will begin to churn out my thoughts on those I found most relevant or interesting, starting today with left-handed pitchers.

Players in the primary section of this article are listed in my current order of preference while those in the “honorable mention” paragraphs below are in alphabetical order. Keep in mind (as I do during my own evaluations) that most of what I saw from these prospects came in abbreviated looks and in an atypical competitive environment.

D.L. Hall, LHP, Houston County High School (GA)

Height: 6’1, Weight: 180, Commitment: Florida State

I think Hall is a lock for the first round if he stays healthy. Lefties who touch 95 mph with this kind of curveball feel are rare and I’m not scared off by Hall’s height. He sat 90-94 in each of my showcase looks and touched 95 (some guns had him at 96 in San Diego). Hall’s arm is quick and the ball jumps on hitters. His curveball has bent in anywhere between 76 and 80 mph for me with sharp, two-plane movement and precocious depth. I have a future 60 on it. He has shown the ability to locate it both on the outer edge of the strike zone and down in the dirt, albeit inconsistently.

Read the rest of this entry »

I first saw Jeff Hoffman pitch in February of 2014, when he was a junior at East Carolina, and thought I was seeing the guy who would later go first overall in that June’s draft. Hoffman was electric, sitting 92-96 mph, touching 98 and showing feel for four pitches on a chilly, late-winter’s day in Virginia. Best amateur slider I’ve ever seen aside, Hoffman was better than Carlos Rodon that spring in every way and likely would have demanded consideration for the top overall selection (which eventually became Brady Aiken) in a class full of prospects with question marks up top.

But Hoffman broke. He had Tommy John in May of 2014. It was the second year in a row (Lucas Giolito) that the draft’s most talented right-handed arm was injured. The situation was a precarious one for Hoffman. If the injury torpedoed his stock, it would be hard for him to thumb his nose at the team that drafted him and return to school because, even with an aggressive recovery from TJ, he’d only be able to make a couple of starts as a senior before the 2015 draft and maybe not pitch at all. Alas, the Blue Jays saw the opportunity to grab a top-three talent at pick #9 and signed him for slot value, $3.1 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just fourteen months after having been selected first overall in the draft by the Arizona Diamondbacks, Dansby Swanson is making his Major League debut for the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday. While Swanson doesn’t have a robust collection of plus tools and won’t be setting the National League ablaze with top-of-the scale speed or monster raw power, his skillset is air tight with nothing but the smallest of nits to pick. Combined with his ability to play most valuable of position in baseball, Swanson should provide All Star-level value for the Braves. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

St. Louis has added two of their top pitching prospects, Alex Reyes and Luke Weaver, to the big-league club over the last few days. Below are my brief thoughts on both of them as they try to buoy the Cardinals’ shot at a wild-card berth.

The most famous of the two prospects is RHP Alex Reyes. Reyes grew up in New Jersey but moved to the Dominican in December of 2011 in order to reclassify as an international amateur free agent. He signed a year later at the age of 18 for $950,000. In four pro seasons Reyes has dominated every level, from the Appalachian League and above, earning a big-league call-up despite having made just 69 career minor-league starts. He missed the end of last year’s Arizona Fall League and the start of this season due to a suspension for marijuana use.

Reyes sits 94-97 mph during starts but has been up to 101 with movement in short bursts, as he was both during his debut on Tuesday and in the Futures Game. It’ll be a no-doubt 80 fastball as long as he’s pitching in relief which, he told reporters, would be his initial role, and I think it will be an 80 fastball at maturity. Despite his size (Reyes is listed at a laughable 6-foot-3, 175 but is probably closer to 220 and lacks much positive physical projection), we are talking about a player still just shy of his 22nd birthday and short of his physical prime.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be in California for the next few days at the Area Codes and some Cal League stuff, but below are some thoughts on three Phillies prospects I’ve seen recently, including Jake Thompson, who debuts today.

Jake Thompson, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies

I saw Thompson a few weeks ago and he struggled with command. I don’t think strike-throwing is a long-term issue here — at least not so much that it will prevent him from starting — but I do think it impacts the effectiveness of his slider and that the most important part of his development at the major-league level will be locating that pitch where he wants when he wants. It’s often plus and should be so consistently at maturity. Thompson had issues locating it for me for the first half of his start until a mid-game at-bat during which C Andrew Knapp called for six straight sliders. It was a great opportunity for Thompson to find his slider, and it worked: Thompson located it for the rest of his start. It’s his best option for swings and misses to both right- and left-handed hitters. It was anywhere from 83-86 during this particular start though I’ve seen it up to 87 in the past.

Thompson’s fastball sits 90-93 and tops out around 94. His low-80s changeup has average projection, as does his curveball, which is slower and more vertically oriented than his slider. It’s a league-average starter’s profile for me.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is my ranking of the prospects dealt during this year’s “Trade Season,” a span of time encompassing the second half of July, essentially from the Drew Pomeranz deal onward. Each tier of prospects is separated by the Future Value grade I’ve placed on them. For further explanation on what goes into FV, please go here. I’ve also included a brief, one sentence summary of each player’s skillset as well as links to the full reports I’ve written here for the site over the past few weeks and hours. Players who didn’t get full write-ups have slightly longer blurbs written in this post. Players with the same FV are ranked within their tier simply in the order I like them.

Dilson Herrera isn’t technically a prospect and is therefore not on the list but his full report is here. Hector Olivera is also not a prospect, not because he’s exhausted his rookie eligibility but because the reports I’ve gotten there, as well as what I’ve seen in person, have been quite bad.

60 FV Prospects

Anderson Espinoza, RHP, San Diego Padres (report)

Traded from BOS to SD for Drew Pomeranz

Summary: One of the most electric arms in the minors, Espinoza has a shot at three plus or better pitches and a realistic #2 starter’s ceiling but is still just 18 and obviously risky.

Read the rest of this entry »