The Cubs had no room for Dan Vogelbach. Hit though he may, the absence of the designated hitter in the National League was always an inhibitor for his future there, to say nothing of the wealth of young bats the Cubs have amassed at or near the major-league level. For several months, Vogelbach was an obvious potential trade candidate simply because the Cubs had nowhere to put him. Yesterday, that trade occurred: Chicago sent Vogelbach and Paul Blackburn to Seattle in exchange for Mike Montgomery and Jordan Pries.

Then a third baseman, Vogelbach won a 3-A state baseball championship in high school at Bishop Verot High School in Fort Myers. He tipped the scales at close to 280 pounds at the time and was asked to shed weight early in his pro career with the Cubs. He’s now listed at 6-foot, 250 pounds. There are certainly baseball players built like Vogelbach who are still able to effectively execute all aspects of their given position. Stories about Bartolo Colon‘s athleticism or Livan Hernandez’s flexibility are common in scouting circles and it’s not impossible that someone built like Pablo Sandoval or John Kruk can maintain enough lateral agility to effectively play a corner infield spot. Vogelbach doesn’t appear to be one of those players. He’s not a good athlete and has issues with range, footwork, flexibility and throwing accuracy. He’ll make the occasional, spectacular-looking, effort-based play but hasn’t shown enough technical refinement in his five pro seasons to convince scouts he can play a position.

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Carson Fulmer was perhaps the 2015 draft’s most polarizing prospect. He was, on one hand, a college prospect with a career-long track record of success (sub-2 ERAs as a sophomore and junior, 167 Ks in 127.2 IP in ’15) and objectively hellacious stuff, while, on the other hand, both inefficient and the owner of an ugly-duckling delivery that scared off many more scouts than just the usual cross section of xenophobes. Mostly, three camps formed: the group that thought Fulmer could start, the group who thought he’d end up in relief and was bothered enough by that to move him down their board, and the group that thought he’d end up in relief but didn’t care.

In an ironic twist best suited for baseball, Fulmer has essentially proven each camp right while simultaneously remaining difficult to project, even as he’s ascended to the majors. His stuff remains incredible, each offering in the four-pitch repertoire ready to miss major-league bats, but he’s walked 51 hitters in 87 innings this season.

I like, in these call-up pieces, to talk about things like pitch sequencing and pitch utility so we can have a deeper and more intricate understanding of how these guys are getting outs. With Fulmer, that’s not possible. Because Fulmer is just as likely to throw a strike with his fastball as he is with any other pitch, he’ll throw any of his four pitches in any count to both left- and right-handed hitters. This is strangely liberating. Fulmer’s fastball was 93-94 mph at the Futures Game and in his debut on Sunday. All the secondaries (cutter 89-91, curveball 77-81 with 11-5 movement, changeup 85-89 with arm-side run) are above-average to plus and could be coming at any time.

Fulmer’s delivery is paced like a hummingbird’s heart beat and lots of scouts think it’s the primary cause of his wildness. It’s also part of what makes him so unique and difficult to hit. It appears as though the White Sox plan on using Fulmer in an upscaled relief role, which is probably going to be good for (a) maximizing his impact on the club this year by frequently deploying him for more than three outs at a time and (b) giving him more opportunities to hone his command than he’d be getting as a standard, one-inning reliever. It’s hard to project better than 40 future control for Fulmer, but there is a chance he figures out how to throw an acceptable amount of strikes sometime during his mid-20s — the way it looks like Trevor Bauer has, for example — and makes it work as a starter. If he does his stuff is good enough to carry him to a #3 starter’s value despite his likely inefficiency.

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The Padres continue to capitalize on the short-term success of their big leaguers by parlaying what might just be small-sample mirages into good prospects. For those of you missed my report on RHP Chris Paddack, who San Diego got from Miami in exchange for Fernando Rodney, that write up is here. The Padres arm du jour is Anderson Espinoza, one of baseball most electric young arms and, in my opinion, a great return for the likes of Drew Pomeranz. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen Cleveland Indians prospects in several different places: at the club’s Spring Training complex in Goodyear, Arizona; at the Cal/Carolina League All-Star Game in Lake Elsinore, California; in Wilmington, Delaware; and at the Futures Game in San Diego. Below are my notes on some of Cleveland’s most relevant prospects scouted during this brief window.

Justus Sheffield, LHP, Lynchburg (High-A)

Once primarily a fastball/curveball pitcher, Sheffield’s most used secondary offering now appears to be a slider. His fastball sat 93-95 mph at the Cal/Carolina League All-Star Game in one inning of work and then was 92-94 in his first post-ASG start in Wilmington. Frequently, Sheffield, who is listed at 5-foot-10, fails to get on top of his fastball and the pitch comes in flat and hittable. The slider isn’t totally new — I wrote up Sheffield back in 2014 when it was his fourth option — but, considering how promising the curveball once looked, it’s a bit of surprise that that the slider has become his go-to secondary weapon. It was 84-86, some featured tight, two-plane movement while others were shorter and more cutter-like. It flashed above-average, and I think there’s a chance it could one day be a 55 offering, but was generally fringe-average to average. Sheffield is already trying to run his slider inside on right-handed hitters.

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Below are brief writeups on the other relevant prospects from this year’s July 2 class of International Free Agents, many of whom have complete tool grades on the Sortable Board which can be found here. For complete scouting reports on my top 25, bang it here (1-10) and here (11-25). If you’re an obsessive autodidact, I wrote about the implications of the penalties levied upon Boston for their improprieties as well as two of the best young prospects left in Cuba.

Pitchers

Luis Noguera, LHP, Venezuela (Colorado Rockies, $600,000)

Noguera has a projectable body and solid repertoire that projects to average on all fronts. His fastball only sits in the mid-80s and will touch 91 but we’re talking about a well-framed teenager here so it’s likely the velo takes a step forward in the next few years. The changeup, curveball and command should all be of major-league quality but nothing projects to plus, which makes Noguera a likely back-end starter at maturity.

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When I first lay eyes on a prospect, especially one who has a unique physical build, I search my mind’s eye for precedent. Making a “body comp” is a somewhat outdated way for scouts to communicate and describe a player’s physicality to a person who has never seen that player. The advent of the internet has made this kind of communication obsolete (why bother telling you that I think Jeff Hoffman is built like Jamal Crawford when I can just show you a video of Hoffman pitching and you can see it for yourself?) and now I mostly make body comps as an personal exercise to help project a player’s physical trajectory a little more accurately.

When I first saw Tyler Glasnow, who is an ectomorphic 6-foot-8, I wracked my brain trying to find a similarly built pitcher before I gave up and moved on to small forwards. Still, I came up empty, and I ended up writing “construction crane” and “pteranodon” in my notes. Glasnow has long legs, a small torso and relatively short arms for someone his size. I’ve seen only on other pitcher (White Sox righty Alec Hansen) whose physique closely resembles his. His unique physical makeup is the foundation upon which one of baseball’s most bizarre prospects has been built and influences his entire repertoire.

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Yesterday, Baseball America’s Ben Badler reported that Major League Baseball was going to levy penalties against the Boston Red Sox due to improprieties perpetrated during last year’s International Signing Period. Today, Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports elaborated on that report. I’ve spoken with several international scouts about this news in an attempt to gauge the implications not only for the Red Sox but for the international market in general. The results of those inquiries appear below.

Some background on the issue

Boston was in the J2 penalty box last year as a result of the Yoan Moncada signing the year before. They signed two Venezuelan prospects from the same training program last year, both for $300,000, and a third from that program for $200,000. MLB has found that the best of those three prospects, a catcher/outfielder named Albert Guaimaro, received most of that money. This allowed Boston to acquire a player whom they wouldn’t have been able to sign (since being in the J2 penalty box means you can’t sign players for more than $300K), the agent makes more money and two prospects who otherwise may not have had an opportunity to play in a Major League organization now have that chance. As a result of MLB’s findings, five players signed by the Red Sox during last year’s period will be declared free agents and the club is now banned from signing any international prospects during the Int’l Signing Period that begins tomorrow.

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