One day after boom-or-bust Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami was officially introduced as a new member of the White Sox on a two-year, $34 million pact, FanSided’s Robert Murray reported that the Pirates have inked fellow left-handed first baseman Ryan O’Hearn to a two-year, $29 million deal.

This framing device will eventually lose its White Sox trappings, but they’re initially connected just because the South Siders were linked to O’Hearn early in the offseason, before they pivoted from a reliable and proven big leaguer to an attention-grabbing international signing. Murakami has a deeply volatile profile with significant bust potential, but a famed home run hitter and two-time MVP of NPB picking a relative MLB backwater is intriguing not only for beleaguered White Sox ticket sales employees, but also for outlets like this one that observe the league at large. How the talents of a legendary Japanese slugger with apparently bottom-of-the-scale contact ability translate to MLB is fascinating, whereas pondering whether a 32-year-old hit-over-power first baseman like O’Hearn can keep a later-career breakout going is more the usual fare. Even for the largest position player free agent signing in Pirates franchise history, O’Hearn is newsworthy mostly in terms of how well he might fill a short-term need for a role player. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago White Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Already an appealing addition based on cool name factor alone, Korean infielder Sung-mun Song put himself on the MLB radar with a late-20s breakout for the KBO’s Kiwoom Heroes. The 29-year-old was posted by Kiwoom last month on the heels of back-to-back .900+ OPS seasons that saw him crank 45 total home runs, and FanSided’s Robert Murray was the first to report that Song’s hard work has achieved the purest form of recognition our society can offer: money.

The Padres have reportedly reached an agreement with Song on a three-year deal, which The Athletic’s Dennis Lin says is for around $15 million total. Since San Diego is sort of pot-committed to this Manny Machado character as its everyday third baseman, Lin reports that Song is expected to bounce around the infield, filling in only occasionally at his primary position and appearing at second and first base more often. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of different types of players get sent to the Arizona Fall League by their parent clubs: prospects who have lost time due to injury, org arms there to soak up enough innings for the league to function, guys eligible for the Rule 5 Draft whose teams aren’t yet sold on putting them on the 40-man roster, and, quite often, the most talented and exciting players in minor league baseball. It’s a rich and robust tapestry.

Now that the league’s action has commenced, one use of the AFL is to provide a sort of decontextualized look at some of the players whose strong performance in 2025 was already cause for some re-evaluation. Here’s one player from each AFL roster who arrived with some helium, prompting us to ask if they’ve changed their scouting report, or are just progressively improving into the player we expected.

Glendale Desert Dogs
Sam Antonacci, 2B, White Sox
2025 FV: Honorable Mention

Not only did the White Sox trade for Chase Meidroth months after giving Antonacci a slightly over-slot bonus in the fifth round of the 2024 draft, their Double-A Birmingham affiliate won the Southern League while slotting Antonacci in as the third straight feisty little bat-to-ball maven at the top of their lineup behind Rikuu Nishida and William Bergolla. At six feet, he’s a bit taller, but similar to Meidroth, below-average thump and a dearth of the athleticism necessary to drive a shortstop projection cooled early scouting reads for Antonacci, and he was an honorable mention for us on the White Sox list in April. Despite only playing his junior season there after two years of Division II ball, Antonacci is so Coastal Carolina-pilled that 35 hit by pitches form a substantial part of the .433 OBP he held over his first full pro season. (That he has yet to be plunked in his first three AFL games has to be, one would imagine, a source of deep personal disappointment.) Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Houston Astros. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »