In something of a surprise move, the Kansas City Royals added 20-year-old Raul Mondesi — the son of the former Dodgers outfielder — to their World Series roster to replace pinch-runner Terrance Gore. Since Mondesi can play shortstop and second base, he gives the team a bit more roster flexibility, especially for the games that will be played under NL rules. Interestingly, Mondesi has never played in a major league game, or even a Triple-A game for that matter. So if Ned Yost decides to use him off the bench this series, he’ll make his big league debut in the World Series — something no one’s done before. As I noted in my write-up of Matt Reynolds, who was on the Mets’ NLDS and NLCS rosters despite having zero big league experience, this sort of thing is super unusual.

Mondesi’s most notable attribute is his infield defense. Kiley McDaniel, our erstwhile lead prospect analyst, gave his fielding and throwing tools future grades of 60. Yet, despite his defensive savvy, Mondesi’s hitting — or lack thereof — makes him a something of a polarizing prospect. Baseball Prospectus ranked him 12th on their mid-season list, while Keith Law had him down at 38th. Others put him somewhere in-between. There’s not a ton of consensus on Mondesi’s future.

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Way back in April, the Blue Jays turned some heads when they filled out their bullpen with a couple of 20-year-old A-Ballers: Miguel Castro and Roberto Osuna. Few doubted that these young arms had closer-type stuff, but they also lacked any experience against big league hitting. There wasn’t much of precedent for pitchers making that type of jump, making it darn near impossible to know what to expect.

The two arms went in polar opposite directions. Castro had a brief run as the Jays’ closer, but was sent back to the minors in May after a rough start. Toronto later flipped him to Colorado in the Troy Tulowitzki deal, and he remained in the minors until September.

Osuna, on the other hand, pitched brilliantly from the get-go. He took hold of the closer’s job in June after a strong start, and he never looked back. He finished the year with a 63 ERA- and 73 FIP-, both of which marks ranked in the top 35 among qualified relievers. He struck out 28% of opposing batters while only walking 6%.

The season I just described would be impressive for any reliever. But Osuna’s campaign is especially notable given his age: 20 years old. Twenty-year-old big leaguers are a rarity in modern baseball. Some of the very best prospects don’t debut until they’re 22 or 23. Kris Bryant and Noah Syndergaard are a couple of super-recent examples. Osuna was the youngest player to appear in the majors this year, and is currently the only player born in 1995 (Gosh, I feel old) to appear in a big league game.

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And I thought I was done writing about prospect debuts for the year. With Ruben Tejada out of commission following his controversial rendezvous with Chase Utley, the Mets added 24-year-old Matt Reynolds to their NLDS roster for tonight’s game. Tonight marks Reynolds’ first time on a big league roster, so assuming he gets into a game this October, he’ll accomplish the rare feat of making his big league debut in the playoffs.

As you can probably imagine, this doesn’t happen all that often. Reynolds would be only the second player in modern history to break into the big leagues during the postseason. The most recent case was Mark Kiger, who debuted as a defensive replacement for Oakland in the 2006 ALCS. The only other case that I’m aware of happened in 1885, when some guy named Bug Holliday did it. There was also Chet Trail, who was on the Yankees 1964 World Series roster as a “bonus baby” due to a technicality, but never got into a game. So, yeah, this is an oddity.

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Unless you’re Cardinals fan, or you happened to watch a lot of Cardinals games this year, you’ve probably given very little thought to Tommy Pham. It’s very possible that you’d never even heard of him before this year’s playoffs. Heck, it’s even possible you’re still not even sure who he is or where he came from. But the 27-year-old rookie played a big role in Friday night’s game, when he blasted a pinch-hit homer off of Jon Lester in the 8th inning. His homer added an important insurance run for the Cards, extending their lead from one run to two. Check it out.

Hitting a homer isn’t a particularly rare occurrence for Pham, at least not lately. He hit five of them in his 173 big league trips to the plate this year, which helped propel him to a .268/.347/.477 batting line. His home-run total placed him third among Cardinals rookies, trailing only Randal Grichuk and Stephen Piscotty. But unlike his rookie teammates, Pham missed the cut for just about every organizational prospect list — both this season and in every prior season.

His absence from these lists had almost everything to do with his age. Pham turned 27 back in March, making him significantly older than your average rookie. But while 27-year-old impact rookies are few and far between, Pham’s success hasn’t exactly come out of the woodwork. He hit .320/.391/.487 in 603 Triple-A plate appearances between this year and last, which was good for a 132 wRC+. To put that in context, Pham was essentially the Lucas Duda of Triple-A before the Cardinals gave him a call.

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Just as we all anticipated, Kris Bryant put together an extremely impressive rookie campaign. After he spent the season’s first two weeks in the minors, the Cubs set free their 23-year-old top prospect, and he proceeded to rake.  Bryant put up a .275/.369/.488 batting line on the strength of 26 long balls and a 12% walk rate, which yielded a 136 wRC+. Throw in that he graded out as a plus defender at third base, and the end result was a remarkable 6.5 WAR — easily tops among rookies, and was the 10th-highest figure of any hitter period. The Cubs seem to have a very special player on their hands.

We all knew Bryant had star potential long before he was called up. That’s why he got so much love on pre-season prospect lists, and also why KATOH liked him more than almost any other prospect. But now that he’s a year further along on that trajectory, we can be a bit more certain of what his career might look like. So, using this new data, let’s see what Bryant’s rookie campaign might tell us about what lies ahead. As I did yesterday in my piece on Carlos Correa, I performed a some weighted Mahalanobis distance calculations to generate a list of players whose seasons were most similar to Bryant’s. For more details on my methodology, see yesterday’s Correa post.

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The 2015 season has been chock-full of high-profile rookie debuts. From Kris Bryant to Corey Seager to Noah Syndergaard, I’ve certainly had no shortage of players to write about. But the most impressive rookie campaign — at least on a per-game basis — might very well belong to Carlos Correa, who’s developing into a superstar right before our eyes. Although he’s completed just his age-20 season, Correa’s been one of the best better hitters in the game since the Astros called him up on June 8th. His 133 wRC+ was the 28th best among hitters with at least 400 plate appearances this year, and second best among rookies, trailing only Kris Bryant. By the barometer of WAR per 150 games, Correa ranked 21st in baseball with mark of 5.2.

You probably didn’t need me to tell you that Carlos Correa’s been really good. This isn’t exactly news. So rather than dwelling on how good Correa is now, I want to consider what his impressive rookie campaign means for his short- and long-term future.

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On Monday night, the Biloxi Shuckers, the Brewers Double-A affiliate, fell to Chattanooga in the Southern League championship. Following the loss, the Brewers rewarded several members of the Biloxi squad with promotions to the big leagues. Among Tuesday’s call-ups were: outfielder Michael Reed, infielder Yadiel Rivera, and right-handed pitchers Yhonathan Barrios, Adrian Houser, Jorge Lopez and Tyler Wagner. Let’s have a look at what the data have to say about these prospects. (Note: WAR figures represent projected WAR totals through age-28 season, according to KATOH system.)

Michael Reed, 4.5 WAR

Michael Reed opened the year with Double-A Biloxi, and was promoted to Triple-A on August 1st. He was later reassigned to Double-A for the playoffs to get a few more reps. All told, the 22-year-old hit a respectable .270/.377/.408 on the year with an impressive 27 stolen bases.

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Shortly after the Chattanooga Lookouts took home the Southern League championship on Monday, the team’s best player packed his bags for the big leagues. That player, of course, was Max Kepler, who will spend the final two weeks of the season in Minnesota following a well-deserved promotion.

Kepler put up crazy good in the minors this year. The 22-year-old spent nearly the entire season at the Double-A level, where he hit an absurd .322/.416/.531 in 112 games, while also kicking in 18 steals in 22 attempts. Kepler also accomplished the rare feat of walking more than he struck out this year, posting walk and strikeout rates of 14% and 13%, respectively. Even more impressively, he complemented this control of the strike zone with a healthy amount of power. Although he hit just nine homers on the year, his 32 doubles and 13 triples at the Double-A level produced an isolated power of .209.

There isn’t much to dislike about Kepler’s minor league performance this year. He drew walks, rarely struck out, clubbed oodles of extra base hits and stole a fair amount of bases. In other words, he did it all; and as a result, KATOH’s very bullish on him. My system projects him for an impressive 13.2 WAR through age 28, making him one of the highest-ranked prospects in the game. This represents a dramatic improvement over the weak 1.1 WAR yielded by his 2014 campaign.

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The crux of my duties here at FanGraphs is to project prospects who happen to be in the news. In most cases, this involves writing about highly touted minor league players as they’re called up to the big leagues for the first time. There’s certainly been no shortage of players from that phylum in 2015. This year has often been labeled the “The Year of the Prospect,” and rightly so. From Kris Bryant to Carlos Correa to Noah Syndergaard to Lance McCullers, we’ve experienced a historic wave of young talent matriculating to the big leagues. Top prospects often turn into productive big leaguers, so nobody would be surprised if several of this year’s crop of rookies went on to be perennial All-Stars.

But not all impact major leaguers come out of this mold. As Jeff Sullivan uncovered this past February, about one-third of the players who produce three wins in any given season never even cracked a Baseball America’s Top 100 list. The purpose of this post is to analyze, or at least call attention to, a few rookie hitters on contending teams who weren’t ballyhooed as prospects, but have still acquitted themselves well in the big leagues. The four hitters below came to the big leagues with little fanfare, but have already made an impact on the division races this year, and more importantly, stand a good chance of remaining productive.

*****
Randal Grichuk, OF, St. Louis

Although he was a first round pick, Randal Grichuk underwhelmed throughout his minor league career. His 113 wRC+ as a minor leaguer was more good than great, especially for a future corner outfielder. And up until this season, he was best known as the guy the Angels selected before Mike Trout. Grichuk’s put together an excellent performance for the Cardinals this year, however, belting 16 home runs in 92 games on his way to a 142 wRC+. Grichuk’s had some trouble making contact, but has made up for it by being extremely productive in those plate appearances that haven’t resulted in a strikeout.

Grichuk didn’t crack any top-100 lists heading into the year, but KATOH still thought he was an interesting prospect based on his minor league numbers. Although his overall .259/.311/.493 batting line was nothing special, especially for the Pacific Coast League, KATOH was still impressed by the power he demonstrated as a 22-year-old in Triple-A. My system projected him for 4.4 WAR through age 28, making him the 81st highest-ranked prospect. It’s no secret the Cardinals have a good team this year, and Grichuk has been a big part of that success. The one obstacle for the 23-year-old is an elbow injury, which has limited him to pinch-hitting duties of late. If healthy, though, Grichuk’s pop should continue to power the Cardinals lineup this October, even if his batting average comes back to earth a bit.

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At 60-84, the Rockies are not merely way out of contention, but also mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The team’s in full on rebuild mode these days, and simply put, there aren’t all that many exciting players on their roster. However, they’ve called up a couple of interesting hitters this September who could ultimately develop into useful contributors and help out the next competitive Rockies team: infielder Cristhian Adames and catcher Tom Murphy.

Cristhian Adames

Let’s start with 24-year-old Cristhian Adames, who’s a good bit closer to being ready for the big leagues than Murphy. Adames has hit a loud .391/.440/.435 in semi-regular playing time the last couple of weeks, and has played each of the past few days while filling in for the injured Jose Reyes. Over half of Adames’s balls in play have fallen for hits, which has certainly played no small role in his recent success. But even so, pushing .400 is a great way to make a positive impression.

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