Brendan Gawlowski Prospect Chat: 1/27/2026

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everyone. In case anyone missed it, the Jays list went live last week. Eric is publishing Philly’s list… tomorrow, I think. It’ll be soon. I also have LAA in the hopper, that’ll probably go live  Friday.

Brendan Gawlowski: Otherwise, let’s get to it.

mike: Will any Twins minor league hitters debut this year, or will they keep them down for control purposes (esp. given the likely lockout)?

Brendan Gawlowski: I would be surprised if you see huge shenanigans, honestly. Like, if Walker Jenkins rakes in AAA to start the year, I wouldn’t expect him to be stuck there all year.

Big Christmas: What do you make of the Mariners linked to CJ Abrams? Good idea to give Colt Emerson a few more games at AAA? I know he’s great, but only 40 games above A+ would give me pause in fully turning over an infield spot in the spring for a contender

Brendan Gawlowski: If you’re in the midst of your competitive window an you can acquire a player like Abrams at a tolerable price, you do it.

Lowe Distribution System: When I played baseball I was simultaneously a good OF because I was fast and covered a lot of ground and a lousy OF because my subconscious instant calculation of where a fly ball was coming down was terrible and so I took awful routes.  Is this what’s up with someone blazing fast like Chandler Simpson being a bad OF?  If so, is that something that can even be taught?

Brendan Gawlowski: Speed is the biggest part of the job but yeah, your reads off the bat and ability to predict where the ball is going to land has an impact as well. It can be improved but there’s also a visual component to it.

Brendan Gawlowski: Less commonly, you may need to round on a guy because his hands aren’t very good. Braiden Ward is a very good defender because he’s an 80 runner but I’ve seen him drop a lot of balls when he’s at full extension

Big Fan: Thanks so much for the great coverage.  When do you expect to get to the Braves list?

Brendan Gawlowski: Late February

e: is there any concern in mlb circles about the recent NCAA rulings with regards to players with minor league experience being eligible to compete in the NCAA? If a player in the NBA G-league can play for Alabama, would MLB or the NCAA be able to stop someone like Sebastian Wolcott from getting a big NIL bonus to play for a college team?

Brendan Gawlowski: I’m not sure the NCAA can stop anything at the moment.

Matt: As you’re working through the Angels list, have you had any general thoughts/themes pop up?

Brendan Gawlowski: A lot, and I’m not looking forward to publishing it because it’s going to be pretty negative.

Vic: Could Konnor Griffin produce Junior Caminero results two years later in terms of fantasy results, not skills set?

Brendan Gawlowski: He stole 65 bases last year, so… no, but in a positive, additive way

chase: Is there any reason to feel optimistic about the Rays system, in light of the step back seemingly every top prospect took last year?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yeah, they have a ton of guys, they develop well, and they’ve already added smartly this winter. You’re in good hands.

MoonBeamMcSwine: Better CF prospect in the DBax system.. Waldschmidt, Jones or someone playing out of position but can be moved to CF?

Brendan Gawlowski: Do you mean defensively? It’s Jones all the way.

Andrew: Can I talk about Hayden Alvarez real quick? I get the concerns about the power potential but the rest of the profile could feed families, 80% contact rate with a 14% BB rate. 30 SB potential and decent CF defense. Is there something in the swing that people don’t like? I just don’t get why people aren’t higher on him.

Brendan Gawlowski: Okay, it’s not going to be entirely negative! (I like Alvarez)

Jesse Ventura: Speaking of Abrams trades, reports that SF was willing to part with Gonzalez+. Thoughts there?

Brendan Gawlowski: If you’re trying to win now, and you have ground to make up, there’s nothing wrong with using your farm system to bolster the big-league team.

Cousin Sal Stewart: Looking at the coaching for the WBC, and seeing so many interesting names for MLB fans. Dusty Baker leading Nicaragua? Amazing! Francisco Cervelli running Team Italy with Jorge Posada at his side? Iconic! Johan Santana as the pitching coach for Ranger Suarez and Pablo Lopez!?!?!? Dangerous! Alexei Ramirez coachi…wait no he’s PLAYING for Cuba!

Brendan Gawlowski: Alexei is playing, my word. Awesome

Adam: Have you ever witnessed a player with what you thought were eye popping tools that the rest of the industry didn’t agree with?

Brendan Gawlowski: There’s usually agreement on tools with varying opinions on whether a guy will hit.

War2D2: You’re a loose cannon, Gawlowski! I want your badge on my desk by noon! That aside, when should you guys be posting the Cubs’ system rankings? Any interesting pop-ups that we should look out for?

Brendan Gawlowski: Cubs will likely be a ST list. I believe Eric is going to tackle that one, since their facility is about ten minutes from his house. Not a great system, and not one I have a ton of familiarity with. I do want to see Conrad, though

Jeff: Eric mentioned Henry Davis’ make up problem at the end of a chat years ago without saying anything further. Then you mentioned his make up improving recently. But before Eric had said that I’d never heard anything bad about his make up. Can you elaborate or explain?

Brendan Gawlowski: On behind the scenes stuff — game prep, working with pitchers, handling the day to day stuff that comes with being a big leaguer — he grew tremendously year over year. Full credit to him.

Deaf deaf to the IDF: Am I the only one on the Kyren Paris wagon?

Brendan Gawlowski: I really don’t think he’s going to hit

Cousin Sal Stewart: How would you judge the effect of prospect promotion incentives so far?

Brendan Gawlowski: By and large seem to be doing their job. We haven’t had an egregious, Kris Bryant-esque situation in a few years and a lot of prospects are debuting on Opening Day, to the point where maybe we’ve gone the other way.

Colton: Will you be making it out to AZ for some spring training games? If so, would you and Eric be tackling some of the same games together or would you guys pick different games to broaden the scope or players you see?

Brendan Gawlowski: I’ll definitely be going. I imagine we’ll divide and conquer mostly but it’s not like it’d be a screw up if we went to the same game once over two weeks.

Happy to be here: thanks for a great chat! BoSox suddenly seem to be a pitching factory, any one of their young arms you think is most likely to stick in rotation?

Brendan Gawlowski: Early and Tolle. The level of depth here is Dodgers-esque though, so one or both may need to be patient

Klubot3000: What are your hobbies/interests outside of baseball?

Brendan Gawlowski: Speaking/reading/improving at Italian; I like other sports, go Dawgs; I play chess and a few other games; I spend a lot of time with family.

Tigahs: Hey Brendan, I’m a huge LSU and Marlins fan and after watching Jacob Berry I was sure that guy would hit his way to the majors in a hurry. He finally had an above average MiLB season, but only barely (104 wRC+).

Tigahs: what’s gone wrong with him?

Brendan Gawlowski: Divisive draft prospect, skeptics were right

Brendan Gawlowski: Not much power for a corner bat

PinstripedPride: A lot of the top 100s coming out have dropped Spencer Jones, I presume because of hit tool risk. Do you agree he is not a top 100 prospect at this point?

Brendan Gawlowski: Eric and I haven’t discussed him yet. Personally, I would give him a 50 but it’s a collaborative list and there’s some give and take with that; he’s not a big Montes fan but gave his blessing on ranking him because he knows I feel strongly. I’m aware of the debate and respect the opinions of those who aren’t buying it.

Guest: Apologies if this has been asked before, but what’s the prospect you feel you’re most out of sync with the industry on?

Brendan Gawlowski: Maybe Caden Favors? I think he’s pretty good

Crabcakes: Is there any difference between pitch recognition and swing decisions?  Like, nobody looks at a pitch, says “I can drive that” and then doesn’t swing, right?  Or vice versa says “I can’t hit that” and swings anyway?

Brendan Gawlowski: Pitch recognition is a component of a swing decision. There are guys who recognize stuff just fine and chase it eight feet off the plate anyway. Vlad Sr. is maybe the most obvious example of this at work

Brendan Gawlowski: Like, if you see a guy keep his hands back, successfully time up a pitch he’s not looking for, and adjust his bat path to reach it, that’s an example of good pitch recognition. It may or may not be a good swing decision

Carter: Who do you think is the top pitching prospect in the game

Brendan Gawlowski: Nolan McLean

Carter: Who is the most likely 2025 1st round pick to make it to the big leagues?

Brendan Gawlowski: Most of them will make it to the big leagues. If you had to bet on a single guy… Risky as it to take a pitcher for something like this, Anderson, Bremner, Arnold, and Doyle could all get there really quickly.

The Ghost of Billy Beane: The Rank column on the MLB Draft tab on the Board is defined as a character and not a number. That means that when sorting, 10 comes after one (ie the order is 1, 10, 100 instead if 1, 2, 3). It annoys me.

Brendan Gawlowski: I will pass this along

Deaf Deaf to the IDF: Should someone trade for Blake Mitchell?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yeah, he’s a smart trade candidate I think. KC has a lot of catching depth, it’s not just CJ

Matt: When you say you’re not looking forward to publishing the Angels list because it’s going to be pretty negative, are you concerned about people in the Angels org being upset with you or just don’t like being the bearer of bad news?

Brendan Gawlowski: The latter. It’s not all that enjoyable to write about the ways prospects haven’t stepped forward

Guest: Do you expect any (non-international) guys without any MLB ABs to break camp outside J Quero, J Crawford, Benge, Delauter? Typing those names reminded me how high the bar is for MLB bats: you got 3 ~top 50 guys and Crawford there

Brendan Gawlowski: Kinda think Emerson is going to. Just reading tea leaves, no info here, my opinion could change depending on acquisitions.

Jim: Is Trey Gregory-Alford a 50 FV? Do you like their 2025 draft pitching?

Brendan Gawlowski: He’s going to be right below that with a clear path to the list in upcoming editions. Want to see a little more progress with the secondaries. He’s a guy who kind of highlights the difference between scouting for a team and writing publicly

beanbong: How does projected peak play into a team’s valuation of 40+/45 prospects? Would a prospect who fits into the Franmil Reyes/Justin Bour mold of projecting a few peak years of above average production then a swift dive off the cliff be seen differently than a player who produces similar value over their team control years but is more consistent year to year?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s a good question… With the caveat that a lot of the Bour/Reyes types you’re thinking about are only Bour/Reyes types in retrospect, all else being equal you’d probably rather have that

Brendan Gawlowski: Garrett Cooper was so old when he debuted that you could reasonably forecast a very short peak and early decline. But you wouldn’t anticipate it with, like, Jack Suwinski, even though it looks like that’s going to be his path, if that makes sense

Aldo Rayne: Who was a prospect you were really wrong about and why?

Brendan Gawlowski: Oh man, so many. First, you have to realize: Wrong is a default state. You have to like players, you have to be somewhat ambitious in your projections, you’re going to be wrong in this environment. But, for specifics…

Brendan Gawlowski: Orelvis Martinez: Thought he was tooled up and the skills would follow; they didn’t, and in retrospect there were signs that he’s not very instinctual.

Brendan Gawlowski: Oscar Colas: Thought he’d hit, he didn’t. Good lesson in the limitations of going nuts off of a grainy video

Brendan Gawlowski: Dylan Lesko: Maybe there’s a route back, but I loved him. Good lesson in not going crazy on two backfield innings just because someone is blowing up the Trackman

Brendan Gawlowski: Case Williams: Good reminder that just because you saw one of the best outings of his life doesn’t mean that it’s a new normal

Brendan Gawlowski: I could do this for awhile. Learning is great, can’t wait to see what else I learn this year.

Tom: Once upon a time, a Mike Trout from a “cold weather state” was a true anomaly. Now, it seems like there are several high picks and highly-rated prospects from such states each year. There was even a recent reclassification from a real draft prospect from VERMONT. What do you think this shift is attributed to, possibly year-round training and single-sort dedication?

Brendan Gawlowski: Cold weather states have always produced stars; Washington ahas a couple hall of famers, if you wanna go waaay back, ya know? But travel ball/showcase gives kids up there more exposure than they may have had in previous generations, which, at the very least, gives teams more confidence in some of them.

Wile E Peyote: You’re a GM with a high draft pick. Given all information available to you at the time and with no hindsight, you can draft either an Elijah Green (tools everywhere but significant hit tool risk) or Nick Madrigal (no discernable other tools but incredible hit tool). Which flavor of prospect do you select and why?

Brendan Gawlowski: It really depends on the players. There are some hit tool guys I’ll take over tool sheds and vice versa. You need to know the heuristics, but at the end of the day, scout the player, not the demographic.

flightsongs: I love some of the details on micro skills and adjustments that have been popping into the FG lists lately (eg: prospect X has learned to incorporate their top arm better in their swing) and can only assume you’re responsible, so thank you!

Are there any patterns in these type of skill improvements that you see in a particular system or level?

Brendan Gawlowski: Not that he needs me to sing his praises, but Eric has been all over this stuff for a long time. How he did all this with so little help for such a long time is mind boggling. Just look at how he was right there with Brandon Sproat’s delivery and stuff. Anyway, as for your actual question

Brendan Gawlowski: Yeah, teams have patterns. Jays will get stronger and stat. Dodgers will change pitch shapes fast. Pirates pitchers often pick up velo.

Insert Witty Name Here: whats your chess rating?

Brendan Gawlowski: bounces in the 1400-1600 range on chess.com.

Crabcakes: I suspect the way to have the highest possible “prediction accuracy” would be to predict every prospect will bust.  That’s obviously not useful.  So how do you assess how well you’re doing?

Brendan Gawlowski: This. If you wrote ‘org’ every time you’d be the most accurate guy in the world and you wouldn’t have done a lick of good. Assessing how well you’re doing is tricky, because you can be right for the wrong reasons and vice versa. So, for me, it’s less about that and more about: did you accurately report what you saw? did your projection make sense given the info you had at the time? And then year over year: Are you repeating the same mistakes? Are you noticing the game slowing down? Are you able to break players down in a more specific way? The results, the proof in the pudding matters, but so do the answers to those other questions and oftentimes they say more about your progress than results

Aldo Rayne: Lot of catching prospects like Austin Wells or Alejandro Kirk where there’s strong skepticism of their defense and then come up and kick ass.  Are those guys improving or is something being missed in their evaluations?

Brendan Gawlowski: Framing kind of throws a bomb here. There are other ways guys can improve/regress but that’s a skill that has a huge impact on catcher metrics and it’s one that can both show up overnight or never arrive

Aldo Rayne: What position do you think Emerson is playing when he comes up?  Assuming there’s not an injury to Crawford or something

Brendan Gawlowski: I could see him breaking camp at 3B. No info again, just speculation.

Crabcakes: At any given time The Board has a handful of 80 Raw Power guys and a large handful of 80 Speed guys.  Once in a long while there’s an 80 Game Power guy.  I don’t believe I’ve ever seen an 80 Hit or 80 Field rating.  Does this make sense?  If tools are baselined to average, then shouldn’t any grade be equally common across tools?

Brendan Gawlowski: I should probably use the top of the scale a little bit more. The hit tool in particular is loaded though.

Garrett: Did people overestimate what a Gore return would look like? I doubt Paul Toboni turned down overwhelmingly better offers and settled for less. Especially since he was clearly high on Fien as a prep player and views him as a T100 guy. Trust your own scouting, right?

Brendan Gawlowski: Are people disappointed? I thought the return was pretty good; Eric did too.

Steve E: Your opinion: Is Justin Crawford a center fielder?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yes

Syndergaardengnomes: Been going to FL for spring training for a few years now, thinking of making a trip to AZ for spring training instead…  Anything different I should know?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s way better. In general, if you want to maximize ball and minimize driving, pick one side of the valley or the other. East side will be more expensive but have better food. West side has better deals on big-league game tickets. Try avoid Cubs/Dodgers/Giants.

Cousin Sal Stewart: Going off Colton’s question about you and Eric covering games, how does it work, both for FG and for an MLB team? How much control do you have over how you are deployed within your scouting area? Does someone from above go “hey can you go see this kid that weekend?” Or at least coordinate how to make the most of your time and travel?

Brendan Gawlowski: Depends on the team. With PIT, I covered the Northwest League and could do it as I wanted early in the year. Closer to the deadline, assignments got more specific. I was always jealous of the TBR scout up here who set his schedule in March and barely needed to deviate

Brendan Gawlowski: For FG, we’ll both hit the local stuff hard and travel occasionally where there’s a lot of juice to squeeze.

Larry: if you had to bet on one for the ’26 season, who would you pick between Nolan McLean, Misiorowski and Chase Burns?

Brendan Gawlowski: McLean

Guest: When do you expect the Nats list to come out?

Brendan Gawlowski: We’re actually only doing 29 this year and we’re gonna skip WAS. Our apologies

Brendan Gawlowski: (jk; it’ll probably be toward the end of the line based on how we’ve put it together)

Guest: Do you have a rough schedule of the prospect lists for each team will come out you could direct us to?

Brendan Gawlowski: Lot of questions on this. No schedule. The rough pattern is to prioritize orgs we either know well (in my case) and or teams with a lot of Top 100 guys (because we’ll need to have those blurbs done early). We’re also trying to cover the teams who are likely to trade prospects early so we have that analysis done by the time the deal happens; our strategy was sound in this regard but the execution hasn’t line up

PinstripedPride: Is the reason the Yankees so rarely have an actual top prospect low draft position because of success in the majors, bad drafting, prospects not developing, or the team just trading too many away.

Brendan Gawlowski: They always draft low and tend to take safer draft guys and pair that with upside in international. It’s a reasonable lane.

Crabcakes: Turns out I was doing the Board tool filters wrong.  There are zero to three 80 grade fielders at a time.  But Fangraphs has never given an 80 grade hit tool.  Maybe that’s a result of Hit having less possibility for positive outliers?

Brendan Gawlowski: Part of the problem is that we either need to redefine what an 80 hitter is, which doesn’t seem practical, or accept that while an Arraez may come around once in a while, it’s really hard to project which guys both have the skill to do that and also the approach to prioritize hit over power

Mario Kart: which non-50+ FV cleveland prospect are you most excited to see this year?

Brendan Gawlowski: Robert Arias.

Insert Witty Name Here: Follow up chess Q – favorite openings and why? Love the parallels to chess and baseball, always gotta think three or more steps ahead.

Brendan Gawlowski: I seem to drift into a lot of Scotch games

Guest: Do you think Harry Ford is ready to be an Opening Day starter for the Nats?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yes

Carter: Who is your favorite prospect to watch/study and why?

Brendan Gawlowski: There was a time I was obsessed with Mike Foltynewicz, of all people, because you could see growth and development in real time. Fast forward to now… The way Mariners pitchers tend to tweak their arsenals and approach can be pretty interesting

Jonny: Can Cole Young be a .275//340.430 slash guy with 10 steals a year at 2b?

Brendan Gawlowski: That seems ambitious

Ben: I believe wander franco had an 80 hit tool, crabcakes

Brendan Gawlowski: There you go

Mario Kart: also Steven Kwan was projected an 80 grade hit tool at maturity

Mike Lommler: What does an 80 hit tool, or fielding tool, or [insert tool you’d like to discuss] projection even look like?

Brendan Gawlowski: The best tool in the game. Oneil Cruz’s power. Judge’s in-game damage. etc. You can see why it’s easier to hang that grade on things we can measure more objectively

ML: When do you think McGonigle gets the call up?

Brendan Gawlowski: This summer

Cleveland Guardians of the Galaxy: Where you the high man or low man on LaViolette in the Guardians list or were you and Eric in-sync on that one?

Brendan Gawlowski: I found Eric’s pre-draft analysis persuasive and felt zero need to weigh in on that one.

Todd: Hypothetical… Tigers are willing to move Skubal, what would you ask be from the Mets?

Brendan Gawlowski: That’s a tougher fit b/c the obvious guy you’d ask for isn’t moving, the system’s depth has taken a hit already this winter, and some of the complimentary big leaguers you’d have wanted are elsewhere now. You’d presumably want one of the IF bats, one of the other T100 guys, and a couple lower-level guys your scouts/analysts like

Retire21: You doing the Pirates list this year? Would be nice to see someone who’s had a unique look into the system.

Brendan Gawlowski: I am not. Among other reasons, I didn’t ever see the system.

Justin Newman: Anyone from your Jays list that was an underrated analytical darling that you didn’t feel great about from a scouting lens? Who were the biggest flashpoints between model based and scouting assessments?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello Justin!

Brendan Gawlowski: I respect and understand why people like Schreck but he leaves me a little cold. Rooting for him anyway, he’s a good story

SodoMojo: Best minor league park?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hillsboro was my favorite, devastated that they’re getting a new one. Ashville’s was really cool but awful to scout in. Fredericksburg too. Love OKC’s park. Round Rock really good to scouts. There’s a lot of good ones.

MoonBeamMcSwine: Is Cole Carrigg a CF’er?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yes

PinstripedPride: Obviously his in game power is 80, but what would grade Judge’s hit tool. I think it’s an underrated part of what separates him and allows him to get to his power

Brendan Gawlowski: Gotta be at least a 70. What a freak

Jonathan: Any interest in getting a free chess lesson in exchange for one scouting lesson?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yes

Key Jangler: Do you have a nickname that you hate?

Brendan Gawlowski: Adding -ey to the end of everybody’s name feels lazy. So those, generally.

millville meltdown: we’ve seen some guys with “bad” bodies become very good big leaguers. when does a body type become indicative, and where is it misleading?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s part of the equation. But you can be a good athlete with a bad body — Bartolo Colon comes to mind — and that works just fine. Worse to be a bad athlete

millville meltdown: i’ve been thinking about that makeup article that ran in the athletic a while back, since framber still hasn’t signed. what to you are signs of good/bad makeup in a prospect? any instant red flags?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s nuanced but criminal activity is an obvious red flag. Reports that teammates/coaches don’t like a guy has my antenna up as well

Farhandrew Zaidman: Ryan Ward gets ___ PA as a LF in 2026 if he were on a non-dodger team?

Brendan Gawlowski: Conservatively 200-300?

Shawn miller: can jd dix go off next year and make a rise up the rankings?

Brendan Gawlowski: Yes

Guest: As a scout, did you try to scout makeup based on rumors you heard or did you just stick to on-field stuff?

Brendan Gawlowski: Both.

Guest: Given that he probably has to move off of SS at the MLB level because of Masyn Winn, do you think JJ Wetherholt is better suited at 2B or 3B?

Brendan Gawlowski: Second base

Damon Sublett: Would you be against Rainiel Rodriguez’ official nickname being the Squatty Potty?

Brendan Gawlowski: Would you be against Dam Sublett’s nickname being the Squatty Potty

richardposner: franklin arias a midseaon 60 if he lifts and pulls a little bit more?

Brendan Gawlowski: I could see it, yeah

RH: Do you think Josuar can make AA this year?

Brendan Gawlowski: CAN? Sure. But that’s awfully ambitious.

Farhandrew Zaidman: Am I nuts for being higher on Quintero than De Paula/Hope, and being higher on Sirota than all three? The power/speed/defense is intoxicating.

Brendan Gawlowski: Nuts, no. Quintero and Hope in particular were close for us

Brendan Gawlowski: I’ve got to wrap it here. Thanks all for hanging out, we’ll do it again next week.