Kevin Goldstein and I have updated the pro portion of the Top 100, which means we quickly reviewed the placement of players in the 50 FV tier and above, and considered who was not yet in those tiers but should be based on how they’ve looked during the first month of the 2021 season. I still have three total org audits to do — Milwaukee, Oakland and the Cubs — before I start peeling graduates off the list. Those will be completed shortly. You can find the updated list here.

Also, if you missed it, Kevin and I updated our draft rankings and posted a Mock Draft on Monday.

The lone change up near the top of the 100 is Riley Greene moving into the top 20; he’s in the mix with several other similarly-aged players with the talent to be consistent All-Stars, like Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodríguez, and Corbin Carroll.

DL Hall moved into the 55 FV tier on the strength of his stuff. He’s still walking a fairly high rate of opposing batters but just on the strength of his three plus pitches, could be a Haderesque relief weapon even if he can’t start. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler O’Neill’s batting line doesn’t make any sense. I don’t mean that in a good or bad way, though I’m sure a line like his will elicit bad feelings in plenty of people. That line, just for the record, is .278/.309/.611, with a 2.6% walk rate and 34.2% strikeout rate. As you might surmise from the silly slugging percentage, he’s clubbed 13 home runs already this season, which would put him on pace for 52 in 600 plate appearances. True outcomes? Tyler O’Neill is a champion of truth.

Strikeouts and home runs have always gone together. Babe Ruth is the all-time true-outcome leader when compared to his era. But O’Neill kicks it into overdrive. Most sluggers use their prodigious power to get on base; they draw walks because pitchers are afraid to face them in the strike zone. O’Neill, again, is walking 2.6% of the time. That would be the worst rate in baseball if he qualified for the batting title, tied with Salvador Perez.

Nothing I’m saying here is particularly new. O’Neill’s 34.2% strikeout rate is virtually identical to his career mark. His 37.1% home run per fly ball rate will surely come down, but his career mark is 23.3%. His maximum exit velocity on the year is exactly identical to his previous career mark. Why write about him now? Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Ethan Small, LHP, Milwaukee Brewers
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Biloxi  Age: 24   Org Rank: TBD   FV: 45
Line: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
Small had a sketchy spring with the big club and has walked an uncharacteristically high number of hitters early on this year, but his last couple of starts have been more in line with expectations as he blows his low-90s fastball (which has big time carry) past opposing hitters. Small’s best secondary pitch remains his changeup and there were doubts about him ever finding a competent breaking ball when he was drafted. So far, his slider and curveball remain below average but that there are now two distinct breakers here is meaningful. He still projects as a No. 4/5 starter with a shot to make the back of the Top 100 as a 50 FV if the command and/or breaking balls tighten up. Read the rest of this entry »

In a rotation already stretched thin by injury, the last thing the Cardinals needed was to lose their top starter for an extended period. But that’s what happened on Monday night in Los Angeles as Jack Flaherty left his start against the Dodgers after five innings due to tightness in his left side and was placed on the injured list on Tuesday with an oblique strain that will likely sideline him for several weeks.

Matched up against Trevor Bauer, Flaherty allowed only two hits — back-to-back solo homers by Gavin Lux and Chris Taylor — while striking out nine and walking one over the course of five innings and 83 pitches. He reportedly felt some discomfort on his final pitches and then appeared to aggravate the injury while swinging the bat in the top of the sixth inning. Ain’t this single-season return of pitchers hitting great?

Flaherty didn’t take the bat off his shoulder after that 0–1 foul ball, striking out looking. He gave way to reliever Ryan Helsley in the bottom of the frame even as his teammates scored three runs off Bauer to take a 3–2 lead, but the Dodgers got their licks against Helsley and the rest of the Cardinals’ shaky bullpen and won 9–4.

Regarding Flaherty’s injury, manager Mike Shildt told reporters on Tuesday, “It’s not a minimal situation. It’s a real strain, tear, I don’t know which grade (they) want to call it. It’s significant that Jack is going to miss some time. And it’s going to be awhile. We’re still in the exploratory stage to determine how long.”

Read the rest of this entry »

In past iterations of this column, a combination of pressing narratives and fatigue with certain pitchers and their respective teams, or a straight up lack of interesting matchups have forced us to get creative. Not so this week, where the first three days of the week each feature games with giant WATCH ME signs stapled to their probable pitchers. Beginning with the Padres-Brewers series, the final week of May has gifted us some undeniably fun fixtures.

Monday, May 24, 7:40 PM ET: Blake Snell vs. Brandon Woodruff

In his first year in San Diego, Blake Snell seems to be learning his new city using a method that many non-pitchers find helpful: a lot of walks. Snell has already issued 25 walks in 40.1 innings (13.7 BB%) and allowed hitters to reach base at a clip comfortably above the league average. The former Ray has a .330 on-base percentage against him, while the rest of the league is at .313. Read the rest of this entry »

Harrison Bader is legitimately one of the best defensive outfielders in baseball. By whichever advanced defensive metric you prefer, he ranks in the top 10 among all outfielders since his debut in 2017. But while his elite ability with the glove is clear, the value of his bat has been a bigger question mark. Entering this season, in just over 1,000 career plate appearances, he had posted a league- and park-adjusted offensive line five percent below league average, which isn’t too bad considering his reputation as a glove-first center fielder. This year, though, his wRC+ is up to 108 in 70 plate appearances, and his approach at the plate is completely different.

Bader had shown some promise with the bat in the minors and in his previous four seasons in the majors, peaking as the No. 8 prospect in the Cardinals’ organization back in 2018 with a tantalizing power/speed profile. But the concern for him, as he quickly worked through the minor leagues, was a propensity to swing and miss that led to high strikeout rates. That inability to make consistent contact didn’t get resolved once he got to the majors: Prior to this year, his career strikeout rate was 29.1%, and last year, he struck out a career-high 32.0% of the time.

Bader missed all of April after suffering a forearm injury during spring training. But since getting back on the field at the beginning of this month, he’s provided some surprising production for the Cardinals as their everyday centerfielder, already matching his home run total from last year in almost half the plate appearances. The biggest change has come in his approach at the plate. His strikeout rate has tumbled from that career-worst 32.0% last year all the way down to 12.9%; among batters with at least 100 plate appearances in 2020 and at least 70 plate appearances in ’21, his huge decrease in strikeout rate is by far the largest in baseball. He’s also struck out in exactly as many plate appearances as he’s drawn a walk so far this season.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the war for the NL Central, the Cardinals are leading the charge. Their robust 25-18 record is no stroke of luck – per our BaseRuns standings, they’ve outperformed their theoretical win total by just one. Breaking this down further, the pitching has done most of the heavy lifting. Jack Flaherty has become that ace who’s going to ace, Kwang Hyun Kim has upped his strikeout rate thanks to a refined slider, and John Gant (!) has a 2.08 ERA in 39.2 innings. Gant is also leading major league baseball with 28 walks, but hey, the Cardinals will take it.

The offense isn’t bad – it has managed 4.29 runs per game, which is about the league average. It might have been worse, however, if not for Yadier Molina. The legendary catcher somehow has a 138 wRC+, the second-highest amongst Cardinals hitters with at least 50 plate appearances. His defense is no longer an asset, but he’s more than made up for lost value by swinging a hot bat.

But sure, this isn’t the first time Molina has gone on an offensive tear. Looking at 25-game stretches of wOBA dating back to 2018, we can see the many peaks and valleys that have shaped his production: Read the rest of this entry »

Prospect writers Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen will sometimes have enough player notes to compile a scouting post. This is one of those dispatches, a collection of thoughts after another week of college baseball and minor league play. Remember: prospect rankings can be found on The Board.

Eric’s Notes

Wes Kath, SS, Desert Mountain High School

High schoolers with profiles driven by their hit tool are becoming more sought-after in the draft room, and every year there are guys who don’t light up the showcase circuit workouts with big tools and instead need some combination of time and impressive swing-and-miss data to be appreciated. Kath is one of those players. On Tuesday, his high school won the Arizona 5A State Championship as Kath homered and reached base several times. He has a sweet lefty swing and advanced bat control, as well as a good baseball frame. He’s currently a shortstop and is capable of making routine plays there, with a sufficient arm for short and good body control, but his size and slow-twitch movements might push him to third base, and some scouts think he’ll eventually end up at first. Kath does not have big bat speed, and his swing tends to look long when he offers at lower pitches, but that’s what has to happen for him to get the barrel there with lift. West Coast hit tool guys like this tend to sign for close to $1 million.

Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments here.

Eric’s Notes (Games from May 12)

Cody Poteet, RHP, Miami Marlins
Level & Affiliate: MLB   Age: 26   Org Rank: 24   FV: 40 Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 6 K

Notes
Poteet was a prospect several years ago, last on the Marlins list in 2017 (it was just 13 names long) as a potential backend starter. He had a two-tick velo bump during quarantine, and after sitting 89-93 and topping out at 95 in 2019, he’s sitting 92-95 and touching 96 now. He had a 10-strikeout start in his first 2021 minor league outing then was immediately promoted to the big league team for Wednesday’s start. It’s surprising that Poteet had such a late bump in velocity. His era of UCLA pitcher had already adopted Driveline principals, and I would have guessed he was already maxed out. Of his three secondaries, Poteet most-often deploys his changeup, a heavy, sinking offering in the 85-88 mph range. His slider has more linear movement than two-planed sweeping shape, but it can still miss bats if it’s located away from righty batters. His curveball has plus-plus spin rates but is easy to identify out of his hand since he has a sink/tail-oriented fastball, and Poteet hung a couple of them Wednesday, one of which got put into the seats. The limited utility of his breaking balls and his fastball being more of a grounder-getter than a bat-misser holds Poteet in the low-variance backend starter bucket for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack Flaherty has a 2.83 ERA through seven starts, which comes out to a 73 ERA-. His park adjusted FIP- of 75 is right in line with that figure; his FIP is 3.03. It would be easy to stop there and say Flaherty has been great; his excellent ERA matches up with his FIP, so he must be doing something right. Dig a little deeper, however, and there are some reasons to be skeptical. His overall line has been buoyed by a 7.5% HR/FB. His strikeout rate is down almost four percentage points compared to his last three seasons combined (25.8% versus 29.7%). Worse, his swinging strike rate is down to a below league-average 11.6%, indicating he has been somewhat fortunate to punch out a little over a quarter of the batters he has faced. On contact, things are not much better. His groundball rate is five percentage points lower than it was over those same three seasons and after allowing a below average rate of hard-hit balls from 2018-20, he is now right at league average.

This is all to say that Flaherty hasn’t quite been his excellent, arguably ace-level self (no, I will not be debating the definition of an ace). Poking around, I found an interesting trend. Flaherty has always leaned on his four-seamer and slider, but in 2021, that reliance has accelerated. He is throwing his fastball and slider as a higher percentage of his total pitches than in any other season up until this point. He is increasingly becoming a two-pitch pitcher:

There are two ways you can look at this. First, you could say that he is using his best offerings more often than ever, which can be construed as a positive development. Or you can say that this is making him more predictable, allowing batters to sit on those two pitches, making him less effective. Given that his peripherals are a bit worse this year, one might say that the latter explanation rings true. But his results are as good as ever, so maybe the former point is viable. Read the rest of this entry »