This spring, the Arizona rotation was a fascinating mix of imported and home-grown youth, and Josh Collmenter and Jeremy Hellickson. Each of the youngsters gave us a point of emphasis this spring, and now that they’ve each had a few chances to show their work, we could give out some first semester grades. And maybe figure out how who’s at the head of the class.

Chase Anderson might have the best argument for valedictorian. He’s had the best ERA and peripherals, and that’s not too surprising, since he was the guy that had the most experience. And if Rubby de la Rosa has a plus changeup, you could say that Anderson has two.

So Anderson spent the spring working on his two-seamer, he said. If you look at PITCHf/x and his homer and grounder rates, you’d think he has succeeded in that effort. By that measure, he’s upped his usage of the sinker from 18% to 27%. His ground-ball rate has gone up from 40% to 43%. It’s a tempting narrative, especially since it fits into what the pitcher himself said earlier this year.

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I wrote yesterday about the uncertainty surrounding the #1 overall pick, but that doesn’t keep scouts from trying to figure out who will go in the subsequent picks. It’s way too early to have any real idea what’s going to happen beyond the top 10-15 picks, but the buzz is growing in the scouting community about how things will play out and you people are sustained by lists, predictions and mock drafts. You’re welcome.

I’d bet it’s more telling on draft day to make judgments using the buzz and all the names I mention, rather than the one name I project to be picked, but you guys already don’t read the introduction, so I’ll shut up. For reports, video and more on these players, check out my latest 2015 MLB Draft rankings, or, if your team doesn’t pick high this year, look ahead with my 2016 & 2017 MLB Draft rankings.

UPDATE 5/11/15: Notes from this weekend’s college games: Dillon Tate was solid in front of GM’s from Arizona, Houston and Colorado. Dansby Swanson was even better, in front of decision makers from all the top teams, including Houston, who may still be debating whether they’d take Swanson or Rodgers if given the choice (Rodgers’ season is over). Carson Fulmer did what he usually does and probably has a home from picks 7-17 depending on how things fall on draft day, with an evaluation similar to Marcus Stroman and Sonny Gray as previous undersized righties with stellar track records and plus stuff.

Andrew Benintendi went nuts at the plate again (I’ll see him and Fulmer this weekend). And, finally, Jon Harris was excellent, rebounding from a not-so-great start, so, at this point, I would make Harris the 9th pick to the Cubs and slide Trenton Clark down a few picks, but still comfortably in the top 20. I also updated the 2016 MLB Draft Rankings as a few top prospects came off the DL and impressed, further strengthening the top of that draft, which is far and away better than this year’s draft.

1. Diamondbacks – Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt
I wrote about this more in depth yesterday, where I wrote it’s down to CF Garrett Whitley, C Tyler Stephenson and CF Daz Cameron with some chance RHP Dillon Tate is still in the mix and SS Dansby Swanson possibly involved. After writing that, I heard that Arizona is definitely considering those prep players, but teams don’t think they’ll pull the trigger on a way-below-slot prep option and they are leaning college, with Tate and Swanson the targets and SS Alex Bregman also getting some consideration as a long shot.

I’ve heard Arizona wants a hitter here and GM Dave Stewart was in to see Vanderbilt last night. I had heard they were laying in the weeds on Swanson, so, for now, I’ll go with Swanson here. To be clear, Arizona hasn’t made any decisions yet, so this group could still grow or they could change course. One scouting director told me yesterday when asked what he thought Arizona would do that “it sounds like they are going to do something crazy.” Until a few hours before this published, I had Arizona taking Whitley, so this is still very much in flux. There’s also some thought that Tate or Swanson were the targets all along and the rumors of cut-rate high school options have just been a ploy to get the price down–you can pick your own theory at this point.

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I’ve written many times in the past eight months that this draft class is pretty weak and that, combined with the bonus pools that limit each team’s draft spending, will make for an unpredictable draft day filled with below-slot deals. That talk has continued here and in other places but, in the last few weeks, teams’ plans have come into better focus and the question marks now start at the very top.

I called Orlando-area prep SS Brendan Rodgers the best prep player in the 2015 class a full two years ago and he’s held serve since then, standing today as the consensus top player in the whole draft for the industry and in my recent rankings.  The assumption for most of the spring was that the Diamondbacks would take Rodgers #1 as the consensus top player in a down class. Another reason this made sense is the embattled first seven months of the Dave Stewart/Tony La Russa regime in Arizona, which have gone about as bad as possible so far, so they don’t need another off-the-board, bucking-industry-consensus decision that could draw more bad PR.

I had heard in the last few weeks that Rodgers was out of the mix for the D’Backs at #1, but until I had heard who the target was, I didn’t feel comfortable reporting that, since it could just be misdirection for negotiating purposes. I had also heard the D’Backs weren’t at many of Rodgers’ games this spring, so that put more momentum behind that buzz being real.  hen, in the last few weeks, D’Backs GM Dave Stewart and VP of Baseball Ops DeJon Watson have been seen all over the country scouting amateur players, but not Rodgers.

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Episode 554
Touki Toussaint is a right-hander in the Arizona system who was selected 16th overall in the most recent draft. Brian Johnson is a left-hander in the Red Sox system, currently playing for Triple-A Pawtucket. This edition of FanGraphs Audio features both of them, in conversation with lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel. (Note: Toussaint’s interview begins at about the 12:45 mark; Johnson’s, around the 20:35 mark.)

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 35 min play time.)

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Let’s follow a tried-and-true format, unimaginative as it is. I’ll throw in a twist. There’s the imaginative part.

The good! Archie Bradley, so far, has made two starts in the major leagues. He’s faced maybe the best team in baseball, and last year’s World Series champion. He’s allowed a total of five hits and two runs, leaving his first start with his team ahead of Clayton Kershaw, and leaving his second start with his team ahead of Madison Bumgarner. His team also isn’t very good, so there are some bonus points.

The bad! Bradley’s come up just a hair shy of 60% strikes. He’s paired 10 strikeouts with six walks, so the command issues that’ve always been there haven’t disappeared. To this point, he’s lived almost exclusively fastball-curveball.

The ugly interesting! Bradley’s basically tied for the league lead in groundball rate. Of the 31 pitches batters have hit somewhere fair, they’ve put 23 of them on the ground. He hasn’t faced extreme groundball-hitting opponents, and he doesn’t have a ground-balling track record, and this is one of those things that’s supposed to sort itself out in a hurry. Groundball pitchers generally get grounders every time out. Fly ball pitchers generally put the ball in the air every time out. There are exceptions, odd reversals, but the probability gets lower when you consider back-to-back starts. Already, we might start to think of Archie Bradley as a groundball pitcher. With the weird thing being, he hasn’t been one, and he probably shouldn’t be one.

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The Arizona Diamondbacks generated a fair amount of excitement yesterday when they promoted Yasmany Tomas. After the experiment to play Tomas at third base had failed, or at least been tabled for awhile, during Spring Training, Tomas was sent to Triple-A Reno where he had been playing right field. With A.J. Pollock in center field, Mark Trumbo in right field, and Ender Inciarte off to a fast start in left field, there did not appear to be a spot for immediate playing time for Tomas, fueling speculation that perhaps another move was in the offing. Excitement and speculation soon yielded to confusion as Tomas was not in the starting lineup and news that Tomas had been brought up as a bench bat.

The Diamondbacks called up their $68 million investment to sit on the bench, the problem arising due to an unusual roster construction and injuries to two of the three catchers on their 40-man roster with significant experience at the position. When the season started, Arizona put 12 pitchers and 13 position players on the 25-man roster. After Gerald Laird hit the disabled list, the Diamondbacks chose to supplement the bullpen with an additional arm for a few games, calling up A.J. Schugel.

After a few games with the loaded bullpen and shorthanded bench, the Diamondbacks decided to move back to the more traditional setup of having 13 position players and 12 pitchers on their active roster. Due to injuries at catcher, the Diamondbacks were faced with a difficult decision on their roster. Prior to making a move the active roster looked like this (Players on the disabled list in italics):
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The Braves have acquired Trevor Cahill and cash for their Josh Elander, a 24-year-old former catcher that was playing outfield in High-A Lynchburg for the second time last year. So mostly this transaction is about the Braves getting a cheap starter on the cheap. The quality of that incoming pitcher, and the fit on a rebuilding team — these are the things that are most debatable about the deal.

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In general, most baseball organizations are headed in the same general direction. The idea that you have to choose between stats or scouts is dead, and almost everyone is now just compiling as much good information as they can. While it was oddly notable for teams to have a “stat guy” 15 years ago, it’s now oddly notable when a team only has one. Teams might not weigh all the information the same way, and it certainly doesn’t all filter up from the nerds to the GM at the same rate, but mostly, everyone is generally doing things the same way now.

Except the Diamondbacks. They don’t just march to the beat of their own drum; they’re not even sure drums qualify as a musical instrument. This isn’t even about hiring a guy with a veterinary background to run their analytics department, or Dave Stewart’s months-old comments about the D’Backs being a “true baseball team”; their opinions just seem to run counter to the rest of the sport at just about every single turn.

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Read an article about Yasmany Tomas from before he signed with the Diamondbacks, and most of them will say something along the same lines about his profile. The power was thought to be real, maybe a 70 on the 20-80 scale; the contact skills might be uncertain; and while the arm could potentially be a plus, it was far from certain where he he’d fit on the defensive map.

That’s evident, really, in just how those reports described his position. In September, Kiley McDaniel listed him as a left fielder. In October, Baseball America’s Ben Badler said that he “had the defensive attributes to fit in either corner spot.” After Tomas signed with Arizona, Keith Law also talked about him as a corner outfielder. Dave Cameron even noted that “some teams felt that he profiled more as a DH.” Other than a few tossed-off occasional mentions that he’d played some small amount of first and third earlier in his youth — 30 games at third in 2008, primarily —  just about no one expected him to be an infielder.

Except for the Diamondbacks, that is. Due in part to their own evaluations of him, in part due to a crowded outfield, and in part due to a third base situation unstable enough that longtime second baseman Aaron Hill played his first games since 2005 at the position last year, Arizona almost immediately announced that they’d like Tomas to play third base.

It’s March 11, so we’re not going to pretend that we’ve seen enough of Tomas to make a determination as to whether he can handle the position or not. But we haven’t seen nothing, either, and considering where he came from, it’s the first time most of us are able to see real actual game video of him. Considering how the Diamondbacks are set up, where he ends up is going to have a ripple effect on the rest of the lineup. Read the rest of this entry »

“It’s great, I love it,” said a bright-eyed Chase Anderson about the overfull rotation in Arizona this spring. Maybe he can be a little more enthusiastic about it — his arsenal is maybe more complete than the other nine young pitchers he’s competing with in camp. That doesn’t mean that he isn’t working hard to improve, along side other fellow Baby ‘Backs Rubby de la Rosa, Allen Webster, and Archie Bradley.

Anderson has two changeups, a good curve, and already showed the ability to get strikeouts and limit walks at the major league level, so he has to be in the driver’s seat. He said this spring is about work on his two-seamer in particular, as he’d like to get more ground balls.

Teammate Rubby de la Rosa has an electric mid-90’s fastball and a changeup taught to him by a legend. “Pedro Martinez taught me this grip, he told me ‘practice it every day, and if you can have it come out at the right speed, it will be a strikeout pitch for you, I’m 100% sure it’ll be a great pitch for you,'” de la Rosa said after a bullpen in camp last week.

He may not get the same legendary drop that Pedro got from the same grip — de la Rosa laughed when asked about Pedro’s fingers and their flexability, saying he couldn’t do anything like that himself — but the new D-back has a good change. It’s above-average by drop and fade, and got 16% whiffs last year (average was 13%).

It’s the breaking balls that have eluded the 26-year-old righty so far. He hasn’t thrown many curves in games, and the slider hasn’t managed an average whiff rate yet. The pitcher talked before and after a bullpen about the keys for his slider. One key was just keeping his curve and slider from morphing into one slurve by focusing on his release point.

The other key for his slider was more complicated. “I’m trying to get that pitch perfect,” he said. “I almost have it, but my arm speed is a bit fast, maybe. I’m tying to slow motion my feet so that I can catch up to my arm.” During his bullpen, you could see him trying to slow down his body compared to what he’s been in the past. Take a look at the end of his bullpen session in camp last week.

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