Archive for Essential Prospects

Today at FanGraphs, we’re introducing an updated approach to prospect valuation. You can read the announcement here, and also see the new Farm System Rankings for 2026 on The Board. This post is a detailed methodological examination of how we’ve produced our new estimates. It goes over each step of the process in order, and concludes with a sensitivity analysis. If you’re interested in the broad strokes of our new approach, the introductory post will likely suffice. But if you want to see how the sausage is made, read on.

Prospect Classes
We began with Baseball America’s annual Top 100 prospect lists for each year from 2005-2016, plus FanGraphs’ lists for 2017 and 2018. The BA lists serve as a publicly accessible bridge to the current era of FanGraphs prospect writing, and provide a nice through line with Craig Edwards’ earlier research. We took all instances of a prospect being ranked, including duplicates of the same prospect in multiple years. We converted those ordinal rankings into Future Value grades using a two-step process. First, we separated the rankings into pitchers and hitters and created two separate ordinal lists for each year. Second, we adjusted those ordinal rankings between years by a regressed factor based on that class’ major league production. This allowed us to differentiate between classes – without some type of delineation between years, every top overall hitter would receive the same grade, which is contrary to the way we grade prospects.

This method introduces some potential bias. Judging prospects based on how they turned out inherently brings some information from the future into the mix. We decided that this was the best possible way to systematically introduce varying year-over-year quality to an otherwise ordinal-only set of values, and that it also did a good job of replicating the way that grades might have actually been assigned in the past. The top pitching prospect on the 2010 list was Stephen Strasburg. The top pitching prospect on the 2011 list was Julio Teheran. It’s important to differentiate between the likely grade that they would have received. There’s some volatility in relative value assignment at the very top end of the scale based on this methodology, which is addressed in the sensitivity analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Seven years ago, Craig Edwards published a landmark study on prospect valuation. Craig’s work built on previous studies by Victor Wang, Scott McKinney, Kevin Creagh, Steve DiMiceli, and our own Jeff Zimmerman, as well as a few prior ad hoc attempts here at FanGraphs; subsequent work on the subject was done by the team at Driveline Baseball. These studies have been hugely important both for FanGraphs’ own evaluation of prospects — among other things, Craig’s work has helped to feed the Farm System Rankings over on The Board — and for the broader public study of the minor leagues.

The reasoning behind these studies is clear and simple. If you want to evaluate a prospect-for-big-leaguer trade, you’ll need to know the expected value of the prospect in the trade. If you want to evaluate how much help is waiting in a given team’s farm system, a quantitative assessment of the talent there is necessary. Even if you’re just wondering how likely your team is to find the next big thing, again, you’ll need some type of framework to understand how often that’s happened in the past.

The previous studies of prospect valuation are still excellent, but they’re all very much of their time. Since Craig published his study in November 2018, the league has changed significantly. The COVID-abbreviated 2020 season changed minor league timelines across the board. The league contracted the number of minor league franchises significantly in 2021. A new CBA, signed before the 2022 season, changed compensation structures and competitive balance tax levels, and introduced the Prospect Promotion Incentive. The cost of a win in free agency has skyrocketed; league-wide payrolls are up more than 30%, and free agent salaries are up by more than that. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is our list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and our own observations. 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.

All of the prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number, but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Nolan McLean (no. 3) and Sal Stewart (no. 34) is about 30 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Stewart and Luis De León (no. 64), meanwhile, is also 30 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. You may have also noticed that there are more than 100 prospects in the table below, and more than 100 scouting summaries. That’s because we have also included the 50-FV prospects whose ordinal rankings fall outside the top 100, an acknowledgement both that the choice to rank exactly 100 prospects (as opposed to 110 or 210 or some other number entirely) is an arbitrary one, and that there isn’t a ton of daylight between the prospects who appear in that part of the list. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: An updated version of the Top 100, which incorporates Eric’s spring looks through the end of March, is available to read here. As always, full scouting reports and tool grades for every ranked prospect can be found on The Board.

Below is my list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and my own observations. 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 I use that as a rule of thumb.

All of the prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Sebastian Walcott (no. 4) and Quinn Mathews (no. 32) is 28 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Chase Petty (no. 42) and Cam Smith (no. 70), meanwhile, is also 28 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is a team-by-team analysis of last night’s draft activity. Remember that you can find more detailed scouting reports and tool grades for the players drafted yesterday over on The Board. The positions below are what the player was announced as, not necessarily what I have them projected as on The Board. For pitchers, I have a role designated below: starter (SP), or single-inning or multi-inning reliever (SIRP and MIRP). Read the rest of this entry »

Below is our list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and industry sources, as well as our own observations. 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.

All of the prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Paul Skenes (no. 10) and Chase DeLauter (no. 29) is 19 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Kyle Teel (no. 80) and Will Warren (no. 99), meanwhile, is also 19 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is our list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and industry sources, as well as from our own observations. This is the third 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.

All of the 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.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Padres shortstop Jackson Merrill (No. 10) and Yankees shortstop Oswald Peraza (No. 40) is 30 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Peraza and Guardians pitcher Tanner Bibee (No. 70), meanwhile, is also 30 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. You may have also noticed that there are more than 100 prospects in the table below, and more than 100 scouting summaries. That’s because we have also included the 50 FV prospects whose ranking fell outside the 100, an acknowledgement both that the choice to rank exactly 100 prospects (as opposed to 110 or 210 or some other number entirely) is an arbitrary one and that there isn’t a ton of daylight between the prospects who appear in that part of the list.

You’ll also notice that there is a Future Value outcome distribution graph for each prospect on the list. This is an attempt to graphically represent how likely each FV outcome is for each prospect. Before his departure for ESPN, Kiley McDaniel used the great work of our former colleague Craig Edwards to find the base rates for each FV tier of prospect (separately for hitters and pitchers), and the likelihood of each FV outcome. For example, based on Craig’s research, the average 60 FV hitter on a list becomes a perennial 5-plus WAR player over his six controlled years 26% of the time, and has a 27% chance of accumulating, at most, a couple of WAR during his six controlled years. We started with those base rates for every player on this year’s list and then manually tweaked them depending on our more specific opinions about the player. For instance, Dodgers 2B/LF Miguel Vargas and Marlins shortstop Yiddi Cappe are both 50 FV prospects, but other than them both being Cuban, they are nothing alike. Vargas is a bankable, big league-ready hitter with moderate upside, while Cappe is a risky low-level prospect with huge upside. Our hope is that the distribution graphs reflect these kinds of differences.

This year’s crop of prospects has a relatively shallow high-impact group at the very top of the list. There is no 70 FV prospect in this year’s class and only two 65 FV prospects. In a typical year, we’d have a couple more than that, and sometimes as many as five or six, but this year there are only two. And it doesn’t take long before you start talking about players with warts that reduce confidence in the overall profile. This year’s 60 FV tier has some players who still show some hit tool red flags (Chourio, De La Cruz, Jones) that kept them from ever really being considered for the tier above.

Only 37 of the 112 ranked players here are pitchers. Pitchers tend to be volatile and subject to heightened injury risk, plus their usage is being spread out among more pitchers in the majors, reducing the impact of individuals. The 55 FV pitchers and above tend to have some combination of monster stuff and good command, whereas the 50 FV pitchers often have one or the other. We gravitate toward up-the-middle defenders littered all throughout the minor leagues, and really only tend to push corner bats onto the list when they’re close to the big leagues, or if we have an abnormal degree of confidence that they will continue to hit all the way through the minors. High-risk hitters with huge tools are also welcome since FV is a subjective way to factor both ceiling and risk into the same grade.

For a further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, please read this and this. If you would like to read a book-length treatment on the subject, one is available here. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is our list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and industry sources, as well as from our own observations. This is the second 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.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Julio Rodríguez (No. 4) and Triston Casas (No. 16) is 12 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Mark Vientos (No. 64) and Patrick Bailey (No. 76), meanwhile, is also 12 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. You may have noticed that there are more than 100 prospects in the table below, and more than 100 scouting summaries. That’s because we have also included 50 FV prospects whose ranking fell outside the 100. Their reports appear below, under the “Other 50 FV Prospects” header. The same comparative principle applies to them.

You’ll also notice that there is a Future Value outcome distribution graph for each prospect on the list. This is an attempt to graphically represent how likely each FV outcome is for each prospect. Before his departure for ESPN, Kiley McDaniel used the great work of our former colleague Craig Edwards to find the base rates for each FV tier of prospect (separately for hitters and pitchers), and the likelihood of each FV outcome. For example, based on Craig’s research, the average 60 FV hitter on a list becomes a perennial 5-plus WAR player over his six controlled years 26% of the time, and has a 27% chance of accumulating, at most, a couple of WAR during his six controlled years. We started with those base rates for every player on this year’s list and then manually tweaked them depending on our more specific opinions about the player. For instance, Elly De La Cruz and Steven Kwan are both 50 FV prospects, but they are nothing alike. De La Cruz could be a switch-hitting shortstop with plus-plus power or he might turn into Seuly Matias. Meanwhile, Kwan has performed through the upper minors and is almost certain to contribute to a big league team, but doesn’t have nearly the same power potential or high-end ceiling De La Cruz does. Our hope is that the distribution graphs reflect these kinds of differences.

This year’s crop of prospects is a little bit down in the 60 and 55 FV tiers. Typically, the 55 FV tier runs to about the 50th overall prospect on the Top 100 (which again isn’t really a Top 100, so much as a ranking of all the 50 FV and above prospects, but that title is an SEO nightmare), but this year’s group only extends through No. 32. This might be due to random variation in the prospect population, or have to do with the lost year of development in 2020 or the new rules surrounding rookie eligibility, which caused several players to graduate off our lists more quickly than in the past. Jose Barrero and Keibert Ruiz, for example, would have been eligible under the older roster rules. Those guys can be found on The Board’s Graduates section. Or perhaps our evaluations are just wrong.

For a further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, please read this and this. If you would like to read a book-length treatment on the subject, one is available here. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is my list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and industry sources, as well as from my own observations.

As I’ve noted while publishing my team lists, because there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was learned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between prospect No. 3 on this list, Adley Rutschman, and prospect No. 29, Josiah Gray, is 26 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Heliot Ramos (No. 61) and Luis Matos (No. 87), meanwhile, is also 26 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. You may have noticed that there are more than 100 prospects in the table below, and more than 100 scouting summaries. That’s because I have also included 50 FV prospects whose ranking fell outside the 100; their reports appear below, under the “Other 50 FV Prospects” header. The same comparative principle applies to them.

You’ll also notice that there is a Future Value outcome distribution graph for each prospect on the list. This is an attempt to graphically represent how likely each FV outcome is for each prospect. Before his departure for ESPN, Kiley McDaniel used the great work of our former colleague Craig Edwards to find the base rates for each FV tier of prospect (separately for hitters and pitchers), and the likelihood of each FV outcome. For example, based on Craig’s research, the average 60 FV hitter on a list becomes a perennial 5-plus WAR player over his six controlled years 26% of the time, and has a 27% chance of accumulating, at most, a couple of WAR during his six controlled years. I started with those base rates for every player on this year’s list and then, with the help of Kevin Goldstein (who assisted with other elements of this list as well), manually tweaked them depending on our more specific opinions about the player. For instance, Jose Garcia and Trevor Larnach are both 55 FV prospects, but Garcia’s approach makes him very volatile, while Larnach is a surer bet to hit. At the same time, if Garcia ever develops a better approach, his power and ability to play a premium position give him a ceiling that Larnach can’t reasonably attain. My hope is that the distribution graphs reflect these kinds of differences.

For a further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, please read this. If you would like to read a book-length treatment on the subject, you can purchase the book I co-wrote with Kiley, Future Value.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is my list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data, industry sources, as well as from my own observations.

Note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between prospect No. 3 on this list, MacKenzie Gore, and prospect No. 33, Jazz Chisholm, is 30 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent there. The gap between Evan White (No. 64) and Matthew Liberatore (No. 94), meanwhile, is also 30 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. You may have noticed that there are more than 100 prospects in the table below, and more than 100 scouting summaries. That’s because we have also included 50 FV prospects who didn’t make the 100; their reports appear below, under the “Other 50 FV Prospects” header. The same comparative principle applies to them.

As a quick explanation, variance means the range of possible outcomes in the big leagues, in terms of peak season. If we feel a prospect could reasonably have a best big league season of anywhere from 1 to 5 WAR, that would be “high” variance, whereas someone like Sean Murphy, whose range is something like 2 to 3 WAR, would be “low” variance. High variance can be read as a good thing, since it allows for lots of ceiling, or a bad thing, since it also allows for a lower floor. Your risk tolerance could lead you to sort by variance within a given FV tier if you feel strongly about it. Here is a primer explaining the connection between FV and WAR. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, please read this. (If you would like to read a book-length treatment on the subject, you can pre-order my forthcoming book, Future Value, co-written with erstwhile FanGraphs analyst Kiley McDaniel.)

You’ll also notice that there is a FV outcome distribution graph for each prospect on the list. This is our attempt to graphically represent how likely each FV outcome is for each prospect. Using the work of Craig Edwards, I found the base rates for each FV tier of prospect (separately for hitters and pitchers), and the likelihood of each FV of outcome. For example, based on Craig’s research, the average 60 FV hitter on a list becomes a perennial 5+ WAR player over his six controlled years 26% of the time, and has a 27% chance of accumulating, at most, a couple WAR during his six controlled years. I started with these base rates for every player, then manually tweaked them for the first few FV tiers to reflect how I think the player differs from the average player in that FV tier, since a player in rookie ball and a player in Triple-A with the same FV grade obviously don’t have exactly the same odds of success. As such, these graphs are based on empirical findings, but come with the subjectivity of my opinions included to more specifically reflect what I think the odds are of various outcomes.

Read the rest of this entry »