Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as 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.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the numbered 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. Read the rest of this entry »

The International Players tab on The Board has once again enjoyed a sweeping update, the second such update since the pandemic shifted the international signing calendar back about six months. Rankings and reports for the current class of amateur players set to sign in January 2022 (though that date could be delayed due to the lockout) have been expanded on The Board with help from Kevin Goldstein, while updates and additions to the notable pro players in other markets have been completed with help from Tess Taruskin and Brendan Gawlowski.

CBA/COVID Complications

There are a few factors that could potentially complicate the upcoming signing period. Remember that fallout from the pandemic has already pushed this signing period back six months. When most of the international amateur players on The Board agreed to their deals with teams, they assumed that they’d have put pen to paper by now and perhaps have spent the fall in Florida or Arizona for instructional league. Instead, they haven’t yet signed, and now a lockout may further delay or complicate their coronation. Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, we published an update to our 2022 Draft rankings. Today, I pushed 2023 and 2024 to The Board, with the small 2024 group consisting almost entirely of our highly-ranked, unsigned 2021 high schoolers.

The most significant takeaway from the 2023 class is its projected strength at the top. There’s currently only one 50 FV prospect in the 2022 class, but already three atop the 2023 group: Ole Miss shortstop Jacob Gonzalez, Wake Forest third baseman Brock Wilken, and LSU outfielder Dylan Crews. That’s more than has been typical for a class that’s still a year and a half away from draft day. Gonzalez has special bat-to-ball skills and can play a premium position, Wilken already has 70-grade raw power and rare athleticism for a corner defender, and Crews performed in the SEC and reinforced confidence in the huge tools that made him famous as a high schooler.

This group may eventually be joined by more prospects. Most of the college players who will be eligible in 2023 are still teenagers right now, and some of them have not even had the opportunity to play consistently as they are coming off freshman seasons at big, talent-rich programs. With a couple of obviously excellent prospects already in place at the top of the class, and so much of the rest of it still in a magmatic stage of development, the 2023 draft has a shot to be pretty special up top. Read the rest of this entry »

We begin this year’s run of lists with an update to and expansion of the 2022 Draft rankings, which can now be found over on The Board. I’ll do the same for the next two draft classes later this week, and follow that with a fresh coat of paint on the International Players list, which was completed with the aid of Brendan Gawlowski, Kevin Goldstein, and Tess Taruskin. Team lists will start rolling out next week, beginning with the East Valley pod of teams (Angels, Cubs, A’s, and Brewers).

Before I talk about this draft class, here are a couple of process-oriented reminders and changes. The grading system we use here is called Future Value (you’ll typically see it abbreviated FV), which maps WAR production and player roles to the 20-80 scale. In short, a 50 FV prospect is the equivalent of a good everyday player (2-3 annual WAR), with grades above 50 telling you how good of an everyday player we expect the prospect to be. Grades below that either describe a role (for example, a 45 FV for a left-handed hitting corner platoon or set-up man, a 40 FV for fifth starters or stopgap first base sluggers, etc.) or are trying to balance upside and risk (for instance, a 50 FV talent with an injury history will get rounded down to account for that history). Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, Kevin Goldstein and I took a pass at the low-hanging fruit in the 50 FV tier and above to move or add prospects we thought merited action before heading into the offseason. The new “Top 100” can be found here. There is an up or down arrow in the “trend” column next to the name of any player whose FV changed as a result of our discussions so they’re easy to identify on the list. I get into more detail — including on those players whose FVs haven’t changed but whose ordinal rankings have — below.

Shuffling the 60 FV Tier

There are no new names among this group but we did reorder them, with Bobby Witt Jr. moving into the second overall spot behind top-ranked Adley Rutschman. Witt usurps San Diego middle-infielder CJ Abrams because a) he’s been healthy while Abrams has been out since July with a fractured tibia, b) he has progressed a level beyond Abrams, and c) he has more power. Abrams has the superior feel to hit, and the gap between the two on defense — where a healthy Abrams improved while Witt sputtered — has closed. Witt’s range and hands have both regressed; he’s not a lost cause at shortstop but he does need polish.

Noelvi Marte moved ahead of Marco Luciano as they’re similar in many ways (age, level, performance at that level, hit/power combination) but Marte has a better chance to stay at shortstop. Read the rest of this entry »

What a ride this year’s deadline was. All told, we had 75 prospects move in the last month. They are ranked below, with brief scouting reports written by me and Kevin Goldstein. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of were analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below. I’ve moved all of the players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates. Our farm rankings, which now update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up post-deadline.

A couple of quick notes before I get to the rankings. We’ve included a few post-prospect players here (those marked in blue) so you can get an idea of where we value them now as opposed to where we had them at their prospect peak. Those players, as well as the Compensatory pick the Rockies will receive after they extend Trevor Story a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, are highlighted below. We had closer to 40 prospects (and 23 Players to be Named Later) traded last year, with the PTBNL number inflated by 2020’s COVID-related transaction rules. The backfields are not well-represented here, with just four prospects who have yet to play in full-season ball. Two of those are currently in the DSL and have no official domestic pro experience, though Alberto Ciprian has played stateside for instructs/extended spring training. Now on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

“In a game against the aliens for the survival of the species, who are you giving the ball to?”

Some version of that question has been posed to me many times during my FanGraphs tenure. My response has typically been Max Scherzer, while the most popular answer among readers has leaned toward Clayton Kershaw. Well, now the Dodgers have both after trading for Scherzer and Trea Turner on Thursday. In the process, they gave up their top two prospects in right-handed pitcher Josiah Gray and catcher Keibert Ruiz, as well as potential late-inning reliever Gerardo Carrillo and outfielder Donovan Casey, a former two-way player and hopeful late-bloomer.

Even though Scherzer is a rental, the prospect haul Washington is getting for Mad Max and Turner, who was my pre-season pick to win NL MVP (too cute?), is substantial enough to merit its own piece. As part of the Nationals prospect list this April, I wrote that Washington’s system was so bad that I’d rather take Vanderbilt’s roster and their high school commits than the Nationals’ entire minor league system. The White Sox graduated their handful of top 100 prospects, which sank them below Washington in our rankings; this deal, which includes two top 100 prospects, moves the Nationals from 29th to 24th (our farm system calculations tend to like potential stars more than depth). Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago Cubs. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. 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.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

With the first round set to kick off on Sunday, we present our second mock draft. Full scouting reports can be found over on The Board.

1. Pittsburgh Pirates
Pick: Marcelo Mayer, SS, Eastlake HS (CA)

This pick is still not a lock, though there are people in the industry who feel like it should be based on their opinion of Mayer’s talent. The Pirates themselves have been tight-lipped about their intentions and haven’t begun engaging advisors in an illuminating way, at least not such that we’ve been able to ascertain either by engaging with those reps ourselves or by triangulating information by talking to the teams behind Pittsburgh. Right now Mayer is here in our mock because we think he’s the best player, and teams tend to think Pittsburgh will take a hitter and that Mayer is in that mix. Ben Cherington’s modus operandi in previous positions of power has been to take a college player, but he’s never picked first before. Whoever Pittsburgh takes up here (even Mayer) will sign for less than the slot value ($8.4 million). In Pittsburgh’s mind, is there a gap between Mayer and the rest of the pack? How big is that gap, and is there a player in the second tier of talent willing to take a deal far enough under slot to tempt the Pirates into moving off Mayer? That may only become evident as things crystallize behind Pittsburgh in the next several days.

2. Texas Rangers
Pick: Jack Leiter, RHP, Vanderbilt

If Mayer doesn’t go first, then he’s the favorite to go here and the general sense around baseball is that the other high school shortstops — Jordan Lawlar and Khalil Watson — are likely in the mix, too. Watson doesn’t fit with the org’s recent patterns of acquisition, so we’re skeptical of that one. Scouts with other teams speculated to us that Leiter better fits Texas’ self-perceived competitive timeline, and that they have the bonus pool flex to get a deal done even if Leiter’s camp sees this market as sub-optimal. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Milwaukee Brewers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. 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.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.