Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Diego Padres. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

Clubs have begun their pre-draft meetings, with some teams already about a week into theirs, while the last team to start them (Milwaukee, as far as I know) begins today. The number of people in draft meetings varies significantly from team to team. Some have more than 20 people in the room, others five or so. When any one person in the draft room learns something new, whether it’s from a scout buddy with another team or during a conversation with an agent or media person, the other folks in the room tend to also learn that thing. It is during this window that the dope starts to flow in a way that makes a more specific, full-round mock draft more feasible.

Below are notes I’ve compiled across the last couple of days from conversations with scouts, front office people, and agents. There isn’t intel on every single team or first round player out there in the ether right now. In spots where I’m making an educated guess based on a player’s fit with past team or decision-maker behavior, I try to make it obvious that’s what I’m doing. I let you know when rumors are coming from industry sources, while being vague enough to not burn a source. I also have some thoughts peppered in that aren’t specific to teams’ picks, but instead what the arc of the first round of this draft might look like based on the nature of this year’s class. For more info on the players below, head over to The Board for scouting reports, tool grades, and rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Kansas City Royals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

The amateur draft is this weekend and I’ve done a top-to-bottom refresh and expansion of my draft prospect rankings, which you can see on The Board. Please go read those blurbs and explore the tool grade section of The Board to get a better idea of my thoughts on the players. The goal of the draft rankings is to evaluate and rank as many of the players who are talented enough to hop onto the main section of the pro prospect lists as possible, so they can be ported over to the pro side of The Board as soon as they’re drafted. Players for whom that is true tend to start to peter out in rounds four and five of the draft as bonus slot amounts dip below $500,000. Over-slot guys are obvious exceptions. By the seventh round, we’re mostly talking about org guys who are drafted to make a team’s bonus pool puzzle fit together, or players who need significant development to truly be considered prospects. That usually means ranking about 125 players, but this year’s class is a little bit down and right now I have 100 guys on there.

Scouts and executives tend to think this is a weaker draft class. The high school hitters in this year’s crop are especially thin, while the depth in the class is in high school pitching, usually a demographic teams don’t love drafting with high picks and bonuses. There are still going to be plenty of good players in this draft, but it’s not the best year to be either a team picking at the very top (because there isn’t a generational talent or two) or a team with a lot of picks (there are fewer exciting places to put all that extra bonus money).

For example, last year’s deeper draft class had just over 60 players who I had as 40 FV or better prospects. This year, that number is just over 40. That’s almost a whole round’s worth of impact players present in one draft but not the other. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Seattle Mariners. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Boston Red Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Baltimore Orioles. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth 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.

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

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

The two of us were part of the FanGraphs contingent in Phoenix for the 2024 MLB Draft Combine last week. The first half of the week consisted of showcase events like batting practice, infield and outfield drills, and a game featuring many of the high schoolers in attendance. The back half of the week consisted of athletic and biometric testing, including the 30-yard dash.

Below are scouting notes for some of our favorite hitters from the event. Major League Baseball distributes a list of the top performers in several of the athletic tests to the media, but doesn’t share complete data. Eric recorded the electronic 30-yard times by hand as they unfolded; at the very bottom of the post is a complete list of those times, save for the couple he missed while he was schmoozing, eating, etc. (Update: Arnold Abernathy’s time has been added) We’ll have a post highlighting Combine pitchers, as well as a draft ranking update, to follow. The players aren’t listed in any particular order; our initials appear at the end of the blurbs we wrote. Read the rest of this entry »