MIAMI – You could hear the airhorns blocks away from LoanDepot Park, and the music, too: salsa, bachata, reggaeton, merengue — all blasting at artillery strike volume, echoing down the nearby residential streets lined with two-story pastel-colored houses and under the soft gray skies of a rainy Wednesday in south Florida. Small throngs of fans — women with their hair colored electric blue and cherry red, men with platinum blond dye jobs to mimic the stars of Team Rubio — became bigger clusters, all pooling around the stadium, taking over adjacent parking lots for impromptu tailgates. Everyone’s back bore the name of an icon of Caribbean baseball: CLEMENTE, GUERRERO, MARTINEZ, MACHADO, BÁEZ, SOTO, LINDOR. Tens of thousands of fans, some of whom had paid up to $400 per ticket on the secondary market just to get in the door, were here for the main event of Pool D in this World Baseball Classic: the win-or-go-home group stage finale between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

A clarification, first: It’s not accurate to call this event the World Baseball Classic — not here, at least, in Miami, where Latin American teams made up 80% of the pool’s members. (Team Israel probably picked up plenty of excellent Spanish slang in its week-long stay.) No, this was el Mundial, because all week, this hasn’t been a baseball tournament; it’s been a beisbol tournament. Every day featured a good-sized chunk of this city’s large Dominican and Puerto Rican populations setting up shop at the park and spending close to a dozen hours partying and dancing and playing panderetas and güiros and tamboras and those ubiquitous horns. Throughout the week, the west plaza of LoanDepot Park has functioned as a fanfest space, complete with a DJ on a giant stage and access to a team store stocked full of PR and DR shirts and a beer vendor seemingly every 10 feet. Long before each game every day and well past the final out each night, this is where Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Venezuelan fans (and a handful of Nicaraguans, supporting their country that had qualified for the WBC for the first time) met, laughed, crushed 20-ounce Heineken and Stella Artois cans, and celebrated together. This was their tournament, and Wednesday night’s heavyweight prize fight between Pool D’s superpowers was as close as they could get to their own Super Bowl. Read the rest of this entry »

MIAMI – The assignment facing Nicaragua’s Duque Hebbert was as nerve-wracking as he could imagine. As the 21-year-old right-hander warmed up before the top of the ninth inning of Monday’s Pool D game between Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, Juan Soto waited, watching from the on-deck circle. Up after him: 2022 AL Rookie of the Year and five-tool phenom Julio Rodríguez. Should he manage to survive both of those elite hitters, he would have to contend with six-time All-Star Manny Machado, who had homered in his last at-bat and come a combined three or four feet short of going deep twice more.

Against that terrifying trio stood Hebbert, 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, the youngest and last man picked for a Nicaragua squad that qualified for its first-ever WBC and, as its reward, drew a spot in the tournament’s Pool of Death alongside the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. Hebbert and his teammates came into the day with two losses in two group stage games so far; down 6–1 against the DR, that would soon become three in three. Then again, no one had expected Nicaragua to win a game in this pool, much less advance. They were in Miami with the goal of growing and getting better and putting up a respectable fight against rosters full of legends and superstars. So as Hebbert finished his warm-up throws and Soto stepped in, the task in front of him was simple yet immense: end the day on a positive note for Pool D’s resident underdogs by retiring three of the best hitters in the entire world.

Nineteen pitches, four batters and three eye-opening swinging strikeouts later, Hebbert had done more than that, going from anonymous Nicaraguan reliever to baseball’s newest viral sensation. He set Soto down with three straight strikes, the last a diving changeup that he swung right over; the future Hall of Famer flashed a smile back at the mound as he walked out of the box. Rodríguez fared no better, fouling off a 90 mph fastball and that devilish changeup before eventually whiffing on a slider down and away. Machado, too, waved through a slider and was down 0–2, only to smash a double to left, bringing up Rafael Devers. No sweat for Hebbert, who fell behind one of the majors’ top sluggers 3–1, got him to foul off two pitches, then dispatched him with — what else — a changeup to finish the inning. Read the rest of this entry »

Trea Turner has transformed himself into one of the best hitters in baseball. Lacking projectable power when he was drafted 13th overall in 2014 — Kiley McDaniel cited his upside as 10-12 home runs with a .420 SLG the following winter — Turner proceeded to become far more than the slash-and-burn type that many envisioned. His past three seasons have been particularly impressive. Playing with the Washington Nationals and the Los Angeles Dodgers, he posted a sparkling .316/.364/.514 line with a 139 wRC+. Moreover, his right-handed stroke has produced 87 home runs over the last four non-COVID campaigns.

Turner — now with the Philadelphia Phillies after being signed to an 11-year, $300 million contract in December, and currently playing for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic — talked hitting prior to a recent spring training game.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebreaker questions: Do you view hitting as more of an art or more of a science?

Trea Turner: “I think it’s more of an art, but we’re trying to use science to quantify it. Sometimes guys have good swings, but then you go into a game and you can’t necessarily hit. The game is more of an art than a swing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Toronto Blue Jays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as 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.

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 »

We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since those are beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers generally try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:

Thank goodness I had a weaker year than average overall, as I included a few of my favorite players in the mix! Being right for breakouts is a lot of fun, but being right on the busts is a bit depressing, a definite sign that I’ve mellowed as I enter middle age. Trout’s contact rate didn’t bounce back, and his BABIP crashed by well over 100 points, but his newfound grounder proclivity disappeared, and the power boost more than compensated for an OBP nearly 50 points below his career average. Riley’s BABIP also predictably fell, but he hit the ball harder and became a more well-rounded hitter, crushing most pitches instead of predominantly fastballs. Most of the rest came in at the middle-third of the ZiPS projections, which is a victory for the computer rather than me — all that is except for Schwindel, who didn’t just regress toward the mean; he lapped it.

Now, let’s turn to this year’s picks, as I throw myself upon the tender mercies of fortune. Read the rest of this entry »

PHOENIX – Each first-round site of the World Baseball Classic had its glamor fixture. For Pool C in Phoenix, everyone had Sunday night’s game between the United States and Mexico circled on the calendar. Mexico certainly did, and then circled the bases several times for good measure.

Joey Meneses homered twice, while Randy Arozarena went 3-for-5 with two doubles and three runs scored to lead an impressive offensive outburst by Mexico. Patrick Sandoval and Javier Assad kept the U.S. off the board long enough for Mexico to win 11-5 and maintain control of its own destiny. Had Mexico merely beaten the U.S., it would’ve constituted an upset but not a shocking one. It was the nature of the win that was so remarkable.

At one point, Mexico led 11-2 and had a runner on second base who, had he scored, would have invoked the WBC’s mercy rule. And even that scenario understates the extent to which Mexico outhit, out-pitched, and out-fielded its northern neighbors. Team USA’s worst WBC loss since an 11-1 defeat to Puerto Rico in 2009 leaves the heavy Pool C favorites in serious danger of first-round elimination. Read the rest of this entry »

Spring is for extensions. As surely as swallows flock to Capistrano or salmon charge upstream, major league teams spend February and March offering their young stars sackfuls of money in exchange for years of team control. Sure enough, the Diamondbacks and Corbin Carroll followed the path of least resistance over the weekend in agreeing to an eight-year deal worth $111 million, with a ninth-year option for $28 million and $20 million in various contract incentives.

That sounds like a lot of money. Carroll, after all, has only played 32 games in the major leagues and has accrued only 772 professional plate appearances. But do the math, and you can see why Arizona offered this deal, and also why Carroll accepted it.

Carroll isn’t some random recent debut. He’s the number two prospect in baseball, a power-contact-speed-and-defense threat who has dismantled every level of competition he’s faced. That includes the major leagues; that 32-game debut saw Carroll hit .260/.330/.500 with superlative baserunning and defense. He looked like an All-Star right away, and truthfully, he’s always looked like an All-Star. That’s how you end up as the number two prospect in baseball as a 5-foot-10 outfielder so quickly despite missing nearly two consecutive seasons of playing time thanks to the pandemic and then injury. Read the rest of this entry »

Gerrit Cole faced Jordan Walker for the first time on Wednesday, and he came away impressed. The New York Yankees ace induced a ground-ball out from the top prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals system in the first inning, but then surrendered a line-drive single to him on a 95-mph heater a handful of frames later. When Cole met with members of the media mid-game — standard fare for starters during spring training — I asked him about his matchups with the fast-rising phenom.

“I thought he put a good swing on it,” Cole said of Walker’s knock. “It was a good adjustment from the first at-bat. It was a good pitch, a borderline ball, and one of the better swings of the day, for sure.”

Cole needed clarification as to whom he was opining on before offering the praise. Understandably focusing on preparing for the regular season, he admitted — this with the caveat that he wasn’t being disrespectful — he didn’t know where Walker was hitting in the St. Louis lineup.

Walker was understandably very aware of Cole. Asked about what the five-time All-Star had said — the question came from a St. Louis scribe whom I’d shared the quotes with — he was equal parts pleased and humble.

“It means a lot, man,” said Walker, who is No. 12 on our Top 100 and at age 20 has a legitimate chance to break camp with the Cardinals. “He’s a helluva pitcher. His stuff was really electric today. His stuff was really jumping. His slider was good. So it means a lot to hear that from him. A wonderful pitcher.”

As Cardinals fans are discovering, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Stone Mountain, Georgia native is more than just a star in the making. He also exudes fun. I asked the effervescent outfielder how he is balancing that trait alongside being hyper-focused in his quest to earn a big-league job. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m happy to announce that we now have two pitch quality models, PitchingBot and Stuff+, available for your perusal on the FanGraphs Leaderboards.

PitchingBot is the brainchild of Cameron Grove. We worked with Cameron to be able to run and maintain his model in-house at FanGraphs; he has since joined an MLB front office. You can read all about PitchingBot in the FanGraphs Library here.

In short, PitchingBot takes inputs such as pitcher handedness, batter handedness, strike zone height, count, velocity, spin rate, movement, release point, extension, and location to determine the quality of a pitch, as well as its possible outcomes. Those outcomes are then aggregated and normalized on a 20-80 scouting scale, which is what is displayed on the leaderboards. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve reached the point in the offseason when it’s time for one of my favorite/most hated preseason traditions: my attempt to predict breakouts and busts. Since any breakouts or busts beyond what a projection system suggests are naturally going to be low-probability outcomes, there’s a high probability of me looking pretty silly — something writers try to avoid. Let’s start by looking back at how smart I was last year…or how foolish:

First, the bad news. Kelenic and Adell were both just awful, and I would definitely call 2022 a giant miss for both players as they enter their post-prospect period. I suspect there’s more hope to still be had for Kelenic than Adell, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself prescient about either. Kepler’s breakout didn’t happen at all, and his power all but disappeared. Anderson I’ll call an incomplete because of injury, and while Higashioka did match his entire previous career in WAR, that was largely due to defense, which I can hardly claim credit for predicting. Hiura did hit far better than he had recently, but he also didn’t exactly get a ton of playing time with the Brewers, who appeared to have lost interest in him. There were a few triumphs, however: Kwan and Lux both had excellent seasons, especially the former. Read the rest of this entry »