The 2021 draft is this Sunday, July 11 and our broad strokes preview of the event is below. You can use the navigation widget above to brush up on our other draft-related content and view our draft rankings and scouting reports on The Board.

A General Overview

Like most drafts, the 2021 draft lacks a truly elite, generational talent at the top, but the tier of talent that fits among the top 100 prospects in baseball has average depth. High school shortstops Jordan Lawlar, Marcelo Mayer, and Khalil Watson, Louisville catcher Henry Davis, Vanderbilt pitchers Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, and Sam Houston State center fielder Colten Cowser are all 50 FV players. You can see approximately where they’ll rank on the overall pro prospect list once they’re drafted here. Read the rest of this entry »

The draft is in five days, which means that teams are beginning to gather in their respective war rooms to prepare. It’s an exceptionally busy and hectic time. Many clubs have already had smaller, regional meetings as well as private workouts for players, both en masse and of the individual variety. The magnets are all printed out and ready to go. It’s just time to line them up.

Small or Large?

Teams organize their war rooms in highly divergent ways, but the biggest current split revolves around just how big the room is in terms of attendance. Some teams only have crosscheckers and those with more senior titles attend meetings, while others bring in their entire scouting staff. During my time with the Astros, the team always conducted full-staff meetings, and the benefits were numerous and glaringly clear. Area scouts know these players better than anyone and have seen them more than anyone. They’ve talked to the player, and quite possibly the player’s family. They might have followed a college player since their high school days. They know their coaches and summer league managers. They’ve run into the player’s representative multiple times during the spring and had a few chit-chats with them. Even if theirs is not the most important pure talent evaluation (though it often is), the things area scouts bring to the table are immensely valuable. And beyond their considerable assistance throughout the entire draft process, there’s also the simple morale component. Area scouts have sacrificed their lives for six months. They’ve missed birthdays, anniversaries and little league games, recitals and parent-teacher conferences, and now they’re not allowed in the room? It never made any sense to me, and it feels like more and more teams are moving to an all-scout meeting, as they should. Read the rest of this entry »

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 »

Matthew Barefoot initially struggled to get a foothold in pro ball. A sixth-round pick by the Houston Astros in 2019 out of Campbell University, the now-23-year-old outfielder slashed a woeful .155/.241/.159 that summer in the New York-Penn League. On the heels of that abysmal debut, and with no 2020 minor league season in which to redeem himself, Barefoot was an afterthought on our 2021 Astros Top Prospect list.

He’s proceeded to make people stand up and take notice. Fueled by mechanical changes and a relaxed mental approach, Barefoot has been one of the best hitters in the Houston system this season. In 190 plate appearances split between the Low-A Fayetteville Woodpeckers and the High-A Asheville Tourists, the former Campbell Fighting Camel has socked a dozen home runs while slashing .329/.384/.618 with a 167 wRC+. Befitting his plus athleticism, he has 15 steals to boot.

Asked what was behind his his boffo numbers, Barefoot alluded to an age-old baseball adage: You can’t think and hit at the same time.

“This year, I’m able to just go out and play and let the results take care of themselves,” explained Barefoot. That’s been a real key for me. In my first season, I was working on a bunch of swing-mechanics stuff, so I really wasn’t competing how I wanted. I was more or less trying to make swing changes in-game, which made it really hard. Mentally, I wasn’t in a great spot every game.”

Organizations often don’t ask newly-drafted players to make meaningful adjustments until they report to instructional league. The initial months are mostly a hands-off acclimation period, allowing a player to simply get his feet wet in pro ball. That wasn’t the case with Barefoot. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s pretty evident that Major League Baseball’s crackdown on foreign substances will have wide-ranging effects on the sport. Offense is almost certainly due to increase; that that has yet to happen (at least beyond normal temperature-related effects) may only be a question of time. But with spin rates plummeting and pitchers telling the media that they are “trying to figure out how to pitch again” as a result of the new policies, it seems that we’re bound to see broad changes sooner rather than later.

The hurler who supplied the quote above is none other than right-hander Garrett Richards, an 11-year major league veteran currently pitching for the Red Sox. Boston signed Richards this past February to a one-year, $10 million contract that included a club option for 2022, a deal meant to shore up depth for a rotation that was a weak spot for the team as it entered the 2021 season. And though he has dealt with a collection of arm injuries throughout his career — including a 2018 Tommy John surgery that forced him to miss almost all of 2019 — Richards posted solid peripherals with the Padres last season and was heralded for his league-leading spin rates.

Through Richards’ first 11 starts this season, it seemed like Boston’s gamble had paid off. He wasn’t putting up elite numbers, but a 3.75 ERA, 20.2 K%, 11.6 BB%, and a 4.06 FIP is certainly serviceable. Through his start on June 1, Richards was worth 0.9 WAR, putting him in a virtual tie with Martín Pérez and Eduardo Rodriguez in terms of value. As for Boston’s starting staff as a whole, their combined 6.4 WAR through June 1 ranked fifth in the majors, which represented quite the pleasant surprise given that their rotation ranked 16th in our preseason power rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

Ken Waldichuk has been a strikeout machine in his first competitive professional season. A fifth-round pick in 2019 out of St. Mary’s College, the 23-year-old southpaw boasts the third-highest K/9 in the minors, his 15.8 mark topped only by those of Reid Detmers and Carson Ragsdale. Waldichuk’s dominance, which includes a 1.18 ERA, has come in 10 starts — seven with High-A Hudson Valley and three with Double-A Somerset.

Flying well under the radar entering this season — he’s No. 45 on our Yankees Top Prospects list — Waldichuk was described by Eric Longenhagen as a “lanky lefty who… generates nearly seven feet of extension and has big carry on his fastball.” I asked the 6-foot-4 San Diego native if he agrees with that assessment.

“I do get good carry, although I’m not too sure about the extension,” Waldichuk told me. “I’m not really sure what creates the carry, either. I’m not really too good with all the analytics stuff. But I do understand some of it. The way I spin it makes it play well, up.
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The carry is something Waldichuk has always had. What he’s learned since signing a professional contract is how to better avoid having the ball “spinning more sideways,” as opposed to getting the true backspin he wants. His heater typically sits around 2,400 rpm — “I’ve been as high as 2,700” — and in his penultimate start he “averaged 17 inches of [arm-side] horizontal and 16 inches of vertical movement.” His velocity averaged out at 92.2 [mph].”

Waldichuk also throws a slider, a slurve, and a changeup. Each is interesting in its own way. 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.

At the beginning of June, I wrote about how reach-out call season had begun. As the calendar flips this week, those reach-out calls quickly turn into conversations concerning serious injuries and the initialization of actual trade talks. A lot can change in a month, and has, so let’s check in with each org and try to project the month ahead, beginning with the American League.

AL East

Boston Red Sox
June Effect: Up significantly. The Red Sox entered the month with roughly a 25% chance of reaching the postseason, but are now the overwhelming favorite to win the division (53.5%) with an 83.5% chance to make the playoffs, per our Playoff Odds.

Current Tenor: Buying mode.

What They Are After: Starters who can pitch in playoffs games and a more dependable bat at first base. Hunter Renfroe’s step forward creates less stress about the outfield situation.

Behavior: It’s hard to measure other than by using Chaim Bloom’s history in Tampa. He’ll likely aim high in terms of asks/offers, but a heavy lean on analytics can create evaluation mis-matches that allow a deal to get done. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in December, Eric Longenhagen compiled FanGraphs’ annual Dodgers Top Prospects List, identifying 51 noteworthy players in Los Angeles’ system. What follows is an update on the top-ranked players and best performers from that list, along with some previously unlisted prospects who’ve made a case for themselves to be included in prospect lists to come. (Note: The stats in this article are updated through Monday, June 28).

Updates on the Top Five

Josiah Gray, the Dodgers’ top-ranked prospect who they acquired in the Yasiel Puig trade, seemed to be a likely option to replace Dustin May on the big-league roster when May was sidelined by Tommy John surgery at the beginning of the year. But just a few days later, Gray made his first start at Triple-A and has been sidelined ever since with an arm injury of his own (shoulder impingement). He hasn’t pitched since then, and according to team personnel, they’re wisely taking their time with his rehabilitation. Whenever Gray is deemed healthy enough to pitch, he’ll still likely be on a fast track to the major league roster. Read the rest of this entry »

On hiatus since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, FanGraphs’ Learning and Developing a Pitch series returns with three pitchers — Michael King, Lucas Luetge, and Jordan Romano — telling the stories behind their sliders.

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Michael King, New York Yankees

“I’ve been developing a slider since my freshman year of college. I was always bigger curveball, and then I had like seven different grips in college. I could never get consistent with anything — not consistent movement, not consistent location — and it just never felt comfortable. So I always used to say that I was a sinker/slider guy that didn’t have a slider.

“Once I got drafted in 2016, I said, ‘I don’t care what it does, I’m sticking with this grip so I can at least locate it.’ In 2018 is when I finally felt like I was consistent with the shape and the location. Then we got a new pitching director, Sam Briend, and he said, ‘Your slider is terrible. It’s located well, but it doesn’t have a good movement profile. Let’s fix it.’

“In 2019, I got hurt, and then it was the whole process of trying to change the movement profile. I wanted it to be more horizontal, more sweepy, like [Corey] Kluber’s, rather than the slider I had, which just had a little bit of depth. This year I’m finally figuring it out. Having Kluber on my team, I could talk to him about his grip, what his mentality is, what he’s trying to do at release.

“A big thing for me was, because I wanted to get that sweep and horizontal, I would get really rotational with my body to try to pull it sideways. [Kluber] said that’s the opposite of what you want to do. He said to just let the grip do the work. Read the rest of this entry »