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A couple of weeks into his big-league career, Rhys Hoskins is running a 159 wRC+. Steamer thought he was the Phillies’ best hitter before he even made his major-league debut, and thus far, he hasn’t done anything to make that forecast look crazy.

But, of course, we’re talking about 47 plate appearances. Any results over a 47 PA sample approach worthlessness. If we go back to the first couple of weeks of the season and look at the early leaderboards, when everyone had a comparable number of trips to the plate, we see guys like Chase Headley, David Freese, and Robbie Grossman hanging out near the top of the list. Forty-seven PAs into his 2017, Taylor Motter had a 153 wRC+; he’s run a 45 wRC+ over 188 PAs since.

It’s best to not react too strongly to any two-week stretch, no matter how good or poor it is. Our opinion of Rhys Hoskins now shouldn’t be dramatically different than it was before he was called up. But as he does some things in the majors that he also did in the minors, it’s hard not to notice some emerging characteristics that could make him a really good big-league hitter.

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This is Ashley MacLennan’s third piece as part of her August residency at FanGraphs. Ashley is a staff writer for Bless You Boys, the SB Nation blog dedicated to the Detroit Tigers, and runs her own site at 90 Feet From Home. She can also be found on Twitter. She’ll be contributing regularly here over the next month. Read the work of all our residents here.

Umpires are a necessary part of any baseball game. They’re nearly as integral to the sport as the ball itself. But just as the ball has been the object of considerable interest over the last couple years, so too has the role of the umpire become a topic for re-examination.

Baseball is currently in a state of flux, commissioner Rob Manfred having dedicated himself broadly to the “improvement” of the game. His intent? To make it more efficient, streamlined, and watchable in order to compete in an increasingly demanding media landscape. His ambiguous mandate has led to a number of proposals (some of which have become reality): the elimination of pitches for intentional walks, the possibility of flat bases at first, and the ever-popular prospect of robot umpires. Regarding that last point, there would appear to be some interest from the players, as well. Just recently, for example, Ben Zobrist of the Chicago Cubs was so infuriated by a call that he publicly stated his approval of replacing umpires with electronic zone readers.

Before we get carried away, though, a few things need to be noted, the first (and most important) being that Rob Manfred himself has said he has no intention of getting rid of human umpires any time soon. At the quarterly owners’ meeting he said, “It would be a pretty fundamental change in the game, to take away a function that has been performed by our umpiring staff, really with phenomenal accuracy. The fact of the matter is they get them right well over 90% of the time.”

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It’s almost always a cliche when a player says he’s out there to help his team win. When Whit Merrifield utters the phrase, the meaning is more nuanced. The 28-year-old Kansas City Royals outfielder attributes much of his late-bloomer success to an approach that didn’t seem plausible when he was a prospect.

After six-plus seasons in the minors, Merrifield is flowering in the big leagues because… he’s in the big leagues.

“Honestly, it’s just being up here and playing to win,” Merrifield told me when I asked about his breakout campaign. “Every day there’s a motivation to come to the field. There’s an excitement that you don’t really have in the minor leagues. Down there, you’re not playing to win every game so much as you’re playing to move up. Here, it’s a different attitude, and I’m at my best when I don’t focus on my numbers.”

His numbers have been a pleasant surprise. Playing in his first full MLB season — he split last year between Kansas City and Triple-A Omaha — Merrifield is slashing (despite his current 0 for 19 skid) a solid .281/.319/.461. Not only that, he’s left the yard 14 times, and his career home-run high on the farm was 11.

“I’m just in a little groove this year,” Merrifield responded when asked about his uptick in the power department. “I’ve always been more of a gap-to-gap, doubles hitter, but I can drive the ball. When I catch it right and get it a little more elevated, it will go out.”

The University of South Carolina product went into the 2015 offseason with a revitalized work ethic that arguably has as much to do with his success as his team-first attitude. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a difference between watching the game at home and watching at the park, that much is obvious. Personally, I’m more analytical at home, where I have the tools to identify pitch type and location with some precision, for example. At the field, I can only tell velocity and maybe spot the curveballs, so I get an adult soda, a good companion, and I talk and wait.

What am I waiting for? “People go to the game to see us put the ball in play, throw the ball away, and fall down,” Giants starter Jeff Samardzija told me the other day. “They want to see people doing things,” said Indians slugger Jay Bruce. I couldn’t disagree. The problem, if this is true, is that baseball is trending in the opposite direction. There are fewer balls in play now than at any other point in the history of the sport. There’s less of people doing things, to use Bruce’s words.

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Below is an updated summer top-100 prospect list. Above are links to the top-10 lists for teams in each of the six divisions. Those include notes on why some of these prospects have moved up or down on their respective org list. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page, which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards. The preseason top-100 list is available here.

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the National League West. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Arizona Diamondbacks (Preseason List)

1. Anthony Banda, LHP
2. Jazz Chisholm, SS
3. Jon Duplantier, RHP
4. Pavin Smith, 1B
5. Marcus Wilson, OF
6. Taylor Clarke, RHP
7. Socrates Brito, OF
8. Domingo Leyba. INF
9. Kristian Robinson, OF
10. Drew Ellis, 1B/3B

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the American League West. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Houston Astros (Preseason List)

1. Kyle Tucker, OF
2. Forrest Whitley, RHP
3. Franklin Perez, RHP
4. Yordan Alvarez, 1B
5. Derek Fisher, OF
6. J.B. Bukauskas, RHP
7. Gilberto Celestino
8. Daz Cameron
9. Cionel Perez, LHP
10. Colin Moran, 3B

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the National League Central. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Chicago Cubs (Preseason List)

1. Adbert Alzolay, RHP
2. Victor Caratini, C/1B
3. Oscar de la Cruz, RHP
4. Jose Albertos, RHP
5. Thomas Hatch, RHP
6. Aramis Ademan, SS
7. Alex Lange, RHP
8. Brendon Little, LHP
9. Mark Zagunis, 3B
10. D.J. Wilson, CF

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the American League Central. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Chicago White Sox (Preseason List)

1. Yoan Moncada, 2B
2. Eloy Jimenez, OF
3. Michael Kopech, RHP
4. Lucas Giolito, RHP
5. Luis Robert, OF
6. Reynaldo Lopez, RHP
7. Blake Rutherford, OF
8. Alec Hansen, RHP
9. Dylan Cease, RHP
10. Zack Collins, C

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the National League East. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Atlanta Braves (Preseason List)

1. Ronald Acuna, CF
2. Ozzie Albies. 2B
3. Kyle Wright, RHP
4. Luiz Gohara, LHP
5. Kolby Allard, LHP
6. Kevin Maitan, SS
7. Ian Anderson, RHP
8. Mike Soroka, RHP
9. Joey Wentz, LHP
10. Cristian Pache, CF

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