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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Baltimore Orioles farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

50 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .320/.406/.422 at Double-A in 2016.

Scouting Report
While this series has often extolled the virtues of loud tools, the best aspects of Sisco’s game are ensconced in quiet. This is most important defensively, where Sisco has improved to the point of viability. Balls in the dirt are sputtering off of Sisco’s catching gear with less force, and his receiving has become more still and refined. Scouts now consider Sisco, who didn’t start catching until his senior year of high school in 2013, a viable defensive backstop. Nobody is particularly excited about him back there, but he’s okay right now and should improve into his mid-20s as he continuously makes good use of his above-average athleticism and refines his skills. In fact, scouts consider Sisco athletic enough that, were something to occur that requires him to move out from behind the plate, he might be able to play somewhere other than first base/DH, which is often the value-crushing alternative for unsound defensive catchers.

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With two weeks left until Opening Day, it’s time for the annual FanGraphs season preview series, which we do a little differently around here. While plenty of other talented writers and publications put out previews by team or by division, we prefer to go position by position, which lets us cover pretty much every roster spot on every team in baseball. While traditional team previews focus mostly on the top end of a roster, the difference in making the postseason is often how well the end of the roster performs, and how much value teams get from their non-stars. By breaking down every position from 1 to 30, we can emphasize where every team looks strong — or a little less so — heading into the season.

The rankings themselves are based on the forecasted depth charts we host here on FanGraphs, which combine projections for rate stats from ZIPS and Steamer with manually curated playing-time forecasts. While forecasting systems have been shown to do better than most humans at forecasting production, humans win out when it comes to allocating playing time, so our depth charts try and leverage the best of both worlds. Of course, no projection system is perfect, and humans are prone to errors, so we don’t think these forecasts should be taken as gospel, but they do give you a good overview of what our site thinks about each team’s expected production at this point in the season.

Certainly, things will change between now and October. Players get hurt, prospects come up and make an unexpected splash, guys change their swings and become entirely different hitters overnight; the final season rankings by position won’t look exactly like these forecasts. That’s one of the things that is great about baseball.

But in general, there’s an upper limit to how many things can break right for a team in a given season. If your favorite team consistently ranks at or near the bottom of all these positional breakdowns, it’s probably fair to assume that they’re not going to win a lot of games this year.

One of the other benefits of doing our previews by position is that we can compare job-shares against full-time players, noting where a platoon might be more effective than a traditional everyday player even though both players in the platoon have obvious flaws. For corner outfield, first base, and designated hitter — where platoons are most common — the ability to look at the expected production from everyone who is allocated playing time at that spot helps give a better view of a team’s strength than simply looking at a team’s starters and bench separately.

That said, doing the posts by position also means that you might see some things that appear a little weird on the surface. For instance, the Cubs willingness to shift players around means that we’re projecting guys like Kris Bryant, Ben Zobrist, and Javier Baez to split their time between multiple positions, and thus, their overall value won’t show up entirely in any one of these posts. If you see a guy who plays several positions, and you think his forecast at one of those spots seems low, check the post for the other positions he plays; it’s probably being accounted for over there.

Additionally, because we only keep one overall value for projected fielding performance, players who play multiple positions will be displayed with the same FLD forecast at every position, even though a guy who splits time between shortstop and second base will probably run better defensive numbers at second base. The FLD projection includes the split in playing time, so the player’s overall forecasted value is correct, but just a heads up that you might see some odd FLD numbers for guys who bounce around.

Finally, let’s get the annual disclaimer out of the way: we don’t game these numbers at all to get any kind of desired result. The authors who are writing the content for each team’s summary don’t get to move teams around based on their own personal preference, and we’re not rigging the forecasts in the background to make sure that certain teams look better than the others. The results are simply the output of the ZIPS/Steamer forecasts and our playing time projections. If your team’s shortstops are ranked 14th and you think they should be ranked 8th, it’s not because we hate your team. This is just what the forecasts think in mid-March.

And really, for many of these positions, ordinal ranking is the wrong number to look at anyway. Often times, the differences between a dozen teams in the middle is a fraction of a forecasted WAR, and everyone within that tier should be considered on mostly even ground, even if one ranks 8th and the other 19th. We’ll include a graphical display of the overall team values at the top of each post, and it’s probably more helpful to look at which tier a team ranks in rather than the specific spot on the list. There are going to be lists where No. 2 and No. 3 aren’t anywhere near each other, while Nos. 3 and 12 are mostly interchangeable.

So, don’t freak out overall a particular ranking, especially if you could just change the number after decimal and a team would go up or down 10 spots. And really, it’s probably better to not freak out in general; your team is going to do whatever they’re going to do, regardless of our preseason projections, and all we’re attempting to provide is a realistic preseason baseline. But there’s enough variance in baseball that most teams, even the ones that don’t look great in March, could be playing meaningful baseball in September.

If you want to review last year’s forecasts while you’re waiting for the series to start — the catcher post will kick off the series in a few hours — then you can peruse each post from the helpful widget that Sean Dolinar created to link the posts together. That widget will make it easier for you to bounce from post to post as they go up. And if you’re just looking for something fun to look at, go check out the graph on last year’s center-fielder post, and then prepare yourself for an even more ridiculous center-field graph this year.

We’ll run through the position players this week and tackle pitchers next week, and wrap up the series with an overview of where everyone stands a few days before the 2017 season officially kicks off. We hope you enjoy these posts, since they are a mountain of work for our writers, and they help you get a better feel for where every team stands heading into the year.

Bob Melvin is up to date on advanced stats and baseball’s technological advancements. As the manager of the Oakland A’s, he has to be. The game’s original Moneyball club is in much the same position they were when Kevin Youkilis was being dubbed “The Greek God of Walks” — monetarily challenged, they need to be as progressive as possible to compete.

When it comes to communicating ideas with his players, Melvin is careful not to introduce sensory overload. After all, not everyone on the roster is a Brandon McCarthy or a Jed Lowrie.

“It’s our job, as a staff, to be able to reach the players who want this type of information,” said Melvin. “Some can handle it, while for others it might be a distraction. Certain guys need information in layman’s terms. You have to take the principles and present them in a language they can grasp, because when you’re in a game, you can’t have too much clutter in the your brain.

“We’re a cutting edge organization that is always looking for advantages. With things like exit velocities and spin rates… we hire people to look at that. The people above me — David (Forst) and Billy (Beane) and these guys — do a good job of helping spoon-feed it down to the people we feel can handle it, and benefit by it.”

According to Melvin, more than aptitude is at play. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember Vintage Matt Harvey? He sat 96 and didn’t walk anyone and could go to any of three plus secondary pitches. Sigh. That Matt Harvey was sweet. And it was only 2015 when we last saw him. We all had hope that thoracic-outlet surgery would bring that Matt Harvey back, but we’re hearing some bad news on that front recently.

“Harvey’s velocity hovered in the 92-mph range — just as it has in all three of his spring starts — as he got roughed up in a 6-2 loss to the Marlins,” wrote Marc Carig on Wednesday before a grumpy Harvey did his best to assuage concerns with the press afterwards. Given his rough season last year, however — when he was down to 94 from 96 the years before — those fears are justified.

“It’s going to be there or it’s not, and I have to go out and pitch,” Harvey told Carig. “And I think after today I feel really confident going into my next outing and moving forward.” He’s right to assert that he has to pitch with whatever he has, and the underlying assumption, that others have been fine at similar velocities, is also correct. But will this righty, with this fastball, be just as well off as, say, two other righties who averaged 92 on their fastballs last year like a Tanner Roark or an Ian Kennedy? What will his work look like if he’s healthy all year?

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Sandy Leon was one of the more remarkable stories last season. As Jeff chronicled back in August, Leon took over for the Sox when they really needed a hero. He was that hero, at least for a brief time. He was nothing if not fresh — although that was mostly the result of not having played much at the major-league level previously. Now, he might be one of the most important members of the 2017 Red Sox team.

There are a couple of reasons Leon has become so important. The first and most important is that he has one of the highest (if not the highest) betas on his probable outcomes this season. Is Leon the guy who ran a 158 wRC+ from June to August, or the guy who ran a 44 wRC+ in September (and a 53 wRC+ over the first 107 plate appearances of his career, from 2012 to 2014)? The consensus seems to be something in between, but toward the lower end of that range. ZiPS has him pegged for a 78 wRC+; Steamer, a 74 wRC+ mark. Our depth charts split the difference at 76. The FANS projections are usually wildly optimistic, and that can be useful for players who have odd or small samples or some other manner of extenuating circumstance that might throw off those mean old algorithms. But even the FANS aren’t that optimistic: they have Leon down for just an 80 wRC+.

On the other hand, Leon told Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald recently that when he was signed as a professional, he was signed “because I could hit.” He said that defense was the thing on which he needed to work the most. It’s probably fair to say that, when he was signed, he needed to work on everything. Neither Baseball America nor John Sickels placed Leon among their top-10 Nationals prospect for 2008 — Sickels didn’t have him in his top 20. (Leon signed in 2007, but after both had compiled their Washington lists.) The same was true for the 2009 lists, and by that time, Derek Norris and Adrian Nieto were popping up on the Nats’ lists, so we can’t say that Leon was even the most highly rated catcher in the system.

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There’s a revolution happening in the batting cage. We’ve noticed that batted-ball data is changing slightly and that hitters are saying different things about the intentions of their swings. But on the ground, where these hitters are training to improve, a few new tools have appeared that are helping those hitters to realize their intentions with better results. Those tools make a link between hitting and pitching that may open our eyes to the possibility of better development practices in both places.

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LAKELAND and PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — We know the immense value teams have derived from applying PITCHf/x, Statcast and other new-age data tools to decision-making. We know this information has helped enlighten the public, including journalists and bloggers, to better understand performance. But I suspect we’re just really scratching the surface with how the big-data age is going to help players.

We know a number of pitchers have used the data to make real changes to pitch type, release point and location. Hitters have tools to better understand their quality of contact. There could be enormous benefits to injury prevention and on-field efficiency from the data being collected. But there is a practical daily use all players could and perhaps should glean from the avalanche of information that has poured into the game right now: the keeping of sanity and reduction of the duration of slumps.

Baseball is often characterized as a game of failure. This is particularly true for hitters, of course: even the best of hitters are unlikely to reach base in a given plate appearance. All players must battle through slumps, through challenging periods. And for all the game’s history leading up to the PITCHf/x and Statcast eras, players were often making adjustments with only anecdotal, observational feedback.

Think about the player who, in the midst of a slump, alters his batting stance; the pitcher who searches for a new arm slot or grip. Even with these minor adjustments, players might be making needless changes that are detrimental and could deepen a slump. For much of the game’s history, performance and skill was only quantified through box scores. We know now, though, how much of that performance is dependent on teammates and opponents, fortune often tied to the BABIP Gods.

One criterion for assessing the value of the data and technology available today is whether it helps players make rational adjustments — and whether an adjustment that has been made is working. J.D. Martinez has been in the news lately as an outspoken early adopter of the fly-ball philosophy.

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Back in 2010, the Rays used their 31st round draft pick on a right fielder from Parkland College, a JC that hadn’t produced a Major Leaguer since Juan Acevedo, who was drafted in 1992. This particular pick was the 941st selection in that draft, and no player taken 941st overall had ever made the majors. The Rays offered just a $75,000 signing bonus, as expectations for the long-term value received by a 31st-round pick are generally not very high.

That bit of context is important to keep in mind when reading that Kevin Kiermaier, that long-shot prospect Tampa selected seven years ago, just signed away the likely remainder of his productive years for $53.5 million in guaranteed money. At a time when many of the best young players in baseball have eschewed the early-career extensions that the previous of generation of stars signed up for, Kiermaier’s context helps explain why he’d sign a deal that will, more likely than not, cost him money down the road.

By signing a six year contract that likely includes an option for a seventh year — the Rays generally don’t sign long-term extensions that don’t include team options — Kiermaier is agreeing to sell his first three free agent years in exchange for a significant guaranteed income stream right now. And given that he didn’t get a big signing bonus and has made close to the league minimum in his first few years in the majors, this is legitimately life-changing money for him. Even after taxes and agent fees, he’s now going to bank at least $30 million during his big league career, allowing him to retire comfortably whenever he’s done playing.

For a guy who wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school, wasn’t even considered the best prospect on his JC team — Baseball America put RHP Danny Winkler ahead of him on the Illinios state draft preview — and was never considered any kind of top prospect, it’s probably not easy to turn down this kind of money. But while Kiermaier is probably happy to know he can play most of his career with the same team and retire a rich man, this is the kind of contract that should incentivize the MLBPA to fight for a total overhaul of the arbitration system.

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PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. – When we think about Tampa Bay Rays pitching over the last decade, the image of opposing hitters flailing helplessly over the top of changeups — offerings with velocity separation and depth — is likely one of the first to come to mind. That’s what comes to my mind. I think about hitters whiffing at Rays’ changeups, even on occasions when they’ve anticipated the pitch. I think about pitchers who have possessed pedestrian velocity and breaking stuff, who may not might have otherwise had much of a major-league career without the pitch. I think about a pitcher like James Shields, a founding father of the Rays’ changeup philosophy and track record.

Since 2010, the Rays lead baseball in runs produced above average by means of the changeup, according to FanGraphs pitch-type linear weight (174.8). The next closest club is the Mariners with a mark of 108.0. The Rays lead baseball in changeup usage (14.7%) since 2010, as well.

When I traveled to Rays camp last week to write about the Rays’ high-fastball philosophy, I also wanted to ask longtime Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey about the club’s changeup philosophy. My assumption was that Rays coaches teach the pitch well, that it’s part of an organizational philosophy. And while Hickey and the Rays value the pitch, he said philosophy alone doesn’t explain the club’s success with the pitch from pitchers like Shields and David Price, to Alex Cobb and now Jake Odorizzi.

“It’s not so much a philosophy as it is a lineage,” Hickey said.

Hickey said what explains the club’s success with the pitch isn’t so much a product of organizational philosophy, or coaching, as it is the result of pitchers with effective changeup grips passing along their craft to teammates.

“James Shields was arguably the best pitcher I had at the time [when Hickey arrived in 2006], and what Shields had was a really, really good changeup. And without the changeup he’s probably a major-league pitcher, but he’s not a 10-year, 225-innings-a-year guy,” Hickey said. “And here comes a guy like Jeremy Hellickson, who, without his changeup, is a pretty good minor-league pitcher. What happens is guys start to mimic each other. When David Price came in, he didn’t even possess a changeup. He threw a four-seam fastball and a slider. He’s watching Shields do his thing. He’s learning a changeup. He comes back with a pretty good changeup. Just like with Cobb and Odorizzi. They kind of mimic each other and teach each other.”

And for that reason, perhaps clubs should place a premium on pitchers who possess elite pitches and are able to share and articulate their grips and practices.

Pitchers also know each other’s stories. Shields credited the changeup with saving his career, according Joe Smith to of the Tampa Bay Times:

When he “lost” his curveball in the minors, he lived off his changeup, a pitch he said can be easier to throw for a strike than a breaking ball. In one minor-league game, Shields remembers 65 of his 85 pitches were changeups. “At that point I was on the brink of release,” he said. “I was trying to do anything to be successful.”

Eno Sarris has documented the changeup grips of Cobb and Odorizzi, and it was to Cobb where Odorizzi turned when looking to add another pitch. He had struggled with more conventional changeup grips in the past. Cobb has an unusual split-changeup grip. As AL East batters know well, the pitch has excellent depth and movement.

“I could just never take enough off a changeup,” Odorizzi said. “The grips never allowed me to have that separation. So I go and try [Cobb’s grip] through a normal arm speed, and it was more about movement than speed differential. Sometimes it’s 5-6 mph differential… I need the movement.”

Owen Watson wrote about the evolution of Price’s changeup last offseason.

The Rays have handed down elite changeup grips and philosophy from one rotation arm to the next. While there was a dip in the club’s effectiveness with the pitch the last two seasons — in part because of Cobb’s injury — Rays’ pitchers have generally become more effective with the pitch since Shields arrived at the major-league level. Even after the departure of an arm like Shields, the changeup forebear who was traded after the 2012 season, the Rays have continued to changeup well:

Now, of course, Rays coaches and officials certainly encourage use of the pitch. They’ve identified pitchers with plus changeups to acquire like Jose De Leon.

“I’ve always been a huge advocate of changeups,” Hickey said. “I like changeups because it’s the easiest pitch to throw in the strike zone [amongst] non-fastballs. If you have a nasty curveball, that’s great. But if it gets to a 3-1 count, and the bases are loaded, and you don’t want to walk that guy in, you are probably not snapping off a hook. Hellickson is a great example. I remember one time it was bases loaded, it was 3-1, and he threw three consecutive changeups and struck the guy out. That’s why I like it.”

Here’s another example of Hellickson throwing a full-count changeup with the bases loaded back in 2012:

“When I personally became a huge advocate of the changeup is when the strike zone shrunk. I really think the strike zone shrunk after Camden Yards opened, and the PED era, and everybody is hitting 50 home runs,” Hickey said. “We used to joke you had to throw it in a damn shoebox. You couldn’t do that with a lot of offspeed stuff. You don’t see a lot of fastball-curveball starters. It was fastball-changeup-slider starters.”

And while the strike zone grew every year from 2008 to -15 according to PITCHf/x data, it shrunk last season.

“Another reason I’m a big advocate of it is there is nothing to identify it,” Hickey said. “A curveball might have a little hump to it, have some spin to it, a slider might have some spin to it.”

Hickey also believe it is the “easiest pitch to physically teach.”

And the Rays pitchers have taught the pitch to each other as well as any club in the sport. It makes their story less about an organizational philosophy, and more about the importance of handing down a skill from one generation to the next, having a master craftsman teach an apprentice.

This is Kate Preusser’s second piece as part of her month-long residency.

It’s no secret that there’s considerable overlap between bookish types and baseball fans, all tucked cozily in the center of that particular Venn diagram. Distance readers have an inborn patience for the nine-inning drama of a baseball game. These are a people who understand the three-act structure, exposition leading to rising action leading to the climactic moment; this past World Series, in fact, felt a little like the baseball gods had taken a Khan Academy class on Aristotle’s Poetics.

But there’s a narrative that most serious baseball fans have come to reject, and that’s the one of spring training. Every year there seem to be pieces poking fun at the cliches of spring training — Best shape of his life! Swing mechanics change! Learning a new pitch/grip/arcane religious philosophy! LASIK! — and those pieces exist because these cliches persist, so much so that poking fun at spring-training cliches is now itself a form of cliche.

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