As we approach August, now is a good time to take a fresh look at the farm systems of some of the clubs we expect to be buyers at the trade deadline. These teams are both contending for a playoff berth and in clear need of a significant upgrade, the kind that will likely require parting with a top farmhand or two. We’ll begin today with the Atlanta Braves. In tandem with an evaluation of the team’s needs and deadline posture, we’ve updated Atlanta’s Top Prospect list to account for the graduations of Didier Fuentes and JR Ritchie, incorporate the new draftees, and reflect a number of promising developments on the farm. If you were solely to evaluate a farm system by its performance relative to expectations, the Braves have a case for the top spot in the league, and that newfound depth looms as a key factor in the club’s playoff push.

The Situation
For a while, the Braves seemed poised to boat race the NL East. The club went 40-20 over the first two months of the season and built a 10-game lead over the Phillies. The Mets, also projected to be strong contenders in the division, languished even less threateningly in dead last. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to “Wait, What?!,” a series in which I’ll take a look at some of the players whose performance has most surprised me this season. These will all be guys I covered as part of this season’s list cycle. It’s important to reflect on previous work, and in cases where the numbers don’t match the scouting report, there’s often a lesson to be learned, or at least something to keep in mind going forward.

While it can be useful to let a report marinate for a couple years before looking back, sometimes a player’s production prompts a quicker postmortem. Such is the case with Blue Jays catcher Brandon Valenzuela, who has accumulated 1.6 WAR in his first 59 career games mere months after I projected him as a glove-first backup on Toronto’s farm system overview. Let’s take a deeper look at how we got from A to B, evaluate whether I should have seen this kind of production coming, and reflect on whether Valenzuela’s breakout warrants a re-evaluation. Perhaps we’ll even learn something, something to think about when it comes time to evaluate the next upper-level catcher who looks like a defense-first reserve. We’ll begin with a look at Valenzuela’s tool grades and scouting report from January, which I’ve reproduced below:

A glove-first catcher, San Diego traded Valenzuela to Toronto last summer in a deadline deal for Will Wagner. The 25-year-old has kicked around the mid-to-upper levels for a couple years now and heads into the 2026 season as the club’s third catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

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With the August 3 trade deadline fast approaching, we’re bound to see minor leaguers aplenty floated in trade rumors. If you’re curious about the players who might find themselves in new orgs in a few weeks, The Board is a great resource, as are the new minor league leaderboards, the subject of today’s Feature Focus.

The Basics

• Our minor league statistics go back to 2006, with batted-ball data going back to 2007.
• You can combine multiple seasons, or separate the leaderboards into discrete player-seasons by checking the box next to Split Seasons.
• The Level, League, Minor League Team, and MLB Org drop-downs allow for multiple filters across drop-downs (e.g., selecting Triple-A and then the Pacific Coast League), but not for multiple filters within each drop-down. The leaderboards don’t currently allow for selecting multiple MLB organizations, for example.
• The Stat Filters can be stacked, however. Here’s the leaderboard filtered for a 150 wRC+ or higher and 15 or more steals, sorted by most steals:

You’ll notice that in the above screenshot, wRC+ isn’t actually shown in the resulting leaderboard because it’s not in the Standard tab. Unlike the player pages or our major league leaderboards, the minor league leaderboards don’t have a Dashboard tab, so the default statistics are different. This can be solved using the Custom Report button, which I used to add wRC+. I also restricted my view to qualified hitters only:

Members can add columns to their hearts’ content, while non-Members are limited to 10 total columns in their custom reports.

What’s New

The current minor league leaderboards didn’t get a drastic overhaul from the old version (which will remain live through the World Series), but there were two fantastic additions.

The first is custom date ranges, available only to Members. When a custom date range is selected, the player’s age will show a span of years, as illustrated in this leaderboard of the minor league leaders in strikeouts since July 1, 2023:

The filters section includes a MaxAge option, which works the same as the Age filter would for a single season, but filters on the oldest player-season shown in the range.

Non-Members are limited to the Quick Range options of the last seven, 14, or 30 days, along with the Season Start and Season End selectors.

We’ve also incorporated our new Heat Maps feature, which I went over in detail a couple of weeks ago.

As is the case with all new and updated features at FanGraphs, we don’t view the minor league leaderboards as a fully complete project just because we’ve made a couple of additions. At the top of the new leaderboards, you’ll see a link to submit any feedback you have.

Welcome to Because You Asked, a series in which I’ll dive deeper on some of the players who readers inquire about in my weekly chats. These tend to be guys who were absent or only briefly mentioned on our last list cycle, or players with production that’s out of step with their reputation or scouting reports. Also, Jonah Tong. Hopefully this exercise allows me to just tap a sign every week instead of writing the same sentence or two; we’ll see how it goes. First up: Manuel Pena.

Pena is a 22-year-old utility prospect in the Diamondbacks system. We’ve written about him before — Eric and I ranked him 15th in Arizona’s system in 2022 as a projectable power hitter — but he quickly fell out of the main section of lists and was absent entirely during our last three cycles. This year, Pena has started games at first, third, and second base, as well as in left field, and while he has a little shortstop experience on his CV, he’s primarily a four-corner guy at this point. Nobody’s asking about the glove, though. Pena has drawn attention for one reason: Out of nowhere, he’s among the minor league leaders in home runs with 29. This comes after he’d hit 31 in the previous five seasons combined, so fans and readers understandably want an update here. Read the rest of this entry »

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I had the pleasure of attending the 2026 Futures Game yesterday in Philadelphia. Good weather, a big crowd, and great rosters — this game was especially loaded with pitching, which isn’t always the case — made for a fun event.

The nature of the game makes it an imperfect place to evaluate talent. It’s a showcase environment where big tools stand out more than refined skills, and, particularly in a seven-inning game, there’s precious little time for players to show off their range of abilities. Below you’ll find thoughts and reflections on the day, which also included batting practice and pregame defensive work. Inevitably, given the volume of players, some of these write-ups are fairly short, more of a weather report than anything else. In other cases, players moved the needle for me, or at least inspired things for us to monitor over the rest of the season. If you want the full monty on these guys, all of them have full scouting reports on our team-specific lists. We’ve also opted to tuck this recap into our draft coverage navigation widget. If you missed our recap of Day 1, or any of our other coverage, be sure to check it out. Read the rest of this entry »

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