We all knew Dan Vogelbach’s days in the Cubs’ organization were numbered. His lackluster range limit to first base, and if we’re being serious, even that’s a stretch. He didn’t have a future with the Cubs. Not only do they lack a DH, but they also have more quality hitters than they have lineup spots. A trade was imminent, and the Cubs finally pulled the trigger on Wednesday night, dealing the 23-year-old slugger for unheralded — yet effective — reliever Mike Montgomery and Double-A hurler Paul Blackburn. Triple-A pitcher Jordan Pries also heads to Chicago in the deal.

Dan Vogelbach, 1B, Seattle (Profile)

KATOH Forecast for first six seasons: 2.8 WAR

Vogelbach offers zero defensive value, which means he’ll need to hit a lot to get by in the big leagues. To his credit, however, his exploits in the minors this year suggest he might hit enough to make for a productive DH. He’s slashed a gaudy .318/.425/.548 in Triple-A, and has little left to prove in the minor leagues. KATOH isn’t crazy about Vogelbach on account of his defensive limitations, lack of speed and iffy contact numbers. Vogelbach’s power is excellent, but the other facets of his game threaten to chip away at his value.

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Last October, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit challenging Major League Baseball’s minor-league pay practices scored an important, albeit preliminary, victory when the court tentatively certified the case as a collective-action lawsuit. As I noted at the time, this meant that rather than have to file individual lawsuits for every player allegedly denied the minimum wage or overtime, current and former minor-league players could instead opt-in to the existing litigation and have their claims against MLB tried together in the existing case (a much more efficient and less costly proposition).

As I also noted at the time, however, this initial victory was potentially short-lived. Under the applicable legal rules, even though the court had preliminarily certified the minor leaguers’ case as a collective action, the court withheld a final judgment on the matter until after the parties had gathered more evidence regarding the extent to which the players’ legal claims were “similarly situated” to one another’s (i.e., whether the work experiences and legal claims of the plaintiffs already named in the lawsuit were roughly equivalent to those of the rest of the players who might join the case).

That additional evidence has now been collected and, on Thursday evening, the judge in the minor-league wage lawsuit ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to show that their cases were similarly situated. Thus, the judge “decertified” the case as a collective action.

This means that the roughly 2,200 current and former minor-league players who had joined the case since October have now been tossed back out of the lawsuit. These players must now instead file their own individual lawsuits against MLB should they wish to seek compensation for their alleged underpayment.

Perhaps more importantly, Thursday’s ruling also dramatically lowers the odds that the existing lawsuit will force MLB to make significant, league-wide changes to its minor-league pay practices. Thus, the decision represents a major victory for the league in the minor-league wage litigation.

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Less than a month ago, the Washington Nationals called up top prospect Lucas Giolito, with the hopes that he’d fill a hole in their rotation. However, as often happens with promising young pitchers, Giolito looked a bit overmatched in his first taste of the big leagues. He recorded more walks than strikeouts in his two starts with Washington, and was subsequently sent back to the minors to further refine his breaking stuff. Giolito will surely be back sooner rather than later, and still appears to have a bright future ahead of him. For now, though, the Nationals are turning to another electric young arm: hard-throwing 22-year-old Reynaldo Lopez debuts tonight against the Dodgers.

Lopez was signed out of the Dominican back in 2012, and his stuff has landed him on top-100 prospect lists for a couple of years now. But up until this season, he his minor-league performance hadn’t quite matched up with his stuff for any extended period. He spent the 2015 season in the High-A Carolina League, where he posted a mediocre 4.09 ERA. His peripherals suggest he pitched much better than that, but his 23% strikeout rate still underwhelmed.

He opened 2016 at the Double-A level, and soon began missing bats at a rate commensurate with his stuff. His 30% strikeout rate is tops among qualified Double-A pitchers this year. He also managed to keep his walk rate under 8%. Though he wasn’t super sharp in his two most recent starts at the Triple-A level, the body of Lopez’s 2016 campaign bodes well for his future in the bigs.

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Almost right after after treating us to Tyler Glasnow day, the Pirates are giving us another promising debutante to fuss over. First base prospect Josh Bell will debut for Pittsburgh in tonight’s game against the Cubs. Bell crushed Triple-A pitching this year to the tune of .324/.407/.535.

Bell posted a healthy .212 ISO in Triple-A this year, but in years past, he’s hit for an underwhelming amount of power — especially for a 6-foot-4 first baseman. Between 2014 and 2015 combined, he managed just 16 homers, and didn’t exactly compensate with loads of doubles and triples. Instead, he made lots of contact, which resulted in loads of singles. Read the rest of this entry »

Less than a month ago, the Pirates called up top prospect Jameson Taillon from the minor leagues, and slotted him into their struggling rotation. With Taillon now sidelined by shoulder fatigue, the Pirates have once again dipped into their minor-league repository. Today, they’ve called up yet another top-tier pitching prospect in Tyler Glasnow. Glasnow’s spent the past three months putting up sick-nasty numbers with the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate. In 96 innings across 17 starts, he boasts a 1.78 ERA and 2.94 FIP. He’s struck out a remarkable 30% of batters faced this year, which is tops among qualified Triple-A hurlers. Triple-A hitters proved to be no match for his filthy fastball-curveball combination.

Glasnow’s mowed down minor-league hitters, but many are concerned that his lackluster command will prevent him from succeeding at the next level. That’s a big reason why the Pirates kept him in the minors as long as they did, and why they passed him over for Taillon when they needed a pitcher last month. As lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen noted in a recent chat, “His stuff is hellacious and pitchers with that body type often develop command late, but there’s a non-zero chance Glasnow never throws enough strikes to dominate.”

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It’s raining prospects. The prospect gods gave us Brandon Nimmo and A.J. Reed over the weekend, and today we’re treated with another prospect debut: hard-throwing righty Lucas Giolito. The former first-rounder will take the hill for the Nationals in tonight’s game against the New York Mets.

Giolito pitched exclusively at the Double-A level this year, where he posted a 3.22 FIP and a 23% strikeout rate. That performance is nothing to sneeze at, especially coming from a 21-year-old, but it’s a tad underwhelming when held against his numbers from prior seasons. Giolito showed an exceptional penchant for missing bats at the low minors, but he hasn’t been quite as prolific since he was promoted to Double-A last July. He posted a 29% strikeout rate in 168 innings in A-Ball between 2014 and 2015, but saw that figure dip below 23% in his 118 Double-A innings. His walk rate also ticked up upon reaching the Double-A level.

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The Astros have gotten painfully little production from the first-base position this season. Spring-training hero Tyler White stopped hitting in April, and Marwin Gonzalez hasn’t exactly stepped up to pick up the slack. Houston’s lack of offense from first is a big reason why they’ve underperformed their preseason expectations. In an effort to fill the void, the Astros have called up top prospect A.J. Reed, who figures to get the lion’s share of starts at first base from here on out.

Reed’s hit everywhere he’s played. In 2014, he lead the SEC in both on-base and slugging his junior season at Kentucky, and he closed out his draft year by slashing .289/.375/.522 between two levels of A-Ball. He enjoyed his biggest breakout last year, when he hit an unquestionably gaudy .337/.428/.604 with 34 homers between High-A and Double-A. His performance has deteriorated a bit this year, but he’s still managed a .266/.345/.509 slash line in Triple-A.

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Michael Conforto was supposed to be one of the Mets’ top run producers this year. After storming through the minors last year, the 2014 draftee wound up being a crucial part of his team’s run to the World Series last year. The year 2016 hasn’t been as kind to him, however, which prompted the Mets to send him back to the minor leagues. In his place, they called up another young outfielder: Brandon Nimmo.

If you feel you’ve been hearing about Nimmo for a while, it’s probably because you have. The Mets drafted Nimmo in the first round out of high school way back in 2011: a time long, long ago, when Mike Trout was still in the minors and Matt Kemp was in the midst of an eight-win season. Although he’s been around awhile, Nimmo turned just 23 in March, making him younger than Conforto.

Based on his early performances in the Mets’ system, Nimmo looked like something of a bust. He hit just .259/.382/.374 over roughly 300 games the low minors from 2011 to -13, and then proceeded to hit a miserable .202/.306/.238 in the Arizona Fall League. Most concerning of all, he was striking out in over one-fourth of his trips to the plate.

But once the calendar turned to 2014, Nimmo began living up to his first-round draft pedigree. He broke out in a big way when he slashed .322/.448/.458 in his half-season in High-A. He came back to earth a bit following a promotion to Double-A, but still managed to put up solid numbers across the board, all while keeping his strikeout rate under 20%.

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Collectively, Reds pitchers have been all sorts of terrible this year. Their team ERA (5.45) and FIP (5.62) are both easily the worst in baseball, as injuries to Homer Bailey, Raisel Iglesias and Michael Lorenzen have left their rotation painfully thin. It’s about to get better, though, as top prospect Cody Reed is set to make his big-league debut tomorrow. Since we’ve likely passed the Super Two deadline, he should be up for good.

Reed enjoyed a breakout season in 2015, when he posted an impressive 24% strikeout rate and 2.93 FIP between High-A and Double-A. That was enough to make him a fixture on prospect lists last winter. He placed in the middle third of most top 100 rankings.

Reed built on last year’s success at the Triple-A level this year. Although he’s faced better competition, his strikeout and walk rates have remained on par with last year’s numbers. The end result has been a 3.20 ERA and 3.37 FIP. Not bad at all for a 23-year-old facing borderline big-league hitters.

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Super two deadline season is underway, so expect to see some well-regarded prospects get the call over the next couple of weeks. The most recent player to get the call is White Sox shortstop, Tim Anderson. Anderson hit .304/.325/.409 in Triple-A this season. He has 11 steals to his name this year, but swiped an eye-popping 49 last year.

Anderson oozes tools and has put up fine minor league numbers the past couple of years, but his plate discipline could use some work. He struck out in 23% of his trips to the plate this year at Triple-A, and walked in just 3%. The strikeout and walk numbers were just as bad in the lower levels. Read the rest of this entry »