Anyone who follows prospects knows that Washington Nationals pitching prospect Lucas Giolito comes with considerable hype. After being in consideration for the first overall pick in the 2012 draft before succumbing to elbow problems, Giolito has repeatedly shown the sort of form that put him in that conversation (one that, given the performance of Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton to date, is frankly quite lofty).

I have seen Giolito twice over the past two years, and I’ve happened to take in two of his more notable outings. Last August, I witnessed him toss five scoreless innings working exclusively with his fastball and changeup, and last week, I watched him throw seven no-hit frames after entering in the second inning. As one might expect, the heralded hurler showed plenty of substance behind his acclaim in both outings.

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I tend to follow the minor leagues pretty closely. As a result, I would say I’m at least generally familiar with nearly all prospects who have a chance of making a big league impact in the foreseeable future. However, when Balbino Fuenmayor came to the plate as Team World’s cleanup hitter in Sunday’s Futures Game, I hadn’t a clue who he was. I was even more confused when I saw his stats show up on my screen: .360/.388/.612 between Double-A and Triple-A this year. Sure, the World team sometimes needs to scrape the bottom of the barrel for its first basemen, but how could I not know about this guy? Who could forget a name like that?

After pulling up Fuenmayor’s FanGraphs page, I somewhat forgave myself for letting him fly under my radar. Simply put, he wasn’t someone worth monitoring prior to this season. In fact, he didn’t even play affiliated baseball last year.

Fuenmayor originally signed with the Blue Jays as 16-year-old out of Venezuela way back in 2006, and spent seven forgettable years in the Blue Jays organization. Over nearly 2,000 plate appearances, none of them above Low-A Ball, he hit a pedestrian .251/.296/.390. With a strikeout rate of 28%, Fuenmayor simply struck out too frequently to turn any heads, especially for a corner infielder with few walks and middling power. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees boasted one of the best offenses in baseball in the season’s first half. Heading into the All-Star break, the team ranks third in the American League wRC+ and second in runs scored. But very little of this run scoring has come from the second base position, where the team has mustered only a 64 wRC+. Stephen Drew, with his 229 plate appearances of 69 wRC+, has been the primary culprit.

The Yankees second base situation just got a bit better, however. Or at least it did on the offensive side of things. The team called up rookie second baseman Rob Refsnyder on Saturday. The Bombers faced off against two left-handed pitchers over the weekend, making it an ideal time to break in their right-handed rookie second baseman. Refsnyder accumulated two hits in his first two games, including a towering home run off of Alexi Ogando yesterday. Read the rest of this entry »

Miguel Sano is off to quite the start to his big-league career. The hulking 22-year-old is hitting .385/.500/.577 through his first eight games with Minnesota, and has reached base in all but one of those contests. His 205 wRC+ is the 11th highest in baseball in the month of July, and he’s provided a significant boost to the middle of the Twins lineup.

Sano’s major-league career may be only a week old, but he’s been in the limelight for years now. He was seen as a generational talent when the Twins signed him as a 16-year-old out of the Dominican back in 2009. And the controversy surrounding his signing inspired Peletero — one of baseball’s best and most well-known documentaries.

Once his signing was finally completed and documented, Sano proceeded to punish minor-league pitching. Between 2010 and 2013, he mashed .279/.372/.567 as an infielder, with most of his reps coming at third base. Sano had some trouble making contact, as evidenced by his 26% strikeout rate, but he more than made up for it with his mammoth power. On the strength of his 80-grade raw power, his isolated-power figures (ISOs) were consistently near or above .300, which frankly doesn’t happen all that often. All in all, Sano was always among the very best hitters in his league, despite being much younger than his competition.

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Matt Wisler’s big-league debut went about as well as anyone could have expected. The 22-year-old tossed eight innings of one-run ball two Fridays. His performance was good enough to outduel Jacob deGrom, as he led the Braves to a 2-1 victory over the Mets. His second start didn’t go as swimmingly, however: the Nationals tattooed him for six runs in four innings of work. He didn’t strike out a single one of the 21 batters he faced.

Wisler’s primarily a fastball-slider guy, and both pitches have the potential to be plus, according to Kiley McDaniel. His fastball was clocked as fast as 95 mph in his big-league debut, but it’s averaged closer to 92 overall thus far. Both of Wisler’s strikeouts — yes, he’s only had two — came by way of his low-80s slider. The first victim was Curtis Granderson.

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The Mets have an embarrassment of riches in their starting rotation. Jacob deGrom has seemingly become one of the best pitchers in baseball, and Matt Harvey has pitched very well in his first half-season since returning from injury. Behind them, Noah Syndergaard has shown flashes of dominance over his first eight starts in the majors, while Bartolo Colon and Jon Niese have pitched admirably at the back of the rotation. To accommodate all of these arms, the Mets outrighted Dillon Gee — a pitcher who appears to be a serviceable starting pitcher — to the minors last week.

Yet, despite of all of the talent in their rotation, the Mets are adding yet another intriguing arm to the mix. Word broke yesterday that New York is summoning lefty Steven Matz to the majors. He will make his big-league debut on Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds. The Mets will presumably employ a six-man rotation for the time being. Kiley McDaniel ranked Matz 65th on his preseason top-200 list.

Matz certainly did enough in the minors this year to warrant a call-up. In fact, if it weren’t for the current log jam at the big-league level, he likely would have gotten the nod a bit sooner. Matz pitched to a 2.19 ERA and 3.43 FIP in his 90 innings in Triple-A Las Vegas. He struck out an impressive 26% of opponent batters faced, while walking a reasonable 9%.

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It has been almost exactly two years since the Red Sox made high-school left-hander Trey Ball the seventh-overall pick in the 2013 draft, the first southpaw off the board. Needless to say, such a high selection comes with considerable fanfare and attendant expectations. Soon after being drafted, most Red Sox prospect lists included Ball somewhere in the top 10 (in a stacked organization), and he even snuck into the back end of a few overall top 100s. He did sign for under slot, and as a lanky, projectable high-school arm, he wasn’t exactly expected to move quickly, but still, Ball has spent his career at least largely under the microscope.

Now under a month from his 21st birthday, though, Ball has done little to inspire significant praise since his selection. In 175.2 career innings, he has struck out 115, walked 75, allowed 18 home runs, and posted a 4.41 ERA. He ranked just 15th on Kiley’s offseason Red Sox prospect list, and that wasn’t far off his typical placement. Nobody’s written Ball off as a bust, but nobody has thrown future ace plaudits at him as a pro, either. Oddly, he seems to be almost flying under the radar, as others in Boston’s system have attracted more attention at various points in the past two seasons.

Ball nevertheless remains an important figure in the Boston system, and he’s at the point in his career where it’s time to start examining the present and future of his development. I caught his start on May 29, and it definitely gave a better sense of why Ball hasn’t taken the minors by storm yet, as well as how he projects going forward.

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I’ve written about the Houston Astros an awful lot recently. Between Lance McCullers, Vincent Velasquez, and of course, Carlos Correa, they’ve had more than their share of impact prospects arrive in the majors this year. Today, I’m back to analyze yet another Astro who was recently called up the big club: Domingo Santana.

You might have missed Santana’s call up among the flurry of blue-chip prospects who got the call this week. I almost missed it, and I monitor these things about as closely as anyone. But while Santana’s upside is nowhere close to that of a Byron Buxton or Francisco Lindor, he’s someone worthy of our attention.

Before the Astros called him up to replace Colby Rasmus, who’s currently on the bereavement list, Santana was absolutely mashing in Triple-A. His 176 wRC+ was the highest of all qualified hitters at the level. He also lead Triple-A in walks and slugging percentage. Sounds great, right? What’s not to like about a 22-year-old who’s hitting .320/.444/.584 in Triple-A?

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It’s raining prospects. Every time I check Twitter, it seems, I catch wind of yet another player who’s been summoned to the majors. The latest player to get the call is Kyle Schwarber, the power-hitting “catcher” in the Cubs organization. Schwarber made his big-league debut on Tuesday night as a pinch-hitter, and struck out in his lone plate appearance. Last night, he made his first major-league start, serving as the Cubs designated hitter. Schwarber made the most of this opportunity by going 4-for-5 with a triple.

Word from the Cubs is that Schwarber’s promotion is only a temporary one. The Cubs play their next five games in American League ballparks, which means they’ll need a designated hitter. The Cubs would be hard-pressed to find a better designated hitter than Schwarber. Although he lacks a real defensive position, he hit .320/.438/.579 in the minors this year. Schwarber’s 192 wRC+ in Double-A is the highest among qualified minor-league batters.

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The year of the prospect debut continues. Now that the Super Two deadline has come and gone, prospects are getting called up left and right. This past Sunday, we were treated to two debut events simultaneously, when both Byron Buxton and Francisco Lindor joined their respective major league clubs. I covered Buxton yesterday, so today, I’ll take a look at Lindor, who ranked 14th on Kiley McDaniel’s preseason top-200 list. In case you were wondering, a Kyle Schwarber piece is also in the works.

Unlike Buxton’s call up, which came sooner than many had anticipated, Lindor’s wasn’t much of a surprise. The 21-year-old was hitting .281/.348/.399 in Triple-A this year, after spending the final third of last season at the same level. Throw in that he’s a plus defensive shortstop by all accounts, and it’s probably safe to say that Lindor was the best player left in the minors before his promotion — a distinction that seems to change hands on a weekly basis.

Offensively, Lindor’s calling card is his ability to make contact. The switch-hitter struck out in just 15% of his minor-league plate appearances this year, which matches up with his 14% clip from his prior three-and-a-half years as a pro. Lindor made contact on 89% of his swings in the strike zone in Triple-A — the 29th-highest rate of 126 qualified Triple-A hitters. This bodes well for Lindor’s immediate future, as players with this skill set tend to have relatively smooth transitions to the majors.

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