Every winter, hundreds of nondescript ballplayers become minor-league free agents. Players are granted minor-league free agency when they’re omitted from a club’s 40-man roster and have also spent at least six years in the minor leagues. In other words, they’re the ones who weren’t good enough to merit a call-up after several years in the minors, and their organizations suspect they lack the potential to be worthy of a 40-man spot.

Some of these players latch on with new organizations; some of them don’t. But regardless, the overwhelming majority never have much big-league success. Carson Cistulli found that only about 1% of minor-league free agents produce at least 0.5 WAR the following season. Minor-league free agents are the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to player transactions. But there’s an occasional gem at the bottom of that barrel. It’s not unheard of, at all, for a minor-league free agent to make a major-league impact. A few successful examples of players I highlighted in this space last year:

• Wilmer Font dominated the PCL by striking out a jaw-dropping 32% of batters as a starter, earning him a role on the deepest pitching staff in baseball. My money’s on him opening 2018 on someone’s big-league squad.
• Lane Adams recorded 122 plate appearances of above-average production with the Braves, much of that coming as a pinch-hitter.
• Jacob Turner was a serviceable swingman for the 97-win Nationals in the season’s first half (33.2 innings, 4.28 ERA through June 18th).

Using my KATOH projection system, I identified the hitters from this year’s minor-league free-agent class who showed glimmers of promise in the minors. Since none of these players have any sort of prospect pedigree anyway, I utilized the stats-only version of KATOH. Based on their minor-league numbers, there’s reason to believe they might be able to help at the big-league level sometime soon. This analysis considers only players who logged at least 200 minor-league plate appearances in either 2016 or 2017. Tomorrow, I’ll repeat this exercise for pitchers.

*****

1. Christian Lopes, 2B/3B

A seventh-round pick way back in 2011, Lopes has slowly but steadily worked his way through the Blue Jays organization, finally reaching Triple-A this past season. He hit a respectable .261/.349/.402 at the highest rung of the minor leagues while also showing speed on the bases. A 25-year-old infielder who can hit a little bit and run a little bit is about as compelling as minor-league free agents come.

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Because most of the posts I publish at FanGraphs are based on my KATOH projection system, you might think my interests lie in stark contrast to the typical scout’s. My work is often presented against the backdrop of traditional prospect lists in an effort to identify players who may by underrated by the scouting consensus. However, I do attempt to see prospects in person from time to time in order to put faces and bodies to the stat lines I spend so much time analyzing.

As noted previously in these pages, my in-person looks are defined by one constraint — namely, my general reluctance to leave the five boroughs of New York. As such, I confine my interest in pro prospects to those players in the New York-Penn League (NYPL), seeing as many games over the summer as my schedule will permit.

What follows is specific sort of document, then, based on a combination of in-person looks, statistical performance, and geography. It is, in short, the pref list of someone who refused to stray far from New York City while compiling it. The mediocre scouting video is my own. KATOH numbers represent projected WAR over first six major-league seasons.

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Who were the best players in the Midwest League this year? I posed that question to some of the circuit’s broadcasters late in the season, with an important qualifier: I wanted them to mostly base their selections on what they saw with their own eyes and not on reputations.

Because the Midwest League is comprised of two divisions, with an unbalanced schedule, a certain amount of sample-size bias was inevitable. I felt that was preferable to having the broadcasters put much too weight on second-hand information. Their expertise is what I was after.

I asked each of the participants for a list of seven players, ranked in order, plus any honorable mentions they cared to include. Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. are partially responsible for the list size. I originally planned on five, but as Lansing’s dynamic duo dominated my initial inquiries, I decided to bump up the number two notches.

Seven broadcasters participated, five from the Eastern Division and two from the Western Division. A pair of them, Alex Cohen and Chris Vosters, augmented their lists with snapshot scouting reports.

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Alex Cohen, Bowling Green Hot Rods (Rays)

1. Bo Bichette (Lansing Lugnuts, Blue Jays): Not sure what position he’ll play in the long run, and Vlad Jr. may have a better/longer career, but he was by far the best player in the league this year and it’s not really even close.

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The Oakland A’s gave up a pair of quality relievers when they traded Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson to the Washington Nationals in July. The trio of players they got in return are pretty talented themselves. One is already established — Blake Treinen logged 16 saves this year — while the others are promising prospects.

Sheldon Neuse, a 22-year-old infielder out of the University of Oklahoma, recorded a .321/.382/.502 slash line in his first full season of pro ball. The 2016 second-round pick did his damage at three levels, hopscotching from Low-A to High-A to Double-A.

And then there’s Jesus Luzardo, whose ceiling would be best described as “lofty.” While getting his feet wet at the lowest rungs of the minors — Rookie-level ball and the New York-Penn League — the polished-beyond-his-years southpaw struck out 48 and walked just five in 43.1 innings. His ERA was a smooth-and-shiny 1.66.

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Over the course of the last year, I’ve published projections for a boatload of prospects at this site. Now that the 2017 regular season is complete, I thought it might make sense to review how KATOH has performed with specific players. Last week, I looked at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts looked prescient. For this particular post, I’d like to look at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts have looked foolish.

Allow me to point out immediately that none of this is conclusive: we’re only a year (or less) into the big-league careers of the players included here. Labeling a six-year projection as definitively “right” or “wrong” following a single season is obviously premature. That said, we undoubtedly have a much clearer picture of these players’ futures than we did six months ago.

This analysis compares each player’s industry-wide consensus to his stats-only KATOH projection — which does not consider a player’s ranking on prospect lists. Stats-only is KATOH’s purest form and also the version that disagrees most fervently with the establishment. Note that I did not consider cases where all parties were wrong, such as Aaron Judge. Although KATOH’s No. 53 ranking of Judge looks silly now, it was on par with other rankings, which ranged from 44th to 145th.

Picking players for this article was obviously somewhat subjective. So if you have a player in mind that I neglected to mention, feel free to complain about it in the comments!

Prospects KATOH Liked
Here are the players on whom KATOH has typically been more bullish than other outlets. Players are listed in general order of “failure” in 2017.

Dylan Cozens, OF, Philadelphia

Last winter, KATOH ranked Cozens as the top prospect in baseball. The large outfielder proceeded to tarnish my reputation by hitting .210/.301/.418 with a 36% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year. There was a lot to like about Cozens’ 2016: he mashed 40 homers, stole 21 bases, and graded out well in right field — all as a 22-year-old at Double-A. But evaluators were concerned about his strikeouts and predicted his power numbers would crater outside of Reading. The book is far from closed on Cozens, who KATOH still sees him as a back-end top-100 guy. But tippy-top prospects don’t have seasons like Cozens’ 2017.

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Over the course of the last year, I’ve published projections for a boatload of prospects at this site. Now that the 2017 season is winding down, I thought it might make sense to review how KATOH has performed with specific players. For this particular post, I’d like to look at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts have looked prescient.

Allow me to point out immediately that none of this is conclusive: we’re only a year (or less) into the big-league careers of the players included here. Labeling a six-year projection as definitively “right” or “wrong” following a single season is obviously premature. That said, we undoubtedly have a much clearer picture of these players’ futures than we did six months ago.

This analysis compares each player’s industry-wide consensus to his stats-only KATOH projection — which does not consider a player’s ranking on prospect lists. Stats-only is KATOH’s purest form and also the version that disagrees most fervently with the establishment.

Writing this article was a lot of fun. Like everyone else, I enjoy saying “I told you so” when I’m right. But I also acknowledge that I’m often wrong. So as much as I’d like to tout these cherry-picked success stories and move on to current projections, I feel I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t write another article pointing out KATOH’s misses. Stay tuned.

Prospects KATOH Liked
Here are the players on whom KATOH has typically been more bullish than other outlets. Players are listed in general order of “success” in 2017.

Rhys Hoskins, 1B/OF, Philadelphia

As you’re probably aware, Hoskins had a pretty good summer. But before he was hitting homers at a ridiculous clip, Hoskins was an unheralded first-base prospect who had never cracked a major publication’s top-100 list. KATOH was all over him, though, due to his impressive minor-league numbers. My system ranked him No. 54 in the preseason and No. 14 when he was called up. He also cracked the All-KATOH Team in the preseason. The best minor-league hitters often succeed in the majors as well. As obvious as that sounds, the case of Rhys Hoskins shows that we sometimes overthink these things.

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In something of a surprise move, the Washington Nationals have called up 20-year-old center fielder Victor Robles from Double-A. Robles spent most of the season at the High-A level, having only played at Double-A since late July. Robles lacks experience against big-league-caliber pitching, but met basically every challenge at the lower levels this year, hitting an outstanding .300/.382/.493 with 27 steals. You’d be hard-pressed to find many batting lines better and more well rounded than Robles’. He hits for average, hits for power, and is a weapon on the bases. Oh, and he’s also an elite center fielder who was worth 15 runs above average this year according to Clay Davenport’s numbers.

If you’re looking for any signs of weakness with Robles, his plate discipline is a candidate. He struck out in 17% of his plate appearances in the minors and walked in 7%, which are both league-average-ish marks. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with average strikeout and walk numbers, particularly when everything else is off the charts. But keep in mind that those figures were recorded mostly against A-ball pitching and are likely to worsen against big leaguers.

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With September call-up season upon us, the Phillies have summoned top prospect J.P. Crawford from the minor leagues. He made his debut last night, starting at third base and notching his first career hit. Prior to his call up, Crawford hit .243/.351/.405 in Triple-A this year, including a powerful .284/.385/.517 since July 8th.

Crawford is an extremely talented player who can provide value in more ways than one. His minor-league batting lines don’t necessarily jump off the page, but in the context of his age and defensive value, they’re rather impressive. That’s why he’s been appearing near the tops of prospect lists — including KATOH’s — for years. Baseball America ranked him among the top-14 prospects each of the last three seasons, while Baseball Prospectus ranked him No. 4 each of the last two. Eric Longenhagen ranked him No. 9 in the preseason and No. 34 in his summer list.

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Although St. Louis’s 67-66 record puts them 5.0 games out of a Wild Card berth, our projections continue to give them a still-realistic 13.0% chance at cracking the playoffs due to the talent on their roster. Mike Leake wasn’t helping much, as the veteran righty had allowed at least four runs in each of his last four starts, yielding a protuberant 10.24 ERA. St. Louis had apparently seen enough, trading Leake to Seattle. In his place, they’ve called up top prospect Jack Flaherty to make his major-league debut tonight at San Francisco. Flaherty ranked No. 57 on Eric Longenhagen’s updated top-100 list.

Flaherty was nothing short of excellent in the minors this year, pitching to a stellar 2.18 ERA in 25 starts between Double-A and Triple-A. Most impressively, he struck out 25% of opposing batters while walking just 6%. If you’re looking for a nit to pick, it’s that Flaherty isn’t much of a ground-ball pitcher and, largely as a result, was a little homer-prone in his 15 Triple-A starts. But otherwise, his recent minor-league track record is impeccable.

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It’s been a rough season for the Phillies, whose record is the worst in baseball and sits comfortably below .400. They’ve trotted out quite a few bad players on a regular basis, including Tommy Joseph, who’s given them four months of disappointment at first base. While Joseph was turning in a 90 wRC+ with poor defense, Rhys Hoskins was annihilating Triple-A. Finally, the Phillies are giving him a whirl at the highest level.

Prior to his call-up, Hoskins hit an insane .284/.385/.581 across 475 Triple-A plate appearances. He belted 29 homers and simultaneously struck out less than 16% of the time. This performance didn’t come out of nowhere, either, as Hoskins slashed .281/.377/.566 and blasted 38 homers last season at Double-A. Those numbers were undoubtedly helped by his home ballpark in Reading, which led many to doubt their validity. But KATOH still loved him because the power numbers were so exceptional and they came packaged with acceptable strikeout rates.

My KATOH system pegs Hoskins for 10.0 WAR over his first six seasons by the stats-only method and 9.4 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his No. 69 rank on Baseball America’s midseason list. Those marks place him 14th and 27th, respectively, among prospects. 

Those WAR estimates don’t tell the whole story, however, as KATOH sees some serious star potential in Hoskins, giving him a roughly 1-in-5 chance of racking up over 20 wins over the next six years. For reference, Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt, Adrian Gonzalez, Miguel Cabrera and Freddie Freeman were the only first baseman who crossed that threshold in the six-year span that ended in 2016.

To put some faces to Hoskins’ statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Hoskins’ 2017 performance and every season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Hoskins is limited to first base, which obviously puts a lot of pressure on his hitting. Even if he’s an above-average defender there, as Clay Davenport’s numbers suggest he is, the offensive bar remains extremely high. This is why KATOH sees him as a No. 20-ish prospect, even though his offensive numbers are eons better than most of the hitters ranked ahead of him. Nonetheless, hitters who pair that type of power with good contact skills are quite rare. Throw in that he also draws walks, and Hoskins looks like he could be a pretty special hitter.