Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Washington Nationals. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

65 FV Prospects

He’s barely played a month above A-ball, but Robles looked ready for the big leagues in 2017 and got a brief cup of coffee before finishing his season in the Arizona Fall League. He’s a polished, instinctive player capable of making an impact in every facet of baseball. Robles has great feel for all-fields contact and sneaky power for his size, which manifests itself in doubles and triples. He’s also a potential Gold Glove center fielder with breathtaking range and arm strength, and he was easily the best baserunner in the AFL, which features a pretty advanced group of prospects.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Miami Marlins. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

60 FV Prospects

Brinson has loud physical tools: plus raw power, plus speed, plus arm strength, and the ability to play center field despite mediocre instincts. He didn’t hit for as much power as was expected at hitter-friendly Colorado Springs in 2017, but scouting reports on the raw power, and Brinson’s ability to get to it in games, remain strong. Provided he’s able to make continuous adjustments — and he’s exhibited the ability to do that on his ascent through the minors — Brinson has 25-homer potential. He has had several soft-tissue, lower-body injuries during his career, including multiple hamstring issues, one of which ended his 2017 season. He’s still a plus runner underway but doesn’t reach top speed as quickly as he once did.

50 FV Prospects

This is what it looks like when things start to click on the baseball field for a premium athlete: a .272/.350/.481 line split between two levels, 51 extra-base hits (including 21 homers), and 27 bases stolen at a 87% success rate. Harrison has always had late-bloomer traits. He was a multi-sport stud — not multi-sport athlete, multi-sport stud — in high school and only committed to baseball full time after turning pro. In parts of three pro seasons entering 2017, Harrison missed time with a hamate fracture and broken leg, which prevented him from getting the reps he needed and diluted the way his tools looked on the field when he was.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Oakland Athletics. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

55 FV Prospects

Puk had back issues in college and scouts weren’t enamored with his conditioning, but he also featured premium velocity and a plus slider while performing against SEC hitters. He somewhat surprisingly fell to Oakland’s sixth overall selection in the 2016 draft. Reports were even stronger in 2017.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Atlanta Braves. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

65 FV Prospects

Acuna has taken an unusual path to becoming an elite prospect. He signed for $100,000 out of Venezuela in 2014, and less than a year later, the Braves knew they had something special. He had gotten more physical while also exhibiting both better-than-expected plate discipline and also lofty exit velocities. Many expected 2016 to be his coming out party — and, in fact, it was in the eyes of scouts who saw him. He had only 179 plate appearances due to injury, though, so he didn’t get a chance to put up the numbers to really draw attention. In 2017, Acuna made the leap from scout favorite and known toolshed to one of the top prospects in baseball.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Seattle Mariners farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

45 FV Prospects

Lewis’s pro career just cannot get off the ground. After signing in 2016, he was sent to short-season Everett — a pretty cushy assignment for a top college draftee, but not unusual for a small-school prospect — where he played for a month before tearing his right ACL in late July. When Lewis got back into games during extended spring training in Arizona the next year, he didn’t look ready. His bat speed was intact, but he was noticeably hobbled in a way that scouts thought impacted him on both sides of the ball. They suspected he was rushing back too quickly.

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To answer your first question: no, there isn’t a slam-dunk, generational talent among the prospects ranked below. We’ll have to wait a little longer, it seems, for the next Bryce Harper to emerge. Nevertheless, the 2018 draft class is generally seen as deep and strong, particularly in prep pitching. There isn’t a player yet on whom we’d currently put a 55 FV (that is, the lowest grade received by the first 42 prospects on the recently published top-100 list), but almost every draft class ends up with a couple of those, and obviously these names will shift around during the season.

For reference, last year’s draft ended up with one low 60 FV and five players with 55 FV grades by the time the offseason arrived. So expecting three to five of the following prospects to emerge in the top 50 of next year’s Top 100 seems reasonable. As you might guess, the top 10-15 prospects are pretty tightly packed. With most of the early-season action occurring in Arizona, Florida, and SoCal, we’ll both be out to get lots of early looks this spring to quickly start sorting more out.

It’s too early to do a mock draft that would amount to anything much greater than a collection of guesses (here’s the draft order, for reference), but something to monitor is the presence of those clubs that lean risk-averse/analytic/etc. in the top half of the first round. In light of certain trends within the game — and, in particular, what appears to be a greater interest in near-ready, low-end-regular types — this could push college players (and, specifically, college bats) up into the high first round. Both Oregon State and Missouri State have TrackMan units at their home parks, so clubs will have multiple years of data on Madrigal and Eierman to aid their evaluations. Hitters from Virginia have benefited in much the same way from strong, large-sample TrackMan data in recent drafts.

Just as the recent minor-league top-100 list prominently featured the sons of Dante Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero, and Fernando Tatis, the lists that follow also feature quite a bit in the way of bloodlines. We have the sons of Jeff Conine, Troy Percival, David Weathers, and Bobby Witt, along with the younger brothers of Pirates Triple-A RHP Nick Kingham, Rays Double-A 1B/LF Joe McCarthy, Padres Double-A 1B Josh Naylor, and Blue Jays Triple-A CF Dalton Pompey. Kumar Rocker’s father, meanwhile, is Tracy Rocker, a former NFL defensive tackle and current defensive line coach for Tennessee.

We could have ranked more players or included more names for each list (especially projectable high-school arms), but we chose to limit ourselves in this preseason installment. Things will obviously expand as we get more information. We’ll have a slightly different presentation of the list than in years past, to more closely resemble the sort of information at what clubs are looking in draft rooms. We’ll both be at games starting this week and will keep you guys updates with tweets and InstaGraphs posts (along with longer posts when warranted) and updated rankings a couple more times leading up to the draft.

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Below is KATOH’s 2018 top-100 prospect list. If you’re a regular FanGraphs reader, you likely know the drill by now. But in case you need a refresher, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for a player’s first six major-league seasons. It incorporates age, offensive performance, defensive performance, and other characteristics from the past two seasons. There are certainly drawbacks to scouting the stat line, but due to their objectivity, the projections can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated.

I have made a few updates this time around. KATOH now features:

1. The batted-ball data (for both hitters and pitchers) available on our awesome leaderboards. Among other things, this helps KATOH differentiate between fluky and un-fluky high- and low-BABIP hitters.
2. A greater reliance on recent data for the construction of the model and less dependence on data points from 10-plus years ago.
3. Numbers from the Dominican Summer League, which was previously outside of KATOH’s scope

Astute readers might notice that this article does not include a top-100 for KATOH+, the version of KATOH that incorporates scouting grades in addition to the stats. Since Kiley and Eric are still working their way through the organizational lists, I don’t have up-to-date FV grades for every prospect. Rather than plugging in FV grades from a year ago (or more), I am holding off on KATOH+ for now.

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Below is an updated summer top-100 prospect list. Above are links to the top-10 lists for teams in each of the six divisions. Those include notes on why some of these prospects have moved up or down on their respective org list. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page, which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards. The preseason top-100 list is available here.

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With the trade deadline swiftly approaching, it’s time for some updated KATOH rankings. I know you’re not here to read about assumptions and caveats, so I’ll keep the non-list part of this article short and sweet.

• 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, but due to their objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated.
• KATOH+ incorporates Baseball America’s midseason top-100 list and Eric Longenhagen’s preseason FV grades for players excluded from BA’s list. Stats-only KATOH does not consider prospect rankings.
• These projections account only for minor-league stats. While I’ve done work with college players, I have not yet attempted to merge college and minor-league data. These projections also do not account for any major-league performance.
• All players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced in 2016 and/or 2017 were considered.
• This isn’t “Chris Mitchell’s Top 100 List,” and certainly not “FanGraphs’ Top 100 List.” This is simply the output from my far-from-perfect statistical model.

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The draft is right around the corner, and KATOH’s here with some content. Today, I give you projections for the top-250 draft-eligible college players. This list considers all Division 1 players who logged at least 100 plate appearances or batters faced this season. These projections don’t just incorporate this year’s data, but also consider performances from 2016, 2015, and last summer’s Cape Cod League. I consider this to be a vast improvement over the work on amateur prospects I’ve done in the past.

I derived these projections using a methodology similar to the one I use for minor leaguers. I ran a series of probit regression analyses on historical data to determine the likelihood that a player will reach a variety of WAR thresholds (Playing in MLB, >0.5 WAR, >1 WAR, >2 WAR, etc.) through age 28. The resulting probabilities were used to generate a point estimate for each player’s WAR through age 28. The projections take into account performance, conference, age and height. They also account for defensive position for hitters and batters faced per game for pitchers. All of these factors are weighted accordingly based on the major-league careers of historical college players.

There are thousands of Division 1 baseball players, and the data is often unruly and prone to inaccuracies. Furthermore, determining who’s draft-eligible is often tricky, as birthdays and high-school graduation years are sometimes hard to track down. A bunch of front offices didn’t realize T.J. Friedl was eligible for the draft last year, so this isn’t just a me problem. All of this is to say that I can’t be 100% sure nobody was left off erroneously, so feel free to ask if your favorite college prospect isn’t listed.

I will provide further analysis on many of these players once we know where they end up, so check back next week. One quick observation: there’s been much debate over whether Louisville’s Brendan McKay should be selected as a pitcher or a hitter. KATOH sides strongly with Team Pitcher, as it ranks him No. 1 among college players as a pitcher and No. 191 as a first baseman. However, since he’s primarily focused on pitching to date, I suppose one could argue he has more development left than your typical 21-year-old hitter with his numbers.

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