UMP: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project, Episode 5
This is the fifth episode of a weekly program co-hosted by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel about player evaluation in all its forms. The show, which is available through the normal FanGraphs Audio feed, has a working name but barely. The show is not all prospect stuff, but there is plenty of that, as the hosts are Prospect Men. Below are some timestamps to make listening and navigation easier.
0:23 – What games Eric and Kiley have seen lately: Arizona Fall League and the Diamond Club showcase for Florida high school prospects, featuring a Tyler Callihan update.
2:19 – TOPIC ONE: Yahoo’s Jeff Passan joins us to talk about the Astros cheating scandal and its many facets.
7:15 – Eric reviews the Chinese phone the Astros were using, which should be called the fruit calorie counting machine.
14:50 – Jeff inquires about the status of Kiley’s backyard and dog while Eric reveals how revealing he currently is.
23:08 – We lose Jeff due to technology, and he returns via a time jump, feat. flight attendant announcements.
24:30 – Jeff reveals who is more petty than him, but only by a small margin.
25:23 – Jeff’s antisocial plane tips.
26:54 – A mini topic about Manny Machado’s playoff behavior affecting his free agent market.
29:00 – A mini topic about the Luke Heimlich/Dayton Moore connection living on.
32:48 – TOPIC TWO: How we would put together a scouting department in today’s baseball.
33:56 – Options for structuring the pro scouting department.
34:50 – The biggest factor we don’t have access to: minor league TrackMan.
36:25 – Pros and cons of the different pro scouting department structures.
38:12 – How Eric would structure his pro department.
38:58 – Something to keep in mind in terms of allocating scout days on the amateur side.
40:15 – Kiley jumps in to ask about DSL coverage.
41:39 – Introducing the concept of dynamic pro coverage.
44:00 – Kiley jumps in again to clarify the pyramid of scout experience/assignments.
46:05 – What sorts of scouts can beat the TrackMan data at projecting prospects in the upper levels?
49:10 – When are the robots coming for us?
52:20 – The structural question the guys aren’t sure about
On Monday, the Marlins officially signed Cuban OFs Victor Victor Mesa and Victor Mesa Jr. for approximately $5 million and $1 million, respectively, according to MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez. Below is a post published earlier this month featuring scouting information on each of them — plus pitcher Sandy Gaston — sourced from clubs who attended their lone stateside workout.
Marlins Park hosted three Cuban prospects — CF Victor Victor Mesa (our No. 1 international free agent on THE BOARD), RHP Sandy Gaston (No. 20), and OF Victor Mesa, Jr. (not ranked) — for a workout on Friday. The media was not allowed at this scouts-only event, but we’ve collected thoughts from some evaluators who attended the showcase, which featured a standard array of activities for a baseball workout, including a 60-yard dash, outfield drills, and some reps against live, Marlins instructional league pitching. We’ve compiled some thoughts from people who attended the workout below, as well as some of our own thoughts on what kind of bonuses talents like this typically command on the pool-capped, international-free-agent market.
Cuban prospects have sometimes undergone drastic physical transformations between the point at which they’ve last been observed in Cuba and their workouts for teams. Sometimes these changes are positive (as with Luis Robert, who looked like an Ancient Greek sculpture when he worked out for teams in the Dominican Republic in 2017) and sometimes they are not (Yasiel Puig’s living conditions made it impossible for him to remain in baseball shape for his eventual workout in Mexico), but this was not the case on Friday. Victor Victor Mesa, 22, looks to have retained the sort of physicality he possessed the last several years in Cuba. He ran his 60-yard dash in about 6.5 seconds (give or take a few hundredths of a second, depending on the stopwatch), which is in the 65-70 range on the 20-80 scale, and he’s a 60 runner in games as he was in the past, while his arm remains above average.
Mesa hit some balls out to his pull side during batting practice, showing 50-grade raw power, but he has a linear, contact-oriented swing that we think will lead to below-average power output in games. There’s no question he can hit, defend, and add value on the bases, but there’s real doubt about the game application of his power. In aggregate, it looks like an average to slightly below-average offensive profile on an above-average defender at a premium position. Scouts think Mesa is a low-risk, moderate impact prospect who should be ready for the big leagues relatively soon. He garners frequent comparisons to Cubs CF Albert Almora. There’s a chance Mesa has a three-win season or two at peak, but expectations are more of a solid 1.5- to 2.0-win type player. He’s a 45+ FV on our July 2nd version of THE BOARD, which would be somewhere in the 130 to 175 range overall in the minors.
Mesa’s talent would typically be valued between $5 million and $10 million (depending on market conditions when he became a free agent) in the prior, non-pooled international environment, and that would come with a matching tax for exceeding pool limitations, so call it about $15 million in a total outlay. That kind of money isn’t available on the July 2 market anymore. The lack of comparable talents still available at this point, however, could help Mesa earn a larger bonus than Shohei Ohtani ($2.3 mil) did last year, even though Mesa isn’t nearly as talented, because everyone with money left wants to land him. We consider the Marlins the favorites to do so.
Cuban righty Sandy Gaston, just 16, ranked 20th on our July 2nd board as the lowest 40 FV, and he was the clear second-most interesting prospect at the event. Kiley saw him in February when he topped out at 97 mph and flashed an average curve and change, but Gaston also sent four balls to the backstop in a one-inning showcase against other 16-year-olds. Last Friday, Gaston worked 94-97 with similar secondary stuff, but with better feel, particularly in his first inning. There’s still a reliever look to him due to his delivery and mature physicality, but at age 16, so much will change that you can’t project that with certainty at this point, and Gaston has one of the most talented pure arms in the world at his age.
There generally is not a market for $2-plus million bonuses for 16-year-old pitchers, as teams tend to spend more on hitters. The track record of flame-throwing teenagers is not good. We consider Gaston to be a seven-figure talent but think many teams probably have him valued a bit lower than that because of the risk associated with his demographic. New Phillies RHP Starlyn Castillo is pretty similar to Gaston (we ranked Castillo 18th in the most recent July 2nd class) and he got $1.5 million, which is close to where we think Gaston’s bonus will be if teams engage in a bidding war for him after Mesa signs. Gaston was rumored to have a deal for that much or more with the Marlins around July 2nd, but it never materialized.
Victor Mesa, Jr. ran his 60-yard dash in the 6.9 second, which is average. He also showed a 55 arm and a linear swing geared more for contact. He’s 17, so there’s still room to project improvement based on maturing physicality, but he’s currently a tweener with hit and throw being his only above-average tools — and some scouts lower than that on the hit tool. On talent, we think he fits in the low, six-figure range.
Reading the Market
So what teams are best positioned to sign these guys? A glance at the market reveals that the Orioles have the biggest hard-capped pool amount remaining at about $6.7 million. That’s the most anyone can offer a single player, making any price that a team pays for Victor Victor a bargain compared to what he’d get in an open market. The Orioles ($6.7 mil) and Marlins — who just traded fringe pitching prospect Ryan Lillie to Cincinnati and reliever Kyle Barraclough to Washington in exchange for pool money — can offer the most at this point.
For reference, Jon Jay is a past-his-prime version of Mesa, and he garnered $4.4 million in 2018 ($3 mil plus what he earned in attained incentives) for his age-33 season. Victor Victor will likely get close to that amount, but represents six years of similar production instead of one and, at age 22, also possesses the possibility of turning into a better player than we’re projecting, He’d also be very marketable in Miami.
The Marlins, as noted, have made some moves to increase their pool size, and buzz among scouts and executives is that they’re looking to add all three players (the Mesa’s are likely to sign with the same team), which would cost at least $5 million, possibly over $6 million. The Orioles are obviously already in position to offer something like that, but that organization is currently in a state of flux due to the recent departures of the manager and GM, and you’d understand if the three Cubans would prefer a comparable offer from the Marlins. Thus, it seems reasonable that they’ll wait and see how much the Marlins can add to their pool.
As for what will be left over for the clubs that don’t land these Cubans, there’s some chatter among scouts that some clubs have deals with Mexican prospects who aren’t eligible to sign at the moment, as MLB has shut down the country to clubs for an unspecified period. If it doesn’t open before next July 2nd, then those clubs would have to find somewhere else to spend their pool money. We think they’d try to spread it around across several six-figure talents and that prospects in Asia may be targets.
There’s more intrigue surrounding this process due to the recent Sports Illustrated report regarding the U.S. Department of Justice investigation of MLB affairs in foreign countries. All three of these Cuban players are represented by Scott Shapiro and Barry Praver of Magnus Sports Agency. Praver and Shapiro once employed Bart Hernandez who in 2017 was convicted of illegally smuggling Cuban ballplayers to the U.S. via other countries.
Eric A Longenhagen: Hey there, everyone. Time to chat.
2:01
RS: Giants catcher in the AFL, Matt Winn, profile good enough to be a major league backup?
2:03
Eric A Longenhagen: Several caveats when evaluating AFL catchers: they’re probably tired, they’re catching a whole new staff of guys, they’re catching once or twice a week. So the error bar around evals of catchers here is greater. Having said that, I’d answer your question with a ‘no’
2:03
Jay: Should the A’s let Lowrie walk and give Barreto a shot at 2B, or trade Barreto for pitching?
2:03
Eric A Longenhagen: I’d hold onto Barreto
2:03
Pip: Who’s the better prospect moving forward, the National’s, or the Phillies’ Luis Garcia?
Kiley McDaniel: Sorry for the delay and the weird day but I’ll be traveling tomorrow so here we are. Still working on some projects behind the scenes that you guys will see soon. Have some preliminary FA projections (105 of them!) if you guys are into that, starting work on prospect lists, doing some work on THE BOARD and new features with Sean Dolinar, podcast is coming weekly and working on some research for the THT annual and some stuff with Craig Edwards that will be coming in the next week or two that I think you’ll really like. Warning: we will quantify everything, even the stuff you don’t want us to.
2:12
Tommy N.: How much do you think Eovaldi gets this offseason? 3 years $40M?
2:12
Kiley McDaniel: My guess was 3/45 at first blush, so yeah something like that
2:13
Nate: How do scouts balance the “eye test” and analytics when evaluating talent?
2:15
Kiley McDaniel: Well that’s about a 5,000 word article if we’re breaking down both how the execs and scouts do it. In short, scouts are instructed by most teams to avoid analytics and allows the professionals in the office to apply them, since some scouts will see tiny sample size hitter split data and apply that info incorrectly and skew the report, for instance. In reality, most teams show scouts exit velos and spin rates so they aren’t in the dark, but they generally don’t know how to use it, so they’re given very basic instructions like “round up if the curveball spin rate is x and you graded it y but it’s a borderline grade,” and stuff like that. On the amateur side it’s almost not used at all by scouts other than the basic stuff you can see like this college hitter is striking out 30% of the time, we all know that’s bad.
2:15
GPT: Updated thoughts on Giants front office search?
Eric A Longenhagen: Oh, hi there. Welcome to today’s chat. I’ll get right to it.
2:02
Tumbler, Whiskey: Hi Eric, thanks for the time today. Are Kristian Robinson and Geraldo Perdomo the two best prospects in the Diamondbacks’ system?
2:04
Eric A Longenhagen: I woudn’t have Perdomo all the way up there, he’s still behind guys like Jazz, Varsho, Dup, Thomas…but he is a good prospect. Kristian, you already know.
2:04
JJ: Just seen Santiago Espinal has been sent to the AFL – thoughts on him as a prospect?
2:05
Eric A Longenhagen: Fall League disclaimer: It’s early and I might change my mind on these guys over the next six weeks. Think Espinal is probably an org guy.
2:05
Daniel: Were there any exciting names in Cubs extended or AZL? Reivaj looks interesting (and not just b/c the of the name)
UMP: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project, Episode 4
This is the fourth episode of a weekly program co-hosted by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel about player evaluation in all its forms. The show, which is available through the normal FanGraphs Audio feed, has a working name but barely. The show is not all prospect stuff, but there is plenty of that, as the hosts are Prospect Men. Below are some timestamps to make listening and navigation easier.
0:25 – What the guys have been up to
1:34 – TOPIC ONE: Playoff Thoughts with Jack Handey
16:43 – Cleveland Indians: solving the big holes in the outfield, building on the rock solid rotation, possibly trading from the strength of elite international program
20:50 – Breaking down how Cleveland fell short in the series vs. Houston, including Kiley’s thoughts about an article from The Athletic
36:48 – Does an international draft solve some of these problems? Will the FBI investigation impact the next CBA? What’s the track record of MLB and the player association fixing these sorts of issues?
43:56 – TOPIC THREE: The Kyler Murray intrigue is increasing!
44:18 – Eric usurps Mel Kiper’s draft coverage hair throne
44:50 – Eric is steamed at the football draft illuminati
50:26 – Cal quarterback/center fielder Brandon McIlwain is back on the radar in both sports
51:20 – Kiley has some beef about Kyler Murray as well
53:22 – The guys audition to be football scouts, finding some similarities with baseball
1:00:45 – Eric has to leave to go have his mind blown by Forrest Whitley
Kiley McDaniel: Hello from Florida! Think I just saw my last instructional league game yesterday, have a podcast and big Victor Mesa article both going up later today, we’ve already started work on offseason lists and new features for THE BOARD
12:15
RS: How do you scout for useful spin rate? Trackman just provides raw spin rate, but not all 3000 RPMs are equal.
12:16
Kiley McDaniel: Well you wouldn’t be scouting at that point, that’s data analysis. But if a curveball has a huge raw spin rate and also really big movement, then you can assume there’s a good ratio of useful spin. You either need a fancy camera or Rapsodo to know useful spin and neither is really practical in game situations.
12:16
Rbrewers : No love for Brandon Howlett on the board? He’s looked great as a pro for the Red Sox so far.
12:17
Kiley McDaniel: Big swing and miss issues this spring, but he may end up on there when we do the Red Sox list
waks: does nick senzel’s bout of vertigo do anything to his projections? i forget how nick esasky dealt with it, but can it be a recurring thing?
11:26
Kiley McDaniel: don’t have a ton of experience with this in baseball, so we’re just assuming he returns back to where he was until there’s evidence to the contrary
UMP: The Untitled McDongenhagen Project, Episode 3
This is the third episode of a weekly program co-hosted by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel about player evaluation in all its forms. The new show, which is available through the normal FanGraphs Audio feed, has a working name now, but barely. The show is all prospect stuff, but there is plenty of that, as the hosts are Prospect Men. Below are some timestamps to make listening and navigation easier.
13:23 – Adley Rutschman (C, Oregon State) as the top prospect for 2019, vs. Giants C Joey Bart (#2 overall pick in 2018), the historic comparison to Matt Wieters and the path to an amateur 60 FV
17:00 – Candidates to pass Rutschman by draft day: shortstops galore
18:30 – Will Bobby Witt, Jr. be able to hit? How will we know? Why do we hate him (according to the commenters)?
21:35 – The other elite shortstops: C.J. Abrams, Bryson Stott and Greg Jones
23:46 – Explaining the concept of Future Value (FV) tiers briefly
23:34 – Exploring the elite corner bats: 1B Andrew Vaughn, 1B/RF Michael Busch, 1B/RF Michael Toglia, RF Riley Greene
26:35 – Eric breaking down rising prep CF Corbin Carroll
27:43 – Who would we compare Carroll to historically?
29:02 – Talking about the most unique player we ranked, LHP/1B Spencer Jones
31:05 – TOPIC TWO: top organizations to win the next 5 World Series
34:44 – Eric proposes another top tier organization
35:28 – A quick conversation about manipulating service time and the non-economical approach sometimes being best, featuring Peter Alonso, Eric Lauer and Joey Lucchesi
42:25 – Kiley talks about the Yankees, what makes them successful and what teams in the top tier have in common with them
45:54 – Working through the second tier of clubs, finding the ones most likely to break through
48:39 – Kiley pinpoints a division in transition to keep an eye on the next 12 months
53:54 – TOPIC THREE: Super Mesa Bros. feat. Sandy Gaston
54:22 – Sorting through the background and context for the Cuban market
56:04 – Running down all three players’ from a scouting perspective
57:03 – Handicapping the teams with int’l pool money to spend
Eric A Longenhagen: I think I might be having some technical issues with the chat software right now, so please be patient if there’s a gap between responses today as I might be playing with stuff to try to get things running smoothly.
12:07
GPT: Are you still going to be visiting Giants camp during fall instrux even though they won’t be playing games?
