Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe. Let’s begin our final pre-prospect list chat.
2:02
mark: Do you know if Anderson Espinoza has started throwing, and if so how he looks?
2:03
Eric A Longenhagen: He did not throw during Padres instructs. He may be throwing off a mound but, if he is, it’s private, so I don’t know how he looks.
2:03
Josh Nelson: Hey Eric. How do Luis Basabe and Luis Robert look so far?
2:04
Eric A Longenhagen: LouBob has been fine, Basabe has not been great.
2:04
mark: Do you guys have any planned draft coverage coming up?
Kiley McDaniel: Coming to you from Florida for one last time, it’s Kileychat
12:14
Mets: We hired an agent…. WTF? honestly, I don’t see how even a regular GM would see anything but a full teardown as the only option.
12:18
Kiley McDaniel: The Brodie Van Wagenen hire is definitely one drawing some conversation around the game. It’s definitely not normal to have a GM that is recused from talking contract extension with your best player. The game has also changed so much in the last 5-10 years and agents have almost no exposure to all of these new facets.
I’m not saying they/Brodie don’t understand the stats we talk about here, but you’ll need to staff up/direct an R+D department, know their blind spots, hire scouts, hire coaches, etc. Not every GM is good at this, but how can we expect BVW to be good at this right away with no prior exposure to any of it, working with people he essentially doesn’t know? We also don’t know what sort of personnel decisions he’ll make, whom he’ll hire/fire in the front office…there’s just a lot of questions.
12:19
Kiley McDaniel: He could be good–I don’t want to be cast as knocking the hire just due to lack of information about him–but it just seems like an odd decision and one that’s impossible to judge for awhile.
12:19
Walter O’Malley : Which is worse for pitcher health? Throwing 100 mph or throwing 100 pitches?
12:20
Kiley McDaniel: 100 mph. That’s the biggest known cause of arm injuries. Rest between starts would go way ahead of pitches per start in terms of importance for predicting injuries. There’s a reason relievers get used 2-3 days in a row and blow out more often.
Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe where we’re approaching the Fall League halfway point. Let’s chat for a bit.
2:03
NotGraphs Revivalist: What kind of prospect package would ATL or SD need to put together for Syndergaard?
2:03
Eric A Longenhagen: I’d be surprised if the the Mets move a big fish this winter. The new regime is going to be operating with incomplete information, there’s real risk of making a bad deal.
2:04
Tommy N.: Padres ownership seems to want to make a splash this offseason. It would be unwise to start trading top prospects with where the Padres are at in the rebuild process, right?
2:04
Eric A Longenhagen: They have to start consolidating talent at some point and I do think we’ll see some action this offseason, even if it’s just on the fringe of the 40-man.
2:04
Ace: When evaluating pitching prospects, what mechanical aspects of a pitcher’s delivery point to SP vs RP? Is it a certain arm slot, arm path, stride length, violent delivery, etc. Thanks
Pending a healthy return, Corey Seager will resume his role at the heart of the Dodgers’ roster.
(Photo: Arturo Pardavila III)
On a recent podcast episode, Eric Longenhangen and I discussed the premise for this article, which is another way of asking which organizations are healthiest in the short-to-medium term. The factor that goes furthest towards answering that question is present on-field talent, although salary, controlled years, the presence of impact minor leaguers on the horizon, and front-office quality are all relevant — as is payroll ceiling, which serves as a proxy for margin for error. With the World Series starting tonight, it seemed like the right time to look ahead at the favorites for the five World Series beyond this one.
I’ve experimented with some objective ways of measuring organizational health. I think it’s ultimately possible to produce an algorithm that would do a solid job, ranking teams objectively in a number of key categories. It would also require considerable time. Eager to arrive at some kind of answer, I’ve settled for subjective assessment for this version of the post, but I intend to work on something more systematic in the winter.
Here are the criteria I’ve considered to produce these rankings: short-term MLB talent, long-term MLB talent/upper-minors prospects, lower-minors prospects/trade capital, payroll ceiling, MLB coaching/front office, and amateur signings (draft and international). You could quibble and combine or separate a few of those groupings, or argue some of these can’t be quantified properly. You may be right, but we’ll keep tweaking things until they are.
I had originally intended to limit this list to five teams for purposes of symmetry, but the top tier looked like seven teams to me, and the sources by whom I ran this list agreed. In the same way that the I approached the Trade Value Rankings from the point of view of a medium-payroll, medium-term-focused team, I’ve undertook this exercise by asking which team would be most attractive to a prospect GM if his or her only interest is to win the most World Series possible (and not have low state income tax, run a childhood team, or live in a cool city) over the next five seasons.
Without further explanation, here are the organizations most likely to win the 2019-23 World Series.
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
The top-three teams on this list all have some reasonable claim to the top spot, but I ultimately went with the Dodgers, as they have a little more certainty in terms of on-field personnel than the Yankees possess, while both clubs feature similar built-in financial advantages. (Houston lags behind on the second count.)
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)
