Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Dominic Smith, 1B, New York NL (Profile)
Level: Triple-A Age: 22   Org Rank:  3 Top 100: 73
Line: 3-for-5, 2B, 2 HR
Notes
Most developmental paths are long and winding, but Smith has been robotically effective since his first full pro season. He has made hard, all-fields contact each year, his home parks always tossing his slugging figures around. Even his year-to-year batted-ball profile has been consistent. He’s a high-probability regular with a chance to be a three-plus-win player if the glove scouts see shows up on paper.

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After their roster was ravaged by injuries, the Yankees promoted a trio of promising hitting prospects last week in Tyler Wade, Miguel Andujar and Dustin Fowler. Fowler, the most promising of the three, was supposed play regularly in New York’s outfield. Unfortunately, his big-league career was derailed as soon as it started in horrific fashion.

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The 2017 All-Star Futures Game will take place on Sunday, July 7th at Marlins Park as part of the All-Star weekend festivities. The rosters for the U.S. and World teams were recently unveiled. Below, one can find up-to-date KATOH and KATOH+ projections for the 50 players who were chosen to participate. WAR figures are projected totals for the relevant player’s first six years in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2017 July 2 signing period is set to begin on Sunday. Here is the 2017 J2 Sortable Board with tool grades and scouting reports for the players whom I believe to be the best in the class. The changes made to the J2 process when the last Collective Bargaining Agreement was ratified in November are significant and have impacted the way teams approach signing players; altered how a given class’s talent is distributed throughout baseball; changed players’ earning power; and, at least for now, forced prospects to consider how to best time their decision to sign.

Before diving into the details pertaining to this year’s class, allow me to suggest some prerequisite reading should this be your first time navigating FanGraphs’ scouty pages. If the 20-80 scale and scouting terminology is new to you, this piece will be helpful. If you’d like more context on the previous July 2 rules as we discuss the way the new CBA has changed them in this article, I suggest this.

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On Tuesday, the Yankees called up infielder Tyler Wade in the wake of Starlin Castro’s injury. They dipped into their farm system again on Wednesday, calling up Miguel Andujar (3.6 KATOH, 2.6 KATOH+) to replace the injured Matt Holliday. And wouldn’t you know it, they did it again today. This time it’s Dustin Fowler getting the in place of Tyler Austin.

Fowler is easily the best prospect who was called up this week. He’s demonstrated a rare combination of power and speed in the minors, mashing 12 homers this year to go along with 13 steals. He’s also kicked in eight triples after lacing 15 last season. Fowler doesn’t strike out all that often, either. He’s whiffed 20% of the time this season, which puts him right around league average.

On defense, Fowler has primarily played center field, though he’s gotten regular reps at both outfield corners. He possesses plus speed, which is typically more than enough to man center field, but the metrics aren’t fond of him out there. Clay Davenport’s numbers have him as a -14 defender over roughly a full season of games in center between this year and last. Regardless, he should be more than fine in an outfield corner, which is where New York will likely use him for the time being.

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Following Miguel Montero’s kerfluffle with Jake Arrieta, the Cubs designated Montero for assignment today. In his place, they called up Victor Caratini from Triple-A. The switch-hitting Caratini had been tearing up PCL pitching this season to the tune of .343/.384/.539. Needless to say, that’s mighty exciting coming from a catcher. Caratini’s offensive profile is built around an encouraging combination of contact and power. At Triple-A this season, he struck out in less than 15% of his plate appearances while posting an ISO just south of .200. The latter was largely due to his 20 doubles. Caratini has also run high walk rates in the past.

KATOH likes Caratini more than most, projecting him for 5.1 WAR over his first six seasons by stats-only KATOH and 3.7 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his prospect ranking. Those marks place him 80th and 100th, respectively, among prospects. Caratini doesn’t even sniff most scouting-based top-100 lists.

To put some faces to Caratini’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps. I calculated a Mahalanobis distance between Caratini’s Triple-A 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. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

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Yankees second baseman Starlin Castro has landed on the DL after straining his hamstring last night. In a parallel universe, a parallel me is writing this article about Gleyber Torres, whom KATOH+ regarded as the No. 2 prospect in baseball behind Vlad Guerrero Jr. But since Torres’ season recently came to an end, the call-up goes to Tyler Wade, who is an interesting prospect in his own right.

A fifth-round pick out of high school in 2013, Wade put himself on the prospect map when he slashed .280/.343/.353 as a 20-year-old shortstop in High-A. He built upon that with a solid campaign in 2016 and hit an excellent .313/.390/.445 this year. He’s been especially hot of late, slashing .366/.455/.505 with 11 steals over his last 25 games. Wade hasn’t hit for a ton of power in the minors — his career ISO is just .085, though it ticked up to .132 this year — but he does just about everything else offensively, including making contact, drawing walks and stealing bases.

Wade has played shortstop, second base, third base and all three outfield spots this year. However, most of his reps have come at short. He hasn’t graded out well at the position by Clay Davenport’s numbers, but given how the defensive spectrum works, it stands to reason that he’d be fine at second base. The fact that he’s remained at shortstop all the way through Triple-A is telling.

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There’s a youth movement taking place in Oakland. The A’s jettisoned both Trevor Plouffe and Stephen Vogt in the last couple of weeks, replacing them with Matt Chapman and Bruce Maxwell. Another big splash came this weekend, when Oakland summoned prospect Franklin Barreto to play second base.

Barreto continued to hit for an encouraging amount of power as a minor leaguer this year, especially considering he played in a park that massively suppresses homers (by PCL standards). However, his strikeout rate spiked from 18% to 30% as he transitioned from Double-A and Triple-A and his stolen-base numbers plummeted. As a result, his KATOH forecast has taken a hit. I have him projected for 4.8 WAR over his first six seasons by stats-only KATOH and 5.4 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates his prospect ranking. Those marks place him 90th and 55th, respectively, among prospects, down from 18th and 20th in the preseason.

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