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Eric and I have been working hard the last few months to rank everything that we can, including produce at the grocery store and our friends and family. As far as the rankings that appear on FanGraphs, we’ve had Prospect Week, headlined by the annual top-100 prospects list and complemented by nine other associated pieces, including preseason draft rankings that were updated yesterday to account for what’s happened in the last 10 weeks.

In that spirit of ranking and constantly updating, along with the desire to show our work and give readers tools to make decisions, today we are introducing THE BOARD.

This represents just the first pass at a feature that is likely to be modified and improved upon. Feel free to submit any suggestions in the comments. (I, personally, have a list of about a dozen additions for the coming months.) While we could have continued to develop this before releasing it, we felt this was something from which readers could benefit ASAP. It also serves as a bit of an apology for the team prospect lists taking so long. We’ll still be releasing an article for each team as planned over the next couple weeks. In the meantime, though, every organization is included in THE BOARD, updated with full tool grades. Readers, for example, can check out some of those to-be-published audits, like the record-breaking Padres’ list featuring 43 prospects.

A big hat tip is in order to dark overlord David Appelman for making our crazy ideas a reality.

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It’s still a little early in the process to reach any firm conclusions, but with the field beginning to take shape, now seems like an appropriate time to update our preseason draft rankings. This list came together after speaking with dozens of scouts over the last few months and seeing most of the players ourselves either last summer or this spring. We went as deep as we felt was appropriate given the information on hand. In this case, that ended up being 55 players — or, most of the draft’s top two rounds. We’ve noted the prep players whom we’ve heard will be a challenge to sign (Adams, Banfield, Denaburg, Hoglund, Kloffenstein, Rocker, Thomas, and Wilcox), although typically, with players ranked this high, all but one or two of will end up reaching an agreement with a club.

We will publish an early mock draft later this week with some player/team connections we’ve been hearing, but it won’t be the whole first round since most teams in the top 10 are still unsure of who will be on the board or what their asking prices will be. In a hard-slotted, bonus-dependent world, these prices dictate most of the first round and almost all of the picks outside of the top ten.

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Back in 2016, Phillies third baseman Maikel Franco signed a contract with a company called Fantex. The terms were fairly simple: for a payment of $4.35 million, Franco agreed to pay Fantex 10% of all of his future earnings. Fantex would also be allowed to sell its “share” of Franco to investors, thereby generating additional revenues. Franco and Andrew Heaney were the pioneers, signing “brand” contracts with Fantex back before they were fashionable.

At the time, a friend of mine asked me what I thought of the deal, and I surprised him by panning it. “Just wait for the lawsuit this type of deal will generate,” I said. Evidently, that wait is now over.

On February 21, 2018, Indians catcher (and potentially third baseman and left fielder) of the future Francisco Mejia filed a lawsuit against a company called Big League Advance Fund I, LP. You can read the complaint here, plus BLA’s answer and counterclaim here.

So what is this about? Evidently, Mejia signed three contracts with BLA, which guaranteed him a $360,000 payment in exchange for 10% of his career earnings. If this sounds like Franco’s Fantex deal, you’re mostly right — but Mejia says there were some red flags with BLA which make this contract unconscionable.

According to Mejia’s Complaint,

Defendant BLA’s business plan involves utilizing various “runners” who approach up and coming baseball players in areas such as the Dominican Republic. These runners (usually former baseball players) advise prospects that Defendant BLA will advance them considerable sums of money, to be repaid by a percentage of the player’s future earnings. The prospects are generally young, uneducated and unsophisticated. Few speak English. Most, if not all, come from very modest families who are struggling financially.

According to Mejia, BLA approached him when his mother was very ill and struggling with medical bills. The contracts were signed, says Mejia, without a translator, and BLA even paid for Mejia’s lawyer just so the contract could state Mejia had the advice of counsel. Mejia says that BLA employees showed up at his house unannounced to collect a payment of about $10,000 after Mejia made the big leagues and threatened to bar him from playing if he didn’t pay. And, according to the Complaint, given Mejia is projected to earn over $100 million in the major leagues, BLA stands to recover over $10,000,000 against a $360,000 investment, which Mejia says is unconscionable.

If you’re interested in seeing the contract, it’s available here. That’s the third one Mejia signed — the one that’s the subject of the lawsuit.

So what does “unconscionable” mean, anyway?

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. 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

He doesn’t have jaw-dropping physical tools, but Adames has a well-rounded offensive skillset, has produced a long track record of above-average offensive performances at levels for which he’s been young, and plays a competent shortstop. Adames’s frame is maxed out and he’s not likely to grow into much more power without better incorporating his lower half into his swing, but he’ll hit plenty of doubles and reach base at an above-average clip. Even with Tim Beckham’s departure, the shortstop picture in St. Petersburg is crowded by Christian Arroyo, Matt Duffy, Adeiny Hechavarria, Daniel Robertson, and, some would say, Joe Wendle. It’s worth noting that Adames got his first in-game reps at second base last year. He’ll likely debut in 2018, and his bat will have big impact at second base or shortstop.

Honeywell’s kitchen-sink repertoire is headlined by a potential plus-plus changeup, but he also has a quality curveball, cutter, and mid-90s fastball. He can throw just about any pitch in any count and has at least average command right now despite some mechanical inconsistency. He had a 172:35 strikeout-to-walk ratio at Triple-A last year and probably deserved to be in the majors. He would have gotten there this year if not for blowing out his elbow early in the spring. He profiles as a No. 3 starter and should reach the majors next year, assuming his stuff returns after surgery.

McKay is an incredibly rare prospect in that he would make our top-100 list as both a hitter and pitcher and was a top-10 prospect in the 2017 draft both ways, as well. He’s stood out both ways since high school. Scouts also laud his makeup, nor is it difficult to see why. He improved as both a hitter and pitcher at Louisville while also serving as a team leader and managing the fatigue and preparation necessary to be the staff ace once a week while hitting in the middle of the lineup everyday for three straight years.

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Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels, and (most importantly) FanGraphs’ Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel* and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated, midseason-type list will also be excluded from eligibility.

*Note: I’ve excluded Baseball America’s list this year not due to any complaints with their coverage, but simply because said list is now behind a paywall.

For those interested in learning how Fringe Five players have fared at the major-league level, this recent post offers that kind of information. The short answer: better than a reasonable person would have have expected. In the final analysis, though, the basic idea here is to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Nor is he necessarily what colleague Eric Longenhagen would characterize as an “arm-strength lottery ticket”: Baez exhibited sufficient polish last season to record one of the better strikeout- and walk-rate differentials at High-A last season. He then struck out nearly a third of the batters he faced in a late-season two-start stay with Double-A Erie.

Baez was assigned to the Eastern League to begin the 2018 season, as well, and was excellent in his debut against Reading, striking out 10 of 17 batters faced while walking just one (box). A second start — in this case, against Bowie (box) — was more modest (20 TBF, 3 K, 1 BB), but the overall result after a week is strong.

Here’s a sequence from Baez’s first start, featuring a breaking ball, a slightly more impressive breaking ball, and then a high fastball for the strikeout:

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I’ve been driving around Florida this spring, getting looks at a particularly loaded draft class. I also spent last week at the NHSI tournament run by USA baseball in Cary, NC. NHSI is always a solid event, with at least a half-dozen interesting draft prospects appearing over the four days, but this year featured the best crop in the history of the event. Of the 16 participating teams, almost every one had a potential top-five-round draftee to watch.

I already broke down the players I saw and buzz I heard after week one of the college season, and last Friday I reviewed the college players I saw last month. Now here’s all the notable prep players I saw last month, with video, notes on what I saw, and a preview of the area of the list they will rank when Eric and I release an updated draft list next week. Here are our preseason rankings.

Carter Stewart, RHP, Eau Gallie HS (FL), Mississippi State Commit

I wrote up Stewart and Denaburg’s first matchup in one of the pieces linked above, but they had another one a couple weeks later. The first matchup, which took place in front of a double-digit number of scouting directors, placed them both firmly in the middle of the first round, so it was unsurprising to find over 100 scouts and three general managers at this next game. Stewart opened it sitting 92-96 mph and was holding 92-94, hitting 95 mph in the fifth inning. His signature 80-83 mph curveball, with Seth Lugo-level spin rates, flashed the normal 65 or 70 on the 20-80 scale (go to 0:56 for the best one I got on video), and his changeup — which looks about average in warmups and may project above average with more use — wasn’t used in game. I counted 13 Ks for Stewart through 5.2 innings.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Baltimore Orioles. 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.

50 FV Prospects

Hays had a spectacular 2017 breakout campaign, hitting 32 homers and 32 doubles between High- and Double-A, prompting Baltimore to give him a look in the majors in September. His hands are electric and they allow Hays to turn on just about everything — which is what he tries to do and which is what prompted big-league pitchers to work him down and away last year. It may take an adjustment for Hays to max out his offensive potential, as his overly aggressive approach may be exploited in the majors. That said, he has bat speed and power, and should play an above-average right field fairly soon.

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It’s been a little while since I emptied my scouting notebook of the draft prospects I’ve scouted, so I’ve split it into college and high-school portions. Below are all of the notable college draft prospects I’ve scouted in the last month, with thoughts on what I saw from them and how the industry views them. First, I’ll break down the prospects projected for the top two rounds, with embedded video. For reference, here are Eric and my preseason draft rankings, which will be updated soon. Below the likely first- and second-rounders are potential third- through sixth-rounds picks. Below that group is a collection of possible first- and second-rounders for the 2019 and 2020 drafts, the most recent rankings for which are available here.

Rounds One and Two

Alec Bohm, 3B, Wichita State

Bohm was seen by most scouts before the season as a first-rounder but also the second-best prospect on his own team behind Greyson Jenista (below). This spring, Bohm has clearly overtaken his teammate and had some scouts whispering that he did some things like Kris Bryant the night I saw him against ECU. To be clear, Bohm isn’t seen as that level of a prospect just yet, but he isn’t as far away as you may think. He has 70 raw power and, even at 6-foot-4, 205 pounds, does a great job at the plate keeping his hands tucked in and limiting his hand load to keep his stroke short. Even with with that, he still can do things like hit an opposite-field home run with a flick of the wrist, as you can see in the above video.

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