The Winter Meetings are underway in Nashville, which means all 30 GMs are under the same roof for a few days. As you’re probably aware, this has already resulted in a few high–profile transactions. Less interestingly, this also means the Rule 5 draft is upon us.

Below, I touch on a few of the available hitters who catch KATOH’s eye. Keep in mind that KATOH is designed to identify the best prospects overall, so it’s output isn’t perfectly aligned with what makes for a good Rule 5 pick. An interesting prospect might not be worth taking in the Rule 5 if he’s very far away from the big leagues. Carlos Tocci, who features an interesting profile but is unlikely prepared for the majors, is this year’s embodiment of that phenomenon.

Similarly, there are there are older guys who might be able to help a big league team, but don’t grade out well according to my prospect model due to their age. Some prime examples from this year’s class are Jabari Blash and Balbino Fuenmayor. Yes, I chose those two as examples due to their double-plus names. I didn’t touch on players like Blash or Fuenmayor here, though, since they’re slightly outside of KATOH’s wheelhouse. If they’re selected, I’ll take a look at them after the draft.

Identifying eligible Rule 5 players isn’t completely straightforward, so I can’t promise I didn’t miss a name or two along the way. But at the very least, I can assure you this piece contains most of KATOH’s favorite hitters who will be available on Thursday. Immediately below, you’ll find the names of seven hitters who are relatively close to being big-league ready. Below that, you’ll find three more who are a bit further away. For each player, I’ve included his projection through age 28 based both on his 2015 stats and also 2014 stats.

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Seven Big-League-Ready(ish) Hitters

Todd Glaesmann, OF, Arizona (Profile)
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2015 stats): 3.4 WAR
KATOH Projection Through Age 28 (2014 stats): 0.0 WAR

Glaesmann hit a powerful .278/.316/.540 in the minors last year, with most of those reps coming at the Triple-A level. The 6-foot-4 outfielder has struggled to make contact in the past, but slashed his strikeout rate to a respectable 19% in Triple-A last year. Glaesmann has succeeded at the Triple-A level, but his lack of consistent contact still makes it unclear how much he’ll hit in the big leagues. His atrocious 2014 campaign is also a blemish on his otherwise encouraging statistical track record.

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Every winter, hundreds of nondescript minor leaguers become minor league free agents. Minor league free agency is what happens to a player who’s not on a 40-man roster after spending at least six years in the minor leagues. In other words, these players weren’t good enough to merit a callup after several years in the minors, and their organizations didn’t think they had enough potential to be worthy of a 40-man spot.

Some of these players latch on with new organizations; some of them don’t. But regardless, the overwhelming majority never have much big league success. A couple of years ago, Carson Cistulli found that only about 1% of minor league free agents produce at least 0.5 WAR the following season. Minor league free agents are the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to player transactions.

But there’s an occasional gem at the bottom of that barrel. Its not at all unheard of for a minor league free agent to make a major league impact. In no particular order, Gregor Blanco, Jesus Guzman, Donovan Solano, Yangervis Solarte, Jake Smolinski, Jose Quintana and Al Alburquerque are some notable examples from the past few years. And there are certainly others that I neglected to mention. Each left his original organization via minor league free agency, but achieved some level of big league success with his new team.

Using my KATOH projection system, I identified a few players from this year’s minor league free agent class who showed glimmers of promise last season. Based on their minor league numbers, there’s reason to believe they might be able to help at the big league level sometime soon. Below, you’ll find the top three hitters and top three pitchers according to KATOH. For each player, I’ve also provided a projected win total through his age-28 season (denoted as WAR thru 28) based both on 2015 numbers and then also his 2014 season (denoted as 2014 KATOH).

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Hitters

Wilfredo Tovar, 2.0 WAR thru 28

2014 KATOH: 1.5 WAR

Former Team: New York Mets

Current Status: Unsigned

Tovar was an interesting prospect in the Mets system a few years back, but the infielder stalled out in the high minors after a couple of injury-plagued seasons. He spent 2015 with the Mets’ Triple-A affiliate, where he hit .283/.327/.356 with 30 steals. Tovar isn’t sexy — if he were, he wouldn’t be a minor league free agent — but he makes contact, runs well and plays up-the-middle defense. And most importantly, at 24, he’s still young enough that he could conceivably get a good deal better.

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Please note that this is not the most recent list. An updated version can be found here.

Last week, I published a 2,000-plus word primer on the KATOH projection system I use to forecast prospects. Most notably, I discussed the improvements I made to the model and also explored how well individual minor league statistics can predict big league success. Today, I’m back with the end result of all of my math: KATOH’s top 100 list.

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*EDIT: After a strong showing from internet commenters, I added a couple changes to this piece. You’ll see that Austin Riley and Kolby Allard were both added to the list, as well as some notes under Ryan Weber’s report.

I’m going to leave the overall grades the same here, though AS WITH EVERYBODY overall grades may change by the time I get to the composite prospect list. I originally wanted to put three overall grades in these reports, then thought about leaving them out entirely because of their likelihood to change, before finally settling on putting a likely future value in for some comparisons. The innernets say no. I’m new here.

I’m reserving the right to change grades as I go along, this being the first time I’ve compiled reports on a volume this scale, though I have decided to put three values in for overall grades in the future lists. This should help clear up some of the questions people have about how I can agree that pitcher Mel Clark has a high ceiling, but only makes it on the list in the 45+ section. Enjoy!

The Braves have made some headlines this year with a number of trades to bring in young talent. While the short-term picture suffers with the loss of some popular, productive players, they are setting their future up with a lot of depth in their farm system. With a few players on the verge of contributing to the big league team, the next year or two may not be as bad as it could be trading away so much present value.

The big push of prospects could come from players at A-ball Rome and below. There are a lot of interesting talents who have entered the system in the last year or two that haven’t yet revealed how high their ceilings could be. The lower-level collection of players has a lot of risk involved, but the sheer volume of players with talent should ensure the Braves will reap the benefits of the work they’ve put into the farm.

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What they may lack in impact bats, the Diamondbacks make up for with pitching depth. They have a lot of pitchers with high floors in the upper levels of the minors, and a few in the low minors that should move quickly. A few have top of the rotation potential. The addition of Dansby Swanson to the organization this June does a lot to help reinforce the offensive pipeline, but the team will have to do a better job developing hitters over the next few years.

Their quantity of outfield options is solid, and was something of a logjam in the upper minors this season. That four players who started playing for the team in 2015 make the top eight here is a good sign for their talent acquisition going forward. Look for the pitchers to start making their presence felt in the big leagues in 2016 and 2017, while we wait on some of the lower-level hitting prospects to put things together.

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We have been working hard to get our team prospect rankings out to you as soon as possible. Starting with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the lists will proceed in alphabetical order by city and team name. As we start rolling out the organizational reports, I wanted to give you some guidelines for understanding my ideas and grades, to avoid confusion over why the grades here differ from other publications, even in cases where we may be saying the same thing. Though this will not be an all-encompassing article of my scouting opinions, it should provide the framework for our conversations on each of the team’s prospects.

I want to go through each of the five tools for hitters and the grades for pitchers, and explain basically what I believe are the most important factors going into them. Since some of you may not read this whole blurb, and then ask questions about why a pitcher who throws 95 only got a 50 grade on his fastball, I will admit to one overarching theme: functionality. How functional is that 95 mile-per-hour fastball if it’s straight and the pitcher who threw it has no idea where it’s going? Similarly, what is the use of an 80 grade for power if the hitter is blind and doesn’t also possess echolocation or some other means to hit a baseball?

One other difference for the way I’ll be communicating scouting grades to you is the presence of three numbers on each tool instead of just two, at least for the professional players. Here’s an example. Consider Rick Vaughn’s fastball before he was given his magical spectacles: 35/50/70. The first number is the current grade; it’s fast, but he can’t locate it, and when it does find the zone, it gets tattooed for a home run by a stereotypically douchy slugger. The second number is the likely future grade; he’s still young and not in prison, and he’s played by Charlie Sheen (the star of the movie), so you know it will get better. Still, the current state of the pitch makes it unlikely to be crazy effective, so an average future fastball could be the most likely outcome. Or, if you prefer percentiles, call this the 50th percentile projection. The third number is the ceiling grade, or 90th percentile projection, to help demonstrate the volatility and raw potential of a tool. I feel this gives readers a better sense of the possible outcomes a player could achieve, and more information to understand my thoughts on the likelihood of reaching those levels.

Kiley gave us a great conversion table last year for understanding scouting grades in an objective (though admittedly estimated) context. I absolutely loved the idea, especially because my brain tends to think more in terms of what statistical production a player’s future ability will produce, and then convert it into the more universally used 20-80 scouting scale. Here is my slightly altered version of the same table for hitters, followed by a breakdown of the individual tools:

Scouting Grades in Context: Hitters

Grade	Tool Is Called	Batting Average	HR	ISO	Baserunning Runs	Fielding Runs
80	80	0.320	40	0.300	12	30
75		0.310	35-40	0.275	10	25
70	Plus Plus	0.300	30-35	0.25	8	20
65		0.290	27-30	0.225	6	15
60	Plus	0.280	23-27	0.200	4	10
55	Above Average	0.270	19-22	0.175	2	5
50	Average	0.260	15-18	0.150	0	0
45	Below Average	0.250	12-15	0.125	-2	-5
40		0.240	8-12	0.100	-4	-10
35		0.230	5-8	0.075	-6	-15
30		0.220	3-5	0.05	-8	-20

Remember these are estimates of true talent that we are trying to project multiple years down the road. Please don’t hate on me in two years when a player with a 55-grade power hits 25 home runs. First, why be so mean? And second, scouting grades are an attempt to peg true talent. Even if a tool remains static for years, the statistical evidence of the quality of that tool can vary due to league adjustments to the player, hidden injuries, randomness, etc. Think of it like BABIP and UZR, of which you need a few years of data to know anything about where a player really stands.

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In a pair of recent posts at this site, Matthew Kory has examined — first before the Royals’ great success and then also after it — has examined what sort of effect the World Series champions might have on the roster-construction philosphies of baseball’s other 29 teams. Both pieces are founded on a reasonable assumption — namely, that it’s common for franchises to imitate the process utilized by the league’s great victor, with a view to also imitating the product. The Copycat Effect, is how one might characterize this. Why felines specifically have been singled out for their mimetic inclinations, I can’t say. That the phenomenon exists seems like a reasonable possibility.

The current post resembles Kory’s own efforts in that the objective is to isolate and explore the most pronounced traits of baseball’s championship club — those traits which, were an organization tempted to emulate the champion, they would themselves identify as most important. Where it differs from Kory’s work, however, is that the intent here is to look towards the future. Instead of examing which current major-league players or teams most embody the Royals’ strengths, what I’d like to ask is which prospects do that. In other words, I’d like to ask this: which rookie-eligible players would a general manager, attempting to best imitate the Royals, set about acquiring (or keeping, as the case may be)?

That’s the guiding inquiry of the current post. How to answer it, though?

First, this way: by identifying those traits endemic to the Royals. Again, Kory’s work is helpful here. In the latter of his two posts, he identifies the traits which most distinguished Kansas City from the rest of the league: a low strikeout rate among the club’s hitters, strong baserunning, elite defensive ability, and a talented bullpen. For the purposes of this post, I’ll be ignoring pitchers. I’ll do it for a number of reasons, but largely because betting on even the near-term success of relievers is a fool’s errand. So the focus will be on hitters.

That’s the first step towards answering the question. The second: to utilize the recently published Steamer 600 projections for 2016. Here’s how I began: for all 4043 players for whom a forecast has been produced, I calculated the z-scores in each of three categories: strikeout rate (where lower is better), baserunning runs relative to average, and defensive runs (which accounts both for fielding runs and positional adjustment). I then averaged together the z-scores for each of those three categories. Reason dictates that the resulting figure should represent to what degree the relevant player might offer the skills possessed by Royals players.

Below are the top-10 rookie-eligible players by that methodology. Note that Age represents 2016 baseball age and all heading titles preceded by -z- represent z-scores.

Royals Prospects Who Aren’t Royals: Attempt No. 1

Name	Team	Pos	Age	PA	K%	BsR	Def	zK%	zBsR	zDef	Total
Willians Astudillo	PHI	C/1B	24	450	7.1%	0.1	7.5	3.1	0.2	1.2	1.5
Jose Peraza	LAN	2B	22	600	11.2%	0.9	1.9	2.3	1.5	0.3	1.4
Rossmel Perez	BAL	C	26	450	10.0%	0.1	7.5	2.5	0.2	1.2	1.3
Tomas Telis	MIA	C	25	450	12.2%	0.2	8.2	2.1	0.4	1.3	1.3
Hanser Alberto	TEX	2B	23	600	11.7%	0.4	4.7	2.2	0.7	0.8	1.2
Tyler Heineman	HOU	C	25	450	12.2%	0.1	7.5	2.1	0.2	1.2	1.2
Raywilly Gomez	LAA	C	26	450	13.3%	0.2	7.5	1.9	0.4	1.2	1.2
Benjamin Turner	SFN	C/1B	26	450	13.3%	0.2	7.5	1.9	0.4	1.2	1.2
Ramon Cabrera	CIN	C	26	450	14.2%	0.0	10.2	1.8	0.1	1.7	1.2
Alex Swim	MIN	C/OF	25	450	12.9%	0.1	7.5	2.0	0.2	1.2	1.2

So, an immediate observation: this is a list full of catchers plus also Jose Peraza and Hanser Alberto. Because catchers receive such a large positional adjustment (+7.5 runs per every 450 plate appearances), they’re inclined to gravitate towards the top of lists like this. Where projections are concerned, positional adjustments aren’t subject to regression and translation like other metrics. Strikeout rate, baserunning, fielding runs: where only minor-league data is available, Steamer is conservative — particularly so regarding the latter two variables. As such, the large catcher’s positional adjustment unduly rewards catchers. Catchers are important, but merely presenting a list of doesn’t seem entirely in keeping with our objective here. We’ll have to refine our methodology.

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One doesn’t simply write about Jupiter, not without first reflecting on this matter’s relative futility.

Perfect Game’s 2015 WWBA World Championship – often referred to by its aforementioned host town in Florida – marks the last stop on the high school showcase circuit. Between Oct. 22 and 26, 85 travel ball teams competed against each other at the Roger Dean Stadium complex, the spring training home of the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins. Though most of the top-flight draft talent was concentrated among 20 or so teams, it was still tricky to navigate 13 fields in a golf cart while jockeying for real estate behind home plate of said fields with hoards of other golf carts. This happened for five days, for 10-14 hours each day, depending on your ambition level. And lo, this test of scouting endurance was further complicated by basic human maintenance, as one must still eat on a regular basis and displace the eaten contents on a more timelier one. I say these things to say that there was a lot happening at once, and as one half of a two-man FanGraphs team that slogged through this test, I also say that it was difficult to see all of which that happened at once, in case your expectations were higher before you finished reading this sentence.

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Last weekend featured the first event I covered as Lead Prospect Analyst for FanGraphs. I cannot imagine a better crash course in the who’s who of draft prospects than the Perfect Game WWBA tournament in Jupiter, Florida. Jesse Burkhart and I spent the weekend watching players and exchanging notes and ideas; be sure to check out his post for some information on other top high school prospects attending the event.

This article will hopefully be a little different than what you can find elsewhere covering the tournament. There were too many players in too short a period to reasonably do a ranked list, and boring everybody with a long list with a short blurb on each is no fun. Instead, I chose three players who are either undervalued or just generally interesting to me, and have given a full analysis of what makes each one provocative while also attempting to characterize their limitations. These are not the three best players we saw in Jupiter, but rather the ones whose strengths I wanted to illuminate. Read this as a case study on three specific players as well as an introduction to the thought process through which I go while looking at amateur prospects.

Following the three main write-ups, I’ve also posted some thoughts on players of interest upon whom Jesse doesn’t touch in his piece. Some are probable first or second round picks for next June, others are lesser ranked guys whose upside you might interest you. None of these evaluations are set in stone, since although I had seen a decent number of the top rated guys on video and read others’ thoughts prior to Jupiter, these are still fresh faces to me. As I said in my introductory post when I was hired, I want you guys to engage in discussions on any players you have seen or questions you may have about the discussed prospects here.

Drew Mendoza SS/3B Minneola, FL (Florida State)

Before seeing him play last week, I had already heard of Mendoza’s defensive skills. He possesses a reputation for being a quality shortstop prospect with excellent footwork and range to pair with a strong arm. Kiley McDaniel said this about Mendoza in his early 2016 draft rankings posted earlier this season:

Mendoza was a skinny shortstop with some feel to hit from the left side that was a solid follow, then he hit two homers this spring off RHP Brady Singer, who will likely go in the first 50-60 picks this summer. Mendoza has filled out his lanky 6’4 frame a bit but still looks like a [sic] shortstop for now, with the bat showing more impact.

I was disappointed not to see him make any plays that challenged his abilities to corroborate the rep, but in warm ups and fielding practice his skills are still readily apparent. He carries himself well, with good balance and fluid movements catching and throwing the ball. The athleticism in his arm alone is exceptionally smooth. What I was surprised to see is how impressive he is at the plate.

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I announced yesterday my looming exit from FanGraphs to join the Atlanta Braves later this week. It wouldn’t be me unless I went out with a bang, so we’re rolling out sortable boards for the next three draft classes today, all of them months in the making. Here’s the current draft order, though it will change as free agents move around this offseason.

For the 2016 class, I ranked as far as I felt like there was some separation (63 players), then gave you 101 additional players who project for the top 3-4 rounds. For the 2017 class, I gave you a ranked top 30 then 42 additional players who have already emerged as early round prospects. For the 2018 class (that’s high school sophomores and the incoming college freshman who were high schoolers eligible for the draft last summer) I gave you 30 players and, within that 30, included four high schoolers who already have scouts excited. The additional players in the 2016 and 2017 sortable boards who aren’t ranked are grouped by pitcher/hitter and high school/college and then ranked roughly in order of my preference within those listings.

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