Shortly after the Chattanooga Lookouts took home the Southern League championship on Monday, the team’s best player packed his bags for the big leagues. That player, of course, was Max Kepler, who will spend the final two weeks of the season in Minnesota following a well-deserved promotion.

Kepler put up crazy good in the minors this year. The 22-year-old spent nearly the entire season at the Double-A level, where he hit an absurd .322/.416/.531 in 112 games, while also kicking in 18 steals in 22 attempts. Kepler also accomplished the rare feat of walking more than he struck out this year, posting walk and strikeout rates of 14% and 13%, respectively. Even more impressively, he complemented this control of the strike zone with a healthy amount of power. Although he hit just nine homers on the year, his 32 doubles and 13 triples at the Double-A level produced an isolated power of .209.

There isn’t much to dislike about Kepler’s minor league performance this year. He drew walks, rarely struck out, clubbed oodles of extra base hits and stole a fair amount of bases. In other words, he did it all; and as a result, KATOH’s very bullish on him. My system projects him for an impressive 13.2 WAR through age 28, making him one of the highest-ranked prospects in the game. This represents a dramatic improvement over the weak 1.1 WAR yielded by his 2014 campaign.

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The crux of my duties here at FanGraphs is to project prospects who happen to be in the news. In most cases, this involves writing about highly touted minor league players as they’re called up to the big leagues for the first time. There’s certainly been no shortage of players from that phylum in 2015. This year has often been labeled the “The Year of the Prospect,” and rightly so. From Kris Bryant to Carlos Correa to Noah Syndergaard to Lance McCullers, we’ve experienced a historic wave of young talent matriculating to the big leagues. Top prospects often turn into productive big leaguers, so nobody would be surprised if several of this year’s crop of rookies went on to be perennial All-Stars.

But not all impact major leaguers come out of this mold. As Jeff Sullivan uncovered this past February, about one-third of the players who produce three wins in any given season never even cracked a Baseball America’s Top 100 list. The purpose of this post is to analyze, or at least call attention to, a few rookie hitters on contending teams who weren’t ballyhooed as prospects, but have still acquitted themselves well in the big leagues. The four hitters below came to the big leagues with little fanfare, but have already made an impact on the division races this year, and more importantly, stand a good chance of remaining productive.

*****
Randal Grichuk, OF, St. Louis

Although he was a first round pick, Randal Grichuk underwhelmed throughout his minor league career. His 113 wRC+ as a minor leaguer was more good than great, especially for a future corner outfielder. And up until this season, he was best known as the guy the Angels selected before Mike Trout. Grichuk’s put together an excellent performance for the Cardinals this year, however, belting 16 home runs in 92 games on his way to a 142 wRC+. Grichuk’s had some trouble making contact, but has made up for it by being extremely productive in those plate appearances that haven’t resulted in a strikeout.

Grichuk didn’t crack any top-100 lists heading into the year, but KATOH still thought he was an interesting prospect based on his minor league numbers. Although his overall .259/.311/.493 batting line was nothing special, especially for the Pacific Coast League, KATOH was still impressed by the power he demonstrated as a 22-year-old in Triple-A. My system projected him for 4.4 WAR through age 28, making him the 81st highest-ranked prospect. It’s no secret the Cardinals have a good team this year, and Grichuk has been a big part of that success. The one obstacle for the 23-year-old is an elbow injury, which has limited him to pinch-hitting duties of late. If healthy, though, Grichuk’s pop should continue to power the Cardinals lineup this October, even if his batting average comes back to earth a bit.

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At 60-84, the Rockies are not merely way out of contention, but also mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The team’s in full on rebuild mode these days, and simply put, there aren’t all that many exciting players on their roster. However, they’ve called up a couple of interesting hitters this September who could ultimately develop into useful contributors and help out the next competitive Rockies team: infielder Cristhian Adames and catcher Tom Murphy.

Cristhian Adames

Let’s start with 24-year-old Cristhian Adames, who’s a good bit closer to being ready for the big leagues than Murphy. Adames has hit a loud .391/.440/.435 in semi-regular playing time the last couple of weeks, and has played each of the past few days while filling in for the injured Jose Reyes. Over half of Adames’s balls in play have fallen for hits, which has certainly played no small role in his recent success. But even so, pushing .400 is a great way to make a positive impression.

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Now that the minor league regular seasons have come to a close, and we’ve reached the ides of September, most of the noteworthy roster-expansion call-ups are behind us. Nearly all of the players who were expected to have substantial impacts on the pennant races came up on the first of the month or shortly thereafter. However, a few more prospects were promoted over the weekend, as minor league clubs were eliminated from their respective playoffs. The most notable of the rookies called up over the weekend was probably Gary Sanchez, a catcher in the Yankees organization.

Sanchez has been on the prospect radar for a few years now, ever since the Yankees gave him a big bonus to sign out of the Dominican as a 16-year-old back in 2009. Sanchez hit an excellent .286/.350/.496 (134 wRC+) over his first three seasons in the minors, but followed it up with a less impressive .261/.329/.405 (107 wRC+) between High-A and Double-A in 2013 and 2014. The primary culprit for the change was a drop-off in power, which manifested itself in substantially lower isolated power figures. However, Sanchez’s pop made a comeback in 2015, during which he split time between the Double-A and Triple-A.

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Taking full advantage of the September roster expansion, the Chicago Cubs called up 22-year-old infielder Javier Baez to help fortify the team’s middle-infield situation. This isn’t Baez’s first taste of the big leagues. In fact, he doesn’t even qualify as a rookie anymore. As you probably recall, he spent the final two months of 2014 season in the majors, where he turned in a historically bad performance as the team’s second baseman.

Just how bad was it? Baez hit a pitcher-esque .169/.227/.324 in 52 games with the Cubs last year. His on-base percentage was the lowest of any hitter who recorded at least 200 plate appearances. Most alarming of all was his 42% strikeout rate, which made him the only player in the game’s history to have a strikeout rate above 40% in more than 200 plate appearances.

After his strikeout woes continued into this year’s spring training, the Cubs had Baez open the year in Triple-A, and kept him there until last week. Baez hit pretty well following his demotion. In 70 games, he hit .324/.385/.527 — which was good enough for a 144 wRC+. That’s markedly better than his 108 wRC+ at the same level last year. Read the rest of this entry »

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To say the Dodgers have a surplus of infielders on their roster would be an understatement. Justin Turner, Howie Kendrick, Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, Enrique Hernandez, Alex Guerrero and Jose Peraza all have their merits as major leaguers, and all happen to play either second base, third base or shortstop. Not all of them have had the best of seasons this year, but still: that’s seven players capable of playing the infield for just three spots.

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the injury bug has taken a huge bite out of that infield depth. Kendrick, perhaps the team’s best infielder, has been out for nearly a month with a hamstring strain. Peraza and Hernandez, who’s been on a tear of late, also went down with hamstring strains last week. Suddenly, the Los Angeles didn’t look all that deep in the infield, especially considering how poorly Utley and Rollins have hit this year.

Enter Corey Seager. In an effort to shore up their ailing infield, the Dodgers summoned their top prospect to the big leagues last week, providing them with another option at shortstop and third base. Seager was the consensus top prospect left in the minor leagues at the time of his call-up. He topped just about every outlet’s mid-season prospect list this summer, and his .300/.346/.464 performance since August 1st certainly hasn’t diminished his case. Overall, Seager hit .293/.344/.487 in 125 minor-league games this year, with all but 20 of those games coming at the Triple-A level.

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The Houston Astros acquired right-hander David Paulino and outfielder Danry Vasquez from the Detroit Tigers at the trade deadline in 2013 for a two-month rental of reliever Jose Veras. At the time Vasquez was a rising prospect for the Tigers and the centerpiece of the deal. Paulino was nothing more than a rail-thin project to sweeten the pot.

A lot has changed since then: Paulino has bulked up, his fastball has gained velocity and the breaking ball has taken a step forward developmentally. Across three levels of A-ball this season, the 21-year-old boasts an impressive 72:19 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 67.1 innings. Here are my notes from seeing Paulino in extended spring training this year.

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Episode 593
Kiley McDaniel is both (a) the lead prospect analyst for FanGraphs and also (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses notable September call-ups (such as current Dodgers prospect Corey Seager and former Dodgers one Hector Olivera), the significance of 17-year-old Red Sox pitcher Anderson Espinoza sitting at 95-99 mph, and also curiously proportioned/offensively gifted Dodgers prospect Willie Calhoun.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 13 min play time.)

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The Tigers selected right-hander Beau Burrows, one of the hardest throwing prep arms in the class, out of Weatherford High School in Texas with the 22nd-overall pick a few months ago. After quickly signing for just over slot value ($2.1 million), Burrows was assigned to the Tigers’ Rookie-league affiliate in the Gulf Coast League. The 18-year-old right-hander put together an impressive professional debut, with above-average numbers but, more importantly, Burrows’ pre-draft stuff and command were present and he showed the aptitude to adjust to pro instruction. I observed two of Burrows’ starts, on August 13 and August 27.

Physical Description
Generously listed at 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds, Burrows is likely closer to an even six-feet tall and has a mature build for his age. There’s solid strength in Burrows’ upper body and core. His lower half is exceptionally strong with fairly thick tree trunk legs; there’s minimal physical projection remaining. That being said, Burrows’ frame already resembles that of a potential innings eater.

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