Since I made you wait a little longer than I intended for a mid-season/trade-deadline prospect rankings update, I decided to expand upon the form with four lists instead of just one. Each of these lists uses tiers like my other lists, but each list is also ordered by preference within each tier. I’ve also started using Present Value (PV) in addition to the normal Future Value (FV) as a better way to show how close a prospect is to reaching his ceiling, or being ready for a call-up. See this article for more about FV and the 20-80 scouting scale in general.

The first list is the standard top-prospect list with the standard 130 at-bat/50 innings pitched qualifications, so prospects in the big leagues are eligible for the list. That said, a few players like Kyle Schwarber and Daniel Norris are about a week from losing their prospect eligibility and are in the big leagues, so I moved them to another of the lists below in anticipation.

The second list features players who were eligible for the Top 200 Prospect List last year that didn’t make it, but would do so comfortably now. Think of this as the minor-league version of “pop-up guys” that you’ll hear referred to more often in the draft: players that improved greatly in a short period of time. The standard for being listed is 50 FV, which was the 80th through 143rd prospects on the preseason list, but, for reasons I’ll explain below, should be even higher this year.

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Milwaukee Brewers prospect David Denson made history yesterday when he revealed he is gay. With his announcement, Denson became the first active, openly gay player in the history of affiliated baseball.

Given his significance to the game, there’s unlikely to be any shortage of coverage regarding Denson in either the near- or long-term. As some of the authors of that coverage have already noted, attempting to become a major leaguer is difficult enough without having to contend with questions of personal identity and concerns about acceptance at the same time. Denson himself has stated that he’s relieved that he can divert more of his energy now to baseball itself.

What I’d like to do here is set aside for a moment the implications of David Denson, gay ballplayer, and to utilize my KATOH projection system to consider briefly Denson’s prospects for reaching the majors.

Just 19 now, Denson was drafted by the Brewers in the 15th round in 2013, and has split the 2015 season between Low-A Wisconsin and Rookie League Helena, where he currently plays. In 268 trips to the plate this year, the first baseman has hit just .229/.313/.360, due in no small part to his elevated 26% strikeout rate. Denson opened the year in Low-A, where he also spent the second half of the 2014 season. But the Brewers reassigned him to extended spring training in May when he was hitting .195/.264/.305. He’s put up a more respectable .247/.339/.390 line since joining the Brewers Rookie League affiliate in June. Based on his 2015 numbers,  forecasts Denson for just 0.2 WAR through age 28, with a meager 6% chance of cracking the big leagues.

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With their offense sputtering, the Yankees called up first baseman Greg Bird from Triple-A last week in an attempt to potentially help matters. Bird is strictly a first baseman, meaning he’s unlikely to see regular playing time with Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez holding down first base and DH, respectively. However, with 16 games without an off-day on their schedule, the Yankees will surely want to spell both Teixeria and A-Rod, especially since both have been slumping of late.

If his 2015 numbers are any indication, Bird has little left to prove in the minor leagues. He hit .277/.356/.469 between Double-A and Triple-A this season, including a .319/.372/.534 performance over his last month in the minors. Bird’s combination of power, walks and manageable strikeout numbers have made him a potent hitter in the high minors this year, as evidenced by his 139 wRC+.

Those manageable strikeout numbers are a new feature for Bird. Prior to this season, the 6-foot-3 slugger had some trouble putting the ball in play on a regular basis. His strikeout rates were consistently higher than his league’s average (roughly 20%) since the Yankees drafted him in the fifth round back in 2011, but he’s managed to hack a few percentage points off of his strikeout rate this year.

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I live in Portland, Oregon which is a beautiful city of rivers and mountains and beer and pine trees and beer. About the only thing it doesn’t have that I wish it had is professional baseball. The closest pro team is the Hillsboro Hops, the short-season Single-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and they’re about a half hour away by car. In case you are not familiar, here is a hop.

That’s not a problem because a half hour isn’t a reasonable distance to drive for baseball. It is. It’s a problem in the general sense because a city like Portland should probably have more than a low Single-A baseball team. Then again, we’re all about to be swallowed up by the ground anyway so whatever.

But back to baseball! The lack of the sport here means there aren’t many opportunities to see a noteworthy game or related event. Wednesday night represented a departure from that norm. Dansby Swanson, the very first player selected in the most recent 2015 baseball draft, was going to make his professional debut and it was going to be with the Hops in Hillsboro. Yay Portland!

It was at this point that I thought, hey, I can watch Swanson in a scouty way and help inform not only myself but the readers of FanGraphs dot com as well. I get beer and a baseball game while, you, dear reader, get scouty-ish information on the top player drafted. That’s what we in the business call “a win-win.”

By way of catching you up on Swanson, here is what Kiley McDaniel had to say about him back in April.

Swanson was an advanced defender with a light bat in high school, then played second base his first two years at Vanderbilt and over the summers. Scouts got their first recent look at him playing short this spring and it still works. Swanson is a plus runner with fringy raw power and a strong 6’1/190 frame. He’s a contact hitter with more 10-13 homer power that wears out the gaps and would be a nice 6th-10th overall pick most years, but a high probability shortstop with some ceiling is hard to ignore in this draft.

Now back to me. I arrived, family in tow, at Ron Tonkin Field, home of the Hops, as the National Anthem was playing and had no trouble locating our seats. This is because the park contains not very many of them. When you’re used to a major-league stadium, finding six seats among 3,500 is like finding your bed in your bedroom.

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Yankees prospect Jorge Mateo has some serious wheels. In 96 games with Low-A Charleston, the Dominican-born shortstop stole an eye-popping 71 bases. He leads the South Atlantic League by more than 14 steals, despite the fact he was promoted to High-A a little over a week ago. Mateo’s posted gaudy stolen-base numbers in past years too. He swiped 11 bags in just 15 games in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League last year. The year before that, he lead the Dominican Summer League with 49. If you hadn’t guessed it by his stolen-base totals, his speed grades out as an 80 on the 20-80 scale.

Speed is clearly Mateo’s calling card, but he’s no slouch with the bat, either. The shortstop hit a respectable .268/.338/.378 in 96 games in the South Atlantic League, and has hit .464/.500/.714 in 30 plate appearances since his promotion to High-A, giving him a wRC+ of 116 on the year.

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It will be a challenge for the 2015 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team (CNT) to match what the previous two editions of the club have achieved in terms of the draft. The 2014 CNT produced 10 first-rounders in this year’s draft, including five of the top six college players taken as well as four of the top six picks overall. The 2013 CNT also produced 10 first-rounders.

That’s why ranking the top-20 prospects on Team USA isn’t an easy exercise. The majority of the players have the tools to land in the first round, so there are a few places on this list where the talent runs together. Nevertheless, the obvious strength of this year’s team was power arms with pitchability. The weakness was the lack of impact middle infielders.

Because of the length of this feature, we decided to split the list into two parts. You can see the 11th-20th ranked players and honorable mentions here.

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It will be a challenge for the 2015 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team (CNT) to match what the previous two editions of the club have achieved in terms of the draft. The 2014 CNT produced 10 first-rounders in this year’s draft, including five of the top six college players taken as well as four of the top six picks overall. The 2013 CNT also produced 10 first-rounders.

That’s why ranking the top-20 prospects on Team USA isn’t an easy exercise. The majority of the players have the tools to land in the first round, so there are a few places on this list where the talent runs together. Nevertheless, the obvious strength of this year’s team was power arms with pitchability. The weakness was the lack of impact middle infielders.

Because of the length of this feature, we decided to split the list into two parts. The top 10 prospects will be coming tomorrow.

Read the rest of this entry »

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The Yankees rotation is looking rather thin these days. After losing Michael Pineda to a forearm injury, the team was left with a gaping hole in their rotation behind Masahiro Tanaka, Nathan Eovaldi, Ivan Nova and CC Sabathia. Even before Pineda’s injury, the team already had a hole at the back of their rotation in Sabathia, whose days as a productive pitcher appear to be well behind him. Overall, that’s an underwhelming rotation for team that’s likely headed to the playoffs.

Somewhat curiously, the Yankees didn’t acquire any rotation help at the trade deadline. Even more curiously, it doesn’t seem like they made much of an effort to do so. Instead, they seemed more interested in fortifying the back of their bullpen, which is already one of the best in baseball.

The imminent arrival of top prospect Luis Severino may have been the primary reason for the Yankees’ inaction. Minutes after the non-waiver trade deadline had passed, Brian Cashman revealed the 21-year-old’s next start would be in the big leagues. He debuts tonight against the Red Sox.

Severino has little left to prove in the minor leagues. The hard-throwing righty split time between Double-A and Triple-A this year, where he recorded FIPs of 2.34 and 2.53, respectively. Severino was similarly dominant last season, when he rattled off a 2.46 ERA and 2.46 FIP across three minor league levels: Low-A, High-A and Double-A. Read the rest of this entry »

With Rick Porcello headed to the disabled list following a triceps injury, the Red Sox were in need of a starting pitcher for tonight’s start against the Yankees. Rather than turning to a Triple-A scrub to take Porcello’s spot in the rotation, the Sox opted to call up top prospect Henry Owens. Owens will take the mound in Yankee stadium tonight for his big league debut.

Owens, 22, has pitched exclusively at Triple-A Pawtucket this year, where he’s put up a 3.16 ERA and 3.68 FIP over 122 innings of work. The 6-foot-6 lefty has struck out 21% of the batters he’s faced, and has walked 11%. Other than Owens’ height, none of the figures cited above sound particularly impressive. Owens’ strikeout rate is hardly better than the International League average of 18.6%, and his walk rate is significantly worse than average. If you didn’t know any better, you might look at Owens’ 2015 stat line and conclude that he’s a fringe prospect.

Owens’ 2015 numbers may not be much to look at, but he performed markedly better in his first three seasons as a pro. In 2012, the year after the Red Sox took him 36th overall, Owens struck out 29% of opponent batters faced in Low-A. The next year, he whiffed 30% between High-A and Double-A in 2013. However, while the strikeouts were certainly encouraging, his 11% walk rate inflated his FIP to 3.61 over that span. Read the rest of this entry »