For the ninth time (in 10 years — it’s a long story), we’ve reached the point in the offseason where I run down the ZiPS Top 100 prospects. For those wandering in who may hear “ZiPS” and think of the University of Akron or possibly the popular Cincinnati burger spot, ZiPS is a computer projection system that crunches a lot of data about players and attempts to peer through the fog that obscures the future. You can read more about the system here or in MLB.com’s executive summary.

ZiPS prospect projections aren’t an attempt to supplant scouting. Rather, they try to be a supplement to scout-generated lists. There’s a lot of uncertainty in lower-level minor league stats that isn’t present at the upper levels. As such, non-statistical information about players takes on added value. ZiPS doesn’t seek to be the one-ring-to-bind-them-all-unified-field-theory-giant-Katamari-Damacy-ball of prognostication; it aims to give the very best data-generated predictions possible, for people to use, ignore, mock, or worship according to their personal tastes and worldview. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is our list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. The scouting summaries were compiled with information provided by available data and industry sources, as well as our own observations. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

All of the prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

And now, a few important things to keep in mind as you’re perusing the Top 100. You’ll note that prospects are ranked by number but also lie within tiers demarcated by their Future Value grades. The FV grade is more important than the ordinal ranking. For example, the gap between Paul Skenes (no. 10) and Chase DeLauter (no. 29) is 19 spots, and there’s a substantial difference in talent between them. The gap between Kyle Teel (no. 80) and Will Warren (no. 99), meanwhile, is also 19 numerical places, but the difference in talent is relatively small. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates have an above-average farm system that includes a number of high-ceiling pitching prospects. Paul Skenes is the most notable — the 21-year-old right-hander was selected first overall in last summer’s draft — but he’s far from the only electric arm in Pittsburgh’s pipeline. As many as half a dozen hurlers will populate the first 10 names when our Pirates top prospects list comes out this spring. Whether any of them will help propel the Bucs to playoff contention remains to be seen, but in terms of potential, the group presents a tantalizing mix of talent.

I asked Pirates General Manager Ben Cherington about a few of those promising young arms during November’s GM Meetings.

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David Laurila: How happy are you with your pitching pipeline?

Ben Cherington: “We’re excited about it. We also know that pitching development never stops and there are things ahead of all those guys. Part of the reason we’re excited is the talent, but the truth is, no matter how well you do in pitching development there is usually attrition of some kind. You need some volume to make it work, and we think we’re starting to develop some volume. So again, we’re excited. Every one of those guys has targets that we’re working on this offseason, and we’re anxious to see where they’re at come spring training.”

Laurila: Has your pitching program evolved in the last few years?

Cherington: “We believe so. We’ve got some signal on that. It’s improving in some areas, and in other areas we still need to be better. We can’t ever be satisfied with it. But we’ve made some strides with things like breaking ball pitch design, pitch usage, sequencing in the minor leagues. We’ve made some strides with deployment, getting better at identifying what skills fit in different roles and getting guys into those roles. At the same time, there are more things to get better at. All of it is important.”

Laurila: Which of your pitching prospects most stands out for his stuff? I’m thinking pitch metrics. Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox rebuild marched on over the weekend, as the team signed a veteran non-roster invitee and made two trades that brought three prospects and a draft pick into the system. Most significantly, 24-year-old reliever Gregory Santos was traded to the Mariners for 23-year-old righty Prelander Berroa, 25-year-old outfielder Zach DeLoach and a “Comp B” draft pick, the 69th choice in the 2024 draft. The White Sox also traded 21-year-old righty Cristian Mena to Arizona for 26-year-old outfielder Dominic Fletcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Late last night, the Milwaukee Brewers sent Corbin Burnes to the Baltimore Orioles for two 25-year-old players – left-handed pitcher DL Hall and infielder Joey Ortiz – as well as a Competitive Balance Round A pick in the 2024 draft (pick no. 34 overall). Milwaukee’s active roster is worse today without Burnes, who has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since moving into the rotation full-time in 2021. But the player portion of return for one year of Burnes, who is slated to hit free agency after the season, succeeds in threading the small market needle by providing both short- and long-term reinforcement to the big league club, as both players are major league ready and also under club control for the next six seasons. Burnes was unlikely to re-sign with Milwaukee, and the Brewers get a comp pick similar to the one they would have received had they extended him a qualifying offer after the 2024 season, plus two good, young players.

Let’s talk about those players, starting with Ortiz. A fourth rounder in 2019, Ortiz has a career .286/.357/.449 line in the minors and reached the big leagues in 2023. With so many other infielders, chiefly Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday, also in the upper-level mix for playing time, the Orioles had a surplus of players like this in their system. Ortiz was a top 100 prospect last offseason and ended the 2023 season as my 57th overall prospect. His profile was initially rooted in his plus combination of defense and feel for contact, but in 2023, he traded some of that contact for meaningfully more power. Ortiz’s underlying contact quality took a leap across the board, most notably his hard-hit rate, which rose from 31% in 2022 to 46% in 2023. This was coupled with a noticeable shift in his physicality, as Ortiz looked bigger and stronger. Ortiz’s contact rates, both overall and in-zone, dropped a tad compared to 2022 and he’s a bit chase-prone, but his well-rounded offensive output should clear the relatively low bar for middle infielders. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an evaluation of the prospects in the New York Mets farm system who readers should consider “imminent big leaguers,” players who might reasonably be expected to play in the majors at some point this year. This includes all prospects on the 40-man roster as well as those who have already established themselves in the upper levels of the minors but aren’t yet rostered. I tend to be more inclusive with pitchers and players at premium defensive positions since their timelines are usually the ones accelerated by injuries and scarcity. Any Top 100 prospects, regardless of their ETA, are also included on this list. Reports, tool grades, and scouting information for all of the prospects below can also be found on The Board.

You may be able to infer that is not a top-to-bottom evaluation of the Mets farm system. I like to include what’s happening in minor league and extended spring training in my reports as much as possible, since scouting high concentrations of players in Arizona and Florida allows me to incorporate real-time, first-person information into the org lists. In the Mets case, I’ll be heading to Florida in April for extended spring training to complete the entire list. Skimming the imminent big leaguers off the top of a farm system in the meantime allows time-sensitive information to make its way onto the site more quickly, better preparing readers for the upcoming season, helping fantasy players as they draft, and building site literature on relevant prospects to facilitate transaction analysis in the event that trades or injuries foist these players into major league roles. There will still be a full Mets prospect list that includes Ryan Clifford, Marco Vargas and all of the other prospects in the system who aren’t Top 100 guys and also appear to be at least another whole season away. As such, today’s list includes no ordinal rankings. Readers are instead encouraged to focus on the players’ Future Value (FV) grades. Read the rest of this entry »

Richard Fitts is a big right-hander hoping to do big things in a new organization. He has a chance to do just that. Acquired by the Boston Red Sox from the New York Yankees in December’s Alex Verdugo trade, the 6-foot-4, 245-pound Auburn University product is coming off a season where he logged a 3.48 ERA and fanned 163 batters in 152-and-two-thirds innings with Double-A Somerset. A 2021 sixth-round pick slated to begin the forthcoming campaign in Triple-A, he ranks among the top starting pitcher prospects in the Red Sox system.

Fitts discussed his game earlier this month when Boston held its annual Rookie Development Camp at Fenway Park.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with how you approach your craft. Are you a pitching nerd?

Richard Fitts: “I’d like to be considered a pitching nerd. I’m by no means a genius, but I take a lot of pride in trying to get better every single day, and that includes figuring out the ins and outs of what can make me the best that I can be.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Detroit Tigers locked up one of their top young prospects to a long-term extension over the weekend, signing infielder Colt Keith to a six-year contract worth $28.6 million guaranteed, including a buyout after year six. With three team options totaling an additional $38 million, Keith might not hit free agency until after the 2032 season. Those options can be enriched further, by up to $18 million, depending on Keith’s success at earning MVP votes, Silver Slugger awards, and All-Star appearances. The deal has a maximum value of $82 million over nine years.

One of Detroit’s recent struggles has been its inability to find and develop offensive talent. This wasn’t the case during the team’s run of success in the early 2010s, with future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera as its anchor. But as Cabrera and Victor Martinez aged, and other key contributors, such as Prince Fielder, J.D. Martinez and Austin Jackson, left for other teams, the Tigers’ offensive output dropped to the bottom of the league. Aside from Nick Castellanos, who was traded in 2019, none of the young hitters coming up through the system have panned out.

That said, the Tigers have seen some signs of hope over the last few years. When healthy, Riley Greene has been very good, and while Spencer Torkelson had a rough start to his big league career, he improved significantly in the second half of 2023. Detroit still needs more, though, and that may come in the form of Keith, a fifth-round pick from the COVID-abbreviated 2020 draft. Keith showed promise in 2022, hitting .301/.370/.544 for West Michigan of the High-A Midwest League, but he injured his shoulder badly on a pickoff attempt in June, costing him the rest of the season. He recovered enough to play in the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .344/.463/.541 in 80 plate appearances over 19 games.

Despite the short season, he ranked atop Detroit’s prospect list found in our humble home. Splitting 2023 between Double- and Triple-A, Keith stayed healthy and hit a combined .306/.380/.552 with 27 homers and 38 doubles. ZiPS translates that performance into a .268/.328/.454, 20 homer line, well below the level of phenom, but more than respectable for a second base/third base prospect in his first go at the high minors.

With a contract that can stretch for nine years, let’s crank out the long-term ZiPS projection for Keith.

While those are not star-level projections, they are the ones of a player you’d like to keep around through his prime. There are lots of familiar names among Keith’s ZiPS comps, such as Eric Chavez, Hank Blalock, Jedd Gyorko, Castellanos himself, Rafael Devers, Ryan Zimmerman, Travis Fryman, and Joe Crede. No, none of them were Hall of Famers – though it’s plausible that Devers could hit enough homers to prove the exception – but each were solid big leaguers.

One of the largest remaining questions around Keith is what position he’ll play in the majors. He’s played both second and third base, and appears to be below average at both. The probabilistic coordinate method that ZiPS uses graded Keith at about eight runs below average at second base, per 1300 innings, in 2023 and six runs below average at third. My colleague Eric Longenhagen feels that Keith is more likely to stick at second, rather than third.

During his stay in Toledo, Keith began to see more time at second base rather than his native third. He’s a bad defender at both spots but has a much greater chance at becoming passable (read: hidden) at second, where some of Keith’s issues with throwing are masked.

[…]

Keith has bulked up considerably since signing, and the effects of his increased size are evident on defense. Once a fair bet to stay on the middle infield, he is now fighting just to stay at third. He is stiff and bulky, his actions are well below average, and while he shows you a big arm when he gets to wind up and really let it eat, he struggles to throw from odd platforms. It’s feasible a team could live with him playing third base situationally, but it’s not ideal, and Colt is a 30-grade defender right now.

In a perfect world, Keith would stick at one of the two positions, with Jace Jung manning the other. One of the nice things about a rebuild is that teams get the chance to experiment, and the Tigers take advantage of that with Keith. Playing him in left field would be a great deal less exciting, but not a disastrous outcome, with mean projected OPS+ numbers in the high 110s during his prime. Left field Keith profiles similarly to Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who as one of the best outfielders available in free agency this offseason managed to snag a three-year deal with the Diamondbacks.

There are risks that come with signing a player with so little professional experience, but those are reflected in the price. Yes, $28.6 million is a lot of cash, but not so much in the context of baseball, and the ZiPS projection for Keith suggests a $38 million offer, taking into consideration the reduced salaries of the cost-controlled years. Similar extensions to Jon Singleton and Scott Kingery didn’t work out particularly well for the teams that made them, namely the Astros and Phillies, but those deals weren’t detrimental, either. The upside for Detroit here is considerable.

Are the Tigers playoff contenders in 2024? Probably not. But they’re not so far away that it would be a black swan event if they made some noise in the AL Central race or threatened to grab the last wild card spot. If they succeed, it will likely be in large part due to players like Keith taking a step forward.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago White Sox. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Cameron Cauley has one of the highest ceilings in the Texas Rangers organization. Selected in the third round of the 2021 draft out of Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, Texas, the 20-year-old shortstop has been described by Eric Longenhagen as “an incredible athlete” who not only “has a chance to be a Gold Glove shortstop,” but also possesses “plus bat speed and the pop to do damage to the oppo gap.” In a second full professional season split between Low-A Down East and High-A Hickory, Cauley made strides by slashing .245/.333/.411 with 12 home runs and a 109 wRC+. Moreover, he took advantage of his plus-plus wheels by swiping 36 bases in 41 attempts.

There are reasons to pump the brakes. As our lead prospect analyst pointed out, Cauley’s throwing accuracy needs polishing, and his strikeout rate (32.6% since entering pro ball) is a major concern. Especially troublesome is a 25.8% in-zone swing-and-miss rate that compromises his ability to produce high exit velocities when he does square up a baseball.

Cauley, who carries 175 pounds on a lithe 5-foot-10 frame, discussed his game late in the Arizona Fall League season.

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David Laurila: I’ve read that you have elite athleticism. Do you agree with that?

Cameron Cauley: “I’d say so. God blessed me with athleticism. I’ve always been athletic, from a young age to now, so I’m pretty good at sports. I’m good at golf. I’m good at football and basketball…” Read the rest of this entry »