It’s time for another cycle of prospect lists, and as I’ve become accustomed to doing for the last few seasons, I’m starting with scouting reports on pro players in foreign leagues, with a focus on players available for MLB free agency this offseason. On The Board, you can see a fresh batch of scouting reports and evaluations of relevant players from Nippon Professional Baseball, the Korea Baseball Organization, and the Chinese Professional Baseball League in Taiwan, as well as reports on some young players I’ve identified as potentially impactful long-term prospects. I’ll update the amateur portion of this list prior to signing day in January, but any player from the upcoming 2024 class who I had already written up for this year’s Prospect Week remains on there. For those who need a crash course on the age- and pro experience-driven lines of demarcation that dictate how MLB teams sign international players, I’d point you to a number of MLB.com glossary entries, including those on international free agency for those in Asian pro leagues, international amateur free agency and bonus pool restrictions, the Japanese posting system, and the Korean posting system.

It can be overwhelming to sift through so many different types of players on that section of The Board — it’s a real apples and oranges situation when we’re talking about some guys who are 30 and others who are still teenagers — so I’m going to break most of them up into more digestible subgroups below. You’ll notice that some players appear across multiple categories. The Board has each player’s full scouting report and tool grades — think of this as more of a table of contents. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I covered the American League half of the flurry of transactional activity that occurred as a result of the 40-man roster and non-tender deadlines. Is any one move here as impactful as signing a Yoshinobu Yamamoto or a Matt Chapman? No, but when your favorite team experiences a rash of injuries in June, whether or not they have the depth to scrap and compete is often dictated by the people and processes that surround this day. Below are my thoughts on the National League, with some quick scouting snippets on most of the added players and thoughts about roster construction where I had something to say.

Arizona Diamondbacks

The Diamondbacks lone addition was lefty Blake Walston, a former $2.5 million high school signee who, despite being young for his class and physically projectable as an amateur, has seen his fastball velocity plateau and slightly decline since he signed. He’s had fits and starts where he’s thrown harder, but for the most part, Walston’s fastball still sits 89-92 mph and his performance peripherals took a nosedive in 2023, though part of that was likely because of the PCL hitting environment. The lanky 22-year-old is still a fair long-term prospect because of his age and what one could reasonably hope will still be late-arriving physicality, but for now, I’d consider him at the very back of Arizona’s 40-man starting pitching depth chart. Read the rest of this entry »

Late Thursday night, after the final horn had sounded on the last West Coast NHL game, new White Sox general manager Chris Getz consummated his first trade in his new role, sending sinker-balling lefty reliever Aaron Bummer to Atlanta for a five-player variety pack of “second division” players and reclamation projects. The new White Sox are headlined by 26-year-old 2019 All-Star righty Michael Soroka, 28-year-old infielder Nicky Lopez, and 25-year-old lefty starter Jared Shuster, all of whom can be reasonably expected to impact the 2024 squad. Chicago also acquired 25-year-old infielder Braden Shewmake, who is also on the 40-man roster, and 2023 undrafted free agent starter Riley Gowens, who is more of a developmental project from the University of Illinois. Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s 40-man roster deadline was less eventful than usual (we only had one trade on deadline day), but as always, a number of young players became big leaguers in a certain sense, and teams had no choice but to indicate what they think of lots of fringe prospects who they either did or did not choose to roster. This day of clerical activity is the culmination of the efforts of the players themselves, the people in player development who have helped turn them into big leaguers, and the scouting and decision-making portions of each org that put their stamp of approval on the prospects. Is any one move here as impactful as signing a Yoshinobu Yamamoto or a Matt Chapman? No, but when your favorite team experiences a rash of injuries in June, whether or not they have the depth to scrap and compete is often dictated by the people and processes that surround this day. I’m more focused on analyzing roster depth, fit and flexibility in this space than on scouting players (especially when they’re star prospects you already know well). I’ll have a separate post on the National League. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers made a swap ahead of this year’s 40-man roster deadline, the last day teams have to either add eligible minor league players to their 40-man roster or expose them to December’s Rule 5 Draft. In this trade, the Brewers acquired 26-year-old second baseman Oliver Dunn and added him to their 40-man roster, while the Phillies received two prospects in return, 21-year-old infielder Robert Moore and 20-year-old outfielder Hendry Mendez.

Let’s start with Milwaukee’s end of this, as we’re most likely to see 2024 big league impact from Dunn, who is coming off an Arizona Fall League stint in which he won the league’s Breakout Prospect award. Dunn, whose brother Ross is in the Twins system, was a Yankees 2019 11th round pick out of Utah. He hit .196 coming out of the lost 2020 season, and spent a significant portion of both 2021 and 2022 on the IL dealing with multiple injuries, including a fractured jaw, an abdomen strain, and a hamstring strain.

The Phillies drafted him in the minor league phase of the 2022 Rule 5 Draft and Dunn had a huge power breakout in 2023 at Double-A Reading, where he hit .271/.396/.506 and slugged 21 homers, more than he had hit throughout his entire career entering 2023. Reading is a hitter’s haven and Dunn was in his age-25 season, so there are good reasons to be skeptical of his sudden change in output, but his underlying power metrics also took a leap, with his average and peak exit velocities (92 mph and 112 mph, respectively) cresting above the big league average. This isn’t gigantic, impact power, but it’s meaningful pop for a second baseman. Dunn swings and misses quite a bit, especially within the strike zone (you can see him struggling with velo up and away from him, a Fall League theme for Dunn, in the video below), but he’s a dangerous all-fields hitter because of his power and ability to catch some fastballs deep in the hitting zone and punish them the other way. Read the rest of this entry »

Cooper Hjerpe is catching up for lost time in the Arizona Fall League. St. Louis’ first-round pick (22nd overall) in 2022, the 22-year-old southpaw was out of action from late May to early September due to an elbow issue and ended up tossing just 41 innings. He was effective when healthy. Throwing from what my colleague Eric Longenhagen has called “a funky low-slot delivery,” Hjerpe fanned 51 batters, allowed 26 hits and posted a 3.51 ERA with High-A Peoria.

The Oregon State University product’s AFL stint with the Scottsdale Scorpions included a two-batter appearance in Sunday night’s Fall Stars game. Entering in the eighth inning, Hjerpe retired fellow former first-rounders Max Muncy and Jace Jung, the latter on a swinging strike. I caught up to the deceptive lefty after the game to ask about his pitch metrics and approach on the mound.

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David Laurila: We should start with a health update. What was the procedure you had this summer, and how is your elbow now?

Cooper Hjerpe: “I had what’s called arthroscopy surgery. A microscope went in there and took out bodies of cartilage. There were two pieces of cartilage at the front and the back of the elbow; they took them out and shaved what they came off of. It wasn’t like reconstruction surgery or anything like that. Everything is back to normal.”

Laurila: You throw from a low slot and approach angle, so I’m interested in what you can tell me about your pitch metrics.

Hjerpe: “The heater has changed a little bit. I don’t know if it’s the balls or what, but right now it has been like 10 vertical and 18 horizontal. The slider is anywhere from zero to negative-four vertical, with 14 to 16 HB [horizontal break]. The changeup is anywhere from positive-two to negative-three vertical, and negative-19 horizontal. The cutter, which I’m still working on, is 10 to 13 vert and around zero horizontal.” Read the rest of this entry »

Luke Little was an afterthought when our 2023 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects list came out in early July. Pitching for Double-A Tennessee at the time, the now–23-year-old southpaw garnered no more than an honorable mention on a list that ran 52 players deep. His stock has since risen markedly. By season’s end, he had earned a big league cup of coffee and thrown 6.2 scoreless innings over seven appearances. Featuring a high-octane heater and a sweeper delivered from a low arm slot, he fanned a dozen batters and allowed just five hits.

His numbers across three levels of the minor leagues were every bit as impressive. Over 36 appearances, all but four as a reliever, the 2020 fourth-round pick out of San Jacinto College had 105 strikeouts and surrendered 40 hits in 63.2 innings. He’s an imposing figure on the mound: The Charlotte, North Carolina native stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 270 pounds.

Little discussed his repertoire and delivery prior to a late-September game at Wrigley Field.

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David Laurila: Who are you on the mound? For instance, do you identify as a power pitcher?

Luke Little: “I like to think I’m a power pitcher. Obviously, I throw hard. At the same time, I like to think that I have good offspeed pitches. I’ve been really comfortable with my slider, and I’ve also got a good feel for my splitter now, although I haven’t thrown it too much.”

Laurila: How hard are you throwing?

Little: “Last night [September 19 against the Pirates], I sat 97 [mph] with my fastball, and my slider was 81–82. I was up to 99 with my fastball at the beginning of the year, [which is] the hardest I’ve ever thrown, when I was a starter [with High-A South Bend].” Read the rest of this entry »

Chad Dallas emerged as one of the top under-the-radar pitching prospects in the Toronto Blue Jays organization this season. Tossing a system leading 123-and-third innings between High-A Vancouver and Double-A New Hampshire — 18 of his 23 starts came at the higher of the two levels — the 23-year-old right-hander went 9-3 with a 3.65 ERA and a 4.08 FIP. Featuring a spin-to-win five-pitch mix, he fanned 144 batters (also the most in the system) and allowed just 98 hits.

Dallas, Toronto’s fourth round pick in 2021 out of the University of Tennessee, discussed his breaker-heavy arsenal and approach when the New Hampshire Fisher Cats visited Portland, Maine earlier this summer.

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David Laurila: What is your repertoire and M.O. on the mound?

Chad Dallas: “I throw a four-seam, a slider, a curveball, an occasional changeup, and I recently added a cutter. I spin the ball a lot. I don’t attack a whole bunch of people with the fastball. I like to attack with my offspeed, sort of a pitch backwards kind of deal. Some teams know that, so there are also games where they start sitting soft and I mostly attack them with the heater and the cutter. Either way, I’m out there trying to throw as many strikes as possible.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Fall League begins tonight and (with Sean Dolinar’s help) I’ve assembled the scouting reports for prospects on Fall League rosters in one place over on The Board. As players are identified as Board-worthy prospects throughout the fall, or if players who are already on The Board have their scouting reports updated, there will be an indicator in the “Trend” column denoting change, so check back frequently for updates. You’ll want to reference that table a bit as I briefly preview the AFL below. Some Fall League games will be streamed on the MLB.TV app and online; you can see a schedule for that here. Here are a few key things I’ll be focused on during the next six weeks, things readers should be watching for.

The Potential Stars

This one’s fairly self-explanatory. The Fall League is pretty consistently loaded with excellent prospects, usually hitters. There are about a dozen slam-dunk Top 100 prospects in this year’s league, and many more players who over the next several weeks will make an argument to be included. Peoria and Surprise have the two strongest collections of position player prospects this year, while Salt River’s pitching staff (led by the Tigers and Braves arms) is a cut above the rest at first glance, though keep in mind that prospect-y hype does not always equal success in this league from a team win-loss standpoint. Read the rest of this entry »

Once all the blurbs for a prospect list have been written, I comb back through the giant spreadsheet that populates what readers see on The Board and double check its many fields for errors and inconsistencies. Two data points I’ve kept manually since 2017 are the heights and weights of the prospects who have passed through that space. At times, this has felt nonsensical — there are heights and weights on our player pages, and they could easily be pulled into the machinery that pumps out the tables that accompany the write-ups you see on our lists. But players’ measurables, especially in the minors, are often obviously wrong, and so for a little over a half decade, I’ve used my own judgment to make manual adjustments in cases when what is listed is clearly incorrect.

This has mostly meant manually adjusting players’ weights as they’ve gotten older and bigger, because even when players are on big league rosters, there is sometimes radical imprecision around their actual specs. When it comes to heights, however, I’ve overwhelmingly deferred to those on minor league player pages unless there was an egregious under-reporting (I think Oneil Cruz was the last one I manually fudged). Once the 2023 minor league season began, my pre-publication checks revealed a strange pattern: Many minor league players, mostly hitters, were suddenly listed on minor league player pages as being one or two inches shorter than my previous records indicated, and some of them had shrunk by as many as four inches.

While incorrect heights and weights are prevalent, widespread change to them across the entire player population was strange and struck me as probably having a cause. I’m going to show you the list of changes to players’ heights and go over potential explanations for how and why this has happened (and why so many heights were wrong in the first place), but first let’s talk about why this is an important detail. Read the rest of this entry »