These are notes on prospects from Brendan Gawlowski. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Sem Robberse, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 19 Org Rank: 29 FV: 35+
Line: 3.2 IP, 5 R, 5 H, 6 SO, 4 BB

The most fun prospects are the ones heading in the right direction, with plenty to do between here and the big leagues. That describes Robberse, who was signed out of the Netherlands during the 2018 international signing period. At the time, it was a bet on athleticism: Robberse is a very agile and fluid athlete but his fastball peaked in the mid-80s as an amateur.

Fast forward a few years, and the Dutchman is now hitting the mid-90s and sitting 91-94 mph. As you’d expect based on the athleticism, he has a clean delivery, and he’s also shown impressive pitchability for a 19-year-old. For those who really like to dive deep, Robberse has made starts in Low-A Southeast, which has Trackman data from some of his outings. You can grind through that here, but the TLDR is that he has above average spin for his velo band and misses bats with both breaking pitches. It’s also worth mentioning that his pedestrian-looking walk rate was actually one of the top marks in his league, where the robots are handing out free passes by the dozen.

Robberse’s outing on Wednesday was a tale of two parts, which is not uncommon for pitchers his age. In the first three innings, he was the best version of himself: he got ahead consistently, moved his fastball to both sides of the plate, back-doored his two-plane slider, elevated for whiffs, and lured hitters out of the zone with his curve. The wheels came off in the fourth, though, as three frustrating errors and a series of hits seemed to put the teenager off of his game. By the end of his outing, he’d lost velocity, he was consistently missing armside with the fastball, and he had to be removed before the end of the frame.

Ultimately, there’s plenty to like here. He’s progressed through the Jays system at a blistering pace and, in bursts, he flashes a lot of starter traits. We’ll see if more consistency, and perhaps a bit more arm strength, comes with age.

Ky Bush, LHP, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: High-A Tri-City Age: 21 Org Rank: NR
Line: 2 IP, 1 R, 3 H, 4 SO, 1 BB

Bush is a downhill-throwing southpaw with a three-quarters arm slot. He bounced between schools throughout his college career and wasn’t on anyone’s radar as an early rounder until a spectacular junior season at Saint Mary’s propelled him to the second round. His fastball is 92-95 with sink and tail, and in my viewing, he was prone to leaving the pitch up and to the arm side. His primary weapon is a slider, a hard 2-7 breaker at 82-85 that he likes to bury in the dirt. It’s a good pitch, though he sometimes pulls it and misses uncompetitively. He also has a fading change in the same velo band.

Bush was part of LA’s pitcher-only draft class, and to the extent that the Angels went that direction to augment the big league club quickly, it makes sense for the org to put a few of those hurlers on an accelerated relief track. With a somewhat funky look — he hides the ball well and at 6-foot-6 presents an awkward angle for lefties — tendency to work out of the zone, and below average command, Bush is a logical candidate for that path.

Jeremy Arocho, INF, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: High-A Tri-City Age: 22 Org Rank: NR
Line: 3-4

Want a deep cut? Look no further than Arocho, a 22-year-old who was drafted in the 27th round by the Dodgers in 2017 and released less than two years later. He landed with the Angels just in time for a virus of modest renown to ruin his 2020 season, and he didn’t get his first taste of full-season ball until this past May.

He’s made up for lost time. Between two levels, Arocho is hitting .310 with a .421 OBP and 27 steals in 31 tries (it should be 28, but the less said about umpiring here, the better). Speed is the standout tool — he’s a plus runner — but the more you watch him, the more you appreciate the quality of his at-bats. He has a short swing, quick hands, and is efficient to the ball, so when a pitcher tries to get ahead with a fastball over the plate, he’ll punish it early in counts. He has a good feel for the strike zone — he has 48 walks and only 52 strikeouts in 309 plate appearances this year — and has shown he can make adjustments in the middle of at-bats. Last night, he lunged at a curve early in the AB, but worked his way back into the count, got another curve over the plate, made an adjustment, kept his weight back, and smacked it into right field.

Despite these strengths, Arocho’s profile is a tricky one. He has 20 power at present and while he’s playing some short right now, he doesn’t profile as an everyday defender at the six. The speed, approach, and defensive versatility give him a chance to make it all work, likely in a utility role if he makes it to the Show. I’ll be rooting for him: The league needs more hit-and-run type of players.

Hayden Juenger, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 21 Org Rank: NR
Line: 2 IP, 3 SO, 0 H, 0 BB

Toronto’s sixth-round pick, Juenger is a three-pitch reliever. He works with a low-three quarters arm slot and it seemed like righties in particular were having trouble picking up the ball. In my look earlier this week, he consistently hit 94 mph throughout his two innings of work, and was particularly effective attacking the gloveside corner against righties. Not surprisingly given the slot, his slider is a predominantly horizontal sweeper, and the pitch is murder when he starts it on the plate and runs it away from right-handed hitters with a little late tilt. While he throws strikes, he’s prone to missing badly, and will need to button up that issue as he climbs Toronto’s ladder.

These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

MJ Melendez, C, Kansas City Royals
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Omaha Age: 22 Org Rank: 13 FV: 40+
Line: 2-for-4, HR, K, BB

Notes
Melendez’s four-bagger in Wednesday’s game was his 31st on the season, which ties him with Griffin Conine atop the minor league home run leaderboard.

As an added narrative wrinkle to their ongoing homer chase, Conine’s father (former big-leaguer Jeff Conine), is now an assistant coach at Florida International University under Melendez’s father, Head Coach Mervy Melendez. While the playful, multi-generational rivalry between the father-son duos makes for a compelling storyline, there’s plenty more to be gathered from Melendez’s performance this year, much of which adds significant shine to his prospect apple. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Brendan Gawlowski. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Luis Frías, RHP, Arizona Diamondbacks
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Reno Age: 23 Org Rank: 12 FV: 45
Recent News: Promoted to Triple-A Reno

Tall, thick around the middle, and with a few elements in his delivery that bear a passing resemblance to Jose Valverde’s, a body comp to Papa Grande is only natural here. Like his fellow countryman, Frías uses a split and comfortably reaches the mid-90s with his heater. The stuff comparisons end there though, as the 23-year-old has a deeper arsenal, one that suggests a future in the rotation remains a possibility. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Antonio Jimenez, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays
Level & Affiliate: Complex Level Age: 20 Org Rank: 26 FV: 40
Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
Jimenez is an electric little lefty (he stands about 5-foot-10) with big arm speed who sits 91-95 and has a plus two-plane slider that he commands. He’ll also show you the occasional average changeup. He’s loose and athletic and has viable starter’s command, though he arguably falls short of starter projection at the moment due to the combination of his present repertoire depth and size. With starter-level command already in place, I’m betting on changeup improvement due to the looseness/athleticism and care less about how small Jimenez is. He belongs in the Rays system ranked ahead of the hard-throwing relief-only arms. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

A month after the draft, here are some early looks at a few members of the 2021 draft class as they launch their professional careers.

Ryan Cusick, RHP, Atlanta Braves
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Augusta Age: 21 Org Rank: 7 FV: 45
Line: 3 IP, 0 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 7 K

Notes
Cusick’s started his professional career with two consecutive 98 mph strikes, setting the tone for what would be an impressive minor league debut. The 24th overall pick of the 2021 draft struck out seven of the nine of the batters he retired, and was one scorching liner off his third baseman’s glove away from perfection over his three innings of work. His success was due largely and unsurprisingly to his fastball, a high-90s offering delivered from a high arm slot (Cusick is an imposing 6-foot-6) that proved too much for the struggling Kannapolis offense.

In addition to the four-seamer, Cusick sprinkled in a few slurvy breaking balls, most of which missed the zone, though some missed bats as well. His arsenal also includes a changeup that he rarely threw during his time at Wake Forest, but which was a major developmental focus during last year’s shutdown; it did not make an appearance in his pro debut. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Eric’s Notes — Games on 8/4

Chandler Redmond, 1B/2B/3B/LF, St. Louis Cardinals
Level & Affiliate: Hi-A Peoria Age: 24 Org Rank: 34 FV: 35+
Line: 2-for-3, 2 HR, BB

Notes
It’s time for Redmond to be promoted. He’s hit .245/.361/.520 since June 22 and owns a career .259/.368/.508 career line, but he’s done so as an old-for-the-level prospect. Redmond was a 32nd round pick out of Gardner Webb, so it made sense to begin his career in the Appy League even though he was already 22. Now 24, he’s not seen a plate appearance above A-ball. Redmond has big, all-fields power and has played all over the field. He could be a bat-first piece, hidden on defense wherever the opposing club is least-likely to hit one that day. Visually, his swing is kind of grooved, and I’d like to see Redmond’s contact skills stress-tested against more advanced arms. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Emiliano Teodo, RHP, Texas Rangers
Level & Affiliate: Arizona Complex League Age: 20 Org Rank: 25 FV: 40+
Line: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 2 K

Notes
Like Daniel Palencia (now of the Cubs, formerly of the A’s), Teodo signed just before the 2020 season that never happened and only popped onto the radar screen in 2021, when we actually had consistent minor league activity on the backfields. He’s been parked in the 98-101 mph range and spins in an upper-70s curveball that’s at times in excess of 3,000 rpm. Skinny and featuring a fairly violent delivery, Teodo’s projection skews toward relief, but there’s ample time to develop him because of when he signed. He’s another high-variance/upside arm in the Rangers system. Read the rest of this entry »

Every season, the trade deadline brings with it a fresh dose of jarring imagery. A clean shaven Joey Gallo and an orange-and-black clad Kris Bryant are just a few of the sights that will take some getting used to this year. But 2021 offers an additional element of strangeness, as the Tokyo Olympics and the trade deadline have conspired to leave some players in a unique state of suspended baseball animation. Last month, Joe Ryan and Shane Baz headed to Tokyo as Durham Bulls teammates. But a few days and one Nelson Cruz trade later, it became clear that only Baz would be returning to the Rays’ Triple-A affiliate after the Games. And unlike most of the players dealt in the most explosive trade deadline in recent memory, our first post-trade look at Ryan wasn’t in the uniform of his new minor league home team with the Twins, but rather adorned in red, white and blue as he took the hill for Team USA’s first game of the Olympic tournament against Israel.

Among the arms in Team USA’s rotation, Ryan isn’t really considered a Game One starter, but given that their first matchup in pool play was against the tournament’s decided underdog, it seemed like an obvious opportunity for the US to maximize Ryan’s effectiveness while also saving their more seasoned starters for the stiffer offensive competition to come. Ryan has a tendency to favor his low-90s fastball, an approach that has led him to a tremendous 34.9% K-rate at Triple-A so far this year, against a walk rate of just 4.7%. And while his fastball-heavy approach is less likely to keep the offense of teams like the Dominican Republic or Japan at bay – and by Eric Longenhagen’s estimation, may ultimately lead to a career as a major-league reliever – it was enough for Ryan to emerge victorious in his start against Israel (you can read more about Eric’s take on Ryan in Dan Szymborski’s analysis of the Cruz trade, linked above). Ryan gave up five hits and notched five strikeouts with no free passes over his six innings, as Team USA won 8-1. The only run he allowed was a solo home run off the bat of Danny Valencia, which added an extra dash of surreality for Twins fans: a clash of prospect past and future. Read the rest of this entry »

What a ride this year’s deadline was. All told, we had 75 prospects move in the last month. They are ranked below, with brief scouting reports written by me and Kevin Goldstein. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of were analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below. I’ve moved all of the players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates. Our farm rankings, which now update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up post-deadline.

A couple of quick notes before I get to the rankings. We’ve included a few post-prospect players here (those marked in blue) so you can get an idea of where we value them now as opposed to where we had them at their prospect peak. Those players, as well as the Compensatory pick the Rockies will receive after they extend Trevor Story a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, are highlighted below. We had closer to 40 prospects (and 23 Players to be Named Later) traded last year, with the PTBNL number inflated by 2020’s COVID-related transaction rules. The backfields are not well-represented here, with just four prospects who have yet to play in full-season ball. Two of those are currently in the DSL and have no official domestic pro experience, though Alberto Ciprian has played stateside for instructs/extended spring training. Now on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

The Oakland A’s continued their successful quest to be deadline buyers despite not having a great farm system by acquiring Josh Harrison and Yan Gomes from the Washington Nationals in exchange for three prospects, the best of whom is ultra-athletic catcher Drew Millas.

Gomes, who’s slashing .271/.323/.454 this year (in line with his career norms), fortifies an A’s catching situation that got thin when the club dealt away Jonah Heim for Elvis Andrus in the offseason. Gomes crushes lefties and should get the occasional extra start against them in place of Sean Murphy as a result, but he’s a huge upgrade over incumbent backup Aramis Garcia, whose approach (a 1% walk rate!) has been a significant impediment to any kind of offensive output. Gomes also has a great arm and has had the lowest average pop time in the majors every year since 2015 according to Baseball Savant (scroll all the way to the bottom). But he isn’t a great receiver and sometimes drew the visible ire of his pitchers (especially Max Scherzer) while in Washington.

At age 34, former All-Star Josh Harrison is also having a strong 2021 campaign. Like Gomes, he’s also clubbing lefties, to the tune of a .308/.407/.474 line. And the short-levered Harrison has once again been difficult to beat with fastballs this year. After his Swinging Strike rate against heaters had climbed for nearly a half decade, he’s halved it this year, returning to what it was in Harrison’s prime. Mike Rizzo & co. did a fine job plucking veteran bats out of the bargain bin to keep their window of contention alive until the very end.

Harrison pairs nicely with Tony Kemp in a left/right, mix-and-match 2B/3B/OF role on a roster that was very left-handed heavy entering the deadline. He’s poised to play the role a healthy Chad Pinder would theoretically play, albeit with a more stable feel for contact. And while the the value of these things is obviously subjective, Gomes has deep postseason experience, while Harrison is probably really hungry for some after spending most of his career in Pittsburgh.

The Nationals get back a trio of prospects in catcher Drew Millas and right-handed pitchers Richard Guasch and Seth Shuman. Millas is the only of the three who ranked in the main section of the A’s prospect list upon publication, and has been a personal favorite of mine since he was at Missouri State. He’s an athletic catch-and-throw guy with terrific lateral agility and hands. He also has a pretty looking swing and his athleticism is evident in the batter’s box, with his cut geared more for low-ball contact from both sides. There’s not likely to be impact power here, but Millas has a pretty good mix of patience and feel for contact, especially for a catcher. He’s a high-probability backup with some traits — the switch-hitting, the early-career peripherals, the visual evaluation of his athleticism and frame, both of which are rare for the position — that make me want to round up and indicate that there’s more upside here (hence his 40+ FV grade). He ranks 13th on the Nationals growing prospect list at the time I’m writing this, though that might change due to other deals trickling in. The FV is the important thing, though.

As far as Shuman and Guasch are concerned, neither will be added onto the list but both are fair prospects. Shuman, who is 23 and at High-A, is a pitchability righty up to 94, with command of four serviceable pitches. He’s carving up A-ball because of his competency more than stuff. He lacks a real knockout pitch but could be a fifth starter, and is high-probability upper level rotation depth if nothing else. I’ve seen Guasch up to 96 with an average slider in what is a pure relief look. Both are the sort of prospects who gets mentioned at the tail end of an organizational list right now, with FV ceilings in the 40 (Shuman, as a fifth starter) and 35+ (Guasch, as an up/down reliever) tier based on their current reports.