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Since the inception of the MLB Draft in 1965, there have never been two players drafted in the first round from the same high school in the Northeast in the same draft class. Jack Leiter and Anthony Volpe, both senior Vanderbilt commits at Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey, have the potential to change that this year. I watched Delbarton face off against Red Bank Catholic High School on Saturday afternoon along with several dozen scouts. What follows are my takeaways from their respective performances in the game.

Jack Leiter, RHP
Current 2019 Draft Ranking: 28

Leiter is, as you might have extrapolated from his last name, the son of the former major leaguer Al Leiter, who accumulated nearly 2,400 career innings pitched and a total of 36.5 WAR across 19 seasons. Al’s brother, Mark, also pitched in the big leagues for 11 years, and Mark’s son, Mark, Jr., debuted with the Phillies in 2017. Jack’s performance on Saturday showed a glimpse of the potential that suggests he could one day join his dad, uncle, and cousin in a big league uniform.

Leiter stands at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, with a fairly slim frame and well-distributed strength. I wouldn’t describe him as slight, but he’s relatively average-sized and doesn’t have a build you’d typically expect out of a high school right-handed pitching prospect. Leiter’s arm action and delivery are amongst the best I’ve seen from a high school prospect. He has a simple, uptempo delivery, delivering the ball from a high three-quarter slot with above average arm speed, and he stays on line with the plate very well. He has a medium length arm swing with a loose, easy path and is on time throughout his delivery. There is some stiffness on his front leg during his follow-through, but this isn’t a concern for me, as it occurs after release. Everything works in-sync and fluidly together, and he repeats his delivery extremely well for any prospect, especially one in high school.

Throughout the outing, Leiter showed flashes of a legitimate three pitch mix. He came out of the gates hot, touching 96 early and sitting 92-95 for the first three innings. His higher slot generated more plane than angle and he’ll likely look to work with more four-seamers than two-seamers long term because of it. His calling card is his curveball, a big breaking 74-77 mph downer that flashes plus. He spins the ball well, generating good tilt and depth to the pitch and enabling himself to miss bats below the zone.

Also a part of his arsenal was a slider, which worked 84-85, that he broke out a bit more often as the game went on. The slider is fringy, working between a 40- and 45- grade, as it had true shape but sort of rolled out of the hand. I do think it’ll be a nice supplement to the arsenal long-term, but I don’t think it has a chance to be anything better than average at best and will likely stay a supplementary offering. Leiter didn’t throw any changeups in game but threw several in warmups and showed some feel to command the pitch, although he did slow his arm down to throw it. Given the ease with which he throws and his consistent delivery, I would have no issue projecting a changeup of similar quality to his slider in his pitch mix long-term, which would round out a solid four-pitch mix for a starting pitcher.

All of the above information would place Leiter firmly in the first round of the draft as a right-handed pitcher showing two plus pitches and with a chance to stay as a starter long-term. The main issues I have in projecting him highly are his build and his age, which are, in some ways, connected. Leiter’s velocity tapered in the fourth inning of his outing and while he finished with 11 strikeouts in five innings, the opposing Red Bank Catholic lineup strung together some decent contact in the latter two frames of his outing. His fastball velocity was 88-92 for those two innings and his curveball, while still showing quality depth, did not flash plus like it had in the early innings. Leiter’s fastball doesn’t play any higher than its true velocity and as it tapered, it became more difficult for him to miss bats.

A high school pitcher’s velocity falling off is not a concern in and of itself. In fact, it’s fairly common. Leiter’s average size, however, could lead to some concerns long term about his durability or his ability to maintain effectiveness without mid-90s velocity. That, combined with the fact that Leiter will be 19-years-old at the time of the draft and will ostensibly be a year ahead of his 18-year-old peers developmentally, could lead some teams to shy away from him. The demographic of high school right-handed pitchers has not been great historically, and when you combine that with the fact that this particular pitcher is of average size and is older than his peers, it will likely lead to reservations in draft rooms.

With that being said, Leiter’s delivery and his stuff speaks for itself. He’s clearly talented enough to be a first round selection as a potential No. 4 or No. 5 starter long-term – with a mid-90s fastball, a curveball that flashes plus, a usable slider, and a plus delivery – and I think a team will take a chance on him. Leiter’s talent puts him in the back end of the first round typically, and I could see a team selecting him there or at some point in rounds two through four for what is the equivalent of late first round money.

Anthony Volpe, SS
Current 2019 Draft Ranking: 33

Volpe has long been a mainstay at the highest profile amateur baseball venues, playing for Team USA in Taiwan at 12-years-old and participating in several dozen showcase and tournament events in high school, including last year’s Perfect Game and Under Armour All-American games at Petco Park and Wrigley Field, respectively. His experience is evident on the field – Volpe shows plus feel to play on both sides of the ball, which helps to elevate his game above his collection of relatively average tools.

A right-handed hitting shortstop, Volpe is short and muscular, with especially strong legs and a lively look to his frame. He’s a good athlete who moves around the dirt well, showing average range and an average arm with instincts that might enable him to play slightly above those. He has good hands and takes very good angles to balls, seemingly never fielding an in-between hop and doing a good job getting around and fielding the ball. I think he has a chance to be average at shortstop and could provide good utility value moving around the dirt to both second base and third base long-term.

Offensively, Volpe hits from a spread stance with high hands, even with the pitcher. He’s compact to the ball and is an aggressive hitter who showed a pretty good approach at the plate, looking to drive the ball to the gaps. He is a 55 runner who runs hard and takes good angles around the bases. His swing – compact and consistent — showcases both fringy quickness and bat speed. He really pinches his hands in and artificially gets his bat on plane (think J.D. Martinez from gather to contact, and not Alex Bregman). This isn’t necessarily an issue, but Volpe has 40-grade raw power and is already relatively mature physically.

This type of swing path – one that pulls the hands in and then drives the barrel downward into the hitting plane and pushes it through with the hands – typically leads to an opposite field-heavy approach. Someone like the aforementioned Martinez, who artificially gets on plane, overcomes suboptimal contact points because he’s so strong. In 2017 and 2018, Martinez’s average exit velocity and launch angle to right field were 92.6 mph and 25.3 degrees, respectively, and he hit 54.6% of batted balls to right field at above 95 mph. It’s extremely difficult to imagine Volpe impacting the ball that much and with that much regularity long term.

Volpe showed his feel to hit and his opposite field approach on Saturday by driving a line drive to right center field for a home run, although the right center field fence was just 330 feet away so this ball would have likely been a double or a triple on most fields. My concern is not with his ability to make contact or his ability to hit the ball to right field; it’s with his ability to drive the ball with power and pull the ball consistently. I can see an average hit tool long-term due to the feel to hit and pitch recognition skills, but the lack of power and the artificial nature with which his barrel gets to the zone concern me with respect to his ability to drive the ball consistently.

Of course, none of the above concerns mean that a swing like Volpe’s isn’t fixable. He’s been lauded in the industry for his baseball IQ and showed nothing on Saturday to make me reach a different conclusion, so there is the possibility that he can make adjustments to his swing and drive the ball more consistently. And regardless, this is a well-rounded high school infielder with a high baseball IQ, a chance to stay at shortstop, and average hit tool potential. That’s an intriguing profile, and one that doesn’t last beyond the first few rounds of the draft, as there is bat-to-ball and utility value in the profile. His lack of a plus tool and the uncertainty about his ability to hit for better than 40-grade power push him into more second or third round contention for me, but I could see a team who values versatility and strong contact skills taking him a little higher than that and letting their minor league hitting coaches get to work.

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Patrick Sandoval, LHP, Los Angeles Angels
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 16   FV: 40
Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 9 K

Notes
Acquired from Houston in exchange for Martin Maldonado last summer, Sandoval now has 45 strikeouts in 28.2 career innings at Double-A. He continues to work with middling fastball velocity but some mechanical elements help it to play better than 90-94. Houston got Sandoval to open his front side a little more, tilt his spine, and release the ball with a more vertical arm slot than he was using in high school. It’s a weirder look for hitters and creates more backspin and, therefore, more “rise” on his fastball. Sandoval also works heavily off his two secondary pitches, and his changeup may be better than we currently have it projected to be on The Board. The strike-throwing is still inconsistent start to start, but Sandoval is officially having upper-level success for a franchise that keeps having injury issues on the big league roster, so perhaps he should be included in the Canning/Suarez/Barria group of young hurlers who may help the Angels sooner than later.

Nate Pearson, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 4   FV: 50
Line: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 9 K

Notes
Pearson was removed from his previous start after just 27 pitches, so it was a relief to see him back and dominant five days later. Pearson’s future as a strike-thrower is hard to anticipate. He was wild last fall but he hadn’t pitched all year due to a fractured ulna, so that wildness could have just been due to rust. He threw 43 of 59 pitches for strikes yesterday, a sign he may actually be able to harness his alien stuff and find a way to start long-term. He may be on an innings limit this year, so unless the Jays expertly manicure his workload with a big league goal in mind (perhaps that two-inning outing last start is an indication of how they’ll handle Pearson throughout the year) it’s unlikely we see him in the big leagues until next year at least. It’s still too early to reposition Pearson in our rankings due to increased confidence that he’ll start, but yesterday’s outing, during which he sat 94-98 and touched 102, could soon be part of a body of evidence indicating we should.

Anderson Tejeda, SS, Texas Rangers
Level: Hi-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 4   FV: 45+
Line: 2-for-5, 2 HR

Notes
These were Tejeda’s first two homers of the year. He’s back at Hi-A despite having success there last year, presumably so the Rangers can let Michael De Leon (who peaked as a teenager) get regular at-bats at Frisco for the third consecutive year. Tejeda is off to a strong start, and may force a promotion to Double-A (and into our Top 100) if he keeps it up for another few weeks.

Ljay Newsome, RHP, Seattle Mariners
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: NR   FV: 35
Line: 6.2, 4 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
We touch base on players like Newsome when we write the org lists. He threw a lot of innings last year and he barely walked anyone, so we checked on the stuff to see if it cleared the bar to stick someone on the list at all. With Newsome, that had not been true. Despite all the strikes, his fastball has been in the mid-to-upper 80s basically since high school, and those guys typically max out as spot starters. Now, Newsome is different. He took part in an offseason velo program and now resides in the 91-94 mph range. He’s clearing his front side a little more, his two-seamer has more tail, he’s working up in the zone with his four-seamer more often, and is setting up his changeup better. Take the performance of a 22-year-old repeating Hi-A with a grain of salt, but know Newsome has grown and changed, and is off to a strong start.

A Weird Box Score
Tulsa pitchers combined to no-hit Arkansas into extra-innings last night, but still lost due to a slew of walks in the 10th inning. The Arkansas staff allowed five hits, but fewer total baserunners than Tulsa did, so in my opinion, justice was done.

Weekend Notes
I saw mostly amateur stuff over the weekend, as both Adley Rutchsmann and Andrew Vaughn (the top two prospects on our Draft Board) were in the state of Arizona. Neither did anything to merit a move in our rankings. The only surprising moment of my weekend was seeing a person in a Detroit Tigers polo operating an Edgertronic camera. To this point, I had only seen Houston employees training cameras like that on hitters.

We’ve begun experimenting with high speed video and while some of its applications (beyond just looking cool) are obvious, especially as it relates to pitching (who is spin efficient, who is not, ah, there’s also a two-seamer, etc), we’re curious if there are applications on the hitting side beyond just breaking down mechanics.

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Kansas City Royals. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. That can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Young Guys Who Might Pop
Rylan Kaufman, LHP
Wilmin Candelario, SS
Jeison Guzman, SS
Maikel Garcia, SS
Raymond Lopez, CF
Anderson Paulino, RHP
Rubendy Jaquez, 3B

Kaufman was a $722,000 JuCo 12th rounder who can really spin a curveball (2750 rpm average in pro ball). He’s still just 19, has a lanky frame, and already bumps 92, 93 on occasion. Candelario is a balletic defensive shortstop who adds little flourishes to just about everything he does. The entire offensive package is below-average right now, but we’ll see what happens with the frame. Speaking of waiting on the frame, Guzman is now 20 and has finally started to fill out in a positive way. He’s going to strike out a lot, but has a chance to rise into the main portion of the list this year. Garcia is a smooth, rangy defender and has a good frame but he’s very weak with the bat right now. Lopez looked intriguing (above average runner, gap pop, feel for center field) before he was seriously injured in 2017, and then he had a bad 2018. He’s a bounce back candidate. Paulino is a strong-bodied 20-year-old who sits 93-97. His upper-80s slider has vertical break, but it’s blunt and lacks that bat-missing bite. Realistically, he’s a developmental bullpen piece, but there are some late-inning components in place if that slider gets tighter. Jaquez is 20 and has above-average bat speed.

Potential Role-Playing Arms
Jonathan Bowlan, RHP
Zach Haake, RHP
Arnaldo Hernandez, RHP
Andres Machado, RHP

Bowlan’s stuff has been all over the place, sometimes even during the same start. He was 89-95 during his first outing and could be a sinker/slider reliever, but the Royals have done fairly well with sinkerballers lately. Haake will show plus stuff for an inning or two before his command starts to waivers. He could be a mid-90s, plus slider reliever. Hernandez is 23 and could be a changeup-centric reliever if his fastball ticks up in relief. Machado is a mid-90s/cutter reliever without a pitch that will obviously miss bats.

Bench Types
Michael Gigliotti, OF
Gabriel Cancel, 2B
Bubba Starling, CF
Blake Perkins, CF
Kort Peterson, 1B
Juan Carlos Negret, RF
Cristian Perez, SS

Gigliotti was a plus runner with feel for the zone who was a 40 runner this spring, his first back from an ACL tear. If the speed returns, he’s a likely bench outfielder. Cancel is a career .265 hitter, is at Double-A, and could be an infield utility bat. We still think Bubba Starling, who runs well and plays a fine center field but has never found a good swing foundation, plays in the big leagues. Perkins is now 23 and still lacks physicality, but he can really run and play center. Peterson is a corner guy with some contact skills. Negret has plus power but little feel for contact. Perez is an instinctive defender with some feel to hit.

System Overview

We spent a lot of effort trying to discern what the Royals were trying to do with their 2018 draft bonus pool, which was the biggest in baseball last year, because it was going to have such a profound impact on the rest of the draft. They ended up with all college value picks (and, eventually, Rylan Kaufman), which tasted disappointingly vanilla at the time, but now looks like a clear-headed approach as it yielded five of the org’s top 10 prospects and several other interesting ones, our Bowlan skepticism be damned.

This is a top-to-bottom reset, with maybe four or five players on the big league roster who are realistic parts of the next competitive Royals team, at the same that there aren’t any top 100 prospects currently in the system. The big wave of talent that represents the crest of the rebuilding wave is at Hi-A Wilmington right now, and whomever becomes the second pick in the upcoming draft (be it Adley Rutchsmann or Andrew Vaughn, the two players we think are the most likely to go first or second based on talent) should be advanced enough to join them pretty quickly, so long as the Royals don’t take a high schooler. Whoever the pick, barring a sizable leap from one of the 45 FV players on this list, the new 2019 draftee will immediately be the club’s No. 1 prospect. Perhaps, if enough of that wave actually pans out, they’ll be good again sooner than the overall quality of the farm indicates.

We also have them linked to outfielder Erick Pena, who is No. 4 among our 2019 July 2 prospects at the time of publication. So there’s some more exciting talent coming. But right now, the most important parts of the org are the amateur scouting and player dev staff who might help Kansas City create tradable big leaguers.

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These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Cole Tucker, SS, Pittsburgh Pirates
Level: Triple-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 5   FV: 50
Line: 3-for-5, HR, 2 SB

Notes
Readers are often looking for a prospect outside the top 50 who might break out and move near the top of our overall list. My answer to that question is typically some big, projectable teenager who I expect to experience sizable physical growth. Tucker is rare in that he’s also a viable answer to this question even though he turns 23 this summer. Having answered once-relevant, shoulder-related questions about his arm strength, Tucker is now seen as a plus-gloved shortstop who has good feel for contact. But because he still has this big, seemingly unfinished frame on him, we think it’s possible that he comes into power a little late, and he might take a sizable leap. A source indicated to me that Tucker looks noticeably bigger and stronger this year. He hit for power during the first week of the season, and his batted ball data should be monitored for a possible indicator that he’s made a mechanical adjustment, too.

Tarik Skubal, LHP, Detroit Tigers
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: HM   FV: 35
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 R, 6 K

Notes
Kiley saw Skubal last night and had him up to 97, with an average breaking ball. A possible second or third rounder as a college underclassman, Skubal’s amateur career was derailed by an elbow injury that required Tommy John. He missed his junior year, instead throwing side sessions in front of scouts close to the draft. Nobody was confident enough to pull the trigger on drafting him, and he went back to school and couldn’t throw strikes. The Tigers signed him after his redshirt junior year for $350k and he threw almost all fastballs during his first pro summer. Things seemed to have clicked a bit.

Michael Baumann, RHP, Baltimore Orioles
Level: Hi-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 28   FV: 35+
Line: 5 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 10 K

Notes
Orioles pitching prospects should be considered potential movers this year as the new front office applies the player dev philosophy that seems to be working in Houston. Baumann already has some components Houston might have otherwise tried to install; he has a vertical release point that looks like it creates backspin, he throws hard, and he works up in the zone. Maybe that just means he has less to fix and is likely to improve more quickly than others in the system. He was up to 96 last night.

Brendan McKay, LHP, Tampa Bay Rays
Level: Double-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 2   FV: 60
Line: 4.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 3 R, 11 K

Notes
McKay’s stuff is not especially nasty — he was 91-95 last night — but his fastball plays up because of good extension. All of his pitches look the same coming out of his hand, and he has shockingly good feel for pitching even though his attention has been split between the mound and the plate for much of his career. If he keeps dominating Double-A hitters like this, it’s fair to start considering him as a potential big league option sometime this year.

Shed Long, 2B/3B/LF, Seattle Mariners
Level: Triple-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: 6   FV: 50
Line: 4-for-5, BB, walk-off HR

Notes
Shed’s defensive assignments mimic what we saw during spring training. He remains a 40 glove at second base who survives through a combination of athleticism and will, but he’s going to mash enough that you want him in your lineup every day. I tend to think of multi-positional players as individuals who excel defensively at various spots, but maybe it’s time to consider if players who can really hit can be barely playable at several positions and just spend each game at a different spot in the field, wherever they’re the least likely to touch the ball that day. Willians Astudillo would seem to be another candidate for a role like this, and perhaps it could be taken to a batter-by-batter extreme. Hiding your worst defensive player is old hat in other sports; maybe there’s a better way to do it in ours.

A Quick Rehabber Update
I saw Angels lefty Jose Suarez rehab in Tempe yesterday. He looked good, sitting 91-93, with command and an above-average curveball (it’s slow but has good bite, and he commands it), and some plus changeups. He didn’t break camp due to a sore shoulder, which is kind of scary, but the stuff looks fine. The Angels rotation has struggled with injuries, so Suarez might see the big leagues this year. He’s in our top 100.

On Pedro Avila
Padres righty Pedro Avila makes his big league debut tonight against Arizona. Expect him to sit 90-94 and touch 96, have scattered fastball command, and try to work heavily off secondary stuff — a change and curveball — that is consistently plus. His long term role may ultimately be in the bullpen, especially since three-pitch relievers may become more necessary due to forthcoming rule changes.

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Yerry Rodriguez, RHP, Texas Rangers
Level: Low-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 14   FV: 40+
Line: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 BB, 6 K

Notes
If you’ve watched Padres righty Chris Paddack at all this spring, you’ve probably seen how he gets after hitters with his fastball at angles and in locations where they struggle to do anything with it, even in the strike zone. Though Rodriguez’s delivery doesn’t look anything like Paddack’s, the same concept applies, and Rodriguez is able to compete for swings and misses in the strike zone in a notable way. Lots of pitchers’ fastballs perform better than you’d expect given their velocity, but Rodriguez also throws hard. His changeup is good, and while I’ve taken umbrage with his breaking ball quality during in-person looks, he does have strong raw spin and his arm slot helps his breaker play up. I think there are a lot of strong components here and consider Rodriguez a dark horse top 100 candidate for next year.

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Editor’s Note: Josh Herzenberg spent three years as an area scout covering North Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas for the Dodgers. He also spent two years coaching, one with the Ogden Raptors and one with the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, predominantly working with pitchers and helping to integrate analytics into preparation for minor leaguers. He pitched at Oneonta State and has a Master’s Degree from Georgetown. He currently lives in New York City, where he works in finance, and will be contributing here at FanGraphs.

As someone born and raised in the northeast, the beginning of the professional baseball season has always been a marker, of sorts, of springtime finally arriving. That didn’t change in 2019, as Sunday afternoon’s Low-A matinee between the Phillies’ Lakewood Blueclaws and the Rangers’ Hickory Crawdads brought pleasant weather, plenty of sunshine, and some intriguing players to New Jersey. What follows are some of my notes from that game, with each player’s Top 100 and organizational ranking per Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel indicated where applicable.

Lakewood

Alec Bohm, 3B, Top 100 Rank: 66, Org Rank: 2
Bohm was the third overall pick out of Wichita State in 2018, lauded as a player with a chance to make an impact as a power hitting third baseman. Physically, he stands out on the field as advertised, with an XL frame and broad, strapping shoulders. There might be some more room to fill out the frame but that also might not be necessary – he’s a large human being already. Bohm smoked a double into right center field in his second plate appearance in what was an otherwise underwhelming day for him. The double – off an elevated sinker out over the plate – was a glimpse of Bohm’s ability to drive the ball, but I’m not convinced he’s going to be able to tap into that power consistently enough for it to make the impact the Phillies were likely hoping it would when they selected him in last year’s draft. He’s very compact and fails to get his hands extended through the zone, resulting in him effectively jamming himself and forcing him to work with a smaller hitting zone because of it.

Defensively, Bohm showed plenty of arm to stay at third base and his footwork was fine. He has long, loping strides and is a slower twitch mover, showing below average range on a play to his left, and running below average times on the basepaths throughout the day. I wouldn’t rule out his ability to stay at the hot corner long term but he will need to work on staying agile as he gets bigger in order to do so. The frame and the power is evident, but the bat path and lack of quick twitch drew some mild concerns in this one game look.

Luis Garcia, SS, Top 100 Rank: NA, Org Rank: 4
Garcia will play the entire 2019 season at age 18 and by the looks of his game on Sunday, he should have no trouble holding his own in the South Atlantic League. An undersized, scrappy middle infielder who made his professional debut last year, Garcia presents himself as more of a jack-of-all-trades player than one with a singular carrying tool. He’s a slick fielder at shortstop with enough arm to stay there and he showed good baseball IQ defensively, especially for a teenager, enough to assume he has the potential to play a super utility role in the future, which would ostensibly bode well given Phillies manager Gabe Kapler’s affinity for versatility. Garcia doesn’t pack a huge punch at the plate but showed a compact, rhythmic approach and good patience. I could foresee an average hit tool at his ceiling with power production that is more doubles- than home run-oriented. Garcia has the ceiling of an everyday player, but also likely has a higher-than-usual utility infielder type floor given his current level of polish.

Francisco Morales, RHP, Top 100 Rank: NA, Org Rank: 9
Morales is another intriguing teenage talent on a roster full of them, and threw well in his South Atlantic League debut on Sunday. A tall, fairly full framed 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher, Morales fits the bill physically as a workhorse and showed the early makings of a power arm. His fastball ranged from 92-95, touching 96, as he worked into the fifth inning. He showed good plane and was able to generate life through the zone. He leaned fairly heavily on a quality slider in the mid-80s, a short breaker that he seemed to have feel to manipulate to move either horizontally or vertically at will. It showed big league average consistently, with a chance to be better in the future.

Morales’s arm action is just fair, with a long, offline plunging type action and some effort at release. He moves athletically enough to repeat his delivery – especially on his slider – but there is some cause for concern with respect to long term sustainability and lack of a present third pitch to project a starter role long term. I think Morales settles in as a quality right-handed reliever long term with two offerings that are at least 55s, but would give him every chance to start at this point as the body, arm strength, and ability to spin a quality breaking ball stand out.

Victor Santos, RHP, Top 100 Rank: NA, Org Rank: 27
Santos continued Lakewood’s trend of making most evaluators (including this one) feel old, as he won’t be turning 19 until July. An average sized right-handed pitcher who looks relatively generic upon first glance, Santos impressed with his command and his ability to change speeds in Sunday’s extended relief look. After walking less than 2% of the batters he faced in the GCL in 2018, he continued his advanced command in this four inning outing, throwing 38 strikes against just 16 balls. He featured a three pitch mix, with a tailing fastball that worked 88-91, a short, low-80s slider, and a diving low-80s changeup. The changeup was the better of the two off-speed pitches on this day and he seemed comfortable with it in any count.

Santos is off to a fast start in his career and while only his changeup showed as a major league average offering on Sunday, he could have the ability to move quickly through the lower levels of the minor leagues due to his command and feel to change speeds. He’ll be worth monitoring moving forward to see how the stuff plays against better competition, and if it improves as he matures.

Hickory

Chris Seise, SS, Top 100 Rank: NA, Org Rank: 12
Seise was somewhat of a late riser in the 2017 high school draft class, enough that the Rangers decided to take him with the 29th overall pick out of West Orange High School in Central Florida. Seise flashed some power in his first pro season after signing but missed all of 2018 due to right rotator cuff surgery and is now back on the field and healthy in meaningful games for the first time in about 19 months. At 20 years old, Seise certainly looks the part of a big leaguer, filling out his uniform well with a high waist and very broad shoulders.

He has fluid, athletic actions defensively and moves both ways at shortstop with no problem. His first step quickness is probably about average at this point, which brings up some questions about his ability to stay at shortstop long term as he continues to get bigger. He showed no throwing issues during warmups and made just a few throws in game play, all of which were below average but didn’t necessitate more. I’ll reserve judgment on the arm strength until another look but for now, I’d say there’s enough risk that he doesn’t stay at shortstop due to the first step risk that assessing utility options – whether it be third base or center field (Seise is a plus runner underway presently) – could happen as early as 2019 Instructional League.

Offensively, Seise has something of an all-or-nothing approach, with plus bat speed and strength in his swing. There is some inherent swing-and-miss risk, but he has the ability to impact the baseball. Seise has everyday upside but carries a lot of risk due to questions about where he ends up defensively and if he’ll make enough contact to actualize his impressive athleticism and strength in the box.

Dylan Bice, RHP, Top 100 Rank: NA, Org Rank: NA
Bice was drafted in the 23rd round of the 2016 draft out of a Georgia high school and spent three years in the AZL, including a 2018 season that saw him throw just three innings. Now 21, Bice was impressive in his full season debut on Sunday, throwing 21 of 29 pitches for strikes in two innings of relief. He is a big bodied right-handed pitcher, standing at 6-foot-4 and listed at 220 pounds, although he looks a bit more than that.

He has a long arm stroke and a violent, effort-filled release that generally leads to both reliever projection and command questions long term. I do think Bice is a reliever, but he showed no command issues on this day. His fastball was 94-97 and averaged 96, with steep downhill plane and life through the zone. He throws from a high slot and could probably bode well working up in the zone with his fastball. His breaking ball, sort of a tweener, is currently an 82-85 mph slider that should probably be a curveball to play off a north-south profile long term. Bice showed some feel to spin the pitch and while it is fringy now, it could get to average with better shape. A big bodied reliever without a plus off-speed pitch isn’t someone who generally turns into anything more than a player with marginal impact at baseball’s highest level, but Bice is worth monitoring moving forward due to the big frame and arm strength.

12:23

Kiley McDaniel: here’s some high speed via twitter, two more pitches on the @fangraphs instagram:   FanGraphs Prospects @FG_Prospects   Last night @kileymcd saw our 15th-ranked 2019 draft prospect, FL prep righty Matt Allan, sit 94-96 and hit 97 until a rain delay. He also broke off a couple 65-grade breaking balls, here’s one of them fangraphs.com/prospects/the-… 10 Apr 2019

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These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Seuly Matias, RF, Kansas City Royals
Level: Hi-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 1   FV: 45+
Line: 3-for-4, 2B, 3B
Notes
Matias’ 34% career strikeout rate is a sizable red flag that ultimately is what kept him off our overall prospect rankings. With a few exceptions, even the most whiff-prone big leaguers struck out less than that when they were in the minors. But so gifted and physically dominant is Matias that we think he’ll be effective, even if it’s in a streaky, inconsistent way like Domingo Santana or Carlos Gomez. As a teen, he was already posting exit velocities on par with burly, Quad-A type hitters. We hope he learns to take a walk, but “Randal Grichuk with more raw power” is a good player, so we’re cautiously optimistic that the Royals at least have a good big leaguer here, and a potential superstar if there’s contact/approach refinement, which is admittedly easier said than done.

Nolan Gorman, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals
Level: Low-A   Age: 18   Org Rank: 3   FV: 50
Line: 2-for-5, 2 HR
Notes
The Cardinals gave Gorman some reps with the big league team during spring training, and a scout told me they thought it would make Low-A, where Gorman struck out 37% of the time for a month of 2018, appear slower and easier by comparison. He has reached base in each of his 2019 games, and six of his 10 hits have gone for extra bases. We considered Gorman one of the more advanced high school bats in last year’s class (he and Jarred Kelenic were the only two in that top tier) and thought he might move quickly if the strikeout issues that popped up during his senior spring could be remedied. It looks like Gorman is just going to strike out a little more than is ideal, but he also appears poised for a quick move to the upper levels of the minors. When is the right time for promotion? I’d give opposing pitchers the chance to make adjustments to Gorman, and vice versa, which means waiting until mid-May when he sees Beloit, Quad Cities, Wisconsin, and Cedar Rapids for the second time. If he hits until then, and those clubs can’t find a way to get him out the second time they see him, perhaps we see Gorman in Hi-A just after he turns 19.

Joey Bart, C, San Francisco Giants
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 1   FV: 55
Line: 2-for-5, HR, 2B, BB
Notes
Nothing to see here as Bart should be expected to hit for power in the Cal League both because of its offensive environment and because last year he teed off on ACC competition, which is second only to the SEC, in my opinion. It’s ironic that the top two picks in last year’s drafts seem likely to be ready for the majors well before their parent club is likely to be competitive, but perhaps it will behoove the Giants to move Bart to Double-A semi-early this summer if for no other reason than to get him working with that pitching staff, which I think has more future big league teammates on it than the group in San Jose does.

Josh Naylor, DH, San Diego Padres
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 11   FV: 50
Line: 3-for-6, 2 2B
Notes
Naylor should be monitored closely because he’s the type of hitter who could explode if he makes a relevant approach change. He has both huge raw power and excellent bat control, but his willingness to offer at pitches he can’t drive had limited his power output until 2018, when he homered 17 times at Double-A. If he learns to attack the right pitches, he’ll hit so much that it won’t matter that he doesn’t really have a defensive home. As Naylor is just 21, we’re cautiously optimistic that he will. It’s too early to draw conclusions from his stats but his pull% is currently much higher than is usual.

Trying New Things
I noticed two odd things while combing box scores last night. First, Astros prospect Myles Straw (17th on the Astros list) has been playing shortstop. A quick perusal of the interwebs unearthed this article in the Houston Chronicle, which reports that the Astros will give this a try for a few weeks and see if Straw can actually play there. Their upper levels have been so crowded with outfielders that many of those players have been traded, and seeing as Straw’s best tool (his defense) is made redundant by Jake Marisnick, it makes sense to explore his defensive versatility.

Similarly, the Rangers are trying 1B/LF/3B Andretty Cordero at second base. Unlikely to do enough damage to profile at first (where he’s seen the most time), Cordero’s bat was still notable enough to include him in the Others of Note section of the Rangers list. Should he prove passable at second base, he’ll be much more relevant.

Former shortstop Javy Guerra of the Padres has moved to the mound, and I’ve been told he’s sitting in the upper-90s with natural cut. He’s on the San Diego 40-man.