Yesterday, we gave you a little bit of a tease, giving you a glimpse into the making of FanGraphs Top 200 Prospect List. This morning, however, we present the list in its entirety, including scouting grades and reports for every prospect rated as a 50 Future Value player currently in the minor leagues. As discussed in the linked introduction, some notable international players were not included on the list, but their respective statuses were discussed in yesterday’s post. If you haven’t read any of the prior prospect pieces here on the site, I’d highly encourage you to read the introduction, which explains all of the terms and grades used below.

Additionally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you towards our YouTube channel, which currently holds over 600 prospect videos, including all of the names near the top of this list. Players’ individual videos are linked in the profiles below as well.

And lastly, before we get to the list, one final reminder that a player’s placement in a specific order is less important than his placement within a Future Value tier. Numerical rankings can give a false impression of separation between players who are actually quite similar, and you shouldn’t get too worked up over the precise placement of players within each tier. The ranking provides some additional information, but players in each grouping should be seen as more or less equivalent prospects.

If you have any questions about the list, I’ll be chatting today at noon here on the site (EDIT: here’s the chat transcript), and you can find me on Twitter at @kileymcd.

Alright, that’s enough stalling. Let’s get to this.

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Dexter Fowler played 959 innings in center field for the Astros in 2014, which is noteworthy mostly because he was traded to the Cubs on Monday, but also because of how poorly the defensive metrics rated him for those 959 innings. By Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) he was 20 runs below average and by Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) he was slightly worse.

Both metrics dinged Fowler for a poor arm, something that’s followed him for his entire career, but for the third time in his career, UZR gave his range horrible marks relative to other center fielders. DRS had previously been friendlier, but didn’t hold back in 2014 with respect to his range.

Fowler’s defense rates poorly by the leading defensive metrics with his career DRS and UZR per 1,000 innings sitting somewhere between -7 runs and -11 runs. Now this is almost exclusively in center field so Fowler gets a few of those runs back on the positional adjustment, but we’re basically talking about a bad center fielder who might be an average guy in a corner. This is all according to the metrics which, as plenty of people will remind you, are imperfect.

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I don’t think one should require much convincing that the Houston Astros are taking a worthwhile shot in signing Colby Rasmus. Most simply, it’s a one-year contract for a 28-year-old, and it’s worth just $8 million. Rasmus has had a volatile career — last year he finished with a .287 OBP — but he was still overall an average hitter. The season before, he was a lot better than that. The Astros had a role for Rasmus, after dealing Dexter Fowler. If he’s good, he’ll help. If he’s really good, he’ll be worth a qualifying offer. If he’s bad, well, lots of Astros have been bad, and Rasmus alone won’t stop the Astros from getting where they’re trying to go. At the end of the day, 2015 is just a season the Astros have to play out before the seasons they want to play out.

So I don’t think the contract is necessarily that interesting. Rasmus is talented, and he’s trying to bounce back. The Astros, as a team, aren’t as good as the Mariners, Angels or A’s, so it seems like they’ll be fighting the Rangers for fourth in the American League West. A year from now, I doubt we’ll be thinking much about this. But there is one interesting note we can discuss in more detail: Rasmus strikes out a lot. Several Astros strike out a lot. It seems like the Astros are going to strike out a lot.

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Both the Astros and the Cubs are in the process of a long-term build, yes. And in third baseman Luis Valbuena, starting pitcher Dan Straily, and outfielder Dexter Fowler, they’re moving three players that average close to 28 years old. Not everything these teams do needs to be focused on the far-term, though. With the second wild card, this year can be as important as any other.

When the Astros today sent Fowler to the Cubs for Valbuena and Straily, both teams traded from current surpluses to fill current needs.

The Cubs have infielders. With Starlin Castro, Javier Baez, Arismendy Alcantara, Luis Valbuena, Kris Bryant, and Addison Russell, they had an infield twice over. Once you factor in bust rates, that’s probably a good way to go about things. Since some in the community think the six-foot-five Kris Bryant is headed to the corner outfield, and Alcantara was already playing in the outfield, they might be have been able to fill both the infield and outfield eventually.

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It’s important to note this trade isn’t official yet. So it’s a little uncomfortable writing up an analysis, given that, who knows, something could go wrong in the physical. But, usually, those go fine, and even when they don’t, like in the case of the Matt Kemp deal, the trade might still go through anyway. So here’s what looks to be happening, in a Wednesday exchange between the Astros and the Braves:

Astros get:

• Evan Gattis

Braves get:

• Mike Foltynewicz
• Rio Ruiz
• Andrew Thurman

From the Braves’ side, it’s easy enough to understand. Despite the puzzling Nick Markakis deal, the Braves aren’t thinking about 2015, and they know Gattis doesn’t profile great as a corner outfielder, so they’re giving up a piece of value now for a trio of prospects. One of the prospects is very exciting. Another has people who think very highly of him. Even the third guy might have a future. The haul’s good enough to at least temporarily distract Braves fans from the current makeup of the big-league product.

It’s the other side that’s more interesting. Not that the Braves’ side isn’t interesting, but this is the Houston Astros turning prospects into a shorter-term asset. It’s not the first time they’ve done that; last offseason, they gave up a couple pieces for Dexter Fowler. And the Astros have lately made some shorter-term decisions, so perhaps we’re observing an accelerating shift in front-office mindset. But there are a few different ways this could go. It’s not immediately clear where the Astros think they might be in eight or ten months.

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After having typically appeared in the very hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have been released at FanGraphs the past couple years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Houston Astros. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Other Projections: Atlanta / Chicago AL / Colorado / Detroit / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Oakland / San Francisco / St. Louis / Tampa Bay / Washington.

Batters
Speaking on the topic of happiness, Greek philosopher Epicurus endorsed not the unadulterated pursuit of greater and ever more lavish pleasures, as is frequently believed. Almost the opposite, in fact. By only occasionally indulging in a “pot of cheese,” for example, Epicurus effectively lowered his threshold for pleasure, such that easy attainable goods or experiences could provide it in sufficient quantity.

Compared to other major-league teams, the Astros do not appear particularly strong. Only three of their hitters, for example — or seven fewer than on the Dodgers — are projected to reach the two-win threshold this year. Compared to the 2014 edition of the club, however, this would represent a 200% improvement. A strong collection of young talent in the minors serves as further grounds for optimism.

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I’ve said it before but could stand to say it again: prospect rankings don’t have a long shelf life.  Usually, players ranked in the offseason don’t change much over that offseason, or at least we don’t have a chance to see any changes since they normally aren’t playing organized ball.  Every now and then a player with limited information (like a Cuban defector that signed late in the season) will go to a winter league and we’ll learn more, but most times, players look mostly the same in the fall/winter leagues, or more often a tired version of themselves.

This means that updating prospect rankings before we have a nice sample of regular season games to judge by (say, late April), seems pretty foolish.  The two mitigating factors in the case of my rankings is that I started ranking players before instructional league and the Arizona Fall League started and I also did draft rankings, which are constantly in flux.

I was on the road 17 of the last 18 days, seeing July 2nd prospects (recap here), draft prospects and minor league prospects.  I’ll take this chance to provide some updates to my draft rankings from September and below that, some players that looked to have improved at the AFL, particularly those from clubs whose prospects I’ve already ranked.

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Sometimes, a transaction is so immediately obvious you don’t have to spend any time at all trying to work out the rationale behind it. Other times, a transaction only seems that immediately obvious, because we’re not privy to all of the relevant information. In each case, though, we get to pretend like the move in question is immediately obvious, because we can’t know what we don’t know, and on Wednesday, the Astros made a trade. They got a guy they like, and they like him because of course they like him.

The Astros got one guy for two guys, giving up catcher Carlos Perez and pitcher Nick Tropeano. Perez might take over as the Angels’ backup, and Tropeano might manage to crack the Angels’ starting rotation. But the guy the Astros added is Hank Conger, and though Conger’s is by no means any sort of household name, you could say the Astros just got their Jose Molina. Have I mentioned lately that the Astros employ Mike Fast? Do I even need to?

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When our other prospect writers submit scouting reports, I will provide a short background and industry consensus tool grades.  There are two reasons for this: 1) giving context to account for the writer seeing a bad outing (never threw his changeup, coming back from injury, etc.) and 2) not making him go on about the player’s background or speculate about what may have happened in other outings.

The writer still grades the tools based on what they saw, I’m just letting the reader know what he would’ve seen in many other games from this season, particularly with young players that may be fatigued late in the season. The grades are presented as present/future on the 20-80 scouting scale and very shortly I’ll publish a series going into more depth explaining these grades.   -Kiley

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Red Sox, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals & White Sox

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Amateur Coverage: 2015 Draft Rankings, 2015 July 2 Top Prospects & Latest on Yoan Moncada

The Astros have an above average system as far as depth and high end talent, though that’s expected given their draft position and international bonus pools the last few years and where they are in their rebuild plan.  The system would obviously look better with LHP Brady Aiken included (I’d rank him 2nd or 3rd, for those wondering), but the top 11 prospects I’ve ranked should all be in Double-A or higher next year.  Help is on the way and there’s two more top-10 picks (here’s an early list of candidates) that will be on this list next year to replace some of the graduating talent.

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