Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mariners-A’s opening series, the emotional last game featuring Ichiro Suzuki, and the uncertain degree to which the recent rash of contract extensions reflects players’ anxiety about free agency, then preview the 2019 New York Yankees (38:17) with The Athletic’s Yankees beat writer, Lindsey Adler, and the 2019 Miami Marlins (1:14:31) with The Athletic’s Marlins beat writer, Andre Fernandez.
When publishing our lists — in particular, the top 100 — we’re frequently asked who, among the players excluded from this year’s version, might have the best chance of appearing on next year’s version. Whose stock are we buying? This post represents our best attempt to answer all of those questions at once.
This is the second year that we’re doing this, and we have some new rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. So while we think Austin Hays might have a bounce back year and be a 50 FV again, we’re not allowed to include him here; you already know about him. We also forbid ourselves from using players who were on last year’s inaugural list. (We were right about 18 of the 63 players last year, a 29% hit rate, though we have no idea if that’s good or not, as it was our first time engaging in the exercise.) At the end of the piece, we have a list of potential high-leverage relievers who might debut this year. They’re unlikely to ever be a 50 FV or better because of their role, but they often have a sizable impact on competitive clubs, and readers seemed to like that we had that category last year.
We’ve separated this year’s players into groups or “types” to make it a little more digestible, and to give you some idea of the demographics we think pop-up guys come from, which could help you identify some of your own with THE BOARD. For players who we’ve already covered this offseason, we included a link to the team lists, where you can find a full scouting report. We touch briefly on the rest of the names in this post. Here are our picks to click:
Teenage Pitchers
Torres was young for his draft class, is a plus athlete, throws really hard, and had surprisingly sharp slider command all last summer. White looked excellent in the fall when the Rangers finally allowed their high school draftees to throw. He sat 92-94, and his changeup and breaking ball were both above-average. Pardinho and Woods Richardson are the two advanced guys in this group. Thomas is the most raw but, for a someone who hasn’t been pitching for very long, he’s already come a long way very quickly.
The “This is What They Look Like” Group
If you like big, well-made athletes, this list is for you. Rodriguez was physically mature compared to his DSL peers and also seems like a mature person. The Mariners have indicated they’re going to send him right to Low-A this year. He could be a middle-of-the-order, corner outfield power bat. Luciano was the Giants’ big 2018 July 2 signee. He already has huge raw power and looks better at short than he did as an amateur. Canario has elite bat speed. Adams was signed away from college football but is more instinctive than most two-sport athletes. Most of the stuff he needs to work on is related to getting to his power.
Advanced Young Bats with Defensive Value
This is the group that produces the likes of Vidal Brujan and Luis Urias. Edwards is a high-effort gamer with 70 speed and feel for line drive contact. Marcano isn’t as stocky and strong as X, but he too has innate feel for contact, and could be a plus middle infield defender. Perez has great all-fields contact ability and might be on an Andres Gimenez-style fast track, where he reaches Double-A at age 19 or 20. Ruiz is the worst defender on this list, but he has all-fields raw power and feel for contact. He draws Alfonso Soriano comps. Palacios is the only college prospect listed here. He had three times as many walks as strikeouts at Towson last year. Rosario controls the zone well, is fast, and is a plus defender in center field.
Corner Power Bats
Nevin will probably end up as a contact-over-power first baseman, but he might also end up with a 70 bat. He looked great against Fall League pitching despite having played very little as a pro due to injury. Lavigne had a lot of pre-draft helium and kept hitting after he signed. He has all-fields power. Apostel saw reps at first during instructs but has a good shot to stay at third. He has excellent timing and explosive hands.
College-aged Pitchers
It’s hard to imagine any of these guys rocketing into the top 50 overall. Rather, we would anticipate that they end up in the 60-100 range on next year’s list. Gilbert was a workhorse at Stetson and his velo may spike with reshaped usage. Singer should move quickly because of how advanced his command is. Lynch’s pre-draft velocity bump held throughout the summer, and he has command of several solid secondaries. Abreu spent several years in rookie ball and then had a breakout 2018, forcing Houston to 40-man him to protect him from the Rule 5. He’ll tie Dustin May for the second-highest breaking ball spin rate on THE BOARD when the Houston list goes up. We’re intrigued by what Dodgers player dev will do with an athlete like Gray. Phillips throws a ton of strikes and has a good four-pitch mix.
Bounce Back Candidates
The Dodgers have a strong track record of taking severely injured college arms who return with better stuff after a long period of inactivity. That could be Grove, their 2018 second rounder, who missed most of his sophomore and junior seasons at West Virginia. McCarthy was also hurt during his junior season and it may have obscured his true abilities. Burger is coming back from multiple Achilles ruptures, but was a strong college performer with power before his tire blew.
Catchers
We’re very excited about the current crop of minor league catchers. Naylor is athletic enough that he’s likely to improve as a defender and he has rare power for the position.
Potentially Dominant Relievers
These names lean “multi-inning” rather than “closer.” Gonsolin was a two-way player in college who has been the beneficiary of sound pitch design. He started last year but was up to 100 mph out of the bullpen the year before. He now throws a four seamer rather than a sinker and he developed a nasty splitter in 2017. He also has two good breaking balls. He has starter stuff but may break in as a reliever this year.
Everyone is waiting for the Phillies to sign one of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. It seems almost inevitable that the Phillies will sign one of Bryce Harper and Manny Machado. There’s some chance it even happens today! Who knows? But while the world has waited for the Phillies to signal that they’re going for it, they’ve already added a new everyday outfielder in Andrew McCutchen. They’ve already added a new everyday shortstop in Jean Segura. They’ve already added a new late-inning reliever in David Robertson. And now they’ve added a new regular catcher.
And so ends the drawn-out, months-long Realmuto sweepstakes, that saw him connected to a couple handfuls of teams. Just last week, I thought Realmuto was going to be traded to the Reds. The Phillies came almost out of nowhere. But, like the Reds, they’ve spent the offseason acting aggressively, and I can’t imagine they’re finished. The NL Central is going to be a hell of a division. And, the NL East is going to be a hell of a division. The Marlins are going to get beat up on the regular as a consequence, but then, they knew what they were getting into.
It feels like, any minute now, J.T. Realmuto will officially be on the move. He might even get officially traded while I’m busy writing this article. According to the latest reports, Realmuto is likely to be dealt to the Phillies, in exchange for a package including Sixto Sanchez and Jorge Alfaro (plus more). I don’t know what might be left for the teams to overcome. Again, press releases seem almost inevitable. With Sanchez as the centerpiece, the Marlins ought to be satisfied.
If and when this reaches a resolution, it’ll mark the end of a drawn-out sweepstakes. Realmuto always seemed like baseball’s most probable trade candidate. As much as the Marlins have wanted to keep him around, a contract extension requires interest from both parties, and Realmuto has wanted out. So a trade was going to happen. A trade involving some manner of top prospect was going to happen. What we didn’t know was where Realmuto would ultimately end up. He’s now linked to the Phillies. He’s been linked to the Reds. He’s been linked to the Braves, and the Padres, and the Dodgers, and the Rays, and even more teams on top of that. A whole lot of baseball has wanted J.T. Realmuto.
So let’s talk about that for a few minutes. For many of you, this will be simple review. But, why has Realmuto been in such demand? It’s because he might well be the best catcher in the game.
After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for more than half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Miami Marlins.
The lineup projections didn’t come out as poorly as I expected, though that may just mean I’m a particularly pessimistic individual. J.T. Realmuto is for real, of course, but that pretty little 3.6 WAR in the graphic may well be replaced with a WAR figure starting with a zero by the time the season actually starts. The effort to trade Realmuto has been a fascinating process, now going on for the better part of a year, with the team making noise that it would take a phenomenal offer for them to part with the catcher. Now, it could be interpreted as posturing, given that the team reportedly asked for the stars for the members of their Giancarlo Stanton/Christian Yelich/Marcell Ozuna outfield and settled for a moon pie. But I’m coming around to the idea that if Realmuto actually could be acquired for an ordinary package, he’d already be gone at this point. With the large-market teams continuing to display a real tendency to avoid spending, there may be a less willingness to part with a large pile of top prospects, those being needed to continue this cheap frugal strategy.
ZiPS isn’t yet impressed with Austin Dean, but outside of his modest projection, the only gaping wound — I’m still more optimistic than ZiPS on Brinson, though my cheerful good nature is dissipating — is at first base, where ZiPS projects the Marlins to have a worse first base situation than the Orioles do. Generally speaking, you’d like your first baseman to be above the Chris Davis Line. O’Brien did have a decent cameo appearance with the big league club, but he has a rather pedestrian minor league record and little defensive value. There’s one caveat though: O’Brien really did show far more patience than he ever had before in his brief stint in Miami, which is at least a good sign. He’s always had power and if his approach at the plate continues to be more scientific than his previous method of smashing lab equipment with a meteor hammer while blindfolded, perhaps he can make the computer look foolish.
There’s very little regression projected from Brian Anderson, which is also a positive note. Well, it’s positive if he does it; Anderson is one of the bigger disagreements ZiPS has with Steamer. If he can, it’ll improve the package the Marlins get in a trade when they’re required to pay Anderson something commensurate with his contributions!
One of the strangest rumors so far this offseason was the late buzz that the Marlins were interested in Nick Markakis. Markakis likely would have been a short-term upgrade over Dean, but it’s hard to see what the point would have been. Even if we accept for the sake of argument that fans will come out to see an additional win or two from a bad team, this is the Marlins we’re talking about. After so much ill will richly earned by the organization, they may be at the point where it takes something of a miracle to grow the fanbase; this isn’t a matter of winning 65 game instead of 64. Markakis has been safely returned to Atlanta, a destination that makes far more sense for him; the Marlins have safely returned to their paltry outfield projection.
Pitchers
The biggest positive here is Pablo Lopez, one of four players picked up from the Mariners in the David Phelps trade back in 2017. ZiPS doesn’t project a Luis Severino-esque breakout season for Lopez, but it does have him as a contributing, if fairly ordinary, starting pitcher. Even more, ZiPS has Lopez as the team’s best starting pitcher, and does so with an unusual level of certainty for a minor league pitcher of the non-elite variety.
Lopez is far from guaranteed a rotation spot in spring training, which strikes me as a mistake. If the team is actually serious about a full-on rebuild, rather than simply lurching from fire sale to fire sale to bide time between new ballparks, it’s important to see as much of pitchers like Lopez, Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen, and Caleb Smith as possible.
There’s unlikely to be much of a market for Wei-Yin Chen or Dan Straily no matter how long you “showcase” them. There are only so many roster spots and it will be harder to give pitchers like Lopez an extended audition with some of the pressure from below (Nick Neidert, Edward Cabrera, Jorge Guzman, etc.). If the Marlins want to be eternally “thrifty,” then they need to run the roster in such a way where they can find the inexpensive players who will actually make that strategy possible.
Bench and Prospects
It’s galling, but ZiPS isn’t terribly hopeful about the chances of the team getting any core players from the Stanton/Yelich/Ozuna dealing. My colleagues Kiley McDaniel and Eric Longenhagen are more optimistic, and Marlins fans have to be pulling for them to make the computer look foolish. What it comes down to is that ZiPS wants to see, at some point, the raw power actually become game power for Isan Diaz, and in the case of Monte Harrison, for him to not strike out 200 times in Double-A. Brinson’s struggles in the majors have been well-documented, and you don’t want me to tell you what projection percentile Magneuris Sierra has to meet in order to match the dizzying heights of Tom Goodwin.
Overall, the minor league system is still in the below-average range, but it’s certainly improved from the desolate days of recent yore, when a mannequin dressed up as Nolan Ryan might have made the team’s top 20 list.
If I apply human feelings to ZiPS, I think it would like to see Miguel Rojas get a chance at being a stopgap shortstop for someone. It would have to happen fairly quickly, as he’ll turn 30 next month, but with 2.4 WAR in 834 PA over the last two seasons, a projection in the same time zone as two wins for 2019, and the ability to play multiple positions well, he could be a solid fill-in for someone in an emergency. I mean, a major league team* actually voluntarily played Alcides Escobar in 2018.
*Legally, the 2018 Royals were part of major league baseball.
One pedantic note for 2019: for the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth chart playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.
Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2019. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.
Players are listed with their most recent teams, unless I have made a mistake. This is very possible, as a lot of minor-league signings go generally unreported in the offseason.
ZiPS’ projections are based on the American League having a 4.29 ERA and the National League having a 4.15 ERA.
Players who are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information, and a computer isn’t the tool that should project the injury status of, for example, a pitcher who has had Tommy John surgery.
Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.
Pitchers in the Astros organization were K-happy this past season. Thanks to a bevy of power arms and analytics-based attack plans, each of Houston’s full-season minor league affiliates led its respective league in strikeouts. So did their short-season and, most notably, their big-league club.
Given that he’d spent the last six seasons as a high-ranking member of Houston’s front office, I asked Mike Elias if that’s something that could maybe be replicated in Baltimore.
“We’re very much hoping to replicate even a semblance of that success here,” answered the Orioles Executive Vice President and General Manager. “The fact that we have (Assistant GM, Analytics) Sig Mejdal here, and Chris Holt, who was our assistant pitching coordinator in Houston, makes me feel really good about our chances of doing so. There is a little bit of a secret sauce behind that. I’m not going to explain it fully, but we had a great program there. We took a lot of time developing it, and we want to get it in place here as well.”
Hoping to glean at least a little insight into the secret sauce’s ingredients, I suggested that both draft and player development strategies are involved in the process. Read the rest of this entry »
Brian Anderson knows who he is as a hitter; he’s less sure of what kind of hitter he’ll be in the years to come. At 25 years of age with just 765 big-league plate appearances under his belt, the fourth-place finisher in last year’s NL Rookie of the Year balloting has a lot of growth in front of him.
Drafted by the Marlins out of the University of Arkansas in 2014, Anderson has displayed reliability, versatility, and a smooth right-handed stroke since arriving in Miami in September 2017. Manning both third base and right field, he finished the 2018 campaign with a .273/.357/.400 slash line and a team-high 34 doubles. Moreover, he was a mainstay in Don Mattingly’s lineup. Anderson was a spectator in just five games.
One thing he didn’t do often was leave the yard. Partly the result of playing in pitcher-friendly Marlins Park, Anderson homered a paltry 11 times. Which circles us back to the “what kind of hitter he’ll be in the years to come?” question. Anderson doesn’t lack raw power. It’s a matter of tapping into it more consistently as he continues to mature as a hitter.
Anderson discussed his gap-to-gap approach, as well as his long-ball potential, when the Marlins visited Fenway Park late last August.
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Brian Anderson on hitting: “It’s about getting my pitches to hit. More specifically, getting good pitches within my approach and putting a good swing on them. It starts with my work in the cage, and then BP is for working on barreling the ball to all parts of the field. It’s for making sure that I’m hitting the ball the right way.
“Once I’m in the box, it kind of depends on the pitcher. Certain pitchers don’t throw to certain spots, and some pitchers are most vulnerable in certain spots. I like the ball more out over the plate. I like it more down in the zone and middle to middle away. That’s kind of the zone I try to lock in on, and I’ll try to drive that ball to right center. If I get hanging off-speed, or a heater in, then I’m (pulling the ball). Generally speaking, I’m more focused on the middle of the field. Read the rest of this entry »
Early last year, I wrote about the lawsuit Miami had filed against the Marlins and Jeffrey Loria, alleging that Jeffrey Loria had used “fuzzy math” to depress the value of his club and avoid paying a share of the team’s sale proceeds to Miami and Miami-Dade County. (The County is also a party to suit against the Marlins and Loria.) With the new year starting, this seems like a good time to check in on the state of the suit.
When we last looked at this case, the Marlins, under the new ownership group helmed by Bruce Sherman and Derek Jeter, rather dubiously claimed British citizenship as a way of moving the lawsuit to federal court (a process called “removal”) and attempting to force arbitration. Despite the less than stellar optics and even more questionable legal basis for the argument, the team nonetheless went all-in on their position that the team was, at least in part, a foreign citizen. In response, Miami sent Laurence Leavy – the attorney better known as “Marlins Man” for his formerly ubiquitous presence at Marlins games – and radio personality Andy Slater to the British Virgin Islands office where the team’s lawyers argued that one of the companies which owned the team, Aberneu, was ostensibly located. In a revelation that surprised no one, Aberneu, it turned out, had no offices or physical presence there – just a post office box. The Marlins, however, didn’t appreciate Slater’s involvement, and responded by revoking Slater’s press pass.
At oral argument on the issue of the team’s citizenship in July, the county emphasized that the team was, in all meaningful ways, an American company that did business in Florida, and showed the judge the evidence obtained from Slater and Leavy’s investigation. At that hearing, Judge Darrin Gayles indicated that she was skeptical of the team’s claim of British citizenship.
THE COURT: As I understand it, there is no question that the purchaser in this case is a U.S. corporation or is a U.S. entity. Right?
MR. DOYLE [attorney for the Jeter/Sherman group]: That is not correct, Your Honor. The buyer is an LLC that its citizenship is determined by its members under Supreme Court precedent and it has a non-U.S. member. So, therefore, it is the citizen of both the United States and outside the United States, foreign.
THE COURT: All right. So in situations where an LLC has dual citizenship, U.S. and foreign, can you point to me specific cases that say that in that situation it is a foreign country for purposes of the [New York] Convention [governing arbitration agreements]?
MR. DOYLE: Your Honor, we have not found such a case [.]
And later, Judge Gayles asked Doyle why the Marlins hadn’t attempted to raise the arbitration issue previously, before the state court. Doyle responded that “[t]he issue of the citizenship of the buyer was not known to me as counsel for the seller and it was in an investigation afterwards . . . that led us to discover that the buyer was, in fact, a dual citizen, foreign and domestic. So that information was discovered after the state court hearing.” That’s not entirely true, however – in fact, the team had moved to arbitrate the dispute in state court, and the state court judge, Beatrice Butchko, denied the motion on February 22, 2018, very early in the case.
So as you can probably see (and you can read the whole transcript for yourself if you’re interested), the Marlins’ attorneys weren’t really able to do a good job of articulating how a company that is both a citizen of the United States and a citizen of a foreign country somehow only qualifies as a foreign company for purposes of the law, nor were they able to explain adequately why they didn’t raise the arbitration issue before the state court when the case was first filed.
And so it was perhaps unsurprising when the Court denied the Marlins’ request to arbitrate the case in early August and sent it back to state court (a process called “remand”). Judge Gayles wrote that the team “face[s] an uphill battle in establishing the requisite citizenship to confer jurisdiction under the Convention[,]” adding that “[t]he Loria Marlins’ assignment of their rights to the Jeter Marlins likely did not . . . confer a more expansive right to arbitrate under the Convention.” In other words, the Court didn’t at all believe that the Marlins were a British citizen, and sent the case back to state court for the state judge to decide whether the case was arbitrable on the grounds that the state court had already taken the first steps towards doing just that in its February ruling (the one Doyle evidently forgot about).
Now, you might think that the Marlins and Loria, unable to arbitrate after having two courts deny their request, and stuck in a state court that had already indicated displeasure with Loria’s creative accounting techniques, would open lines of communication to resolve the case. After all, to this point, the case doesn’t appear to be going all that well for the team or Loria. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the team and Loria appealed the state court’s denial of their arbitration request even though the case wasn’t over yet. Appealing a non-final order is called an “interlocutory appeal,” and, regardless of what you see on television, it’s actually pretty extraordinary. The general rule in every state – and Florida is no exception – is that you can’t appeal until after a case is over, because appellate courts tend not to like piecemeal appeals; they want to look at everything at once.
In fact, the very first thing the team did once the case was back in state court was to file what’s called a “Notice of Appeal” – the document beginning the appeal under Florida law. The team then asked for a stay of all proceedings for the appellate court to weigh in on the arbitration issue that two courts had already looked at and denied. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, again! At this point, an evidently exasperated Judge Butchko denied the stay outright on October 2, 2018, essentially ordering the team and Loria to stop playing around with demands for arbitration and start litigating the merits of the case.
Things looked very bleak indeed for the team and then, late last year, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal granted review (essentially accepting the case), and issued an order staying all proceedings – ordering everything to stop – until they’d looked at the case and decided the arbitration issue. That means that the whole case is essentially in limbo until a third court decides the same issue that two courts already have.
Now, as a matter of law, Butchko and Gayles largely got it right. But it’s also possible that the Appellate Court decides that it wants this case out of the judicial system; judicial economy is a virtue appellate courts adore, and it’s one of the primary reasons arbitration is so often upheld. Courts like the idea of cases being decided by someone who isn’t them, because (theoretically) it frees up judicial resources and relieves case backlogs. That being said, appellate courts tend to move pretty slowly, and it could very well be late 2019 or early 2020 before this issue is decided.
In 2018, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people within baseball. Many of their words were shared in my Sunday Notes column, while others came courtesy of the FanGraphs Q&A series, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series, the Manager’s Perspective series, and a smattering of feature stories. Here is a selection of the best quotes from this year’s conversations.
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“My slider will come out and it will be spinning, spinning, spinning, and then as soon as it catches, it picks up speed and shoots the other way. Whoosh! It’s like when you bowl. You throw the ball, and then as soon as it catches, it shoots with more speed and power. Right? “ — Sergio Romo, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher, January 2018
“One of the biggest lessons we learn is that iron sharpens iron. That is 100% how we try to do things with the Rockies — hiring people that are smarter than we are, and more skilled, and have different skills that can complement, and train people to be better at their jobs than I am at my job. That’s how you advance an organization.” — Jeff Bridich, Colorado Rockies GM, January 2018
“We could split hairs and say, ‘Hey, you’re playing in front of a thousand drunk Australians instead of 40,000 drunk Bostonians, and you’re living with a host family instead of at a five-star hotel.’ But The Show is The Show, and in Australia the ABL is The Show.” — Lars Anderson, baseball nomad, January 2018
“Baseball is heaven. Until our closer blows the game.” — Michael Hill, Miami Marlins president of baseball operations, January 2018Read the rest of this entry »
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Miami Marlins. 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.
**Editor’s Note: Sixto Sanchez and Will Stewart were added to this list on 2/7/2019, after they were acquired from Philadelphia for J.T. Realmuto.**
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.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2014 from Dominican Republic (PHI)
Age
20.5
Height
6′ 0″
Weight
185
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
60
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
65/65
45/50
55/60
50/60
45/55
94-98 / 101
Sanchez’s first 2019 start — during which he walked an uncharacteristically high four hitters and spent much of the outing rotating his head and neck about his shoulders, and stretching his arm and upper back — was perhaps a harbinger of things to come; his season would later end due to multiple injuries. After that rough first start, his stuff and command were as they usually are. He was generating upper-90s velocity with ease, his breaking balls were crisp, and his changeups were well-located and moving. He walked just seven hitters in his final seven starts of the year before succumbing to elbow inflammation, which ended his regular season in early-June. Sanchez rehabbed in Florida in anticipation of an Arizona Fall League assignment and threw some tune up innings early during the 2018 fall instructional league, his stuff intact and ready for Arizona. Then he awoke one morning with soreness in his collarbone. After an MRI it was determined that Sixto would have to shut things down for a bit and head to Arizona quite late, so he was just shelved for the year. Sanchez has now missed time to injury in two consecutive seasons. In each year, he has often been given extended rest between starts and dealt with issues in his neck and collarbone area. That isn’t ideal and all else being equal, we’d rather have a pitching prospect without this kind of injury history. But all else isn’t equal when one lines up Sixto’s stuff and command, both of which are very advanced for a conversion arm so new to pitching, against the stuff and command of other minor league pitchers. This is one of the most talented pitching prospects on Earth, one with top of the rotation potential. He’s still only 20 so the fact that injuries have diluted his innings output isn’t a huge issue yet. Hopefully he has a healthy, robust 2019 and gets back on track to debut in 2020.
Drafted: 2nd Round, 2014 from Springfield HS (MA) (ARI)
Age
22.7
Height
5′ 10″
Weight
185
Bat / Thr
L / R
FV
50
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
40/55
60/60
45/50
40/40
45/50
55/55
In mid-May, already mired in a six-week slump during which he hit just .194, Diaz was struck in the helmet by a fastball and missed ten days with a concussion. He began to perform when he returned, slashing .288/.400/.488 over the next six weeks and earning a promotion to Triple-A New Orleans. We have eyeball reports that Diaz struggled to turn on pitches this year and has adopted more of a line drive approach, each of which is backed up by data, as his ground ball rate is up and his pull rate is down. These issues may have been timing-related, perhaps the lingering effects from the concussion, rather than the result of a mechanical change. Diaz still projects as a three-true-outcomes hitter who plays a premium defensive position. He has a 12% career walk rate as a pro and plus raw power we feel confident Diaz will get to in games given how readily he hit the ball in the air. Diaz isn’t great at second base, but his mediocre range can be aided by proper defensive positioning, and his arm strength should enable him to make the longer throws demanded of second baseman by shifts. His arm would play at third base, too, though Diaz has never played there. There’s some risk he underperforms with the bat and is a mediocre defensive second baseman, but because of his power and patience, his floor seems to look like Yoan Moncada’s 2018 season, which was good for 2 WAR. As such, it seems likely that Diaz will become a solid everyday player.
Drafted: 2nd Round, 2014 from Lee’s Summit West HS (MO) (MIL)
Age
23.5
Height
6′ 3″
Weight
220
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
50
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
30/35
65/65
45/55
60/60
50/60
70/70
If ever there were an athletic contest in which players from across multiple leagues had to compete against one another in all of their respective sports, Harrison would be a top five pick. An athletic deity in high school, Harrison was a star in every sport. He was an acrobatic dunker and a dominant open-field runner, who was signed away from a football commitment to Nebraska for $1.8 million. For much of his pro career, Harrison has either been hurt or underperformed. Aside from his .270/.350/.480 season in 2017, he has struggled to make contact, especially in 2018, when he struck out in 37% of his plate appearances, and a minor league leading 215 times. Despite this, Harrison nearly posted yet another 20/20 season and improved so much as a defensive player that he’s now considered plus in center. The Marlins sent him to the Arizona Fall League with a desire to see some kind of bat-to-ball improvement. Harrison responded by ditching his leg kick. His strikeout rate in Arizona was 25% — better than the summer, but still not great — and he hit for almost no power there. His issues with strikeouts weren’t, in our opinion, caused by excessive movement in his swing but rather by things like breaking ball recognition, bat path, and hand-eye coordination. Those aren’t things that can be remedied by mechanical changes, and we’d rather an athlete like this be moving a lot at the plate to help ensure he’s getting to as much of that power as possible, even if it means living with a lot of strikeouts. There’s a wide range of outcomes possible for a talent like this, ranging from Carlos Gomez to Colby Rasmus to B.J. Upton to Drew Stubbs to Jake Marisnick. Harrison is a premium athlete with good makeup who should get plenty of opportunity to cure his own ills at the big league level. We think he’s likely to be frustrating, but reasonably valuable, and possibly have some star-level seasons in his late twenties.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2013 from Dominican Republic (STL)
Age
23.4
Height
6′ 4″
Weight
170
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
50
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
65/65
55/55
45/50
55/60
40/45
93-97 / 99
We’ve learned a lot about Alcantara’s stuff based on the data we have from his 2017 relief-only cup of coffee with St. Louis and from his larger, eight-start September 2018 carafe with Miami. The Marlins gave Alcantara his curveball back after it appeared that St. Louis had shelved it late last year, but there’s now release point data supporting the anecdotal evidence that the right-hander raises his arm slot when he throws it. It’s also clear that despite high-end velocity, Alcantara’s fastball isn’t going to miss that many bats. He’s created greater demarcation in the movement between his four and two-seamers, that latter of which pairs well with his improving changeup, which now projects to be Alcantara’s best secondary pitch. There’s a strong chance he either ends up in relief due to issues with his fastball efficacy stemming from limited command and movement, but even if that’s the case, he’s a four-pitch reliever with two plus offerings, and that probably plays at the back of a bullpen.
Drafted: 2nd Round, 2015 from Peachtree Ridge HS (GA) (SEA)
Age
22.2
Height
6′ 1″
Weight
180
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
45+
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
45/45
45/50
60/60
55/60
89-91 / 94
A quintessential changeup/command righty, Neidert carved up Double-A hitters with surgical precision and ended his 2018 with a 25% strikeout rate and 5% walk rate in 152 innings. Big leaguers with similar peripherals and similarly below-average velocity include Zack Greinke (whom Neidert mimics, mechanically), Marco Gonzales, and Kyle Hendricks. There’s precedent for success in spite of poor velocity, and several of those case studies tout changeups and fastball command, but many of them also involve a deeper repertoire than Neidert has, which is rounded out by a pedestrian curveball. Without something else, Neidert projects as more of a No. 4 or 5 starter than he does a mid-rotation arm. He’s only 22, so there’s a chance that happens. There’s also a chance his changeup and command become elite and he mimics Kyle Hendricks’ career very closely.
It took four trades for bonus space to sufficiently pad the Marlins’ international free agent coffers in excess of Baltimore’s top mark, or at least to come close enough that the appeal of Miami made up the difference, and snag the Mesa brothers. The pair signed for $6.25 million, $5.25 million of which went to 22-year-old Victor Victor. Mesa began playing in Cuba’s Series Nacional when he was 16. He had a breakout ’16-’17 at age 20 and swiped 40 bags while slashing .354/.399/.539. He was seen stateside the following summer during Cuba’s tour of the CanAm League, but didn’t play well. After he defected, teams’ only looks at Mesa were in a workout setting. Cuban prospects have sometimes undergone drastic physical transformations between the point at which they’ve last been observed in Cuba and their workouts for teams. Sometimes these changes are positive, as with Luis Robert, who looked like an Ancient Greek sculpture when he worked out for teams in the Dominican Republic in 2017. Sometimes they are not; Yasiel Puig’s living conditions made it impossible for him to remain in baseball shape for his eventual workout in Mexico. But this was not the case with Mesa, who retained the sort of physicality he possessed during his last several years in Cuba. He ran a plus-plus 60-yard dash time, threw well, and hit some balls out to his pull side during batting practice. Mesa has a linear, contact-oriented swing that we think will lead to below-average power output in games. He can hit, defend, and add value on the bases, but there’s real doubt about the game application of his power. In aggregate, it looks like an average to slightly below-average offensive profile on an above-average defender at a premium position, which amounts to a low-risk, moderate impact prospect who should be ready for the big leagues relatively soon. He garners frequent comparisons to Cubs CF Albert Almora.
Scott was a big name as a freshman at Tampa’s Plant High School during the draft year of teammate and eventual fifth overall pick Kyle Tucker. Scott was his spitting image, with a lanky frame and a loose, gloveless lefty swing. Scott is a superior athlete to Tucker; he has been into the mid-90’s on the mound, with three average or better pitches and 70 speed that profiles in center field. Scott doesn’t appear to like pitching, so scouts haven’t seen him throw much, but he’s easily a prospect in the top five rounds on the hill. The Marlins popped Scott with the 13th pick and there was some disagreement in the industry about his projection. He had a number of minor injuries in the spring and only went to a couple showcases in the summer, so scouts have different reads on his hitting ability, though they agree he has a pretty swing and premium athleticism. Scott’s lanky frame may not fill out much more, but scouts like his makeup and aren’t worried about the swing-and-miss in his pro debut, as he was just getting an early taste of his 2019 assignment in Low-A.
Drafted: 1st Round, 2016 from Florence HS (AL) (MIA)
Age
21.5
Height
6′ 3″
Weight
190
Bat / Thr
L / L
FV
45
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
50/50
55/60
45/55
45/55
91-92 / 96
Garrett’s precocious use of a strong three-pitch mix led the Marlins to draft him seventh overall in 2016, and signalled that he might move quickly. Instead, Garrett has been limited to just 15.1 pro innings across three seasons due to a poorly-timed Tommy John surgery that cost him all of 2018. To limit his first year’s workload, Garrett did not pitch during the summer of 2016. After some time in extended spring training, he was sent directly to Low-A. After three good starts he was knocked around in his fourth, and removed after 1.2 innings. He had surgery a month later. Though he didn’t pitch during the summer, Garrett threw in Jupiter during the fall and sat mostly 91-92 with average secondaries. Given how little he’s thrown, it would be reasonable for Garrett’s stuff to be a little better across the board next year and look like it did in high school. He still has a mid-rotation ceiling; he’s just now a good bit behind some of the other first round high schoolers from the 2016 rather than way out ahead of them.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2016 from Dominican Republic (NYY)
Age
19.2
Height
6′ 0″
Weight
155
Bat / Thr
L / R
FV
45
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
35/60
40/50
20/45
60/60
45/55
55/55
Devers was one of just four 18-year-olds in the 2018 Sally League and yet some scouts, who are well aware of the importance of this context, are still skeptical of Devers because he so lacks physicality. There’s universal acknowledgement that Devers must add strength to be a viable big league hitter because he has so little power right now, and aspects of his swing are compromised because he has to cut some mechanical corners just to swing the bat hard. If Devers does get stronger and grow into some pop, he could become very good very quickly, because he can already do everything else. He’s a plus runner, is likely to stay on the middle infield, and has exceptional hand eye coordination and bat control. His 13.5% strikeout rate was among the best in the entire South Atlantic League, irrespective of age. If Devers remains a skinny slap hitter, he probably maxes out as a utility man. We’re cautiously optimistic that he fills out, though we hesitate to point to his 237-pound cousin, Rafael, as genealogical evidence of that possibility, as they bear almost no physical resemblance to one another.
Drafted: 20th Round, 2014 from Ralston Valley HS (CO) (MIA)
Age
22.7
Height
6′ 4″
Weight
190
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
45
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
60/70
55/60
45/50
35/45
95-97 / 99
Holloway has never pitched above Low-A and threw just 7.2 innings all of 2018 as he rehabbed from Tommy John. And yet the Marlins felt compelled to add him to their 40-man roster based on how good he looked during fall instructional league, commanding 95-97 with movement, touching 99, and flashing a plus breaking ball. Holloway had a huge growth spurt in high school and came to pitching late. It’s possible things are just starting to click here. His inexperience and 40-man presence cloud his development. He probably isn’t already a fully realized starter, but he is on the 40-man and is likely to be on some kind of innings limit coming off of TJ. He might get squeezed into a relief role by these circumstances, but scouts were buzzing about this guy in the fall, and he has a chance to break out.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2013 from Dominican Republic (HOU)
Age
23.0
Height
6′ 2″
Weight
182
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
45
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
60/65
50/55
45/55
40/45
95-97 / 102
Guzman has been traded twice: first from Houston to New York for Brian McCann, then to Miami in the Giancarlo Stanton deal. His control regressed pretty badly in 2018 and this, combined with his addition to the 40-man, make it more likely that he ends up in a relief role. Both the quality of his breaking ball and his fastball velocity vary pretty dramatically, but when they’re both dialed in, Guzman can dominate without throwing a lot of strikes, mostly by bullying hitters with his heater. He is stiff, oddly postured, and may not have the necessary athleticism to repeat his delivery. The Marlins should continue developing him as a starter so he gets more reps with both his change (which got better in 2018 and has a chance to miss bats one day) and breaking ball, but we think they’ll pull the ripcord eventually and let Guzman breath fire in late innings.
Drafted: 3rd Round, 2016 from North Carolina (STL)
Age
23.5
Height
6′ 1″
Weight
185
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40+
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Curveball
Changeup
Cutter
Command
Sits/Tops
50/50
50/50
50/55
45/50
50/55
91-93 / 94
Viewed as a low-ceiling pitchability arm in college, Gallen reached Double-A just one calendar year after he was drafted by St. Louis, which traded him to Miami in the Marcel Ozuna deal the following winter. Last year he experienced an uptick in velocity and his four-seamer now sits in the low-90s and touches 94. It helped Gallen miss more bats, and he struck out a batter per inning at Triple-A New Orleans. Realistically, Gallen will pitch at the back of a rotation as a No. 4 or 5 starter because nothing he throws is plus and it’s hard to envision him striking out many major league hitters. But if the velo bump last year was just the start of a trend that continues into the future, there might be a bit more here.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2015 from Dominican Republic (MIA)
Age
20.8
Height
6′ 4″
Weight
175
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40+
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
55/60
45/55
45/50
35/45
93-95 / 100
Cabrera has prototypical size and arm strength but is almost exactly the same player we wrote up last offseason. He still has issues locating his heater and with his breaking ball’s consistency, though it flashes plus. Because he has two unteachable skills in his elite velocity and ability to spin, Cabrera has significant upside if he improves the remaining aspects of his craft. He’s not likely to fully actualize, but it is possible. There’s a greater chance that some things improve and enable Cabrera to be a No. 4 or 5 starter or late-inning reliever.
Drafted: 2nd Round, 2018 from Encinal HS (CA) (MIA)
Age
18.3
Height
6′ 1″
Weight
185
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
20/50
60/60
20/50
50/40
40/50
50/50
There are gothic cathedrals in Europe that have smaller gaps between their ceilings and floors than Johnson, who had some of the most explosive but unkempt talent in the 2018 draft class. Johnson’s special bat speed and ability to rotate are both evident to the naked eye, and he also has remarkable bat control for a player who takes such high-effort swings. But everything about his game is very raw and he’ll likely require years of polish before he’s ready for the majors. This is especially evident in his footwork in the box, where Johnson’s stride length and direction are both highly variable. At times, this enables Johnson to turn on pitches on the inner half; at others it wrecks his swing’s balance and composition entirely. There’s also a wide range of potential defensive outcomes for Johnson. He may end up on the middle infield or in center, depending on how his body and infield actions develop, or possibly in an outfield corner. The good news is that Johnson was one of the youngest players available in the 2018 draft and he didn’t turn 18 the middle of October. There’s a lot of time for both him and the Marlins to figure this stuff out, and he has some unteachable talents (the bat speed and bat control) that could drive an offensive profile befitting any position if he transforms into a hitter instead of a swinger.
Drafted: 1st Round, 2017 from North Carolina (MIA)
Age
23.5
Height
6′ 0″
Weight
177
Bat / Thr
L / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
45/60
45/45
20/40
55/55
45/50
40/40
Miller had big sophomore and junior years at North Carolina, which helped scouts feel more comfortable about taking him in the top 40 picks because his tools aren’t as loud as some of those drafted around him. He’s an above average runner who projects as average in center field, but his arm and raw power are both below average, so his instincts and hitting ability will have to carry him. His swing has gotten a little more contact-oriented in pro ball, as was evident in his one home run and 12% strikeout rate across 175 pro games. The outcome here is likely somewhere from 40 to 50 FV, which could be a reserve, platoon, or low-end everyday outfielder depending on how the offense progresses.
Drafted: 1st Round, 2017 from Carlsbad HS (NM) (MIA)
Age
21.2
Height
6′ 6″
Weight
185
Bat / Thr
L / L
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
50/60
45/50
40/45
50/55
30/45
91-93 / 96
Rogers was a divisive draft prospect. He was considered by teams in the 8-15 range because lefties this size who throw this hard are very rare, but there was trepidation regarding his age (he was well over 19 on draft day) and whether or not he could actually spin a breaking ball. The Marlins took the same route with Rogers as they had the year before with Braxton Garrett; Rogers didn’t throw a single pro pitch in his draft year and instead was sent to Low-A the following May after a few weeks in extended. By that time, Rogers was already 20. He struck out a lot of hitters at Greensboro but was also relatively hittable, and pro scouts have the same issue with his breaking ball as some on the amateur side of the industry did, though it plays okay against lefties because of his lower arm slot. We think the changeup will eventually be Rogers’ best pitch and it might have to be since right-handed hitters get a nice, long look at the fastballs coming out of his hand. We tend to think he winds up in relief or that he’ll be undermined by several seemingly small issues if he starts, which combined will limit his effectiveness.
Drafted: 2nd Round, 2018 from Brookwood HS (GA) (MIA)
Age
19.2
Height
6′ 1″
Weight
200
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
20/40
55/55
20/50
50/45
45/55
60/60
Banfield burst onto the scouting scene as a prep underclassman, looking among the best in his class with above average raw power, a plus arm, and advanced defense. Things didn’t go quite as well in his draft spring, as those three tools continued to stand out, but Banfield’s swing mechanics, feel to hit, and overall hitting projection tailed off a bit. The Marlins like the upside here, with a chance to have an above average defensive catcher who may just need consistent coaching to tease out average offensive upside. Even if there isn’t much movement there, a hindered power hitter with these defensive tools and makeup still could be an everyday catcher with what is being run out there in the big leagues today.
Drafted: null Round, 2015 from Hazel Green HS (AL) (PHI)
Age
21.6
Height
6′ 2″
Weight
175
Bat / Thr
L / L
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
50/55
50/50
45/50
45/50
45/50
89-92 / 94
Stewart was an under-the-radar 20th rounder from an Alabama high school in 2015 and was mostly anonymous his first two pro summers until showing some progress in 2017 during his third summer in a short-season league, then breaking out this year in Low-A. Stewart primarily relies on an above average low-90’s sinker that helped him post a 62% groundball rate in 2018, ranking fourth among qualified pitchers in all of the minor leagues. His slider is his best secondary pitch, but all three grade various versions of average, and his control, if not his command, is above average. The main hurdle for Stewart becoming an innings-eating starter is whether there is enough swing-and-miss in his repertoire, and if his strike-heavy approach will need to change in the upper minors.
A wrist injury jettisoned Cooper’s 2018, when he might otherwise have had an extended big league opportunity due to Justin Bour’s departure. His 2017 breakout was likely somewhat distorted by the hitting environment in Colorado Springs, but the Yankees bought it and traded fringe reliever Tyler Webb to Milwaukee for him as a way of creating depth behind oft-injured Greg Bird, just as they did with Luke Voit the following year. After the 2017 season, the Yankees sent Cooper to Miami during their annual 40-man crunch, and he spent much of his first season dealing with a nagging right wrist contusion and sprain. The runway appears to be clear for Cooper at first base and we think he has the physical tools to be an okay everyday player there, but he has been hurt a lot as a pro and is already approaching his decline phase.
Pompey was on the radar for the first round entering his draft year but things didn’t quite go to plan in 2018 at Kentucky. Scouts were turned off by his lackadaisical defensive play and inconsistent approach at the plate, but loved the big power and exit velos to go along with a projectable frame and solid-but-not spectacular performance at the plate. Pompey isn’t a standout runner, defender or thrower, so he’s limited to left field, but the positives I mentioned shone through in his pro debut, hitting his way to Hi-A at age 21. There’s some offensive regression expected in 2019 and eyes will be on Pompey’s attitude to see if he handles things well when he faces adversity, but he’s certainly beat expectations so far as a pro, so we’ll round up on what we had on him pre-draft.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2013 from Venezuela (MIA)
Age
23.2
Height
6′ 0″
Weight
175
Bat / Thr
L / L
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
50/55
55/60
40/45
40/45
90-95 / 97
Quijada performed in Double-A and Triple-A in 2018 and was added to the 40-man this winter. He may have the raw stuff to start but his frame and stamina leave something to be desired, so he fits best in 1-2 inning stints. His fastball and slider are both above average, with the slider flashing plus at times, and his command has improved to be close to average, so there’s plenty here for a left-handed middle reliever. Plus, he’s big league ready.
Dugger was dealt before the 2018 season from Seattle to Miami in the Dee Gordon trade. He’s a solid inventory pitcher that can play multiple roles and relies on his above average slider, as his velocity and other pitches all hover around average. His velo was down a bit in 2018 relative to the big jump he made in 2017 when he gained 2 ticks on his fastball. When he’s 92-94, touching 96, his slider plays closer to 60; Dugger’s future may be in shorter stints where that could be what he’s throwing in the big leagues on a regular basis.
Drafted: 12th Round, 2014 from St. Louis HS (HI) (MIL)
Age
22.7
Height
6′ 0″
Weight
185
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Slider
Curveball
Changeup
Command
Sits/Tops
45/45
50/55
55/60
50/55
50/55
86-92 / 94
Yamamoto was the best pitchability prospect in the Fall League and has super advanced feel and command of several good secondary pitches. He froze guess hitters for six weeks in Arizona, bisecting the plate with his changeup and slider, and changing eye levels with his curveball and fastball. That fastball, though, sits in the upper-80s and dipped down to 86 at times during his starts. It gives Yamamoto little margin for error with the pitch in the strike zone, and caps his ceiling well beneath that of some of the lower probability prospects in this system, which is why Yamamoto is down here even though we like him a lot. There are several potential outcomes here. Yamamoto could be a vanilla fifth starter, or he could fit into a Ryan Yarbrough kind of role as change of pace long reliever. He could be a junkballing reliever who kitchen sinks hitters for an inning at a time, or once through the lineup. The quality of the secondary stuff and Yamamoto’s artistry should enable him to be something despite the lack of velocity, and he’s on the 40-man now, so we may get to see it next year.
Drafted: 3rd Round, 2016 from Laurens HS (SC) (MIA)
Age
21.2
Height
6′ 4″
Weight
195
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
30/40
50/60
30/50
60/55
45/50
50/50
Jones has a great body, beautiful swing, and runs well enough to stay in center field. The rest of his skills are under-developed. Most significantly behind is Jones’ ball and strike recognition, and he may never have a playable hit tool because of it. But he was a two-sport high school athlete who missed early-career reps with a hamstring injury, so there’s a chance some of this stuff is still coming. This is a classic boom or bust type prospect, as there’s a lot of theoretical upside because of his speed, defensive profile, and power projection.
Drafted: 15th Round, 2016 from Cisco JC (TX) (MIA)
Age
21.3
Height
6′ 2″
Weight
180
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Hit
Raw Power
Game Power
Run
Fielding
Throw
30/45
50/50
30/45
55/50
45/50
60/60
Two years ago it appeared as though the Marlins had gotten in on the ground floor of an athletic, projectable junior college player for whom things were beginning to click. Over the last two seasons, Nelson has plateaued, been hurt a few times, and looks to have lost some of the twitch that made him interesting in 2016. At that time it looked like he could grow into an average offensive player and translate his athleticism into plus defense at third, but those traits still only exist in abstraction. Nelson just turned 21 in October, so we’re not totally out on him yet, but he needs to have a bounce-back 2019.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2012 from Dominican Republic (NYM)
Age
23.3
Height
6′ 0″
Weight
216
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
40
Tool Grades (Present/Future)
Fastball
Curveball
Changeup
Cutter
Command
Sits/Tops
50/50
55/55
45/50
45/50
40/45
91-95 / 97
Gonzalez was acquired at the 2017 trade deadline from the Mets for A.J. Ramos. He made a few big league appearances in 2018, mostly in relief, which is the role we have him projected into long term. He throws hard and at times his fastball has natural cut, but it lives in the middle of the zone where it’s tough for Gonzalez to miss bats. His curveball has nasty natural movement but he doesn’t finish it consistently. These two offerings need a bit of polish but should eventually enable Gonzalez to be a middle reliever.
Ferrell was a high profile amateur, closing for TCU and Team USA before Houston took him in the third round in 2015. They didn’t add him to the 40-man this winter and the Marlins took him in the Rule 5 as an MLB-ready middle reliever who flashes two plus pitches at times. The bump in the road that led to not adding Ferrell to the 40-man roster was a shoulder aneurysm that derailed his 2016 season. He needed a surgery that transplanted a vein from his groin into his shoulder in order to repair it, and the industry worried at the time that the injury threatened his career. His above-to-plus stuff is back and Ferrell is at least a big league-ready middle reliever with a chance to be a set-up man. There was some suggestion by scouts that Ferrell wasn’t the type of pitcher who excels with all of the data and information that Houston offered; Miami’s approach with him will reflect that.
Fortes was a high-profile prep catcher who has plateaued tools-wise since showcase season three years ago, but has made strides in the craft of catching. His arm is a 45 that can occasionally play at a 50 when his release is quick, but he shows solid average receiving skills to go with above average makeup. At the plate, there’s some raw power, but it’s more of a contact-oriented, line drive approach, helping Fortes profile as a high probability backup who could be a low-end starter if anything outperforms expectations.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2015 from Dominican Republic (MIA)
Age
19.9
Height
6′ 2″
Weight
170
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
35+
Soriano didn’t pitch in 2017 and we wonder if there was a surgery here, but we haven’t been able to confirm it. He was sent to the GCL last year and pitched pretty well, pounding the zone with 91-93 and a good breaking ball. At almost age 20, Soriano’s frame isn’t especially projectable but we think he’ll throw a little harder and could wind up with two pluses, which, combined with advanced control, makes him a teenage arm to monitor.
Drafted: 11th Round, 2018 from Meridian JC (MS) (MIA)
Age
20.8
Height
6′ 3″
Weight
175
Bat / Thr
L / R
FV
35+
Bradshaw was an under-the-radar juco athlete in the 2018 draft class who the Marlins popped in the 11th round. His pro debut went well, with the 20-year-old excelling at both short season clubs for Miami. Bradshaw is a plus-plus runner who tinkered with the infield in the spring but fits best in center field long-term. He has a good swing and a chance to be a 50 or 55 bat, which would come with little game power. But that, along with his speed and defense, would help make him a high level reserve or low-end regular. The track record is short and BABIP-fueled, but some blazing runners can do that even in the upper levels, so Bradshaw is one to monitor.
Drafted: 2nd Round, 2017 from North Carolina State (MIA)
Age
23.4
Height
6′ 2″
Weight
205
Bat / Thr
R / R
FV
35+
Dunand received attention while at a Miami-area high school for a torrid streak of homers and because he’s Alex Rodriguez’s nephew. In college, Dunand’s long-levered swing didn’t create enough contact to put up the big numbers that many hoped for, and it continues to give him problems now. The Marlins continue playing him at shortstop, but he’s a third baseman long-term. His plus raw power still doesn’t shine through as often as you’d like and he’s now 23-years-old, so the clock is ticking for Dunand to show he can be a big leaguer of consequence.
Brigman had a swing change in 2018, though it’s still unclear if he’ll do enough offensive damage to be an everyday second baseman. He added the tiniest of leg kicks last season and dropped his ground ball rate from 54% to 40% in the process. He’s hitting more line drives and hasn’t sacrificed any of the plus contact skills that made him famous as an amateur. He’s also very good at second base, enough that some teams may think they can shoehorn him in at shortstop and live with deficient arm strength if it means there’s a plus bat playing there. We just think he’s either a plus glove at second and he’ll either hit enough to be a low-end regular there, or he won’t and his lack of defensive versatility will make it tough for him to be rostered. The makeup reports indicate we’d be wise to bet on the former.
In mid-July, Hock was moved from the bullpen (where he had been in college) to Greensboro’s rotation, and his performance dipped despite the fact that he had often thrown multiple innings as a reliever. He struck out a batter per inning in relief but as a starter his velo was down, his strikeout rate was significantly down (from 24% to 14%), and he was more hittable. It’s a sign his future is in the bullpen as a fastball/curveball middle reliever.
Signed: July 2nd Period, 2014 from Dominican Republic (SEA)
Age
21.0
Height
5′ 11″
Weight
170
Bat / Thr
S / R
FV
35+
Torres is pretty interesting — he can play shortstop, he has doubles pop, he walks a ton, and runs pretty well — but he can’t stay healthy. He has never played more than 64 games in a season and that was in his first pro year back in 2015. Torres also dealt with a shoulder injury as an amateur and because of it, the Yankees reneged on their deal with him, which is why he signed with Seattle. He came over from Seattle with Neidert and Dugger in the Dee Gordon trade. He has low end everyday or utility tools, and turns 21 in February.
Marinez was a $1.5 million signee in 2017 as a projectable infielder with some feel to hit. He didn’t have a great summer and wasn’t invited to the states for instructional league. Guaimaro is a curvaceous 19-year-old outfielder with average tools. He was young for the Penn League but physically looked like he belonged. Scouts wanted to see him catch as an amateur and Miami briefly tried it, but Guaimaro hasn’t done it for a few years now. Reynolds is a huge, 6-foot-7 first base prospect with big raw power and very little chance of hitting due to lever length. He also pitched in high school, so perhaps the contact comes late. Fish is a Midwest developmental project with modest physical tools and plus makeup. Mesa got a $1 million bonus, but has fourth outfielder tools.
Soto and Encarnacion each have big power but may not make enough contact to profile in a corner outfield spot. The amateur side of the industry was split on Mahan’s defensive future, with some thinking he’d be okay at second and others thinking he’d move to left field. That second group is correct so far, so Mahan needs to hit. Hernandez has fourth outfielder tools and has had issues staying healthy.
Keller’s stuff got better last year and he was 93-96 with an above-average breaking ball in the fall league. Smith also threw really hard in the AFL, up to 99, but his breaking ball is closer to average. Kinley was Rule 5’d by Minnesota last year but returned to Miami mid-season. He sits in the mid-90s and has a hard, upper-80s slider. Eveld has a four-pitch mix. He’ll touch 95 and his secondaries are average.
Palacios, who is still just 18, was Miami’s DSL pitcher of the year after posting a 62-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He sits 86-92 with good breaking ball feel. Bennett’s fastball currently resides in the mid-80s but his curveball spin rate is plus. Wolf, 21, is another spin rate/deception sleeper who stands just 5-foot-8.
System Overview
The Marlins’ current regime has been able to install new leadership across their departments and had stronger internal processes in place for at least part of the 2018 season. That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t judge what has happened in their rebuild up until now. But with turnover in the front office, and an increase in overall staffing levels, there should be fewer excuses for underperformance now than there would have been a year ago. Some rebuilds come with front office and tech system overhauls; some demand big transactions right away, as Miami’s did. Others, like those of San Francisco, Baltimore, and Atlanta, can best be described as wait-and-see situations, with a front office that can get a few things working in their favor before the situation calls for significant action.
The Marlins’ main story right now is the continued presence of franchise catcher J.T. Realmuto, but his situation will likely be resolved this winter. The Marlins need a good result there, so you can see why they’re hesitant to make a move until an obviously good deal comes along, especially after the mixed-at-best early returns on the Giancarlo Stanton and Christian Yelich trades. While the team’s young core isn’t fully formed, the 2019 big league team will be almost certainly bad matched up against a division that features four competitive clubs. There are some nice pieces that will be in the majors next year, but it isn’t clear what the next Marlins playoff team will look like. Forward momentum on the personnel front is what’s needed, and Miami has their front office ducks in a row now, so this winter marks the start of a key next year or two of asset collection and development.
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