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It’s possible you haven’t had the opportunity to watch every single game over the first few days of the 2017 season. For those games you’ve missed — say, Pittsburgh against Boston on Monday — you’re likely to have glanced at the box score to see how certain players performed. In the case of that Pirates-Red Sox game, you find that Andrew Benintendi hit a homer, Rick Porcello pitched six solid innings, and that the home team won by a score of 5-3.

If you looked at the line of Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole, you’d see a flawed five innings, with just two strikeouts, one walk, that homer to Benintendi, and all five of Boston’s runs. That’s not how Cole wanted the season to start, but the stat line isn’t quite as bad as it would appear.

Gerrit Cole has been successful in the major leagues primarily due to a great four-seam fastball. When he complemented the fastball with increased slider usage, he started dominating. There had been some talk earlier in the spring about an increased use of the changeup, as well, but when he spoke with Travis Sawchik, Cole indicated he was prioritizing his health and returning to what made him successful.

This spring Cole is not trying to re-invent himself. He has a modest goal: a healthy season. While he’s toyed with the idea of throwing more changeups the last couple of springs, he has rarely thrown the pitch in the regular season. He says he plans on continuing to be “me,” which indicates he will lean on a fastball that has averaged 95.2 mph or better in each of his first four major-league seasons — he threw it 66.7% of the time last year in line with his career (66.5%) usage — and the slider as a put-away offering.

For Cole, being “me” would suggest a combination of heavy fastball usage with the slider for whiffs. Did he stick to that plan against Boston, though? Not so much, actually. Cole did throw that fastball roughly 70% of the time, which is right in line with his established levels. As for the non-fastball offerings, however, he actually didn’t return to the slider that had made him so successful, ultimately throwing the pitch just six times.

As for explanations, we could chalk it up to efficiency. Cole threw just 76 pitches total. Through four innings, he’d thrown just 50 pitches to 13 batters. Cole wasn’t striking batters out. If hitters were putting the ball in play early in the count, then it’s possible he just arrived in fewer situations where the slider made sense. That wasn’t the case, however.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Los Angeles Angels farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)

50 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .302/.379/.422 in 2016.

Scouting Report
Jones had already asserted himself as the organization’s best prospect by the fall after he was drafted, impressing scouts not only with his as-advertised athleticism and speed but with a surprisingly polished feel to hit and noticeable work ethic.

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As the season approached, I found myself intrigued by the Oakland starting rotation. That being said, among the starters, I was least interested in Kendall Graveman. Andrew Triggs? I’m all over that. Jharel Cotton? You better believe it. Kendall Graveman? Ehh. He didn’t do much for me. That was my mistake.

This is today’s second Graveman post on FanGraphs. I wrote the first one a few hours ago, wherein I discussed that Graveman seems to be experiencing a velocity spike, on the heels of a 2016 velocity spike. That fascinates the hell out of me, but something still felt incomplete. So here I’d like to revisit what Graveman has going on, because I’ve found a fun point of comparison. Why care about Kendall Graveman’s velocity? Because you could say his sinker has leveled up.

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During our marathon Opening Day chat at FanGraphs on Monday — you can revisit all 27,000 words here — I was tasked with following the 4 p.m. ET games. That slate of games featured an unfair fight between Clayton Kershaw and the Padres, the entrance of Zach Britton into a tie game against the Blue Jays, and the Twins against the Royals. While I flipped between games trying to maximize the use of the one available television in my living room, I tried to take in most of Byron Buxton’s day at the plate.

As you’re probably aware, Buxton was once the consensus No. 1 prospect in the game. He, unfairly, drew Mike Trout comps. While he’s certainly not anywhere near Trout the batter, Buxton is one of the premier athletes in the game. He made the first five-star catch of the season Monday as MLB.com documented both with video and Statcast data.

But Buxton will never fully unlock his potential, his considerable potential, until he cuts down on the swing and miss in his game.

Even during his excellent September, when he offered hope of a turnaround, a .287/.357/.653 slash line, and nine home runs over the final 29 games of the season — exhibiting burgeoning power to go with his plus-plus speed — Buxton still struck out in 33.6% of his plate appearances. He finished with a 35.6% strikeout rate for the year, a mark that was largely responsible — along with a healthy dose of infield pop ups — for his unsightly .225/.284/.430 slash line and 86 wRC+. His strikeout rate increased four points from his brief exposure to major-league pitching in 2015. And he even struck out 28% of the time during his demotion to Triple-A last season, covering 209 plate appearances.

Judging from my weekly chats here, Buxton is of some interest to many this year given a strong finish to 2016 that coincided with swing adjustments, including a return to the leg kick he used in high school but which was originally phased out by the Twins. He struck out in 20% of his at-bats this spring. While perhaps not ultimately significant, it was preferable to striking out in more than a third of his plate appearances.

This time of year always carries a small-sample disclaimer. It’s April. We don’t want to make too much of performance. But I was curious to see if Buxton, on Day One, would seem different, improved — as far as his approach goes — from the Buxton of 2015 and 2016. I was in search of compelling anecdotal evidence.

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Position: Boston Red Sox Baseball Data Architect

Location: Boston
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There was plenty about Clayton Kershaw’s Opening Day start that was predictable. He sat between 92 and 93 on that straight, riding fastball. He showed command of the pitch and didn’t walk anyone. He threw a fastball on his lone 3-1 count. The box score says he threw 27 sliders and got five whiffs — an excellent rate. His 15 curves got two whiffs and two outs on five swings. So a lot of Monday’s start was just vintage Kershaw. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t show us something a bit different.

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There was a post I intended to write sometime last month. The post was going to be about Kendall Graveman, and his future, and it was going to be based around the fact that Graveman went and had his best spring training to date. What’s more, there were some unconfirmed reports floating around that Graveman was occasionally pushing his sinker up into the high 90s. Ultimately, I sat on the idea, because Graveman didn’t throw any spring-training pitches in front of instrumentation that spits out useful data. He had a good March, and that was all.

On account of Sonny Gray’s injury, Graveman just got the nod to start for the A’s against the Angels on Monday’s opening day. Here is the Graveman post I was thinking about. It took one inning for me to know what I was going to do.

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A few weeks ago Zach Buchanan of The Cincinnati Enquirer wrote a column titled “Can Michael Lorenzen be a two-way player?” It’s an intriguing question, and not an entirely far-fetched idea. The 25-year-old Reds right-hander was both a pitcher and a center fielder at Cal State Fullerton. Per Buchanan’s article, he could “kind of see it come to fruition” in the future.

For Christian Bethancourt, the future is now. As Eno Sarris shared yesterday in his look at two-way possibilities, the Padres are planning to use the strong-armed backstop both behind the plate and out of the bullpen.

Don’t count Bobby Dalbec among those looking to follow in Bethancourt’s footsteps. His resume suggests he could — Dalbec dominated on the mound in last year’s College World Series — but Boston drafted him as a third baseman, which is where he wants to stay. Our own Eric Longenhagen feels he has a future there, as Dalbec came in at No. 5 on that Red Sox’ top-prospect list.

When I talked to him this spring, the 21-year-old University of Arizona product told me he doesn’t particularly like pitching, and that he did it primarily because the Wildcats wanted him to play both ways. No longer having to perform double duty “took a big weight off [his] shoulders.”

He cited preparation as the biggest challenge.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Toronto Blue Jays farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen

The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell

Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB)

55 FV Prospects

Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Slashed .270/.360/.450 as 17-year-old in Appy League.

Scouting Report
The Blue Jays traded for international-bonus slots and were able to avoid completely blowing out their bonus pool to sign Guerrero in 2015, instead spending in a range that only benched them from big international spending for one year instead of two. While most 17-year-old international signees spend their first pro season in the Dominican, Guerrero was advanced enough to come stateside. Not only that, but after spending time in extended spring training (and often hanging around and attentively watching Jays’ Florida State League games at night in April and May), Guerrero skipped the GCL and was sent to the Appalachian League, where he was dominant.

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Joc Pederson hit a home run on Monday. It was a grand slam. It was, further, a tie-breaking grand slam, but it wound up a little bit lost, because Yasmani Grandal also hit a home run. And Grandal hit an additional home run. And Corey Seager hit a home run, too. The Dodgers beat the Padres by 11, and although no one is ever favored to defeat another club by 11 runs, Monday felt almost like a foregone conclusion. The Padres got whooped, and Joc Pederson was just a part of that.

But, this — this is the time to over-analyze. So let’s do that! As far as I’m concerned, personally, Pederson’s grand slam made an impression, and I’d like to keep thinking about it. For Pederson, it was a new kind of pitch to take deep, and it speaks to how far he’s already come.

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