Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Colorado Rockies. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

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 Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Brady Singer played in the SEC for three seasons before being drafted by the Kansas City Royals, so he faced a ton of talented hitters prior to starting his professional career. Pitching for the University of Florida from 2016-2018, Singer matched up against the likes of JJ Bleday, Nick Senzel, Bryan Reynolds, and Evan White. Easy marks were few and far between.

Which of his collegiate opponents does Singer recall respecting the most? More specifically, which hitter had him laser-focused on making quality pitches, lest an errant offering result in serious damage?

“One that really stands out wasn’t in the SEC, but rather in Omaha,” Singer told me. “I believe it was the first game I pitched there, in 2017 when we went on to win the [College] World Series. It was Brendan McKay, from Louisville. When he got in the box, I knew I had to dial in. Just the bat path he had, and how he stood in the box — how he presented himself — was tough.”

McKay’s hitting future is obviously in limbo. Ostensibly still a two-way player, he pitched 49 big-league innings for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019, and logged just 11 plate appearances. Last season, a positive COVID test and subsequent shoulder surgery squelched his opportunities to do either. McKay’s Ohtani aspirations remain — he’s taking cuts in camp as he rehabs — but what happens going forward isn’t entirely clear.

Singer was correct when he told me that McKay could “really swing it back in college.” As the record shows, the fourth-overall pick in the 2017 draft slashed a snazzy .328/.430/.536 as a Cardinal. Singer — the 18th-overall pick a year later — is another story. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley pass the halfway point of their 30-team season preview series by previewing the 2021 White Sox with James Fegan of The Athletic and the 2021 Diamondbacks (46:45) with Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic, plus a brief postscript on the career and retirement of Nick Markakis.

Audio intro: Parquet Courts, "Black and White"
Audio interstitial: The Hives, "Try it Again"
Audio outro: Nick Lowe, "Halfway to Paradise"

Link to Athletic article on teams developing velocity
Link to James on Kopech
Link to James on Crochet
Link to James on La Russa and team unity
Link to report about Reinsdorf and La Russa
Link to James on Vaughn
Link to James on Giolito
Link to James on Lucroy
Link to James on Cease
Link to Dan Szymborski’s bust candidates
Link to Szymborski’s breakout candidates
Link to Nick on Lovullo’s contract
Link to Jake Mailhot on Ketel Marte’s power
Link to highest-WAR seasons without an MVP vote
Link to highest-WAR careers without an MVP vote

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With Fernando Tatis Jr. landing a massive, jaw-dropping contract extension last month, all eyes are now on the game’s other 22-year-old phenom and his next step. Juan Soto has hit at an historical level during his three seasons in the majors, landing himself on leaderboards among legends like Williams, Foxx, Hornsby, Cobb, and Trout. Reportedly, the Nationals intend to offer him a long-term extension, one that could in theory make him the game’s next $400 million man — a contract befitting a player who has already taken significant strides towards Cooperstown.

That may seem like hyperbole, but it’s not. Though Soto has played only one full 162-game season from among his three, the statistical history of players who have done what he’s done at such a young age overwhelmingly suggests a Hall of Fame-level career, and the projections based on his performance… well, we’ll get to those.

The Dominican-born Soto reached the majors on May 20, 2018, still more than five months shy of his 20th birthday. The next day, in his second major league plate appearance, he homered off the Padres’ Robbie Erlin, and he hasn’t stopped hitting, though he did his best to warp the space-time continuum by homering in the June 18 leg of a suspended game that began on May 15. Soto completed his rookie season with 22 homers and a .292/.406/.517 (146 wRC+) line, then followed up with a 34-homer, .282/.401/.548 (142 wRC+) full-season showing. In the pandemic-shortened season, he became not only the youngest player to win a batting title but also the youngest to win the slash-stat triple crown, hitting .351/.490/.695 (201 wRC+) with 13 homers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Francisco Giants. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. Each blurb ends with an indication of where the player played in 2020, which in turn likely informed the changes to their report if there were any. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

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 Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

The Mets acquired Francisco Lindor and Carlos Carrasco for little more than a song this offseason, the team’s new ownership making a splash just two months after officially taking over. A one-year rental of Lindor’s services plus Carrasco was enough to give New York an argument for being the favored squadron in the NL East in a likely battle with Atlanta. But what’s the fun of being a large-market team if you’re not going to act like one? Just like the Dodgers, who quickly moved to ink Mookie Betts for the next dozen years after their blockbuster pickup, the Mets have deep pockets and play in a city with limitless revenue potential. Keeping Lindor, if possible, ought to be the team’s priority. Reggie Jackson didn’t go into the Hall of Fame as an Oriole!

While no concrete terms or even loose parameters have leaked, both Lindor’s camp and the Mets have been interested in talking deal. Waiting around to see what happens is one option, but it’s a good deal more fun to play fantasy billionaire ourselves. I didn’t develop a projection system just to get people mad at me — at least not entirely.

Mega-star contracts are difficult because you don’t have a lot of direct comparables. Fernando Tatis Jr. signed a monster 14-year, $340 million pact with the Padres, but there are reasons he should get more than Lindor: He’s five years younger and coming off an MVP-caliber season. On the flip side, Tatis also had less leverage, with four full seasons until free agency.

The best place to start is the basic projection for Lindor from 2022 on. I’m letting ZiPS decide where the endpoint is, given that we don’t have any specifics to work with.

Read the rest of this entry »

Despite an atypically mediocre performance from their bullpen last year, the Yankees project to have the strongest relief corps in 2021 according to our forecasting systems. However, their chances of fulfilling that expectation have taken a hit with the news that Zack Britton, the team’s top setup man, will undergo arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone chip in his left elbow. The 33-year-old lefty could be out until mid-June or later.

Britton had already been slowed this spring by a bout of COVID-19, which he contracted in January while going to the hospital when his wife was giving birth to the couple’s fourth child. He told reporters that he lost 18 pounds and had been set back in his offseason throwing regimen. After experiencing elbow soreness in the wake of a bullpen session on Sunday, he underwent an MRI on Monday that showed the chip.

The surgery will be performed on March 15 by Dr. Christopher Ahmad, the Yankees’ team physician. As WFAN’s Sweeny Murti pointed out, Dr. Ahmad’s website suggests a timeline of six weeks before a pitcher undergoing such a procedure can be cleared to throw, and that a return to full competition could take 3-4 months:

Britton’s surgery will be performed by Yankees team Dr Chris Ahmad. Here is what his website says about timeline for removing a bone chip. h/t ?@Eric_M888? pic.twitter.com/cCULq0g7Qi

— Sweeny Murti (@SweenyMurti) March 10, 2021

Roughly speaking, three months from now means a mid-June return, and four months a return just after the All-Star break (the All-Star Game is scheduled for July 13 in Atlanta). Even a best-case scenario, involving a minimally invasive operation and a buildup to a reliever’s workload instead of a starter’s, might shave a month off that. In 2019, for example, the Rays’ Blake Snell missed about eight weeks after undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies (bone chips or cartilage fragments). He wasn’t built up to a full workload upon returning to help the Rays secure a Wild Card berth and reach the postseason, totaling just 10.1 innings in six appearances and maxing out at 62 pitches, but he was reasonably effective. Because this is happening out of the gate rather than towards the end of the season, the Yankees and Britton have less incentive to hurry back. Via ESPN’s Marly Rivera, Britton isn’t in a rush, saying, “However long that takes is how long I’m going to be out. I know that I’m going to be back with the team at some point this year and pitch significant innings. So that’s all that matters.” Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sure plenty of us would like to simply forget that 2020 ever happened. In this fictional world where a Men In Black neuralyzer is used to erase the memory of the last 12 months, Ketel Marte would be feeling pretty good about his previous season. 2019 was a big year for Marte. He posted a 150 wRC+ and accumulated 7.0 WAR, both easily career highs, and earned a fourth place finish in the NL MVP voting. With last year wiped clean, he’d be looking forward to building off his breakout in 2021 and establishing himself as a bonafide superstar. Instead, the memory of nearly 200 so-so plate appearances in 2020 comes flooding back and all sorts of questions about his true talent level begin to popup.

When compared to his performance prior to 2019, his 2020 season doesn’t seem all that out of place. His power output dropped back to where it was before his breakout, leading to very similar overall offensive contributions to his early career line.

Which season seems like the outlier when put into this context? Of course, it isn’t so easy as simply throwing out his 2019 and settling on a true offensive talent that falls somewhere around 5% below league average. Most of the projection systems think he’ll fall somewhere in between, with some but not all of his power returning.

Marte’s power surge in 2019 was driven by a significant increase in the number of hard hit balls he put in play in the air. He increased his average launch angle from 5.8 degrees in 2018 to 11.5 degrees in 2019. Along with making more authoritative contact more often, those hard hit balls were pulled more often, too. Every single adjustment he made resulted in greater damage when he put the ball in play. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners’ starting pitchers can be broken into two different groups. There are the veterans at the top in Marco Gonzales and James Paxton, who between them have spent about 10 seasons in Seattle. They’ve both been successful, and so long as they stay healthy — not a given for Paxton — we know what to expect from them. The other half of the Mariners’ rotation is the young guys: Justus Sheffield, Justin Dunn, Logan Gilbert, and others. Each of them had or has considerable prospect stock, but while they’re expected to be successful at some point in the future, we can’t be sure that success will arrive in 2021.

Holding those two groups together in the middle is left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, fittingly, as he represents something from both. At 29 years old and with nine seasons spent in NPB, he’s already a veteran. But as with the young guys, there is still a lot to learn about how he will fare in the majors, given that his MLB experience amounts to two years. The first was 2019, his rookie season and first time pitching in the U.S., when he posted a 5.46 ERA and 5.71 FIP in 161.2 innings as Seattle finished last in the AL West.

The pandemic-shortened 2020 season, though, suggested there could be a lot more to him. Kikuchi’s ERA stayed above 5.00, but his FIP plummeted to 3.30, and he made significant progress with his strikeout and home run rates. If his surface numbers take the step forward this year that his peripherals did last year, it would be a major boost to the Mariners as they try to crawl toward contention.

Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020 season couldn’t have been much fun for the Nationals or Stephen Strasburg. In the wake of their World Series victory over the Astros, the team sputtered out of the gate, while Strasburg, the MVP of that World Series and a newly-minted $245 million man via his opt-out and re-signing in December 2019, was limited to two starts before undergoing late August surgery to alleviate carpal tunnel neuritis.

On Tuesday, Strasburg took the mound for his first Grapefruit League appearance — against the Astros, coincidentally, albeit a much different team from the one he faced in the World Series, with Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, Carlos Correa, and Yuli Gurriel the only starters in both games. The 32-year-old righty threw 38 pitches, had good command of a fastball that reportedly sat at 93 mph and ranged from 91 to 93 (he averaged 93.9 mph in 2019, via Statcast), and retired five out of the six batters he faced. He struck out four, including Correa looking at a high fastball to end the first, Kyle Tucker looking at a fastball in the second, and Gurriel check-swinging at a low curveball.

These descriptions come from the Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty and will have to do, as there was no television or Trackman for the game. The Nationals’ Twitter account did celebrate Strasmas by posting a press box-level video of the four strikeouts:

Time to open up your #Strasmas presents…

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? ?????????#SpringTraining // #NATITUDE pic.twitter.com/suA2LhCKSa

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) March 10, 2021

Read the rest of this entry »