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

8/23

Mike O’Reilly, RHP, St. Louis (Profile)
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: NR  Top 100: NR
Line: 6 IP, 9 H, 0 BB, 2 R, 7 K

Notes
A 27th rounder out of Flagler College last year, O’Reilly was promoted to High-A Palm Beach in late July after a dominant four-game stretch of Midwest League starts that included a complete game, one-hit, 12-strikeout performance. O’Reilly doesn’t throw all that hard, sitting 88-91, but he’s deceptive, he can locate his breaking ball for strikes, and he flashes a plus changeup. There’s some risk that O’Reilly’s fastball won’t be effective against upper-level hitters, but he has quality secondary stuff, throws strikes, and overall has a profile in line with valuable upper-level pitching depth.

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For some time, it seemed like the battle between analytics and scouts had died out.

The divide first surfaced in the public consciousness following the publication of Moneyball 14 years ago. Michael Lewis recounts in his book how some in the A’s front office contemplated a future in which scouts were redundant and no longer necessary — at least not in such numbers. It was an extreme view.

In the meantime, however, a sort of peace appeared to have been brokered. It was generally accepted that the best clubs, the model organizations — like the St. Louis Cardinals for much of the 2000s — successfully integrated both camps.

And then in 2015 something happened: Statcast was installed in every major-league stadium.

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Below are the updated summer top-10 prospect lists for the orgs in the American League West. I have notes beneath the top 10s explaining why some of these prospects have moved up or down. For detailed scouting information on individual players, check out the player’s profile page which may include tool grades and/or links to Daily Prospect Notes posts in which they’ve appeared this season. For detailed info on players drafted or signed this year, check out our sortable boards.

Houston Astros (Preseason List)

1. Kyle Tucker, OF
2. Forrest Whitley, RHP
3. Franklin Perez, RHP
4. Yordan Alvarez, 1B
5. Derek Fisher, OF
6. J.B. Bukauskas, RHP
7. Gilberto Celestino
8. Daz Cameron
9. Cionel Perez, LHP
10. Colin Moran, 3B

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Below is a ranking of the prospects traded this month, tiered by our Future Value scale. A reminder that there’s lots of room for argument as to how these players line up, especially within the same FV tier. If you need further explanation about FV, bang it here and here. Full writeups of the prospects are linked next to their names. If the player didn’t receive an entire post, I’ve got a brief scouting report included below. Enjoy.
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The Dodgers traded for Yu Darvish. Below are the projections for the prospects the Rangers received in exchange for Darvish’s services. WAR figures account for the player’s first six major-league seasons. KATOH denotes the stats-only version of the projection system, while KATOH+ denotes the methodology that includes a player’s prospect rankings.

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Willie Calhoun, 2B/LF/DH (Profile)

KATOH: 9.4 WAR (15th)

KATOH+: 8.9 WAR (24th)

Calhoun has hit a rock-solid .298/.357/.574 at Triple-A this season as a 22-year-old second baseman. His power numbers have been undoubtedly helped by the PCL and he doesn’t exactly look like a premium athlete. But still: Calhoun’s blend of contact and power makes him extremely exciting. His defense, however, is suspect. Clay Davenport’s metrics say his defense at second has improved this year, but going from unbelievably bad to merely really bad doesn’t do much to help Calhoun’s case. Calhoun is a prospect without a position for now, so a move to the American League makes a ton of sense. KATOH had Calhoun as the Dodgers’ second-best prospect, behind Alex Verdugo. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve seen the news. You’ve almost certainly even seen the return, and unless you’re a devoted follower of the Dodgers’ farm system, you may not have recognized any of the names. Brendon Davis and A.J. Alexy were low-level guys who weren’t on many radars, and even the known guy in the deal was a back-end Top 100 prospect, an unorthodox-shaped hitter without a position who has never been talked up as any kind of future star.

So it’s easy to look at this deal and call it a big win for the Dodgers. They just added one of the best pitchers in baseball to an already-dominant pitching staff. Breaking the all-time record for wins in a season now isn’t that far-fetched. They are going to enter the postseason as the clear team to beat, and all it cost them was a guy who didn’t really fit on their roster in an obvious way and two lottery tickets in A-ball.

None of that is wrong. The Dodgers did well here, picking up a difference maker without surrendering any of the guys they see as potential core pieces for them down the road. But baseball trades aren’t always zero-sum affairs, and just because this was a nice move for LA doesn’t mean the Rangers got taken advantage of here.

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Yu Darvish was traded to Los Angeles ahead of the deadline. In return, Texas got three good pieces, including one very entertaining one who will be ready to contribute to the big club soon.

Dodgers get
RHP Yu Darvish

Rangers get
DH Willie Calhoun
RHP A.J. Alexy
INF Brendon Davis

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Evaluating relievers is difficult given their small sample of work in any given year and their volatility from year to year. But, given the fact that the most active sector of the trade deadline ended up being relievers, it makes sense to put them all in one place and wonder who got the best one. Might there be a surprising answer since the Padres ended up holding Brad Hand’s production on their roster?

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When you think of Adrian Beltre, the first thought that comes to mind might just be his defense. In the early parts of his career, that was his bread and butter. He does, after all, rank 19th all-time in Def, and 10th since the color barrier was broken in 1947. By the time he retires, top 15 in Def is well within his reach.

And yet, Beltre is just as prolific as a hitter! He’s been one of the best players ever on both sides of the ball. Yesterday, he became just the 31st member of the 3,000-hit club. That’s pretty amazing. It’s pretty much an automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame (don’t worry, Rafael Palmeiro will get there some day via some Veteran’s Committee). Beltre also ranks 15th in doubles, 38th in home runs, 21st in total bases and 21st in extra-base hits.

He doesn’t rank quite as high in rate statistics — his .195 ISO ranks 308th out of 3,953 qualified players, for instance. That’s still really, really good, but it doesn’t stand out quite as much. But he has been really good for a really long time. And he’s still playing well. If he’s not at the top of his game, he’s pretty close, and doing a lot better than a lot of other players at the time of their 3,000th hit. Let’s take a look:
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Catchers are unique, and catchers are tricky. There are always questions about how any new player will fit in, but if you want a new left fielder, you can just go get a new left fielder. Catchers are more complicated, because they occupy leadership roles, and they need to be familiar with entire pitching staffs. For reasons like those, you don’t often see everyday catchers dealt in the middle of the season. Jonathan Lucroy was an exception last summer, when he was traded from the Brewers to the Rangers. And now he’s exceptional again, having been traded from the Rangers to the Rockies. Lucroy, teams are willing to believe in. Lucroy must be considered fast to adapt.

The two trades have Jonathan Lucroy in common. What they also have in common is that, like the 2016 Rangers, the 2017 Rockies are looking to go to the playoffs. But there’s one dramatic difference. Lucroy, a year ago, fetched high-level prospect talent. That was talent he was worth. Lucroy, this year, has fetched a player to be named later, or cash. I could make the same statement. Lucroy’s stock has plummeted — and yet, that even being the case, he can still make the Rockies a better baseball team.

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