Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

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

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The Royals have done very well with their recent high picks, snagging prospects 2, 7, 8, 11 and 16 in the top three rounds of last summer’s draft, prospects 1 and 6 in the first round in 2013, and prospects 4, 23 and 27 with their first three picks in 2012. To have 10 of 12 picks in the top three rounds over a three-year period appear on the list is and have 7 of those be 45 FV of higher prospects is an accomplishment. Even though all those prospects won’t return significant big league value, retaining some trade value is important and draft picks often flop quickly, so GM Dayton Moore has to appreciate having trade chips accruing this quickly.

Raul Mondesi was a real find for the international group, as he wasn’t the consensus prospect his bonus suggest when he signed. Miguel Almonte and Jorge Bonifaco are great international finds for lower bonuses and there’s depth to the international prospects in the system. While some of this amateur procurement is due to a larger amateur budget in some years, there have been more stringent league-wide controls in recent years and the Royals have continued to produce at an above average rate.

This is a big year for many bats in the system, with Orlando Calixte, Cheslor Cuthbert, Hunter Dozier, Jorge Bonifacio, Christian Colon, Raul Mondesi and Bubba Starling all having big ceiling and need to improve at turning their tools into production to keep their prospect status/trade value. The performance of these hitters in 2015 will likely decide if the system will be seen as better or worse at this time next year; they’re in the middle third of teams at this point.

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We’re halfway done, with the wests — both NL and the AL — and covered NL Central yesterday. Today, we tackle the AL’s version of the country’s heartland.

The Projected Standings

With no great teams and only one franchise not really trying to contend this year, this is one of the most up-for-grabs divisions in the sport. Our forecasts suggest that there are two tiers within those going for it, but I think things might be a bit more bunched up than the numbers above suggest. Let’s go team by team.

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It’s gettin’ to that time of year when folks tend to preview stuff ’round baseball. Our annual Positional Power Rankings will be coming to the site over the next couple weeks, you’ll surely see all sorts of divisional preview pieces pop up between now and Opening Day, and this right here is going to be a preview of team defenses.

We saw last year where a good defense can take a team. The Kansas City Royals were more than just a great defense, but it was evident, especially during the playoffs, how much an elite defense can mean to a ballclub. The same was true, but on the other end of the spectrum, for the Cleveland Indians. Our two advanced defensive metrics — Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating — agreed that the defense in Cleveland was worth around -70 runs last season. In Kansas City, it was something like +50. That’s a 120-run difference! That’s about 12 wins! Those teams play in the same division! Move 12 wins around and the result is an entirely different season! Defense isn’t the biggest thing, but it’s a big thing. Let’s look ahead.

All the numbers used in this piece will come from UZR and DRS. For the team projections, I simply utilized our depth charts and did a little math. We’re going to take a look at the three best, the worst, the teams that got better, the teams that got worse, and then all the rest down at the bottom. For the upgrades/downgrades, I used the difference of standard deviations above or below the mean between last year’s results and this year’s projections.
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The Dodgers are (reportedly) willing to pay half of Andre Ethier’s contract! As Dave Cameron pointed out, he seems a bit superfluous to the current state of the Dodgers. Now that he’s only going to cost a team around $28 million over the next three years, can we find him a home?

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With the Red Sox recently adding Yoan Moncada to the fold last week (details and audio interview), the biggest international domino has fallen and now there’s more certainty for teams and agents going forward about what teams can spend on July 2nd. In an early draft of this article, I was going to point out that MLB still hadn’t told teams what their international bonus pools were, in an effort to discourage teams from agreeing to verbal deals since they wouldn’t know the exact figure of what they could spend. MLB sent out those figures this week, and they fell in line with what teams expected: last year’s slots with a 5-7% bump.

I reported back in December that up to 12 teams were rumored to be considering or had already put enough agreements in place to exceed their bonus pool. I conceded that nowhere near that many would do it and that looks to be true, with closer to five teams looking likely to go over, but many more looking to spend their full pool and maybe trade for a little more, along with rumors of teams considering going over in 2016. Part of the reason for the uncertainty about which teams are going over is the uncertainty surround young Cuban players.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Projections: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Los Angeles AL / Los Angeles NL / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York AL / New York NL / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / San Francisco / St. Louis / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto / Washington.

Batters
A trait common among basically all the best baseball clubs is that they possess an ability to avoid the awful — which is to say, they exhibit enough either in the way of health or depth or general competence throughout their major-league roster to avoid allocating plate appearances to players who are something worse than average.

Last year’s ZiPS projections for Kansas City suggested that they were particularly well suited to avoiding the awful. While none of their starting batter-types received a forecast in excess of four wins, none of them received a projection below two wins, either. The club was built not to dominate the league, but to remain relevant over the course of a full season.

Per ZiPS, the 2015 iteration of the Royals has more weaknesses than that 2014 edition. No fewer than three of their starting batters — Omar Infante (558 PA, 1.0 WAR), Kendrys Morales (467 PA, 0.5 WAR), and Alex Rios (571 PA, 1.2 WAR) — feature win projections more commonly associated with strong bench players than actual major-league starters.

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International baseball has been in the news often lately with the ongoing saga of Yoan Moncada (he’s in America now), the signing of Yasmany Tomas and yesterday’s news that Cuba-U.S. relations could be getting much better.  In recent news, at the yearly international scouting directors’ meeting at the Winter Meetings last week, sources tell me there was no talk about the recent controversial rule change and no talk about an international draft, as expected.

So much has been happening lately that you may have temporarily forgotten about last summer, when the Yankees obliterated the international amateur spending record (and recently added another prospect). If the early rumors and innuendo are any indication, the rest of baseball isn’t going to let the Yankees have the last word.

I already mentioned the Cubs as one of multiple teams expected to spend well past their bonus pool starting on July 2nd, 2015.  I had heard rumors of other clubs planning to get in the act when I wrote that, but the group keeps growing with each call I make, so I decided to survey the industry and see where we stand.  After surveying about a dozen international sources, here are the dozen clubs that scouts either are sure, pretty sure or at least very suspicious will be spending past their bonus pool, ranked in order of likelihood:

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The main good thing about reaching the World Series is that it means you won your league. When you win your league, people like you a lot, and it’s a good feeling. Builds community. Another, bigger-picture good thing about reaching the World Series is that it brings in revenue, especially if you haven’t been real good for a while. New streams of money begin to flow, and preexisting streams of money flood their banks, as more people express interest in the product and other people express more interest in the product. Basically, if you get to the World Series, it’s a good thing for more than just the day or week of.

When the Royals came out of nowhere to come within a few runs of the championship, it stood to reason they’d reap an enormous benefit. An area love affair was re-kindled, as Kauffman Stadium became one of the loudest and most popular environments in the game. Estimates varied, but there was no question the World Series appearance would mean, for the team, some additional tens of millions of dollars. How much could that money mean, if re-invested in the roster? What would Dayton Moore be able to pull off, given greater financial flexibility?

The Royals re-signed Luke Hochevar for a couple of years, which seems like a good deal even given Hochevar’s operation. But lately the Royals have spent bigger money. They committed $17 million to Kendrys Morales. They committed $11 million to Alex Rios. And, most recently, they committed $20 million to Edinson Volquez. This is what the World Series has meant, in a way. It’s rather underwhelming.

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Everybody remembers the movie Inception, right? Nice visuals, convoluted premise, and that killer score – a more than sufficient popcorn delivery system. Fun fact: the main plot point of inception, that an idea can be planted in someone’s subconscious without them realizing, is real!

At some point this summer, exasperated Texas Rangers writer/blogger/fanalyst Jamey Newberg tweeted something to the effect of “Alex Rios is one of those players whose production will never line up with his numbers.” At first, I was offended. A player produces what he produces, his numbers reflect his….production. But the thought, the idea that a player is less than his final stat line, it stayed with me. I couldn’t shake it.

Then the offseason rolled around. The crop of available outfielders is charitably described as “very much ungood” and then a bunch of guys signed. One of those signees, Nick Markakis got four years and an AAV north of $11 million, to the surprise of many. And then, piling shock on top of shock, Rios himself signed a one-year deal with the Royals for $11 million.

There are plenty of reasons to scoff at the big outfielders contract. Entering his age-34 season, Rios comes off a rough season in Texas. He produced right at replacement level in 2014, displaying a worrisome lack of power (just four home runs and a career-low .118 ISO) and he missed time with injury, as older players are wont to do.

But more than most players, Rios’ problems are matters of perception. There are many reasons to not like Rios as a player or this signing in a vacuum, all factors that I believe contribute to the shrugs and disbelief when news of his Kansas City contract broke.

Most pressing, the concern expressed by the Rangers fan above: does his production lag behind his numbers?

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