Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 10/24

Eric A Longenhagen: Howdy from the kitchen island in Tempe, where I need to pour coffee #2 before we start.

Tyler: Hi, Eric! Where are you at on Colt Emerson? He made some nice swing adjustments this year (dropping the leg kick for a toe tap) that helped him stay on his backside better, and he handled the AAA promotion well, albeit in a small sample.

Eric A Longenhagen: 2025 End-of-Season Top 100 Prospects Update | FanGraphs Baseball

Eric A Longenhagen: I bet he factors into the Mariners big league middle infield next year

Thomas: Has your evaluation/prognostication on Teey Yesevage changed at all with his performance over the last month (in either direction)?

I don’t really have a question, but…: Trey Yesavage?

Hazmat Corntail: Any thoughts on Yesavage’s postseason performance vis a vis the scouting report and expectations? I’ve only caught glimpses and it seems like he’s got the mental part down, but has had bouts with shakiness

Eric A Longenhagen: Monster splitter, probably better than my eval, and the unique height of his delivery seems to be helping him. He’s great.

Dan S.: Thoughts on Enrique Bradfield Jr.? Very little power and some struggles against lefties, but good K:BB and he has set new max EVs in the AFL (107.1), which makes me hopeful he can at least tap into more gap-to-gap power. With plus speed and defense he could probably be a regular even with like an 80 to 85 wRC+, no?

Eric A Longenhagen: I like him, tend to think he’s going to produce more like a low-end regular when you look at the six year window of control as a whole. Take a peek at the CF WAR leaderboard from the last half decade or so….

Eric A Longenhagen: Major League Leaderboards – 2020 to 2025 – Batting | FanGraphs Baseball

Eric A Longenhagen: You don’t start seeing players who SLG under .400 until way down the list, past where I’d be comfortable putting a 50 on the guy.

Eric A Longenhagen: I really like Bradfield and agree he’s going to be a contributor soon, I just see him more as a nine hole hitter than a Trea Turner type in CF

Hazmat Corntail: Dbacks are going to try out Lawlar in CF in winter ball. How do you see that working out?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s a great idea but I have no idea how it’ll go. He can really run, so it might work.

Will: Do you ever feel detached from the goings on of the Major League game? I feel so with the A’s + more interest in College Ball.

Eric A Longenhagen: When I first took this job I’d probably have told you that my understanding of the big league happenings would slip, but I don’t think that’s been the case. I watch and engage with big league games constantly. Some of that is because I get to be on a west coast schedule.

Balker Woohler: 3 good innings in the AFL and I’m ready to fire up the Daniel Espino hype machine– on a scale of 1 to Jose Pett how delusional am I?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think he could be a set-up man

GB: Any word on Jacob Steinmetz?

Eric A Longenhagen: I’ll ask media relations folks, he’s no longer on Salt River’s roster but I am not aware why.

Alec: Will Gabriel Gonzalez have a shot to debut next season on a potentially thin Twins roster? My incredibly basic boxscore-watching tells me his overall production across the minor leagues improved notably compared to last season and he played his way up to AAA. What do the counting stats and basic measurables not say about his game?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s plausible, he needs to be put on the 40-man this offseason and he’s in position to debut just by virtue of injuries and attrition. There are still a lot of guys ahead of him on the depth chart, though. Gotta give Rodriguez and Roden more runway than they’ve had, for instance.

Eric A Longenhagen: Gonzalez stuff beyond the surface stats: The chase rate (over 30%) is a standard deviation worse than the big league average, he’s kind of a squat guy. There are some warts, doesn’t mean he’s bad, in the top 100 mix this offseason but not a lock.

Logan: For the teams that are successful at scouting international players, how much of it do you think is having good scouts vs having good analytics vs pure luck?

Eric A Longenhagen: Tough question, the recipe definitely has all three of those factors. I spoke with someone weeks ago who said the correlation between player bonuses and their performance has slipped since the latest changes to the rules, which makes sense when you consider that players are committing younger and younger and are therefore more volatile.

Big Fan: Thanks so much for your AFL update this week.  What have you seen from ATL’s Jim Jarvis and LJ McDonough so far?

Eric A Longenhagen: Jarvis is playing a nice shortstop, compact athlete with a short swing, sees the ball well, looks like a contact-oriented utility guy.

Eric A Longenhagen: McDonough it’s a whacky, high-effort stride down the mound, funky arm stroke, deceptive fastball/slider combo with 20 or 30 grade command.

Scotty: Your AFL article had a positive write up about Jared Thomas. He still has a 15:1 K:BB ratio in the AFL. Is the approach the biggest issue with him right now?

Eric A Longenhagen: Real juice in his hands, still has room on his frame for strength. Volatile guy.

Logan: Would you 50 any prospects in the DSL this year other than Josuar Gonzalez?

Eric A Longenhagen: Maybe one or two more with deeper analysis needed during the offseason.

Lin: Thoughts on Chen-Wei Lin in the AFL so far?

Eric A Longenhagen: My first look was yesterday, and it was bad. Built and moves like an MLB starter, but was mechanically inconsistent yesterday, secondaries were generic. I’m not inclined to bury him off of yesterday, just means I need to see him again.

Dan S.: Nate George is listed as the Orioles #38 prospect, but BA has him in the Top 100 overall (78). He was a 16th round pick out of a cold-weather HS but he did nothing but hit in his pro debut with elite speed and good CF edfense. Is he a guy we should expect to see move up the FanGraphs list soon?

Eric A Longenhagen: I tend to be skeptical of the guys who can’t turn on the ball at all. Looks like a speedy 5th OF to me.

Joe: What’s the best way to differentiate between an MILB player with too high a K% to be successful in MLB and one that can survive it. Alcantara and Caissie are both a little high, but clearly Judge adapted. Can those two? Thanks.

Eric A Longenhagen: Check the swinging strike rate, too. Someone’s K% might be elevated because they run deep counts. The contact rate and swinging strike rate gives you a more isolated idea of the bat to ball skill. ALso watch to see if there’s barrel feel. Judge and Shohei swing and miss a lot but you can still see them moving the barrel around in ways that max out the quality of their contact when they do connect. There are power-on-contact metrics (like xwOBAcon) not publicly available for many minor leaguers that help me parse the guys you’re talking about.

NFP: Industry data question: when we see batter performance against velo, it’s usually split at 93/94 mph – do teams do research every couple of years to verify that that’s still the right threshold, or is that “just” average ML velo? The same goes for how teams do the sliding scale of EV vs contact%, etc. Anyway, did Kazuma Okamoto do better against velocity in 2025?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s a good question. I think you can approach it a couple different ways at the same time. You can se the bar as “average mlb velo” and you can set the bar higher than that to perhaps get a better understanding of how the hitter would look at this time of year against better, rested pitching staffs. Your splits could also be “vertical fastballs” versus “lateral” ones….

Eric A Longenhagen: Okamoto has done well the last two years combined versus 94+ mph velo: 475 pitches 93+ mph in that sample, he hit .294 with an OPS just shy of .900, 13% miss rate

tbone26: any updates to atsuki taniechi’s report? thoughts on his secondaries and how they’d play against mlb competition?

Eric A Longenhagen: Working on him today, actually, have nothing fresh on him as I sit here right now, will have updated info on the site next week.

Bencle Mens: What’s your coffee setup?

Eric A Longenhagen: Just a drip machine, nbd

WWeis: Comp for Kayson Cunningham?  Ceiling?

Eric A Longenhagen: The “Boy, this worked out exactly as well as it possibly could have” comp is lefty-hitting Placido Polanco

Jace, The Mind Sculptor: You mentioned Dax Kilby maybe being an offseason 45+… are you now ranking the HS draft day SSs  Holliday, Willits… Kilby?… Carlson, JoJo Parker?

Eric A Longenhagen: I don’t think Dax is a SS but I do think his hit tool is more stable than Carlson’s (who is a 70 SS defender, tho)

Syndergaardengnomes: You never hear anyone talk about Nick Morabito (not even a 35+ grade), but he held his own in AA this year, and looks like he could at least be a 5th OF due to defense and speed.  Any thoughts on him?

Eric A Longenhagen: Nate George copy and paste

flightsongs: Lots of ink spilled on Roki, but do you have any opinions on how the other rookies and recent grads in that Dodgers pen (Sheehan/Dreyer/Wrobleski/Henriquez/Klein) have progressed since you last published an eval of them?

Eric A Longenhagen: Sheehan looks like a real impact mid rotation guy, Dreyer should get some down ballot RoY votes, Wrobo was worse than I hoped this year, Henriquez I think will eventually be an 8th or 9th inning guy, Klein (at least what I saw) was pretty wild

Mike: Mendez not playing first in the AFL is a disappointment. He’s behind like six guys for an OF job…. Could be still transition?

Eric A Longenhagen: Think he left due to reasons of bereavement. Looked good before that.

Eric A Longenhagen: I think learning 1B from scratch in this league would be a big ask.

Tom, D: Juneiker Caceres backed 24 DSL and 25 Complex stats reasonably in low-A (SSS, of course) wondering what a realistic projection is for him? Table setting CF?

Eric A Longenhagen: More like contact-driven corner guy for me.

Eric A Longenhagen: Like a Nootbaar type?

Kate: Zach Cole got some heat at the end of the year.  Can he keep enough of the AAA contact gains to let the loud tools play at the MLB level?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s possible, he’s yoked and quite athletic, guys with overt big league physicality are sometimes the ones who keep improving

Kate: Sounds like Morlando and Brailer have looked pretty awful in AFL.  How far down are you moving these guys after this kind of showing?

Eric A Longenhagen: Yeah both those guys are really going through it out here. Brailer was clearly just no ready for this level of play. He’s made procedural mistakes on defense, the pitches he decides to challenge have been pretty bad. But he’s also a physical freak (like edge rusher build) with plus-plus bat speed, he’s barely played, he’s really young. Morlando looks like he was in the weight room too much and he’s bulked up and lost twitch and flexibility.

Eric A Longenhagen: I don’t know how much both those guys will dip for me this offseason, but they will.

Damien: All the reports on George Lombard Jr are still glowing, but I’m getting nervous about his ability to put up numbers so far (outside of his 25′ A+ stretch). Should I be??

Eric A Longenhagen: Gonna K a bunch, but plus shortstop D and power will play.

AstrosAllDayEveryDay: Do you think Walker Janek is coming up next year on opening day?

Eric A Longenhagen: That’s too early, he couldn’t catch a big league staff right now.

Insert Witty Name Here: If you could scout any pitcher or hitter in history when they started in A ball, who would you like to see?

Eric A Longenhagen: I don’t think Roberto Clemente even played A ball so he might be a fraudulent answer.

John Olerud: Realistically, in your estimation which and how many of their MLB-ready or near-ready prospects (including guys who have already had a cup of coffee) can the Mariners rely on to provide ample production for them to rely on as roster stalwarts on a competitive team in 2026?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think they have enough MIF candidates to throw at the wall that two will emerge from the Young/Emerson/Arroyo cluster and help out somehow. I’d be surprised if Montes/Farmelo raced there fast enough to help out in ’26.

Eric A Longenhagen: Farmelo has serious juice btw

nb: Hey Eric – Last year around this time, I asked you about Justin Crawford and you were concerned about his GB rate.  Looks like the rate is still high, but he has pop.  All indications are that the Phillies want him to be their leftfielder at some point next year (maybe Opening Day).  My question is “should he be?”.  Thx!

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m still worried he’s Zac Veen

Eric A Longenhagen: The underlying metrics are great, but I worry he’s gonna get absolutely worked by big league velo.

Mike: Do you know why Josue de Paula was removed from the AFL roster?

Eric A Longenhagen: Hammy

Trey: Who of the ERC, Lagrange, Hess and Cunningham group will be starting for the Yankees in 27′?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think you have them in the right order, maybe Lagrange ahead of ERC on ceiling

Ryan: I see a lot more about Adam Serwinowski online lately. Is that the big market bump or did he make a jump this past year?

Eric A Longenhagen: Huh, that’s actually really interesting. It’s possible all it takes is one person to start talking about a guy before the herding begins.

AL Central Casting: Over the past decade, a number of organizations have gotten adept at taking pitchers with good command and getting velocity gains – Cleveland’s development of Beiber being a primary example. This makes sense to me and I would think there are some standard practices at this point to do this. Are any teams getting good at the inverse – taking pitchers with great stuff and improving their command? (I’m hoping the Twins can do this with Mick Abel.)

Eric A Longenhagen: I think there are teams (and the Rays seem to be one most explicitly) who think they can at least make guys who have real sh*t throw enough strikes to be *something*, even if they’re not a surgeon.

Insert Witty Name Here: Did Dante Nori’s year justify where he was drafted?

Eric A Longenhagen: Too early to say definitively, thought his year was fine, not moving the needle either way

Sad Mariners fan: Does it make sense for the M’s to trade Harry Ford, since he’s probably most valuable as a starting catcher? If so, what could they expect to get for him?

Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, catching depth is too important, he seems like a great kid to have around and I think there are ways to make him your big league backup without really stunting his development.

Ben: What will the next prospect inefficiency be? Bringing up players earlier? A specific market/country?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think shaping them as athletes, exercise physiology that keeps them healthy, makes them stronger without impacting their mobility.

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m reading this right now lol Ballistic: The New Science of Injury-Free Athletic Performance: Abbott, Henry: 9781324050131: Amazon.com: Books

Eric A Longenhagen: so it’s front of mind

Eric A Longenhagen: Okay, I have to split slightly early this week. There are still great questions in the queue and I thank everyone for again spending your friday with me and the site. Asian pro thoughts coming from James and I next week, gird your loins.