Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 9/11/2026

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning everyone, hope you had a good week. I’m on the road looking for a reprieve from the heat, hoping that things have downshifted when I get back. The forecast doesn’t look favorable for that. I’m in data-gathering mode, lining the coffers for offseason list-making. I have a rental car pickup in about 90 mins, so we’re keeping things tight to the hour today. Let’s get after it.

Charles Bengal Tiger: So, 47 HRs for Fischer. What does it really mean?

Eric A Longenhagen: Because of how the bottom of the big league scale is shifting and evolving, I’m starting to come around on the idea that this will be good enough for Fischer to be a first division regular at first base…

Eric A Longenhagen: Here is the bottom of the big league player pop in terms of contact rate:

Eric A Longenhagen: Minimum 200 PA

Eric A Longenhagen: Major League Leaderboards – 2026 – Batting | FanGraphs Baseball

Eric A Longenhagen: Here’s minimum 400 PA, these are players who’ve gotten enough run to feel better about the sample size and consider something more like a “regular” or “everyday player”

Eric A Longenhagen: Major League Leaderboards – 2026 – Batting | FanGraphs Baseball

Eric A Longenhagen: Fischer is a 62% contact rate guy in the minors. If he can sustain that as he’s exposed to big league pitching, there is probably enough other stuff going on to make him an impactful 1B. Here are the data extremes of the other aspects of his skillset:

Eric A Longenhagen: 62% contact (only one regular, Murakami, worse than that), 112 max exit (plus, nothing crazy), 107 EV90 (would be top 40 in MLB), 58.5% hard hit (would rank first), average launch 28 degrees (easily the steepest in baseball, Ced Mullins leads MLB at 25.7 degrees) and it’s all pulled in the air.

Eric A Longenhagen: There are parts of this that make me think, “He’s doing the things a guy needs to do to whiff this much and still be good” and there’s part of me that worries there’s basically no precedent for this type of guy.

Eric A Longenhagen: Visually, his hand speed is electric.

Eric A Longenhagen: I think it’s fair to conclude he’s going to K a ton and that he might have stretches where things look pretty bad

Eric A Longenhagen: But he’s doing the other stuff well enough to determine he’ll have a positive overall impact, I don’t think he’s a bust or anything.

Kervin: Do you think teams are/will hold back some promotions this September so that they will still be able to work with those prospects next year if there is a lengthy lockout?

Eric A Longenhagen: Yes, I think there will be some guys left off 40-man rosters this offseason for this reason, too.

willt: You mentioned going to the Chandler HS FB game a couple weeks ago, how was Mencl?

Eric A Longenhagen: First half of the game was awesome, second half was kind of a dud. Mencl is tall and can sling it, no idea how it’ll translate to college. I wasn’t like “OMG, this kid is way better than everyone else.”

Eric A Longenhagen: Chandler has a DL named Jaxon Zembrycki who I can’t believe is only committed to NAU

pmaguran: A different prospect writer raised some conditioning / physical concerns about Zhyir Hope.  Anything you’ve heard on this?

Eric A Longenhagen: You can say it was Keith, it’s okay. Hope was like 195 at the Combine and then 235 when he arrived for his first Dodgers Spring camp to start 2025. That was mostly good strength, but when you add that much size and strength that fast, it’s tough to say how your body will trend into your mid-20s, and into your late-20s. It’s plausible he’s already at a spot that will be difficult to maintain, that he’ll be strong but not as mobile as you’d like. He’s young enough to alter the way he conditions himself and make meaningful improvements in a relatively short period of time…

Eric A Longenhagen: Beware of the observer effect. I wrote during the 2019-2020 offseason that Julio Rodriguez had lost a step already. He had. He was running in the 4.4s that Fall and looked heavy. I wrote it, he was shown, and it lit a fire under him. These things play out over several years.

Eric A Longenhagen: If I work for the Tigers, I’m showing Hope Keith’s article today regardless of whether or not I think he’s in shape. Not to flame Keith, just to motivate Hope.

Charles Bengal Tiger: Will DeVries lose his 60? Or just move to the back end of the players with that grade?

Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, I’ll advocate for keeping him there, but yeah probably at the back now that we have a scary injury.

WarrenJ: Is there any chance that the Grady Emerson pick will be remembered something like the Tim Beckham pick?  I know it’s a small sample, but I can’t help worrying.

Eric A Longenhagen: Too soon for that. The Beckham pick felt worse because of how good Posey turned out to be. I’m not sure anyone who went immediately after Emerson is gonna be *that* good.

krob4385: Looks like Santucci is figuring it out in AAA. Does he figure to be a rotation option for the Mets next year? How high is his ceiling?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think if he takes another step forward as a strike-thrower early next season then you might see him pretty quickly. If he remains in this range then I’d bet his debut occurs either out of necessity (due to injury) or later in the year, like August. He’s a post-2027 40-man addition, I don’t think the Mets will go out of their way to accelerate that a ton unless they absolutely need to. He’s a good prospect and will make a positive impact of some kind, but whetehr that’s as a five-ish inning starter or nasty lefty set-up man… he’s still got one foot in both of those outcomes as far as I’m concerned

Jonathan Adelman: I vaguely recall you saying at one point that you were in a Diamond Mind or OOTP sim league. Do you treat prospect ceiling as more valuable in that league since replacement level is a lot higher than IRL?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s a 24-team league, replacement level is pretty low. I care way more about proximity in that league than prospects. I often trade back i the draft or deal a first rounder for a currently good player. I do have 2 first rounders in this offseason’s draft, though.

agel20: Am i deluding myself by thinking the Orioles prefer Franklin to Bradfield? Or am I just reading too much into them not calling up Bradfield when their OF defense has been awful?

Eric A Longenhagen: I get why you’re frustrated and it sucks that LouBob got hurt. I’d be curious to see what Franklin can do on offense and give him some run. I’m pretty confident that Bradfield is a good-gloved nine hole hitter and that’s kind of it, but Franklin might slug lefties enough to be a meaningful piece, and you need to find out if that’s true.

Broken Bat: Eric, thanks for the hard work this year. You provided a lot of good information and observations. I think there is industry agreement that certain clubs ie. Guardians, Rays, and Mariners have a positive edge on pitching development. Are there teams that sort of do the same in developing mlb hitters?

Eric A Longenhagen: Gracias, ten years in and trying to evolve. I think Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Arizona have good track records with hitters.

Jonathan Adelman: Hi all,

I know the A1/A2/B1/B2/C1/C2/D scale (which is sometimes expanded, depending on FO) gained prominence for grading prospects (or prospect ceilings) during Theo Epstein’s time with the Red Sox. Do you know who, specifically, introduced it as Boston’s classification system? Was it Theo? Jed? Jason McLeod? Someone else further down the ladder? If this isn’t a known answer, can Eric or Brendan use some juice to poll contacts and get their best answer/guess? It bugs me that we don’t have a public record of who specifically proposed the system, especially since it now has pretty widespread adoption within the Epstein FO family tree.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Eric A Longenhagen: I believe it was McLeod’s.

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s a solid, usable scale, I don’t think A should be split into two buckets, and the grades are focused more on ultimate role rather than “role-time/risk = value” like ours is. We (Beeg and I) definitely frame the way we think about guys using that scale pretty often. I think the scouts who are tasked with using that scale sometimes have too many B grades because they’re trying to create attention from their bosses on those players, and too many C1 grades (basically our 45) because it’s human nature to hedge a bit.

apeloton: Saw a rumor that davalan might get time at 2b since he’s played there before. Would make some sense org depth wise but usually don’t see guys move back up the defensive scale like that – does he seem like someone who could actually do it? Are the dodgers the type of org that would even consider it?

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s uncommon for this particular type of move, it’s usually a guy who’s great at third base who moves back to shortstop, or a catcher conversion guy. Remember the Dodgers were hellbent on Michael Busch playing 2b for a while. I think it’s worth seeing what he can do in a low stakes environment because the glut of OFs they have will otherwise require some triaging later on.

salisburysteak: Thanks as always for chatting. Wondering if you have anything to share about Austin Charles. The long awaited Austin Charles Breakout looked underway earlier this year, then he had a bad injury and was out all summer, now he’s back and apparently hitting again. Any thoughts or info?

Eric A Longenhagen: Freaky tall guy with a weird (but pretty short) swing. I had him as a pre-2025 pick to click, then he struggled. Data is better in every way this season, albeit in a 185 PA sample. Power is approaching average, contact piece went from 30-grade to 45/50 area, up around 73%. He’s 22, still so long.. late bloomer characteristics but I don’t think a big breakout is suddenly here. I think if he carries this over to Double-A next year we can start to talk about whether they should be planning for him to be part of the big league picture in 2028/29

tmh198: Is the realistic outcome for Lazaro Montes akin to Murakami? (high K rate, decent OBP r/t BBs and around 30 or so HR’s, or am I being too optimistic and overrating him a bit?

Eric A Longenhagen: They’re different in a meaningful way: Laz has super long levers. I just think that makes him more volatile. But also, I love the kid, he’s such a fun and energetic player. I hope it pans out. We have the same grade on Montes (50) as I did on Murakami entering the season. ‘kami has produced more like a 55, prorate to a 60 if you want because he missed time.

doink000: Josuar Gonzalez – Top 10 prospect next season?

Eric A Longenhagen: Yeah, Brendan and I chatted some this week about how good he looks on defense. I’m ready to go all in despite the total lack of launch right now. 70 defender.

dbailit: on the topic of australia… as intl depts start to scout more and more from unique countries which country do you think will emerge as a legit producer of big leaguers?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think there will be another wave thanks to Bazzana and Mead but probably on a bit of a delay, just as those guys emerged a good bit after Rowland Smith and Hendricks and Balfour, just as they emerged after Nillson and Lloyd.. … need time for these guys to establish themselves, for kids to get on board, and then mature as athletes

Eric A Longenhagen: I think Africa will end up being a bigger deal over time

Brian Martin: Rainiel Rodriguez reducing strikeouts and hitting like a man on fire since the end of May. And still only 19….4 months older than Jesus Made. Best offensive skill set prospect in the minors? Is defensive development going to delay his arrival in the big leagues? If Made and Walcott are likely to arrive in MLB early in 2027 (assuming baseball schedule happens), should Rodriguez be on a similar trajectory?

Eric A Longenhagen: Rainiel’s defense might put him on a longer timeline. It tends to be the nature of catching regardless of player quality, and in his case he’s a bit crude for an upper level minor leaguer because his bat is what has accelerated his rate of promotion. Another guy with excellent contact quality in spite of some whiffing. Contact rate has actually dipped this season, slider chase/whiff kinda scary. Love him, think he’s obviously going to be an impact player, not sure how much catching he’s going to do from the jump.

doink000: Bo knows ball! Does Bo Davidson have the tools/performance to warrant top 100 consideration next season?

Eric A Longenhagen: Absolutely, anyone with this kind of lefty power deserves to be in the conversation.

oaktownblues: Do you think you’ll be bumping Johenssy Colome up a grade after his DSL performance?

Eric A Longenhagen: Yes. Wish they’d have sent him to AZ for instructs, it’d be easier to stuff him if we could see it from 20 feet away rather than only on tape.

ADoctolero: Percentage odds that Josuar de Jesus Gonzalez is the #1 prospect in baseball by this time next season?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think he’s one of like 5 or so guys who have that kind of ceiling, so 20%?

jacobteam: Thoughts on 90% outcome for Logan Hughes?  Michael Conforto?

Eric A Longenhagen: That’s not a bad comp. Melky Cabera?

Phillip Denny: Between Kade Anderson and Josue De Paula making the jump straight from AA, are we seeing a new team strategy of saying screw AAA if you’re talented enough, or just happenstance that coincidentally happened twice this summer?

Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, we’ve seen this plenty before, dating back 20 years. Triple-A has grizzled vets who it’d be insulting to have at Double-A even if there’s technically a 20-year-old down there who is more talented than them.

Eric A Longenhagen: Okay, I’ve gotta go handle some clerical business. Great questions this week, I’m gonna go through the queue and pull some out for a mailbag or something. Look for that next week. Rental car time for you boy. See you guys next week.