Miami Marlins Top 29 Prospects

Pérez is one of the freakier players, let alone prospects, in the game. The Andean condor of pitching prospects, he has incredible body control and strike-throwing ability for a pitcher this young, who is this size, who throws this hard, and who has made repertoire adjustments on the fly throughout the last year and a half. Across 2021 and 2022, Pérez added about 30 pounds, experienced a two-tick fastball velocity bump, and incorporated a second, harder breaking ball that has become his primary non-fastball weapon. After sitting “only” 94-95 mph in 2021, he’s now parked in the 96-98 mph range for entire starts, and his hardest sliders (in the 85-87 mph range) are nearly 10 mph harder than his average curveball was in 2021 (77 mph). At one point he rose to being our no. 2 overall prospect, then was shut down for a little over a month with what Miami described as “arm fatigue” late in 2022. He’s looked totally fine since returning, including early in 2023 when he made six dominant starts at Double-A Pensacola and was promoted to Miami.

Pérez shows bend and balance in his lower half as he propels himself way down the mound and releases on the doorstep of the batter’s box, making hitters extremely uncomfortable. Though he doesn’t throw the pitch a ton, his changeup feel is also precocious and currently more consistent than his feel for his newer slider, which tends to finish in the zone too often. The ceiling on his changeup and command are both huge. Tall, long-levered pitchers tend to sharpen their command into their 20s as they refine their control of their bodies, and Pérez already has average command at age 20. Consider that C.C. Sabathia walked a batter every other inning during his age-20 rookie season and, over time, became one of the more efficient strike-throwers in baseball with one of the game’s best changeups. Pérez has similar ingredients at the same age. The sky’s the limit here. It will be interesting to see how the Marlins manicure his workload in 2023 since he’s only thrown 77 innings each of the last two seasons and is easily on pace to blow through that mark this year. As of the early part of 2023, Miami is scrapping around .500 and their rotation, especially with a fully-operational Eury, would make them pretty dangerous in a postseason setting if they can sneak in.

Eder was a tantalizing but inconsistent high school prospect who at times would sit 94-97 mph, though often with scattershot control. He ended up at Vanderbilt, where those issues continued, and Eder finished his career there sitting 91-92, which is part of why he fell to the fourth round of his draft. He had a breakout 2021 at Double-A, his first full season in pro ball, posting a .98 WHIP across 15 starts while working about five innings per start until August, when he blew out and needed Tommy John. It cost him all of 2022. He was supposed to be back early in 2023 but fractured his left foot in an off-the-field accident that will sideline him until mid-June.

Eder’s delivery has changed since college. His arm slot is not as deliberately north/south as before, but his fastball still plays as an in-zone bat-misser because of his angle and carry. The tweaks have made Eder’s slider one of the nastier ones on the planet (2021 pitch data showed a 300 rpm uptick from his college slider to his pro one), with some of them looking like they’re headed into the ribs of left-handed hitters before bending over the plate. His changeup is only fair right now, and his command still comes and goes, and even though he didn’t walk nearly as many hitters in 2021 as he tended to in college, there was still eyeball scouting relief risk here even before his elbow blew out. But if Eder does have to move to the bullpen, there might be another gear of velocity in the tank, which would make him a premium reliever with two plus-plus pitches.

The 2023 season is his 40-man roster evaluation year, so the Marlins should be aggressive with him once he’s back and healthy from the foot fracture. If Eder is wild upon his initial return to affiliated ball, it will be tough to know if he’s regressed to his career command mean or if it’s just rust from being nearly two years post-op. It was probably already going to take two seasons to put Eder back in a position to work an entire load of starter’s innings at the big league level, and that becomes more complicated now that he’s missed extra time due to the foot. It’s possible he’ll be so good upon his return that he kicks down the door, but it’s more likely from a roster timeline standpoint that Miami gives him the back half of 2023 in the minors so his innings can be managed with his health and development in mind. Before he got hurt, there were folks in baseball who considered him a top 30 prospect, so his ceiling is big enough to include him on the Top 100 now even though he’s coming off injury.

Often, the timing of when Cuban players leave the island and become eligible to sign isn’t optimal, and in Cappe’s case, it was late enough that most teams had already committed most of their 2019-2020 bonus pool space. He was forced to choose between signing in July of 2019 when he was first eligible for less money than a player of his caliber typically would, or waiting until the following year when teams teams had enough verbally uncommitted pool space to give him a better deal. Cappe took the latter route but his signing was delayed another six months because of the pandemic. It put him, by default, behind the developmental curve of a typical $3.5 million international prospect. The Marlins have done their part to catch him up, as they bumped him up to full-season ball for the final month of the 2022 season and then sent Cappe straight to High-A Beloit when camp broke in 2023.

After his feel for the barrel (especially toward the bottom of the strike zone) bailed him out in Jupiter, some of Cappe’s chase-happy tendencies have begun to have a more meaningful impact on his offensive output early in 2023. His strikeout rate spiked some and his overall offensive performance is beneath the league average. But it’s miserable to hit in the Midwest League early in the season and it can be especially grueling when you’ve barely experienced weather like that, let alone tried to hit High-A pitching in it. There will probably have to be swing adjustments here eventually, and ideally Cappe would also become more selective, although the latter feels far fetched. Adept at scooping balls down and turning on inside pitches, Cappe tends to swing underneath pitches up and away from him; he’s tracking them but can’t get on top of them. There are already going to be chase-driven punchouts here, so it’s important for Cappe’s plate coverage to be tight so he can hit the strikes he sees. On paper, even with the hole in his swing, Cappe has performed well from a bat-to-ball standpoint early in his career. He has very exciting raw power projection because of his wide receiver-ish frame and general athleticism. At times, his lower half looks a little stiff and he plays defense with a high center of gravity, but he’s capable of acrobatic defensive plays, he runs fast, moves beautifully, plays with effort, and already has experience at multiple infield positions. There are several reasons Cappe should be raw relative to the typical elite 21-year-old prospect, and he has a great projection foundation and tools. He’s still risky as a prospect, but he has big upside, enough to consider him a high-variance Top 100 prospect.

The third overall pick and first pitcher selected in the 2020 draft, Meyer had arguably the best stuff in the class, touching 102 mph and bending in a low-90s, plus-plus slider during that year’s brief college season. His athleticism (he was a two-way college player), simple delivery, and easy arm action gave teams confidence in his ability to start despite a smallish frame and inconsistent command at that time. Beginning his pro career at Double-A, Meyer passed his first professional tests with flying colors, finishing the year with a 2.41 ERA at Double-A Pensacola. His fastball velocity was down, “only” in the 94-97 mph range, but it didn’t seem reasonable to expect him to touch 102 every night across a slate of pro innings. He began 2022 at Triple-A and pitched well (28.4% K%, 8.3% BB%, 50% GB%, 3.47 FIP, his fastball in the 94-97 range) before Meyer hit the IL for a month with ulnar nerve irritation. It was a harbinger of things to come, as Meyer returned and looked normal for another month, made his big league debut, and then was suddenly shut down at the end of July. He had Tommy John in August of 2022 and will miss most or all of 2023 rehabbing. Only the most aggressive TJ rehab timelines would put Meyer on tap to return at the very end of 2023 play or if the Marlins make the playoffs, and even then probably in a bullpen role. A Fall League stint, if he’s ready for it, would at least give him some 2023 innings and provide an extended look for pro scouts. Meyer still has all his option years left, so he can be handled pretty conservatively once he returns and still comfortably profile as a starter.

Meyer’s changeup improved enough between 2020 and 2022 to move past some of the repertoire-related relief risk he had as an amateur. It would be nice if his peak arm strength returned coming out of rehab, but so long as he’s sitting 94-96 and wielding one of the harder sliders in the game, Meyer will be a mid-rotation starter. He moves back into the 50 FV tier here because I think it’s intellectually consistent to have him toward the back of the Top 100 with Cade Cavalli (whom Meyer will return sooner than) as I tend to slide guys who’ve had TJ to the back of their FV tier. Meyer slid out of the 50s because the timing of his TJ was going to cost him a whole other season, but at this stage, a huge chunk of his rehab has already happened and it feels more correct to value him near the injured arms toward the back of the universal list.

Fulton was actually throwing a little bit harder in the early part of 2023 (averaging 93.5 mph, per Synergy, a tick and a half more than 2022) before he was shut down with a UCL injury in mid-May and put on the 7-day IL, though the severity of the injury and potential courses of treatment (gulp) are yet to be determined. His arm stroke is super short for such a tall pitcher, and this mechanical funk and the extreme downhill angle of his fastball make him an uncomfortable at-bat. He commands two solid secondary pitches, the best of which is a breaking ball that spans the 78-84 mph range. His height and vertical arm slot give his fastball steep angle that runs counter to the flat-angled, bat-missing modern heater, but it takes hitters a few tries to get comfortable with it because of the unique look Fulton presents. His curveball also doesn’t pop out of his hand — because he’s so freaking big, it’s always descending after it leaves the southpaw’s fingertips — and it looks much more like his fastball out of the hand than is typical of pitchers with slower (by today’s standards) breaking balls. This pitch can either miss a bat (it plays as a backfoot offering to righties), get a groundball (which Fulton does a lot of), or land in the zone for a strike. He can turn over the occasional average changeup and at least locate his change consistently, but that pitch got knocked around in 2022 and Fulton is only using it 10% of the time so far in 2023.

Even though Fulton is young and lanky, he’s a relatively stiff athlete without the mechanical grace and ease that would typically lead one to project on the velocity, but even if this is all there ever is, Fulton is still of the no. 4/5 starter ilk, the sort on the fringe of making a contender’s playoff rotation. He throws a starter’s rate of strikes, his fastball has some non-traditional “round up” traits, he can bend in a nasty hook, and he’ll hopefully get over this most recent injury and eat a ton of innings.

Amaya is a skills-over-tools infielder whose at-bat quality and viability at shortstop should enable him to play a utility infield role in the near future. A lack of physicality and power will limit his impact, but Amaya has a great eye for the strike zone, as well as an idea of which pitches he can drive for doubles. He’s got a short, punchy swing you can’t just beat with velo. His hands were uncharacteristically inconsistent at the end of 2022, but Amaya has historically been a plus hands and actions shortstop with average range and arm strength. He is likely to debut in 2023, especially if Joey Wendle continues to struggle.

Edwards was a very famous high school prospect because of his speed and bat-to-ball skills, both of which remain the core of his slash-and-dash game. The Padres gave him $2.6 million to turn pro rather than go to Vanderbilt, and a year and a half later he was traded to the Rays as part of the Tommy Pham/Jake Cronenworth/Hunter Renfroe deal. Edwards had to wait another 18 months to make his Rays debut thanks to the pandemic and some oblique issues, but he looked fine when he was finally healthy and he remains a career .300 hitter in the minors. He was squeezed off Tampa’s deep 40-man roster and traded to the Marlins ahead of the 2022 roster deadline in a four-player swap in which Miami parted with two young pitching prospects.

After he had played the middle infield and a little bit of third base with the Rays, the Marlins have Edwards playing only second base and seeing his first career action in center field in 2023. Having positional versatility is key to not only maximizing his big league role, but to having one at all. Edwards isn’t a great defensive second baseman and and because he doesn’t have the arm to fit on the left side of the infield, a trial in center field makes a lot of sense. So far Edwards looks fair in center. His reads are a little tentative and he’ll make your eyes pop out of your head when he peeks at runners before he’s actually secured fly balls in his glove, but generally Edwards looks pretty comfortable considering he’s learning a new position on the fly at the Triple-A and big league levels. Provided he can actually become an average center field glove, Edwards will have enough roster impact to be a role player you can win with.

There was a lot of pre-draft industry gossip about Watson’s makeup and maturity, but you always want to take stuff like that with a huge grain of salt. Young athletes aren’t finished developing as people, and there’s sometimes individual bias baked into those opinions and rumors. One scout’s assessment of a player being arrogant and selfish is another’s report of him being confident and proactive. In Watson’s case, teams considered his issues to be significant enough to precipitate a draft day fall, and they proved persistent as Watson was eventually disciplined by the Marlins in 2022. The final straw, which prompted the team to send Watson home for a portion of the summer, came when he mimed shooting an umpire using his bat as a prop gun after an unfortunate check swing call. This is concerning, immature behavior in the workplace that you hope, with proper support from the Marlins, the now 20-year-old Watson outgrows.

Watson also spiraled on the field in 2022 and often looked lost at the plate, striking out a ton. His immense talent and bat speed were both still evident, but his offspeed pitch recognition was sushi raw. After an ankle injury sidelined him for most of this April, Watson got hot at High-A Beloit and then began to cool off and strike out a lot again, though not nearly as often as he had in 2022. In fact, his swinging strike rate has been a little bit better than average (about 10%) as of list publication. He has 20/20 ability and middle infield athleticism, the talent for stardom if Watson can develop a 40-grade hit tool and be more pulled together as a person. This is a situation where ability and trade value are not aligned, but sliding Watson because of his behavior essentially quantifies the impact of that behavior in a way that feels gross, so he’s lined up here purely on his ability and performance, which is that of a risky, high-variance prospect who will probably take some time to develop in every conceivable way.

A converted catcher, Vargas was one of the better pure hitters in the 2022 DSL, walking more than he struck out and contacting pitches all over the zone. Heuristically, Vargas is in the FanGraphs wheelhouse as a compact, lefty-hitting infielder who might have special bat-to-ball ability. His hands are extremely quick and short to the ball, and Vargas’ swing has natural lift but isn’t especially long because he’s a short-levered hitter. There isn’t huge bat speed or physical projection here, so Vargas’ chances of becoming an impact player will need to come from him developing superlative bat-to-ball ability, but if his early-career performance is any indication, that outcome is in play for him. He played all over the infield in 2022 but spent most of his time at third base. He’ll likely end up playing a mix of 2B/3B and probably no shortstop over time. Because a special hit tool is the most important thing a prospect can have, Vargas is (by a wide margin) the teenage hitter in this org most likely to become a big league regular down the line.

Mack (whose brother Charles was drafted by the Twins a few years ago) is a lefty-hitting catcher with a big frame, above-average bat speed, and a grooved, uppercut swing. His bat path has gorgeous natural loft, and Mack is a loose, explosive rotator, but he tends to swing through the center of the zone and doesn’t have especially good feel for the barrel. The good news is that plenty of catchers have 20-grade hit tools, but if they’re good enough defenders and get to some power, they tend to play a big league role. Mack’s size, mobility, the strength of his hands and arm, and the quality of his receiving are all solid long-term fits behind the dish. He has rare raw power for a lefty-hitting catcher and while he’ll probably hit between .180-.200 at the big league level, so long as he’s getting to the power, Mack will be doing enough to be at least a backup. Because we’re talking about a young catcher who has a cold weather amateur background and missed a chunk of 2022 with injury, there are some late-bloomer traits here that I want to account for. There won’t be enough hit tool for Mack to be a star, but if he can become a 30-grade bat, it will be enough to make him a second division primary catcher.

I’m a little embarrassed for not sticking to my underclass guns when it came to Berry, whose early-career performance at Arizona felt caricatured by the hitting environment there, if not altogether faulty because of the way his swings works (and more importantly, doesn’t work). To say things are off to a slow start for Berry would be an understatement, as he’s hitting well beneath the Mendoza Line at High-A Beloit. Berry’s lefty swing is an awful lot like J.J. Bleday’s and Cubs first baseman Matt Mervis‘. His head flies all over the place, and he swings underneath a ton of fastballs running up and away from him. He has also been extremely chase-prone so far as a pro, and a poor feel for sweet spot contact is evident in his underlying data, where Berry’s peak exit velos have been shockingly low. Berry was a career .360/.450/.655 hitter in college, with one season at Arizona and another at LSU (he was a draft-eligible sophomore). Even though it felt like he had swing issues that might eventually be exposed by polished pitching, it’s surprising that a guy who paved over the SEC would look so lost already at High-A. Berry’s bat needs to rebound because he is far from a lock to stay at third base, and he has to rake to profile as a 1B/DH or even a 40-grade third base defender. He’s actually a fairly rangy third baseman, as his foot speed allows him to cover a lot of ground, but his hands and arm accuracy are both pretty rough and cause him to be error-prone.

I’m content to have a hair trigger when it comes to sliding Berry because I was already skeptical (though not resolute enough to buck the amateur wing’s general — but not universal — consensus before last year’s draft), but deciding how much to slide him is challenging. I tend to take a Bayesian approach, which is where the “+” in 40+ comes into play here. This situation is concerning, but my instincts are still to value Berry above lower-impact role players and risky demos like the high school arms Miami drafted after him last year.

Mesa’s profile has done a near 180 since he signed for $1 million as the less-famous of the Brothers Mesa a couple of years ago. Then viewed as a contact-oriented hitter who might become a table-setting leadoff man, he’s become a plus center field defender with a power-over-hit offensive skill set. Mesa is chasing and whiffing a ton as a nearly-22-year-old at Double-A Pensacola. Even though his slash line is impressive early on in 2023, his swing doesn’t let him get to the top third of the zone and big league arms are going to execute up there consistently. It’s going to make it tough for Mesa to get to his nearly average raw power, impressive punch for a such a little hitter.

The carrying tool here is Mesa’s defense, which has become fantastic. He’s especially good at breaking in on balls hit in front of him and is very comfortable going back on balls hit directly over his head. The defense will enable Mesa to play a big league role because viable center field defenders are in short supply, even in the majors. He’s similar to Trent Grisham except without any of Grisham’s feel for the zone, and so Mesa’s production is likely to fall below Grisham’s modest line.

Nuñez is among the more entertaining defensive players in the minors, a bold and acrobatic middle infielder who will attempt to do some ridiculous things around the bag (and often succeed). His hands and actions are very special, while his arm strength is not. There are times when Nuñez should holster the baseball rather than try to make a highlight play or ill-advised throw, but otherwise he’s an impact defender at a premium position, and this alone should enable him to have a long big league career. While he shows plus plate discipline and about average bat-to-ball feel, Nuñez’s total lack of physicality is going to make it tough for him to play a big role. He’s much more likely to be a defensive replacement than a heavily used utilityman or part-time starter, in part because it’s likely his OBP skills won’t play as well against big league arms who’ll attack the singles-hitting Nuñez with impunity. You could argue Nuñez’s glove is special enough to hit the gas on his valuation a little bit here, but this is where a glove-only contributor at the big league level tends to fall.

Sanoja is a diminutive, plus-running up-the-middle prospect with precocious bat-to-ball skills and much less physicality than is typical for a big leaguer. He was extremely tough to strike out in the 2021 DSL and has bounced back and forth between the Low-A roster and the complex group for the last couple of seasons, solidifying himself at the top of Jupiter’s order in 2023. Sanoja hasn’t gotten much stronger during that stretch and is still less physical than most other Low-A players. His hitting hands and feel for the barrel remain exciting, though, especially combined with his speed. While he’s seen action all over the infield during his pro career, more recently Sanoja has been playing a lot of center field, with some time at both middle infield spots sprinkled in. He’s looking pretty good out in center, where his speed could make him a plus defender with time, and his arm strength plays better than it did on the infield. There’s risk Sanoja walks the Carlos Tocci path, where he isn’t able to develop viable big league strength, and his chase rate is pretty scary, but his versatility at several positions combined with his bat-to-ball skill should make him a role player.

Monteverde began his college career at Division III Virginia Wesleyan before transferring to D-II Seton Hill, where he lost most of 2019 (his junior year) to Tommy John surgery and 2020 to the pandemic. As a fifth-year grad transfer, he went to Texas Tech and struck out 101 batters in 86 innings despite only sitting 88-90 mph. Monteverde still only throws about that hard, but his short, vertical arm stroke is of the Clayton Kershaw phylum and helps his fastball sneak past hitters at the top of the strike zone. After feasting off his changeup in college, Monteverde has made changes to his seldom-used slider, which is now more of a cutter in the 84-85 mph range and up to 87, three ticks harder than he showed in 2022. He now has four distinct pitches and a very repeatable delivery. In the Tommy Milone mold, Monteverde is a high-probability fifth starter who’s rocketing through the minors.

Miller is a very exciting two-way athlete with real big league potential as both a pitcher and an outfielder. He was seen often in the U.S. (usually at tournaments in Florida) as an amatuer, signed with the Marlins for just shy of $1 million in January, and has already made developmental strides working out in the Dominican Republic. Miller was peaking in the low-90s as an amateur, but he’s now sitting in that range and has been up to 96. His delivery features some head violence, but Miller is a projectable lefty with a naturally riding fastball and the potential to develop breaking stuff with big depth because his arm slot allows him to get over the top of the baseball.

As a hitting prospect, Miller is a switch-hitter with crude feel for the barrel and the speed to be developed in center field. He has a low-ball, bottom hand-dominant swing that will leave him vulnerable at the top of the strike zone without an adjustment. Again, there’s an exciting blend of speed and power projection afforded by Miller’s lanky frame. It makes sense to develop him as both a hitter and pitcher early on since he’s likely to be on a pretty conservative innings count and can focus on hitting for chunks of the next couple of seasons. It gives Miller a chance to prove he can do both, and also gives the org more time to make sure they’re ultimately picking the correct developmental road for him when they come to the fork. Early on, it’s become more likely that Miller is eventually a pitcher, as he’s already taken a bit of a leap there.

A powerful, tightly-wound righty from the Midwest, Miller had among the best present arm strength/breaking stuff combinations of the 2022 draft’s high school pitchers and the Marlins gave him just shy of $1.7 million to eschew a commitment to Louisville. So far in 2023, he hasn’t quite had his peak velocity. Rather than sit 92-95 mph and bump 97 like he would in high school, Miller’s fastball is averaging just shy of 92 mph. This is pretty typical for high school pitchers whose throwing schedule and innings count become more labor intensive as pros, and the hope is that through physical maturity they can at least maintain their high school velocity, if not improve upon it. Because Miller isn’t the most projectable young guy, I’m anticipating this to be less likely to happen for him.

Miller has already shown development in other areas, though. The length and consistency of his arm action changed a couple of times during the last few years but was dialed into a compact, repeatable stroke during his senior season, and remains so. His fastball has better ride than it did in high school when it appeared more tail-oriented to my eye, and Miller’s changeup, while clearly a tertiary offering, is flashing bat-missing action and sink. His money pitches remain his two breaking balls, which can run together in the 77-84 mph range but are consistently above-average. The length and break is accentuated on his slower curveball, which is playing a little better than his slider so far because it appears to mesh better with his fastball. There are a lot of starter ingredients here but probably not big upside unless Miller shows an unexpected rebound in velocity.

Milbrandt comes straight out of prep arm central casting as a broad-shouldered, 6-foot-2 pitcher with impressive arm strength and raw breaking ball quality. He signed for just shy of $1.5 million in the 2022 third round rather than head to Vanderbilt. So far in 2023, he’s holding big league average velocity throughout his starts and touching 96-97 mph at times, though neither his fastball nor his good-looking, two-planed low-80s curveball is generating a ton of swing-and-miss right now. The movement of those two pitches mirrors one another in such a way that it should give righties fits when Milbrandt dials in his feel for locating them. Right now the timing and consistency of his arm stroke can come and go, and it can take an inning or two for him to find it before he settles in. Because we’re not talking about a nice, loose, short arm stroke here, it’s tough to project heavily on Milbrandt’s command and his changeup, which is a glorified upper-80s sinker right now. There’s a right tail starter outcome here, one that involves Milbrandt developing a third pitch and polishing the movement on his fastball so it isn’t so hittable even though it’s hard. But especially if Milbrandt’s fastball shape doesn’t change and needs help from big velocity in order to play against big league hitters, an eventual fastball/breaking ball relief role is more likely.

Sanchez signed as a 19-year-old at the end of the 2019 season and didn’t get going in pro ball until 2021, when he was immediately sitting in the mid-to-upper-90s and topping out at 100 mph. Injuries and wildness combined with the late start to his career to squash notions the Mets had of stretching out and starting Sanchez, which they tried a bit in 2021 and 2022. After a Fall League stint last year, the Mets traded Sanchez and former SEC stalwart Jake Mangum to Miami for Elieser Hernandez and Jeff Brigham.

Sanchez began 2023 on the shelf with a strained thigh, but he returned in mid-May and looks fine, again sitting 95-97 mph while utilizing a slider-first approach to pitching. Sanchez’s slider sits in the 88-92 range and it has plus-plus spin. Like a lot of the rest of Sanchez’s arms and legs operation, his feel for location can be all over the place, but when hitters are having to guess whether the 90-plus mph thing they’re seeing is either going to cut and dive or ride in on their hands, it’s a nightmare. Sanchez was a good get for the Marlins, a lanky, laser-armed late-bloomer candidate with premium arm strength and spin talent to mold throughout 2023 and 2024 before he’s in the big league bullpen mix.

Pushard’s career at Maine began in 2017, was interrupted by injury and the pandemic, and didn’t come to an end until after the 2022 season, when the Marlins signed him as an undrafted free agent. His build and delivery have both become more athletic in the last year or so. Pushard’s also had a velo spike and is now sitting 94-96 mph while touching 97 with flat angle and ride. His curveball has power, two-plane movement and is spinning at nearly 3,000 rpm on average. Unlike the other 40 FV relief prospects in this system, Pushard is also showing glimpses of a third pitch, a changeup that he can create a little bit of tumbling action on. He doesn’t quite have late-inning stuff, but Pushard’s swing-and-miss fastball elevates him above the other middle relief candidates in this system who tend to work with sinkers. He’s serving as Beloit’s closer, and is already a big win for whoever in the org is responsible for identifying him and developing him into the fastball/curveball monster he’s suddenly become.

Hoeing pitched well as an upper-level starter in 2022 and made a brief big league debut. After a few starts early in 2023, he was moved to the bullpen and quickly promoted to the big league level. Each of his offerings has experienced at least a three-tick velo boost as he’s shifted to relief, and his breaking ball has added nearly five. In addition to his added velocity, Hoeing has begun altering his position on the rubber depending on the handedness of the hitter. He works with heavy sink and tail, and has the repertoire depth to provide multi-inning length out of the bullpen.

A very successful three-year starter at Bethune-Cookman, Maldonado’s pro career began on a bit of a delay because of the pandemic and an injury that cost him a large chunk of 2021. Despite that, he reached the upper levels of the minors in a relief role very quickly, and he’s been dominant from a bat-missing and strike-throwing standpoint for the last two campaigns. As of list publication, he is leading the Marlins org in swinging strike rate (23%), garnering whiffs slightly more often than Eury Pérez. Maldonado is doing this by leaning heavily on his mid-80s slider, which has powerful vertical finish for a pitch that bends in around 84 mph. Maldonado throws this pitch more than half the time and supplements it with a mid-90s sinker that plays below its velocity. There have been some pitchers who have found a way in their mid-20s to accentuate the sink on their fastball and turn it into, if not a bat-misser, an impact pitch that stays off of barrels. If Maldonado can do that, he has a chance to work in big innings, but with just one big pitch in his toolkit right now, he has more of a middle inning look.

The 6-foot-8 Reynolds had been a power-hitting, whiff-addled 1B/OF throughout his minor league career (he posted a 57% hard-hit rate but also struck out well over 40% of the time), but the Marlins moved him to the mound in 2021 and he’s missed bats in the mid-minors while sitting 94-96 mph. Upon initially returning to the mound (Reynolds played both ways in high school), his fastball was up to 95 mph a couple of times and sitting 92-94 with pretty considerable spin for that velocity, but now he’s sitting 95 and touched 98 early on in 2023. Reynolds’ changeup has huge quantifiable action and, like a lot of other pitchers in this system, his breaking ball is suddenly faster than it was last year by a wide margin, up nearly five ticks and averaging 84-85 mph. It has tight, late movement, with Reynolds using it much more often than his changeup now, and his feel for locating both secondary pitches is pretty good. He’s on the 40-man roster and therefore the cusp of making the big leagues, a successful middle reliever conversion arm.

Hernandez is an advanced switch-hitting catcher with an above-average arm and exciting feel to hit. His frame is relatively mature, but Hernandez has enough else going on that even if he’s unlikely to grow into big power, he still might have an everyday catcher’s complement of skills. While he didn’t have the same surface-level statistical success on the complex in 2022 as he did in the DSL, Hernandez’s underlying bat-to-ball metrics were still very promising. He’s a solid long-term prospect at a premium position.

There’s just no other place on the FV continuum to value Sixto except way down here. He hasn’t thrown in a meaningful game since 2020, he’s had persistent and recurring shoulder injuries, and last I laid eyes on him in Florida, his conditioning had meaningfully regressed. Sánchez was once one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, and even though it feels like some of his issues were foreseeable (especially when he started having “neck” issues, and his body and posture totally changed), no pessimist was drawing up three-plus years on the shelf. Sánchez won’t have prospect or trade clout until he’s healthy and pitching again. His fastball punched beneath its weight when he was healthy and every bit of his velocity will need to return for it to be an impact big league pitch, which feels unlikely given how long he’s been out. Fingers crossed that I’m wrong, but it feels like I’m just waiting for Sánchez to be healthy again so we can confirm he isn’t good anymore and move on.

Peguero is a lanky, relatively projectable corner outfield prospect with precocious bat-to-ball skills even though he clearly hasn’t totally grown into his body. His hitting hands are quick, he moves the barrel around the zone, and Peguero cuts his leg kick with two strikes and lets his hands do the work, an advanced approach for such a young player. He is likely to move to a corner as he fills out since he’s only an average runner right now, but he’s initially being developed in center field. He hit .286/.355/.423 in the 2022 DSL with just 16% strikeouts and 6% walks. Keep an eye on the walk rate going forward, because that’s a pretty low mark for that level of play. Peguero might progress more quickly than the other hitters in his class since his feel to hit is relatively advanced. He doesn’t have gigantic tools, but he’s a well-rounded youngster and among the most promising recent signees in the org.

While he likely won’t have the same kind of pull power Austin Hedges had at peak, Banfield is tracking like a similar sort of player. He’s a mobile and athletic catcher with a huge arm and a chase-prone, pull-only style of hitting. Banfield has actually shown sustained in-zone bat-to-ball improvement across the 2022 and 2023 seasons. After no 2020 reps, he struck out more than 30% of the time in a 67-game sample in 2021, at which point I didn’t think Banfield would hit enough to profile as a 40-man catcher. Banfield’s swing-happy and pull-heavy style of hitting is going to lead to lots of strikeouts, but he’s compact and times the mistakes he sees. With impact defensive ability and a one-note offensive profile, Banfield is a fine third catcher on the 40-man who should establish himself as an on-roster backup over time.

Lewis is an explosive rotational athlete with big, switch-hitting bat speed and poor barrel accuracy. He tends to swing through the center of the zone and misses the stuff he doesn’t run into, but it sure does look pretty, and once you watch Lewis lay into a few, you understand why he got nearly $1 million to sign. So far in 2023, Lewis has stopped playing shortstop and instead is playing a mix of 2B/3B, and he’s pretty rough around the edges at those spots. Consider him a fairly young late-bloomer with premium athletic traits and very raw baseball acumen at this stage.

Gerardo hit 11 bombs in just 50 games in the 2022 DSL, and his barrel rate was at the top of the scale for a hitter his age while his hard-hit rates and peak exit velos were comfortably plus. Eyeball scouts consider him a power-over-hit prospect in the extreme, and hitters who strike out at a 30% clip in the DSL do not have a great track record of panning out. Gerardo also isn’t all that projectable, but he does have tools, with a huge arm in addition to the precocious power. Consider him a low-level sleeper who needs to show better feel for contact in the 2023 Complex League.