Even those casually exposed to public facing prospect analysis become familiar with a few key concepts and player archetypes, and an early lesson often addresses the volatility of players like Florial, who have several elite tools that will lead to star-level performance if they hit enough, but who also carry significant risk that they will strike out too much to matter at all. Of course, the reason each individual player has strikeout issues can vary. Some hitters have feckless, over-aggressive approaches, while others can’t recognize breaking balls or have a problem with lever length and get tied up inside. Florial’s issues — his strikeout rate has fallen between 27% and 32% each of the last three years — appear to stem from his bat path and limited bat control. Stiff wrists cause his bat head to drag into the zone, which can cause him to be tardy on fastballs at the letters and, more frequently, flail at soft stuff dipping down and away from him. Yoan Moncada has similar issues that have yet to be remedied.

Florial does enough other stuff that, even if the strike outs remain an issue, he could still be a valuable big leaguer. He crushes anything down and in, has sufficient plate coverage to hit fastballs middle away, and has enough power to do damage to the opposite field. He also has good ball/strike recognition so, again like Moncada, there should be power, walks, and up-the-middle defense. We think Florial is likely to be an exciting but flawed everyday player, though it’s not audacious to think his relative youth (he was a 20-year-old at Hi-A in 2018) and inexperience (he also missed a year of reps due to a suspension for bad paperwork) leave more room for growth than we anticipate.

If evaluating purely on stuff, Loaisiga belongs in the overall Top 100 pretty easily. He holds 94-97 for six innings, his upper-80s slider with vertical break is reminiscent of early-career Brad Lidge, and he has somehow found changeup feel and command despite few career in-game reps. But while Loaisiga has mid-rotation, big league stuff, his career has been beset by constant, often severe, injury. Since entering pro ball in 2013, Loaisiga has only thrown about 200 career innings due to repeated injury and rehab, and his 68 innings pitched for the DSL Giants during his first pro campaign remain his single-season high. He missed all of 2014 with injury, then was released, and out of pro baseball for all of 2015. The Yankees unearthed him during the 2016 23U World Championships in Venezuela and after a frantic late-night call from scout Ricardo Finol, signed Loaisiga immediately. Just two innings into his first 2016 start, Loaisiga’s velocity dropped into the mid-80s and he left the mound pointing at his elbow. He rehabbed quickly enough that he was able to make 11 short starts with Staten Island the following year.

Because Loaisiga signed in 2012, he would have been Rule 5 eligible in the winter of 2017. The Yankees added him to the 40-man even though he had never completed a healthy start in full-season ball. In 2018, Loaisiga ascended quickly and showed flashes of brilliance against big league hitters, but he also made two more trips to the disabled list, including a late-season stint due to shoulder inflammation. Shoulder issues have sidelined Loaisiga pretty frequently during his career, and while he may have some years where he peaks in the 3-4 WAR range, we also think he’ll have some years where he barely pitches, or that he may just move to the bullpen.

At this time last year, Garcia was a 40 FV and an interesting prospect to monitor. He was a slightly-built, shorter righty with a knockout fastball/curveball combination, who was moved very quickly as Garcia saw 2017 action in the DSL, GCL, and Appy league levels at age 18. We were eager to see if he could continue to perform like that in full-season ball as a 19-year-old and boy, did he. Garcia had an xFIP under 3.00 at each of his three stops last year: eight Low-A starts, five in Hi-A (one of which is the linked video), and one in Double-A. Garcia’s changeup and command both ended up playing better than we expected, with his changeup regularly flashing average to above — confirming he has starter’s stuff — and his command sufficient to deal with A-ball hitters. The concerns about his durability tied to his stature are still there. He’s 5-foot-10 and anywhere from 163 to 175 pounds. He threw 74.0 innings last year and even scouts who love Garcia concede he may not be a 170 to 200-inning type of arm. Instead, he may be in the Rich Hill or Lance McCullers Jr. mold, where you’ll get 125 – 135 innings and hopefully have him healthy enough to fill whatever role fits the staff best in the playoffs. Hill and McCullers are 55 or 60 FV types, so that’s likely Garcia’s upside if things break right.

Garcia is a very good athlete, which is what allows him to repeat his delivery, throw so many strikes, and have at least average command despite a delivery that has crossfire, recoil, and effort at release. We’re hesitant to knock Garcia’s delivery simply because it’s unusual, or due to his size, because his performance at this age has also been remarkable. He has a rising fastball with which he operates up in the zone, and he knows exactly how to use his high spin curveball, which has been over 3000 rpm at times. A well-located fastball up, a high-spin curveball down, and a changeup down to keep hitters honest is a good combo, and Garcia knows how to use them in sequence to set up hitters. There’s some question about his approach being too simplistic to work at the big league level, but again, we would bet on Garcia figuring out how to make it work. He’ll open 2019 in Double-A and could be good enough to crack the Bombers bullpen late in the season.

Cabello was in the Others of Note section on this list last year, third amongst the 2017 July 2nd signees, none of whom had played a pro game at the time. But Cabello had the strongest 2018 of the group, and he arguably already had the loudest tools. He was one of the best performing amateur hitters from Venezuela in his signing class (just ahead of Everson Pereira, who’s further down this list), and he was also a plus runner who could’ve been converted to catcher given his quickness, arm strength, and squatty, powerful frame. But the Yankees didn’t want to slow down his bat by asking him to learn to catch. Some scouts who had a one or two game look at this summer didn’t love Cabello’s non-projectable frame, and they rounded down if he didn’t hit in those short looks. But those who saw him for more than a few games saw the advanced bat amateur scouts saw.

One enthusiastic scout described Cabello’s running as plus, though he’s not the typically graceful, long striding plus runner. That scout he said had a “grinding gait, full effort, kicking up grass as he runs like the rooster tail of a speed boat.” In addition to potential plus hit and run tools, there’s above-average arm strength and raw power, and now the start of a strong statistical performance record. And if things go askew at the plate, the notion that Cabello could catch is interesting. One Yankee source described him as an 80 makeup guy, often a prerequisite to consider sending a player behind the plate. He’s a well-rounded offensive player who looks like an up-the-middle defensive fit of some kind. He may be a top 100 prospect by mid season.

Many of the teenage prospects on this list received big bonuses or were flagged after a season in the DSL as a prospect to watch; it’s unsurprising when those types move up this list. Contreras wasn’t one of those. He didn’t appear on last year’s list, which had 65 players in total — he wasn’t even in the Others of Note section. Contreras sat 90-92 mph with a curveball that flashed above average, but was still in the early stages of knowing how to use those weapons while pitching in the DSL and GCL in 2017. We first heard his name when he was wowing pro scouts who saw him in Staten Island last summer. The first scout we spoke with said Contreras had a Luis Severino starter kit, flashing two plus pitches and a starter’s delivery, though the changeup and command were understandably a bit behind. Those things progressed throughout the summer and he got a taste of Low-A at the end of the year. Yankees officials love Contreras’ makeup and competitive fire, and think he’s got a chance to be the 200-inning starter who comes out of this system, as the other pitchers on the list have one or more of the typical concerns (durability, command, arm surgery, less experience, or a standout pitch that fits best in relief). Contreras could grab a spot in next year’s Top 100 with a full healthy season of performance like his breakout 2018 campaign.

A February appendectomy began Abreu’s roller coaster of a 2018, a fitting campaign for one of the more frustrating pitching prospects in baseball. Abreu, who was acquired from Houston as part of the Brian McCann deal, will regularly touch 101 with his fastball and has plus secondary stuff across the board. Career-long issues with strike-throwing, coupled with two consecutive years of multiple DL stints, continue to funnel Abreu toward a bullpen role despite the depth of his repertoire. The appendicitis set back Abreu’s spring preparation and he was DL’d for most of April while he caught up. He felt elbow discomfort at the end of June (he had elbow and shoulder issues in 2017, too), missed a month, made some nightmarish rehab starts in the GCL, then bounced back and had his usual stuff late in the year. While we believe it’s increasingly likely that Abreu eventually winds up in relief, he has the stuff to work in a multi-inning, Josh Hader-like role in that scenario, and could become one of the top 20 or 30 relievers in the game. He may see his first big league action in 2019 but we don’t expect he’ll be up for good until 2020.

Pereira was probably the least exciting of the top three prospects from the Yankees 2017 July 2nd haul, behind Raimfer Salinas and Antonio Cabello. Pereira falls into the bucket of heady, up-the-middle Venezuelan players with solid tools to go along with excellent in-game amateur performance. He is an above-average runner with an above-average arm and plus center field instincts, which makes him an above-average defender there. He’ll likely grow into average raw power, but below-average game power due to a more gap-to-gap approach. Pereira has advanced feel to hit and held his own despite a higher strike out rate than expected in Pulaski as a 17-year-old, underlining the Yankees’ confidence in his ability to make adjustments. The reasonable upside is a 2-3 WAR, solid regular in center field, which may not excite Yankees fans but would be an amazing return on his $1.5 million bonus.

Entering summer showcase season, Seigler was known as something of an oddity: a switch-hitting, switch-throwing catcher who was also an ambidextrous reliever when needed. As the summer wore on, Seigler grew on scouts, was chosen as the backup catcher for Team USA, and quickly took the starting job from eventual Marlins second rounder Will Banfield. Seigler was able to do this (and eventually become a first round pick) due to his innate present feel for contact at the plate and receiving behind it. In addition to solid contact skills, Seigler also started to lift the ball in games closer to the draft and get to all of his fringy raw power. This polish helped to make teams less worried about his advanced age relative to his prep peers, and some scouts thought he was among the top 5-10 players in the entire draft.

Seigler had a solid pro debut that was in line with the expectations of any of the pro scouts we talked to who watched the Yankees’ GCL club. He’s an average runner and an above-average athlete for the position, projecting as an above-average defender with a 65-grade arm. Some clubs don’t like the recent track record of prep catchers and considered taking Seigler and then moving him to third base, but his feel for catching is too advanced to throw away. There are some similarities to another prep catcher from the prior draft: M.J. Melendez of the Royals. Melendez is a little twitchier while Seigler is a little more advanced in terms of skills. Seigler’s mother is Navajo and he would be the first Native American big leaguer to debut since Joba Chamberlain and the second ever from the Navajo Nation, joining Jacoby Ellsbury.

The effortless grace with which Gil generates upper-90s velocity is absurd. Even more absurd is that the Yankees were able to pilfer a perfectly-built teenager with this kind of arm strength from Minnesota in exchange for a recently DFA’d Jake Cave. Perhaps it’s because, despite the comical ease of his delivery, Gil is extremely wild. Scouts often project heavily on the command of athletic pitchers, as well as pitchers with with good deliveries; those traits often go hand in hand. But the aesthetic pleasure one derives from Gil’s velvety mechanics is subverted by release inconsistency, a dichotomy also displayed by frustrating Dodgers prospect Yadier Alvarez throughout his young career. It also might simply be unreasonable to expect an inexperienced 20-year-old with this kind of velocity to have any idea where it’s going. Gil missed all of 2016 due to a shoulder surgery and has thrown just over 100 career innings. His secondary stuff is not as visually explosive as his fastball, but there’s plus-plus pure spin here, and Gil is in an org adept at altering deliveries to help enable their guys’ secondary stuff. Many players ranked below Gil in this system have a much better chance of reaching the majors than he does, but very few have the ceiling he has if his issues are resolved.

In 2017, Schmidt turned a corner in his draft spring for South Carolina and looked likely to land in the middle of the first round, flashing four above average pitches and starter command for a No. 3 to 4 starter profile. His elbow blew out before the draft, and he had Tommy John surgery a month before the Yankees eventually took him in the middle of the first round, though for nearly $1.5 million below slot. Schmidt came back in 2018 from his surgery and essentially picked right up where he left off, hitting 96 mph and showing the same stuff as before, though it understandably was not quite as consistent. Schmidt was almost sent to the Arizona Fall league to rack up innings but instead will make his full season debut in 2019, likely starting in Hi-A and probably getting some time at Double-A, with a chance for a big league debut in 2020 if all goes to plan.

Medina was up to 96 mph as an 15-year-old amateur, eventually going unsigned on July 2nd due in part to 20 command. Then he hit 100 mph as an amateur with improved feel, which is when the Yankee scooped him up for $300,000. He was the highest variance player on last year’s version of this list and is once again. The pure stuff hasn’t change and it’s top of the line: a 95-97 mph heater that has hit 101 mph, a power curveball that’s anywhere from 60 to 70 depending on the day, and a changeup that flashes 55 or 60 at its best. His command is now a 30 that we project to be a 40. But he’s still a teenager, so there’s a chance that things click for him and he finds 45 command and 50 control, which would be the minimum to stick as a starter with this kind of stuff. Medina’s issues aren’t physical — his delivery is fine and his arm stroke is clean. Instead, the problem appears to be mostly mental. He’ll throw well in the bullpen only to have things will snowball for him in game situations. One source described his issues as stemming from a need for greater mental maturity and to not be so hard on himself, which are exactly the kinds of traits that come with general social maturity. That said, this sort of stuff rarely comes with starter command, so Medina is probably either a high-wire act reliever with bonkers stuff or a starter with the stuff ratcheted down a bit, similar to what Touki Toussaint has done the last couple seasons.

We ranked Alcantara fourth among the 2018 international amateurs because he has some of the group’s more advanced in-game feel to hit, he has a really good chance of not only staying in center field but might also be great there, and he has the best physical projection in the entire class. The more recently a source has seen Alcantara, the nuttier the reports get. Now that he has access to pro-quality athletic facilities, he’s already put on some good weight and has been hitting for more power during batting practice in the Dominican Republic. At one point he hit several BP homers, not just over the outfield fence, but over the fence that encloses the complex itself.

Built like Lewis Brinson and Cody Bellinger were at the same age, Alcantara has better feel for contact than either of them did as teens. Hitters this size often struggle with strikeouts due to lever length, and while Alcantara hasn’t faced much pro quality velocity to stress test this aspect of his offense, there are no early indications that strikeouts are going to be an issue for him. It may take physical maturation and little else to enable a breakout, and the comps industry personnel are placing on Alcantara (Devon White, Dexter Fowler, and Alex Rios to name a few) are very strong. It will be interesting to see how the Yankees handle his 2019 assignment, as it sounds like his skillset is ready for the GCL but it may behoove the team to leave him in the less-scouted DSL as a way of hiding him from clubs who don’t scout pro ball there.

Stephan’s cross-bodied delivery compares closely to that of Brewers righty Freddy Peralta, as both get way down the mound (Stephan gets nearly 7 feet of extension on his fastballs) and have lower arm slots that make right-handed hitters very uncomfortable. He makes heavy use of a hard slider that at times looks like a cutter. It has enough movement to miss bats if Stephan leaves it in the zone and he’s been able to back foot it to lefties. Changeup development is paramount, and a fair number of scouts think Stephan ends up in the bullpen both because his change is quite a bit behind the typical 23-year-old’s and because he throws exclusively from the stretch. While that’s a possibility, the way Stephan’s delivery enables his stuff to play up could make him viable in a multi-inning role. He reached Double-A in 2018 and has a chance to debut in 2019.

For a 16-year-old, high bonus pitcher, Rodriguez was a rarity in a number of ways. Since he defected from Cuba, he had a pretty long track record of high-level international competition. He pitched as a 14-year-old for the 15-and-under Cuban team, and posted a 69 IP, 32 H, 2 XBH, 20 BB, 102 K line. Then, at 15 years old, he pitched for the 18-and-under team and posted a 21 IP, 16 H, 4 BB, 25 K line. He also struck out five of the six batters he faced in the MLB showcase in February, which is the linked video. On top of that, Rodriguez flashes four above average to plus pitches, has hit 97 mph, and has starter-caliber feel to pitch. He’s also 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, and has some room to add muscle. If you’re looking for things to nitpick, there’s some effort to his delivery that should be ironed out, and he does vary his arm slot, though it’s by choice. The Yankees will try to limit him to two breaking balls and one slot, but recognize that Rodriguez could be one of those rare pitchers like El Duque who can be effective throwing the kitchen sink from a half dozen different arm slots. Going back to what’s rare about Rodriguez, he seems to have it all, except for maybe an ideal present delivery and, obviously, stateside pro performance. This is about as high as we can rank a teenage pitching prospect who has only been seen a handful of times and hasn’t really faced many hitters who can handle his stuff, but there’s lots of room to grow on this 40+ FV if this trajectory continues.

Nelson was probably a little underrated as a fourth round pick in 2016 out of a Florida panhandle junior college. He didn’t start focusing exclusively on pitching until JUCO, and was up to 95 mph with an above average curveball, so he was seen more as an upside relief type, but it’s gone better than most clubs expected in pro ball. Nelson sits 94-97 and hits 98 mph even as a starter, and mixes in the same above-average curveball, but has also added a 55-flashing splitter, and, starting in instructs, added a 88-91 mph cutter that flashed average. The overall command is still a bit below average, mostly due to below average command of his off-speed stuff. Nelson can sometimes get cute and pitch backwards rather than focusing on developing fastball command and throwing his best pitch more often. There’s still a shot that he can turn into a traditional starting pitcher, but it looks more likely that he’ll be some kind of multi-inning middle relief or setup guy. After a solid 2018 that ended with a taste of Double-A, Nelson should begin 2019 there and may be in line for a big league look at the end of the year if the team needs some bullpen help in the Bronx.

For some international scouts, Salinas was ahead of Cabello and Pereira, and was the top prospect in their 2017 signing class; he got the biggest bonus of the group at $1.85 million. Nothing has fundamentally changed since then, as Salinas’ 2018 season was ruined by a broken ring finger and knee bursitis that limited him to 11 games. You can see why scouts were so excited when you run down the tools: a plus runner with a plus arm and a chance for plus defense in center field, along with above average raw power potential and a shot at a 50 or better hit tool. Salinas likely heads back to extended spring training and the complex leagues to get bulk at-bats to catch up on reps, but there’s upside to shoot up this list with a healthy 2019.

Garcia signed for $500,000, which puts him behind the top tier of signees in the 2017 class for the Yankees. But his tools are arguably just as exciting, though riskier. He’s 6-foot-5 or 6-foot-6 depending on whom you ask and is only listed at 205 pounds, but is north of that and will get bigger. If he doesn’t have 80 raw power now, he will in the next few years, and he’s actually an average runner underway, though his first step isn’t great and he’ll lose a step or two with maturity. Garcia has the arm to profile in right field, but down the road, he’ll likely be an average glove there at best. There’s obvious leverage to his swing and he hit 10 homers in 44 games in the GCL as a 17-year-old, so it’s not like he’s sushi raw at tapping into his best tool. Dermis Garcia had similar tools at this stage, so that’s one way this can go. Another would be former Tigers prospect Steven Moya, who played last year in Japan. There are also two massive corner outfielders with 80 raw power currently in the big leagues for the Yankees, so you know what Garcia looks like if everything goes perfectly, but a 42% strikeout rate in Rookie ball isn’t the best starting place from which to get there.

All the teams we’ve spoken with about Vargas over the last year or so had multi-million dollar evaluations of him based on how he looked in workouts. He ran a 6.4 60-yard dash, had infield actions and a plus arm, and had a surprising ability to hit despite his stature, at the time weighing just 143 pounds. He was twitchy, projectable, looked fantastic at shortstop, and was old enough to sign immediately. We believe Vargas was originally slated to wait until 2019 to sign a pro contract (sources have indicated to us that it was to be with Cincinnati) but the Yankees had enough pool space to convince him to change his mind and sign a year earlier for about the same money. He’s a potential everyday shortstop, though we may not see him at a U.S. affiliate until 2020 due to his size.