When Cody Reed takes the mound on Saturday he’ll likely be wearing the same pair of rec specs he’s worn since his sophomore year of high school. Reed donned the glasses after he had a hard time picking up signs from his catcher — especially during night games — as a freshman and has continued to wear them as a pro. Though, when Reed is pitching well, it’s opposing hitters who look like they could use a pair.

Reed was a late second-rounder out of Northwest Mississippi Community College in 2013. At the time the industry thought there was a good chance he’d just end up as a reliever. There was arm strength, there was an above-average slider, but the strike-throwing and changeup were both behind, and Reed’s firebrand mound presence had many considering him a potential closer. Now the velocity remains but the slider, and Reed’s usage of it, has improved — as has the changeup. He still has some issues throwing strikes, but things have progressed enough in that area that instead of his control dictating whether or not he starts or relieves, it’s going to dictate just how good of a starter he’s going to be.

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Collectively, Reds pitchers have been all sorts of terrible this year. Their team ERA (5.45) and FIP (5.62) are both easily the worst in baseball, as injuries to Homer Bailey, Raisel Iglesias and Michael Lorenzen have left their rotation painfully thin. It’s about to get better, though, as top prospect Cody Reed is set to make his big-league debut tomorrow. Since we’ve likely passed the Super Two deadline, he should be up for good.

Reed enjoyed a breakout season in 2015, when he posted an impressive 24% strikeout rate and 2.93 FIP between High-A and Double-A. That was enough to make him a fixture on prospect lists last winter. He placed in the middle third of most top 100 rankings.

Reed built on last year’s success at the Triple-A level this year. Although he’s faced better competition, his strikeout and walk rates have remained on par with last year’s numbers. The end result has been a 3.20 ERA and 3.37 FIP. Not bad at all for a 23-year-old facing borderline big-league hitters.

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Just last week, the Cubs added another productive asset to their already stacked lineup when they called up outfielder Albert Almora. Today, they fortified their juggernaut offense even further by summoning slugging catcher Willson Contreras. Contreras has absolutely destroyed the Pacific Coast League this year. In 55 Triple-A games, he was slashing .353/.442/.593.

Contreras has demonstrated an exceptional combination of contact and power in Triple-A this year. He’s struck out just 13% of the time, yet has also managed to put up a .240 ISO. Some of that has to do with his playing in the PCL, where homers are very common. But a lot of it doesn’t: On a per plate appearance basis, he hit significantly more singles, doubles, triples and home runs than the typical PCL hitter. As if that weren’t enough, he also drew walks and even stole four bases. From a hitting perspective, he did it all. Read the rest of this entry »

Cubs catcher Willson Contreras was already creating a good deal of discussion within the industry before the trade deadline last year and, indeed, teams were asking about Contreras as that day came and went. The Cubs rebuffed and Contreras continued what was arguably the biggest breakout among positional prospects in 2015 on through Arizona Fall League, where every team saw him succeed against a superlative class of AFL arms before he tweaked his hamstring hauling ass down to first base on a groundout the first week of November and was shut down. He picked up where he left off in 2016 and owns a .350/.439/.591 line at Triple-A Iowa with 28 extra-base hits in just 239 PAs.

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Ben and Sam talk to Warren Friss, the founder of GameHedge, a new ticket vendor that promises to issue 50 percent refunds when the home team loses by five or more runs.

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Two notes regarding his edition of the Five. Firstly, on account of the bulk of it was composed hastily and at a hotel room, no video footage has been included. Secondly, the author has also included Jonathan May’s top-100 list for MLB.com as one of those which determines eligibility for the Five. The reason, mostly: Mayo included Mets shortstop prospect Gavin Cecchini among this top-100 prospects. Given his first-round pedigree and rapid ascent through the minors, Cecchini really oughtn’t be eligible for this weekly exercise. Mayo’s list precludes him from eligibility.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) received a future value grade of 45 or less from Dan Farnsworth during the course of his organizational lists and who (b) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo, and John Sickels, and also who (c) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on an updated prospect list or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Chance Adams, RHP, New York AL (Profile)
Adams appeared among the Next Five last week on the strength both of strong fielding-independeng numbers and promising reports. Since then, he’s actually improved his credentials for inclusion here. First, facing Pirates affiliate Bradenton last Friday, the 21-year-old right-hander recorded a 10:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio against just 17 batters over 5.0 no-hit innings. Then, in the middle of this past week, he earned a promotion to Double-A Trenton, where he debuted on Thursday. The results of that start (5.1 IP, 3 K, 1 BB) were more modest, but still indicate that Adams is unlikely to be overwhelmed by the level.

Selected by the Yankees out of Dallas Baptist University in the fifth round of the 2015 draft, Adams has worked mostly in a relief capacity in recent years — both as a collegiate and also in the Yankees system. He’s made all 12 of his appearances this season as a starter, however, and has flourished in the role, recording the best strikeout- and walk-rate differential among over 200 qualified pitchers at the High-A level. Nor is that the product merely of a polished college player facing inferior competition: Adams features plus arm speed, sitting at 92-95 mph, for example, during a recent appearance observed by 2080’s James Chipman.

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Ian Desmond has, unequivocally, been a complete success for the Texas Rangers this year. He’s hitting, with a 128 wRC+, but he’s hit like that before. He’s running the bases well, but he’s run the bases well before. The third thing Desmond’s doing, though, is something he’d never done before. When he takes his position defensively, he goes to the grass instead of the dirt.

And by all indications, he’s doing a fine job of adjusting. Position switches are always interesting in theory. Sometimes, they’re less interesting in practice. One always wants to believe that an elite athlete, particularly one coming from shortstop like in Desmond’s case, has what it takes to make the transition, but we never know until we see it.

Of course, it’s too early to put too much stock into the defensive metrics, but for what it’s worth, Defensive Runs Saved considers Desmond a solid plus, Ultimate Zone Rating considers Desmond a solid plus, and Fielding Runs Above Average considers Desmond a plus. It’s nice to see uniformity among the metrics. Beyond the metrics, we’ve got quotes that suggest all parties are content. Desmond himself admitted playing shortstop was a challenge that never came easy to him, but that center field is already starting to feel more like home. Manager Jeff Banister said the transition “has been as smooth as we could expect.” And then there’s the fact that the Rangers so quickly felt comfortable letting Desmond play center field at all, that says something to the organization’s internal valuation of his ability as an outfielder.

At this point, there’s no reason to believe Desmond can’t at least stick in the outfield, and there’s even evidence to suggest he could be a plus center fielder, though perhaps that’s jumping the gun a bit. Regardless, Desmond’s got a new home, and of all the great things he’s done this season, playing the outfield is the only one we’ve never seen before, which immediately heightens the interest. Further heightening that interest is this one area of playing the outfield where Desmond’s truly shone, where he’s separated himself from the pack, that perhaps helps explain part of the reason why his transition has gone so smooth.

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There’s a bizarre trend in baseball this season that I’ve spent much of the year ignoring because it’s uncomfortable to believe. As unpredictable as baseball can be at a granular level, it’s equivalently reliable in a macro sense. There’s a game virtually every night; nine defensive players are on the field at any given time; base-runners run counterclockwise; and first basemen mash. This is the baseball I know. This is the sport I’ve been watching for decades. And, yet, as Aaron Gleeman discussed at Baseball Prospectus recently, offensive production from first basemen this season has been little more than mediocre.

When Gleeman wrote his piece last week, first basemen had compiled a .761 OPS as a unit this season. They’ve since raised that to a robust .769 OPS — or, roughly the same mark as third basemen (.772 OPS) and second basemen (.761 OPS). Take a moment to truly absorb that… Second basemen have produced an OPS a mere eight points lower than first basemen. As a result, I’ve found myself searching for answers at first base that I can hope will restore balance to baseball. There aren’t many to be found — Paul Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Brandon Belt, and Eric Hosmer are a few of the only 20-somethings providing hope at the position — but there is one notable former top prospect who is currently growing into a role as a productive first baseman after having been written off by some as a bust. I’m referring, of course, to the twice-traded San Diego Padre, Wil Myers.

Now, Wil Myers may not be a masher in the first-base tradition of guys like Frank Thomas, Mark McGwire, and Albert Pujols, but he currently ranks fourth among MLB first basemen in total offensive production. Not only that, Myers is the youngest qualified first baseman in the league this year. Of course, that’s a bit of a back-handed compliment because first base is often the landing spot for older players who can no longer hack it at a position which requires more range. The good news for Myers, though, is that a history of arm problems sent him to first base, not a lack of speed. Still, it’s very much worth noting that, although it feels as though Myers has been around for ages, he’s still just 25 years old — more than a year younger that George Springer!

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