Ben and Sam banter about Noah Syndergaard, then answer listener emails about 1-2-3 innings, what David Ortiz could do to replicate Kobe, conservative replay reviewing, and more.

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Zack Greinke goes to the mound today after giving up 13 runs in his last three starts, something he didn’t do at all last year. So we’re all trying to diagnose him. He is, too. We couldn’t figure it out together, really. Sorry to spoil the ending.

The slider is getting hit hard. Of his pitch types, it has the second-worst exit velocity so far this year, and it’s suffered the most from last year to this year.

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Previous editions: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL) / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York (AL) / New York (NL)  / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / St. Louis / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto.

Yesterday, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Washington Nationals. In this companion piece, I look at that same DC farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The Nationals have the 16th-best farm system in baseball according to KATOH.

There’s way more to prospect evaluation than just the stats, so if you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read Dan’s piece in addition to this one. KATOH has no idea how hard a pitcher throws, how good a hitter’s bat speed is, or what a player’s makeup is like. So it’s liable to miss big on players whose tools don’t line up with their performances. However, when paired with more scouting-based analyses, KATOH’s objectivity can be useful in identifying talented players who might be overlooked by the industry consensus or highly-touted prospects who might be over-hyped.

Below, I’ve grouped prospects into three groups: those who are forecast for two or more wins through their first six major-league seasons, those who receive a projection between 1.0 and 2.0 WAR though their first six seasons, and then any residual players who received Future Value (FV) grades of 45 or higher from Dan. Note that I generated forecasts only for players who accrued at least 200 plate appearances or batters faced last season. Also note that the projections for players over a relatively small sample are less reliable, especially when those samples came in the low minors.

*****

1. Trea Turner, SS (Profile)

KATOH Projection: 8.8 WAR
Dan’s Grade: 60 FV

Turner scuffled in his first taste of big-league action last year, but previously did a bang-up job in the minors. Speed is Turner’s calling card, but he also showed a decent amount of power when he popped eight homers in the minors. Turner’s high-ish strikeout rates are a bit concerning, but his overall offensive package is extremely promising for a shortstop.

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We’re left to wonder how players who have established careers in international leagues will fare when they first reach the major leagues: some never find the same level of production they had overseas, others endure a tough adjustment period, and a precious few immediately take to their new surroundings. From what we’ve seen of Kenta Maeda so far, he appears as if he could be a member of that final group: with only one earned run conceded in 19.0 innings over his first three starts of 2016, Maeda has been every bit of the solid #2/#3 starter the Dodgers envisioned slotting behind Clayton Kershaw. Maeda is also quietly echoing the success of another rookie Dodger starter who came before him, one whose consecutive string of successes to start the season led to the receipt both of the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards in the same season — and caused a sea change in Dodgers’ fandom while doing it.

There are a few interesting trends that have been driving Maeda’s success in this young season. While he’s posting a slightly depressed BABIP (.250) compared to league average, his batted-ball profile so far suggests that might not be a fluke: his line-drive rate is in the top 25 of starters with at least 10 innings pitched, and he’s posted above-average ground-ball and infield-fly rates. The 100% strand rate won’t stick, and the 5.9% HR/FB rate likely won’t either, but there’s at least some encouraging signal in this noise. We already had an idea that Maeda’s walk rate was going to be better than average, and he hasn’t disappointed in that respect, issuing free passes to just 5.5% of batters faced.

It’s Maeda’s unique approach that warrants the most attention, however. Last December, our own Eno Sarris tried to find a comp for Maeda, and he included this snippet in his breakdown:

Maeda’s best secondary is a slider, and his next-best is probably also his slider (he varies the velocity and shape). Against righties this year [2015], Maeda was almost 95% fastball/slider according to some observers.

In 2016, Maeda has lived up to that billing. He’s thrown his slider almost 30% of the time overall, and against righties, the mark is 41.2%. He can alternate between a 79 mph offering with increased vertical movement, like this:

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It’s not everyday you get the opportunity to speak with someone who’s mastered a craft to which few others in the world can lay claim. Red Sox pitcher Steven Wright, drafted as a conventional pitcher in the second round of the 2006 draft by the Cleveland Indians, was converted to a knuckleballer by that same organization in 2011. He made his major-league debut with the Red Sox in 2013, following a 2012 trade that sent Lars Anderson to Cleveland, and has since thrown more than 1,500 knuckleballs at the big-league level, joining R.A. Dickey as MLB’s only active knuckleballers. Wright was a member of Boston’s 2016 Opening Day roster, and currently occupies a space in their starting rotation.

I spoke with Wright in the visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field during the Red Sox’ season-opening series. He commented on his knuckleball relative to Dickey’s and Tim Wakefield’s, how speed affects a knuckleball and its location, on the evolution of the pitch, finger pressure, and more.

* * *

On his knuckleball: “I watched a lot of video of R.A. and Wakefield. I just throw it. I just grip and it and rip it. For me, I think it’s trying to stay under control. R.A. throws his harder, Wakefield threw his slower. I feel like I’m right in the middle of them – I don’t throw quite as hard as R.A. or quite as slow as Wakefield. We’re all pretty similar, we just throw it at different speeds.”

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If you’d just oblige me by briefly viewing one screenshot and four .gifs, I believe I’ll be able to neatly tie together all the different things that have been going on with J.D. Martinez this season. Let these five visuals serve as a reference point for the remainder of this post.

First up, the screenshot, revealing what the FOX Sports Detroit broadcast team decided to reveal about Martinez’s first at-bat, in graphic form:

Information gathered: the batter’s name is J.D. Martinez, and this is what his face looks like. J.D. Martinez flew out in his first at-bat. There is one out and nobody on in the fourth inning. J.D. Martinez is having an incredible season so far. The Tigers trail, 1-0. Dallas Keuchel is pitching. The umpire will need to look up before Keuchel delivers a pitch.

The umpire has looked up. Keuchel delivers a pitch:

It’s a first-pitch curveball, and Martinez does not swing his bat. You know who doesn’t see too many first-pitch curveballs when they’re batting? Pitchers. Because the pitcher who’s pitching doesn’t really care about the pitcher who’s hitting, so he throws him a first-pitch fastball. Nothing to worry about. J.D. Martinez? Lot to worry about. First-pitch curveball. No swing.

Keuchel, typically a low-ball pitcher, elevates a fastball, up-and-in. No swing.

Another fastball, elevated (but probably more than Keuchel wanted), another no swing.

Swing. Ground ball into the teeth of the shift.

OK. Now let’s try and tie this all together. Lot’s going on with J.D. Martinez this season.

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I love early-season baseball. Early-season baseball is the only time when players hit .415. Players don’t hit .415 for a full season anymore so pulling up the leaderboards and seeing .415 is like a huge neon sign blinking EARLY-SEASON BASEBALL. It’s fun to follow the MVP races later in the year, but to me now is the best time to check the leaderboards we keep here at FanGraphs because now is when things are absurd. Little is more absurd than early-season leaderboards.

So let’s look at some! I’ll give you the category, last season’s leader for some context, and the on-pace-to-finish-with figure of the current leader. Then I’ll comment! Seems a handy dandy format, wouldn’t you say?

We’ll start with hitters, unless you decide not to read this, in which case I’ll just start with hitters all by myself. Numbers are current as of yesterday afternoon. Rankings marked with a t denote that the corresponding players are tied.

Let’s start with…

Double Plays Hit Into

Current Leaderboard
t1. David Freese, 5
t1. Andrelton Simmons, 5
t3. Five Players, 4

Last Year’s Leader: Trevor Plouffe, 28
2016 Leader’s Pace: 62

Comments
For some reason I find this category fascinating. You can’t score two points on yourself in basketball when you miss a shot, but in baseball players can create two outs with one hit. It’s magical. So it’s fitting that the seventh video on David Freese’s MLB.com player page features Freese grounding into a double play. They’re on to you, David. Though this does make sense as 63.9% of Freese’s balls in play have been ground balls this season. That’s a lot of grounders. Add that to the Pirates current high on-base percentage of .432, eighth-best in baseball, and you have a batter hitting lots of grounders with runners on base.

This is going smoothly!

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The Nationals have an extremely interesting system, highlighted by a handful of consensus big-upside prospects in Lucas Giolito, Trea Turner, Victor Robles, and Reynaldo Lopez. Though it doesn’t have the name recognition throughout that some of the top-rated teams have, this is one of the more exciting organizations to cover as a prospector (prospectator?). The Auburn and Hagerstown affiliates may end up being the most exciting groups to watch by mid-season.

In general, the Nationals seem to have found a niche bringing in a ton of underrated hit-tool-heavy guys that are hitting their stride at the same time. Expect a lot of turnover with this list by next year, as the top guys are due for full-time gigs in Washington, and the upside prospects start to separate themselves a bit more. If you could criticize any part of the system, there are a few less high-upside arms in the lower minors than many teams like to stockpile. In terms of total value, however, this group doesn’t have a problem stacking up against the rest of the league.

Following the top four are a sizable number of 50+ prospects who provide the big-league club with sufficient low-cost resources to hold them over until their talented crop of players in the lower levels have time to sort themselves out. Though I find myself lower on a few popular prospects like Pedro Severino, Juan Soto and Rafael Bautista, I am equally more enthusiastic than most on less established players like Telmito Agustin, Kelvin Gutierrez and Taylor Hearn.

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