The World Baseball Classic likely provided many fans their first glimpse of Nolan McLean. The 24-year-old right-hander debuted last August and made just eight big league starts. If you missed his work against Italy on March 10 – if you only caught the last six innings, or if you only saw his line at the end of the night – you might have wondered how McLean ended up starting the championship game for the United States against Venezuela. You might have wondered how this prospect with hardly any major league experience, who earned a 9.00 ERA along with the team’s only loss in the tournament to that point, could have possibly earned that honor over the other All-Stars on the roster.

McLean’s line against Italy wasn’t exactly inspiring. He allowed three earned runs across three innings. He struck out four, but he also walked two batters, hit another, and allowed two home runs. Most of the batted balls he gave up were hard hit. And after that ignominy, he was set to face off against Ronald Acuña Jr. in the championship game? The same Ronald Acuña Jr. who did this to the famous McLean sweeper back in August?

Even if that was your frame of reference coming into Tuesday night, it didn’t take long for the pieces to fall into place. As is so often the case with nasty young flamethrowers, McLean looked absolutely unhittable, even when he was getting hit. Eric Longenhagen has described McLean’s pitches as moving “violently,” and I think that’s right on the money. The slider doesn’t look like it’s sweeping so much as it looks like it’s changing its mind halfway to the plate. It’s an optical illusion due to the camera angle behind the pitcher, but it honestly looks like it’s shifting into top gear once it makes its left turn. The sinker looks like it’s teleporting to the catcher’s glove. The curveball looks like it’s suddenly realized that it has left its curling iron plugged in and needs to get back home as soon as possible. (Even a curveball needs to feel pretty every sometimes.) Read the rest of this entry »

There was a fair amount of movement on this year’s left field list. Most notably, the New York Mets have jumped from ninth to first, and the Boston Red Sox from 13th to second, while the Miami Marlins are now 13th after being second from the bottom a year ago. Those are some of the climbers. Most notable among the teams going in the other direction are the Cleveland Guardians, who plummeted from third to 20th. Position switches play a role in many (but not all) of these season-to-season changes. Moreover, a recent switch actually resulted in a meaningful change to a team’s 2026 ranking. Where they’d have slotted a week ago is different from where they ultimately ended up.

Trades and injuries also move the needle on season-to-season rankings, as does age. The presence of burgeoning young stars like Roman Anthony and Jackson Chourio often (but not always, as you’ll see below) influence up arrows, while long-in-the-tooth veterans still holding onto their positions can result in down arrows. Ditto breakouts and down seasons, regardless of players’ ages. One year affects the next, although it bears noting that good projection systems are savvy enough not to overreact. Projections aren’t perfect, of course. Players outperform and underperform them every season, which will almost assuredly be the case again this year. Read the rest of this entry »

About a month ago, the Padres went shopping over the long weekend and landed a bunch of old guys who seemed pretty washed. I was glib in my appraisal of those moves, suggesting that they’d only work out if A.J. Preller had a time machine.

The Padres live in a perpetual state of roster turnover, which occasionally leaves gaps. That’s how you end up with no. 4 starter Germán Márquez, or platoon first baseman Nick Castellanos. But those two are on major league deals; they were always likely to make the roster in some capacity, regardless of how you feel about those late-2010s stalwarts now.

But nothing so concrete was promised to Walker Buehler, who came to camp in Peoria on a minor league deal with a non-roster invite. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been doing a lot of looking at depth charts this week. All of us FanGraphs writers have – these positional power rankings don’t write themselves. When you look at the majors through this lens, you’ll naturally do a lot of thinking about floor and ceiling. The Yankees are playing who at third base? The Brewers are getting how much WAR by avoiding weak spots? The Red Sox have that many outfielders?

I’ve written some team overviews this winter. In them, I make the following claim: “Building a team that outperforms opponents on the strength of its 15th to 26th best players being far superior to their counterparts on other clubs might help in the dog days of August, when everyone’s playing their depth guys and cobbling together a rotation, but that won’t fly in October.” The converse of that claim – that stars matter disproportionately in October – is part and parcel of this depth argument. But is that true?

Some might say that the best time to answer this question is when the playoffs are just around the corner. I’d counter that those people haven’t just spent seven hours staring at a pile of acceptable-but-not-overwhelming third base and starting pitcher options and trying to write something about each one. So in the spirit of doing anything other than looking at power rankings, I decided to test out this assumption. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs contributor Kiri Oler wrap up the World Baseball Classic, covering Venezuela’s triumph, Team USA’s slump and vibes, and the overall success of the tournament, plus thoughts on Mark DeRosa’s managing and Team USA’s future, the semifinal matchups, the bad calls against the Dominican Republic, the challenge system and pitches that are “too close to take,” the WBC vs. the World Series, when the next WBC should be, and much more.

Audio intro: El Warren, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme 2”

Link to Defector on Venezuela
Link to Harper on the outcome
Link to Posnanski on Team USA
Link to Manfred on WBC timing
Link to data on US-DR game
Link to data on Perdomo take
Link to Ben on fouling off pitches
Link to Harper on the Olympics
Link to McLean start story
Link to top SP projections
Link to USA anthem answers
Link to DeRosa on SEAL speaker
Link to Fox Rogers mix-up
Link to Julio’s WBC quote
Link to Judge’s WBC quote
Link to Hernández’s WBC quote
Link to Jeter on the WBC
Link to DeRosa/López relievers story
Link to next WBC timing
Link to Ben on more WBCs
Link to story on DeRosa’s future
Link to Charbonnet play
Link to Ben on “Strategy”

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Third base is undergoing a generational change at the moment. The late 2010s and early 2020s were dominated by a group of five superstars: Nolan Arenado, Alex Bregman, Matt Chapman, Manny Machado, and José Ramírez. All five are still in the majors, and you’ll see each of them on today’s ranking. But while Ramírez is still the best third baseman in baseball, and while you’ll also find Bregman and Chapman near the top, there’s a new group of stars breaking in at the hot corner. Junior Caminero is only 22. Maikel Garcia is a threat to embark on a decade-long string of defensive awards, and he turned into a great hitter in 2025 to boot. Bo Bichette and Carlos Correa have joined the party from shortstop. Kazuma Okamoto hit NPB pitching so well that he immediately helps Toronto project in our top 10. The top of this list has changed meaningfully in the last few years, and I expect more of that to come.

That said, there’s a shortage of great third base prospects poised for big league action. Colt Emerson is the best prospect with meaningful playing time projected here, and he’s a shortstop playing out of position. There were only five third basemen listed on our preseason Top 100, and two of them (Kevin McGonigle and Sal Stewart) are starting at different positions in the majors this year. Two of the others have ETAs of 2029, with the third set for 2027. In other words, the veterans will probably have a bit more time in the top half of the rankings even as they decline, because Caminero and Garcia aren’t set to be joined by a broad cohort of young stars. Read the rest of this entry »

Kyle Teel has some catching up to do.

Teel is set to begin the season on the injured list. He pulled his hamstring while legging out a double for Team Italy last week at the World Baseball Classic. The diagnosis is a Grade 2 strain, which could keep him out for most of April. It’s an unfortunate start to what was meant to be his first full big league season.

In some ways, this answers a crucial question for the White Sox: Who will start at catcher on Opening Day? Teel, 23, would have been the obvious choice for most rebuilding organizations. He was a top 100 prospect last year before his debut in June, and he then posted a 125 wRC+ in 297 plate appearances. He’s at the forefront of Chicago’s burgeoning prospect pipeline and a key figure as the organization searches for its next core.

But the same can also be said for Edgar Quero, a similarly rated prospect who debuted last year at just 22 years old. Quero is now set for the starting job right out of camp, and he’ll have the first chance to showcase his development in 2026. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m somehow nearing 50 years of age — I’m a little concerned this number seems to be going up by one every 365 days or so — and the position of shortstop has changed a lot since I got into baseball as a small child. Back then, the attitude was defense is what mattered from shortstops, and anything else a team got from the position was gravy. In 1978, the year I was born, only four primary position shortstops with 300 plate appearances had a wRC+ of at least 100: Roy Smalley III, Dave Concepcion, Robin Yount, and the eternally underrated Toby Harrah. Only Smalley and Harrah even hit the double digits in home runs. In 2025, 25 primary position shortstops had double-digit home run totals and 19 finished with a wRC+ in the triple digits. An average player at the position in 1978 slashed .258/.309/.335, a line that would cause teams of today to look for an upgrade unless their shortstop were Ozzie Smith with the glove.

While there were always scattered shortstops who excelled at the plate, they were generally seen as outliers. But that changed as teams became more and more willing in the 1980s and 90s to let their best athletes stay at shortstop until they conclusively proved they shouldn’t be at the position, and larger players like Cal Ripken Jr. and Alex Rodriguez weren’t simply moved to traditional “big dude” positions. Defense remained important, but offense became a really big deal, as many talented hitters demonstrated that previous generations were too quick to move young sluggers down the defensive spectrum. Shortstops are like quarterbacks now; you either have a star shortstop or you’re biding your time until you find one. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Houston Astros. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB’s new experimental minor league rules, and the potential downsides of trying to skip straight to a desired on-field result, then complete the 14th annual season preview series by previewing the 2026 Los Angeles Dodgers (35:35) with The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya, and the 2026 Colorado Rockies (1:30:13) with Rockies Insider’s Patrick Lyons.

Audio intro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 1: The Spaghettis, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio interstitial 2: Nate Emerson, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Ward article 1
Link to Longenhagen on the new rules
Link to Stark on the new rules
Link to Stark on second base
Link to disengagement rules
Link to Bois on balks
Link to team payrolls page
Link to Dodgers offseason tracker
Link to Dodgers depth chart
Link to Baumann on Roki
Link to Fabian on Roki
Link to Dodgers first-rounders
Link to field-sponsorship story
Link to Fabian’s author archive
Link to Rockies offseason tracker
Link to Rockies depth chart
Link to Rockies team wRC+ by year
Link to article on Bryant’s back
Link to article on Vodnik’s family
Link to article on Vodnik at the WBC
Link to Brebbia on EW
Link to Patrick’s work

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