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.
The hardest-hit ball of the World Baseball Classic semifinal between the United States and the Dominican Republic only traveled 191 feet. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s fourth-inning double left the bat at 116.1 mph, but it was just the 23rd-longest batted ball of the game, a few feet behind a Ketel Marte popout that was hit more than 40 mph softer. None of this was necessarily shocking. After the play, John Smoltz revealed even he was aware that sabermetric types wish Guerrero would find a way to lift the ball more often and turn some of his scorched groundouts into extra-base hits and extra-base hits into home runs.
This decade, 26% of balls hit 116 mph or harder have gone for home runs, and the lowest launch angle among those home runs was 15 degrees. Guerrero hit his double at just five degrees, and over the past five years, he ranks fourth in baseball with 28 non-homers of at least 116 mph. Five degrees is not the optimal launch angle if your goal is to do damage, but hitting a ball that low and that hard can have other benefits.
One benefit is that the ball can really slow down on its way to the wall. When you hit a screaming line drive or a high fly ball to the wall, it maintains much of its velocity and bounces off hard. When you hit a low liner or a grounder, all that contact with the outfield grass slows it down. Hard as it was hit, this ball didn’t have all that much velocity left, and the padding on the wall absorbed much of the remainder. It rolled back across the warning track and likely would have stopped entirely as soon as it encountered the grass. The outfielder has to wait back, wary of a hard carom bouncing past them, so when the ball dies like that, they need extra time to go get it, giving you more time to coast into second or stretch for third.
A weak carom also carries aesthetic benefits. When a ball is moving that slowly, you can’t field it normally. Below a certain velocity threshold, gloves are more hindrance than help. If you’re picking up a stationary baseball, or one moving at anything below a brisk walk, say 5 mph, it’s harder to pick the ball up off the ground with a glove than it is with your bare hand. Stiff leather fingers aren’t as sensitive or as flexible as real fingers, and the ball doesn’t have enough momentum to roll up into the pocket. Since you have to get the ball to your throwing hand anyway, you’re better off cutting out the middle man and barehanding the ball. It happens every day, but usually it happens for infielders who are dealing with bunts or squibbers. They charge hard, then scoop up the ball and throw it in one motion. It’s a thing of beauty, but it works quite differently in the outfield.
How much have you thought about the word toddler? As you can deduce, it means one who toddles, walking “with short tottering steps in the manner of a young child,” according to Merriam-Webster. The word first appeared in the early 16th century. There were tots, and the way they got around became tottering and tottling, which then became toddling. Finally, a good 300 years later, those tots who toddled became known as toddlers. (Who knows, they may have even enjoyed the occasional hot toddy. It was a different time.)
A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch, Charles Mackay, LL.D., 1888
Of course, toddling isn’t the only hallmark of a toddler. Our balance, motor skills, and proprioception evolve (and then devolve) over time, so we end up moving very differently at each stage of life. For example, when adults bend over to pick something up off the ground, they bend at the waist, but they also tend to put one foot in front of the other and go into a slight lunge to bring their torso closer to ground level. Toddlers have a different approach, getting into a deep crouch and reaching for the item while it’s still way out in front of them. They tuck their chests against their knees and they have to stick their elbows out to make room. Because they’re not yet champions of spatial awareness, they don’t often nail the location of their squat, which is the reason they often end up reaching way out or way across their bodies.
I bring all this up because when Roman Anthony, playing left field for the United States at the time of Guerrero’s blistering low-launch-angle double, loped out to the warning track to field the ball, I couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t exactly look like the Greek god, top-prospect-in-baseball, uber-athlete we’ve come to expect. He looked, uh, different.
Anthony looked either like a toddler playing with a toy dump truck or a grown man doing a pretty convincing impression of an anteater. I’m going to be honest with you. I went through a bunch of pictures of my nieces and nephews, and it didn’t take long to find a photo of a niece in the exact same pose. She’s two years old, and she’s not wearing a shirt or pants because she was just playing in the sprinklers. She’s crouched down to pick up a worm from the garden. She looks exactly like Anthony in the picture above, and I wish I could show you the two side-by-side in the Miami outfield, which I absolutely mocked up in Photoshop. Alas, I cannot do that to my niece, who is no longer two years old.
How did Anthony get into this position? For starters, in the outfield, you’re no longer scooping the ball up gracefully and firing it on the move. The weak carom is the only situation where you have to barehand the ball, and you’re always moving away from the infield to get it, which means you’re running, stopping to pick up the ball, then reversing your momentum to throw it into the infield. It’s a halting, graceless maneuver at the best of times. But other outfielders seem to manage it. Here are Anthony’s Red Sox teammates, Nick Sogard and Wilyer Abreu, making similar plays.
They chop their steps and time things so that the ball arrives between their feet rather than way out in front of them. They get low to field the ball, but their chests aren’t tucked tightly against their knees. They still look like athletes. To be fair, they’re also benefitting from a more flattering angle, but let’s break down the video of Anthony on Guerrero’s double frame by frame just to make sure we understand the progression.
Here’s Anthony running after the ball with his trademark long, graceful strides. He’s a 6-foot-3 miracle with a 55 current value on his run tool.
Next, here he is putting on the brakes. He may be slowing down, but the picture is still alive with movement as he powers down into a hover.
And here Anthony is, settling into a defensive crouch as he awaits the carom off the wall. He’s low, he’s alert, he’s ready for anything. Wherever this ball decides to bounce, he’s about pounce.
Um, so this is Anthony scuttling like a crab. He’s scuttling like a crab now. The ball didn’t so much bounce off the wall as it did die on the wall, and Anthony just kind of stayed in the crouch and started – sorry, scuttling is really the only word I can think of that applies here – toward it.
So this is the difference between a professional athlete and a toddler. When the right leg is still extended, planted in the ground for maximum leverage, the foot digging into the dirt at an angle, Anthony is a force to be reckoned with. Once the right leg is bent, he’s completely flat-footed, knees to his chest, left elbow stuck way out to the side so he can wrap his arm around his leg; he’s everyone’s nephew, powerless to stop himself from befriending a worm.
This is the frame that really takes it over the toddler top. For some reason, Anthony doesn’t grab the slow-moving ball with his fingers. He reaches out with his hand angled back. It looks like he doesn’t know what to do, so he’s just going to slap the baseball. He lets it get deep into his palm and grabs it with his whole hand. Professional baseball players do not grip the baseball that way. They have enormous hands and get a four-seam grip, holding the ball with their fingertips. There’s air between the ball and their palm. When Anthony finally picks up the ball, he holds it the way you might cradle a melon.
After that, sadly, Anthony returned to his usual status as a fearsome baseball warrior blessed with grace and agility.
Anthony has a long career ahead of him, and he will awe us with many astounding feats of power and dexterity. For now, though, let’s make sure we treasure this memory of him as an adorable toddler before he hits the terrible twos.
Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody, sorry for the delay.
2:26
Brendan Gawlowski: I’m out in AZ and running between a meetup with a scout and getting out to the backfields. My apologies, let’s get going.
2:26
Mariner Fan: Hey Brandon! Have you been to a game yet down there? Who impressed you at the most recent game you were AT?
2:27
Brendan Gawlowski: I like the capital ‘AT’ at the end. I saw Josuar yesterday, so I’ll say him. 0-3, a couple groundouts, looked like he tweaked his leg sliding but obvious speed and athleticism.
2:27
Punk in drublic: Who are some prospects outside the top 100 you think could make significant impact in the majors this year?
2:28
Brendan Gawlowski: Tons of relievers fall into this bucket.
Second base can be a bit of an unglamorous position; what is a second baseman, after all, but a failed shortstop? Indeed, the keystone is light on true superstars but heavy on solid regulars. The difference between third place and 13th, in our projections, is just half a win. A few teams in the bottom half of the ranking are bringing in exciting young players, too, so a low ordinal ranking does not necessarily indicate that the team’s second base situation is a lost cause.
It might please you to learn that second base in 2026 is also a position for interesting players: guys with extreme tool sets, speedsters, glove-only wizards, high-contact/no power dudes. It’s like they put the Statue of Liberty at second to exhort the sport’s most unorthodox hitters to congregate at this position. There’s something for everyone here. Read on, you’ll see. Read the rest of this entry »
Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bryce Harper, and Freddie Freeman walk into a bar — the same bar, in fact, as the one they walked into last year, and in the same order; the trio and their assorted backups topped these rankings in 2025, just as they do in ’26. But where they towered over the rest of the field last year, with a full win gap between the third-ranked Dodgers and the fourth-ranked Rays, this time it’s only Guerrero who’s separated from the pack. The 0.9-WAR gap between the Blue Jays and Phillies is just 0.1 WAR less than the gap between those Phillies and ninth-ranked Mariners.
It’s not hard to understand what’s happening. Guerrero is 27 years old, and if he didn’t have his best season by the numbers in 2025 — though a half-billion dollar extension and a near-miss of a championship is still a pretty great year — our projections suggest he’ll rebound. Harper, on the other hand, is 33 and Freeman 36, and while they remain championship-caliber players, both are increasingly prone to the aches and pains that can leave a mark on their performances, as explained below.
It’s not just that those older guys are past their peaks — likely future Hall of Famers, but trending down just the same — it’s that an influx of younger talent is pushing the middle of the pack upward. The 23-year-old Nick Kurtz, 27-year-olds Ben Rice and Jonathan Aranda, and 28-year-olds Michael Busch and Josh Naylor all rank among this year’s top dozen; none was the primary first baseman on a team ranked above no. 14 last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Curt Hogg-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images, Mark J. Rebilas and Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images
When the Royals traded for Isaac Collins in December, I praised the move. I understand that there are limitations to a 5-foot-8 corner outfielder who showed his first signs of major league life at age 27, but the man hit .263/.368/.411 last year, and the Royals — a team traditionally in dire need of live bats — only gave up a middle reliever to get him.
A Royals fan on Bluesky asked me how to feel about that move when it happened, and I answered thusly: “I think it’s a steal, as long as you make your peace with the small but non-trivial possibility that the Brewers turn Angel Zerpa into Josh Hader.” Read the rest of this entry »
This season has the potential to be an odd one for catchers. None of us knows exactly how the ABS challenge system will affect the way they go about their job, but all of us will be paying close attention. We’re a couple years into the one-knee-down revolution, and while the conventional wisdom was that it would help keep them fresher and allow them to play more innings, the top 30 catchers in terms of innings caught actually caught fewer innings in 2025 than they did in 2024.
The top of the list is fun. We’ve got 60-homer Cal Raleigh in his own stratosphere, William Contreras in his shadow, and Patrick Bailey one-tooling his way to the top tier. We have deep teams like the Blue Jays and Yankees, Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin, rookie Gold Glover Dillon Dingler, and veteran Will Smith, who became an entirely different hitter at age 30. And nobody knows what to expect from Adley Rutschman.
We’ve added a number of new metrics to the player pages and leaderboards related to the automated ball-strike challenge system, pitcher arm angles by pitch type, and spin rates by pitch type. These metrics first made their debut on MLB’s Baseball Savant, and we’re excited to bring them to you on FanGraphs.
There is a new plate discipline section labeled “Statcast – ABS” on the leaderboards page. All the metrics in this section reflect how the ABS strike zone will be called and is the new default view for all plate discipline stats. Specifically, the zone is defined as:
Like the plate, it is 17 inches wide. The top end of the zone is at 53.5% of the player’s height, while the bottom is at 27% of the player’s height. The depth of the zone is 8.5 inches from both the front and back of the plate to its center.
Our previous strike zone definitions are still available under the “Statcast – Legacy” view.
There’s an even more granular view of the shadow zone, which splits it into pitches that are in the strike zone and in the shadow zone (SI-stats) and pitches that are in the shadow zone and outside the strike zone (SO-stats).
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Give a Gift Subscription
Effectively Wild Subreddit
Effectively Wild Wiki
Apple Podcasts Feed
Spotify Feed
YouTube Playlist
Facebook Group
Bluesky Account
Twitter Account
Get Our Merch!
