These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments here.
Keibert Ruiz, C, Los Angeles Dodgers Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Oklahoma City Age: 22 Org Rank:2FV: 50
Line: 4-for-5, HR, 2B, 2 RBI Notes
Ruiz’ four-hit night wasn’t enough to make up for the fifteen runs scored by the opposing El Paso Chihuahuas, but it certainly bolstered confidence in the young catching prospect’s overall 2021 performance. His approach at the plate continues to impress; Ruiz’s 11% K-rate is the third lowest in all of Triple-A (10th lowest in all of the minor leagues), and he’s only struck out twice in the past twelve games, walking 11 times over that span.
Nick Plummer, DH/OF, St. Louis Cardinals Level & Affiliate: Double-A Springfield Age: 24 Org Rank: NR FV: 40
Line: 3-for-5, 3 HR, K, 5 RBI Notes
The line says a lot, but not quite everything. Plummer hit three home runs last night, but most notable was when they came and where they landed. His first four-bagger didn’t come until the bottom of the seventh, when he banged an opposite-field bomb off of the left field foul pole. His second dinger came the following inning, when he sent one over the wall in left center. Finally, as if filling out his bingo card, he walked it off in the 10th on an absolute rocket over the right field wall.
Two weeks ago, on June 24 at Dodger Stadium, Zach Davies and three relievers combined to throw the 2021 season’s umpteenth no-hitter, even while walking the ballpark. The defeat of the Dodgers lifted the Cubs to 42–33 and kept them tied with the Brewers atop the NL Central. But for as pretty as Chicago appeared to be sitting at that moment, the team didn’t win again until Wednesday night, as an 11-game losing streak not only knocked it out of first but below .500 — a slide that probably marks the end of an era, as it changes the calculus for how the organization should view its current roster.
While five of their losses during the streak were by a single run — including three straight to the Reds in Cincinnati last weekend — the Cubs also surrendered 13 or more runs four times in that stretch, losing to the Brewers by the lopsided scores of 14–4 and 15–7 (blowing a 7–0 first-inning lead in that one, yeesh), and to the Phillies, 13–3 and 15–10, the latter on back-to-back nights. Compounding their misery is that they abetted Milwaukee’s 11-game winning streak and briefly dipped to fourth place.
Having lost again to the Phillies on Thursday, the Cubs enter Friday tied for third in the NL Central, 9 1/2 games behind Milwaukee, and eight games back in the Wild Card race. Their playoff odds, which were a modest 35.7% in the wake of the no-hitter, have dwindled to 4.7% — a fact of which club president Jed Hoyer is well aware. With a trio of pivotal players — Javier Báez, Kris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo — all on expiring contracts, Hoyer effectively put up the “For Sale” sign while speaking to reporters on Thursday. Via The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney:
Cubs president Jed Hoyer: “Eleven days ago, we were fully on the buy side of (the trade deadline), everyone was calling about that. Obviously, people are now calling to see which players are available, so it’s a very different scenario than we expected. Life comes at you fast.”
Jed Hoyer is open for business and taking phone calls ahead of trade deadline: “When your playoff odds get into single digits at this time of the year, you have to keep one eye on the future and what moves you can potentially make that can help build the next great Cubs team.”
Starlin Castro is the new Nick Markakis, with people coming out of the woodwork to ask what-if-he-reaches-3000-hits, which won’t happen given the erosion of his skills.
@matt29756930@jay_jaffe@WalkingTaako ’20 season cost Castro 100+ hits. Dude doesn’t walk so he’s going to collect hits if in the lineup. Would need to somehow average 136 hits a year from ’21-’30 (Age 40 season). He’s at 83 already this year. Hope it happens. Will be fun to see what BBWAA does with it.
Jay Jaffe: And yesterday I wrote about the state of the Dodgers’ rotation in the wake of Clayton Kershaw’s trip to the IL and Trevor Bauer’s administrative leave https://t.co/VP7Ty2CtNH
2:04
Jay Jaffe: Anyway, the queue is filling so let’s get to it. Before I do so, let me caution you that I have absolutely no opinions or knowledge pertaining to the draft. You’re barking up the wrong tree here.
2:04
Fat Spielberg: Are you surprised by how few sticky stuff suspensions there have been?
2:05
Jay Jaffe: Maybe a little — i’d have guessed one or two guys a week would get nabbed, as a warning to the rest, but so far it’s just Hector Santiago, and he’s appealing the suspension.
The two of us utilized sourced TrackMan data and the Synergy Sports tool to unearth a few players who stood out to us for one data-driven reason or another. Below are our notes on those players.
Eric’s Players
James Triantos, SS, Madison HS (VA)
Triantos is on tape facing just shy of 350 pitches throughout the course of the summer/fall 2020 showcase season. He puts 70 of them in play and only swings and misses six times. That’s the most extreme BIP-to-Whiff ratio I’ve encountered while perusing players on Synergy. It’s becoming more common for teams to sign high school players to over-slot deals based largely on measurable feel for contact. Nick Yorke (Boston), Thomas Saggese (Texas), Joe Naranjo (Cleveland), and Tyler Freeman (also Cleveland) are examples that come to mind immediately, and there are many others. Triantos is in this sort of player bucket. He’s a below-average athlete and his swing has a non-traditional look, but he has remarkable feel for contact and enough physicality for pro ball. He’s a North Carolina commit, too, so it’s not as though this kid is coming out of absolutely nowhere. Triantos is a bucket strider whose front side flies open during his swing, and he swings with a lot of effort. It’s not a traditional-looking swing and it appears as though Triantos is making some mechanical concessions to swing as hard as he does, but he also has fantastic vertical plate coverage and shows no signs of swing-and-miss issues despite his traditionally unsound in-the-box footwork.
Like Saggese, Triantos makes routine plays at shortstop but he isn’t a superlative athlete, and he doesn’t have all that much room left on a frame that has added a ton of strength between 2019 PG Junior National and the summer of 2020. He also had a private workout at the Rangers’ stadium. Though he is listed as a switch-hitter in some places, Triantos only hit right-handed last summer. I think he’s strictly better than Saggese and more comparable to Yorke. Yorke got $2.7 million, which I thought was excessive, but Triantos feels likely to come off the board fairly early as this type of player is more sought after now than in the past.
Rodney Boone, LHP, UC Santa Barbara
Boone managed to strike out 127 hitters in 98 innings this year while sitting just 86-88. His fastball has huge carry and a flat approach angle that helps it play at the top of the strike zone, and Boone peppers that area with it consistently. Boone also has a bat-missing secondary in his parachute changeup, an odd pitch that seems to float around the strike zone. It doesn’t always have a traditional finish down and to Boone’s arm side and sometimes it finishes high, but it always seems to make hitters uncomfortable. Boone can also land his curveball for a strike. He is very loose, athletic, and competitive, and I think he’s a candidate to add velocity after college because of how fluid and flexible his delivery is.
Kobe Kato, 2B, University of Arizona
Kato hit .360/.460/.469 in 2021, the first collegiate season in which he received a significant amount of playing time. He is sleight of frame at a wispy 6-foot-1, 170 pounds and lacks power right now, but Kato is sinewy, athletic, and swings hard for such a small player. He also has ultra-quick hands and is extremely difficult to beat with fastballs. This is a middle infielder who posted more walks than strikeouts in a big conference and swung and missed just 42 times on tape all year, per Synergy Sports. That’s a measly 4.2% swinging strike rate. Kato also has some experience at catcher, both as a freshman at U of A and in the 2020 Northwoods League. He wasn’t very good back there, but it would make for an interesting experiment if Kato can bulk up quickly after entering pro ball.
Caleb Upshaw, OF, Eastern Kentucky
Upshaw is a very physical power-hitting corner outfielder from Eastern Kentucky. He transferred to EKU from Western Oklahoma State College for the 2020 season, but 2021 was the first extended D-I action he saw. He hit .325/.401/.560. When you isolate his performance against strong, non-conference schools (Louisville, Georgia Tech, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, etc.) that line reduces to .260/.320/.435, but the sample is only 12 games. He put a ball in play at 115 mph this year, the second-hardest ball in play among the TrackMan data provided to FanGraphs. Small conference players play in front of TrackMan units less frequently than their big conference peers, so it’s possible there’s even more high-end power here that just hasn’t been captured. I like Upshaw as a late Day Two sleeper.
Justin’s Players
Nick Nastrini, RHP, UCLA
In my debut article for FanGraphs, I raved about the elite carry of Jack Leiter’s fastball and how it symbolized his talent. But what if there’s a pitcher who has him beat in that regard? Believe it or not, Nastrini edges out Leiter by around three inches, with similar velocity and an even more optimal spin axis closer to 180 degrees.
The catch with Nastrini is his track record. In his freshman year in 2019, he recorded 17 punch-outs in 10.2 innings before undergoing surgery to treat thoracic outlet syndrome. He struggled with command to begin 2020 before the season shut down due to the pandemic. He dominated in his first two California Collegiate League outings this year but got injured in May and failed to record an out in his final two outings.
Despite this, there’s a lot to like about Nastrini. Beside the fastball, his changeup flashes plus breaks in both directions, and while the slider and curveball lag behind, they’re still above-average offerings. Along with the four-pitch repertoire, he has a prototypical starter’s build (6-foot-3, 204 lbs.) and a clean, repeatable delivery. That last detail suggests his wavering command is more due to inconsistent release points, which teams could hope to adjust.
It goes without saying that Nastrini’s relief risk is much, much bigger than the average top-round pick (that’s why he’s on this list), but I don’t see a team like the Dodgers or Brewers passing up on 20+ inches of induced vertical break.
Dominic Hamel, RHP, Dallas Baptist University
Like Rodney Boone, Hamel stands out as someone who has produced flat angles useful for pitching up in the zone, but with better extension and velocity (sitting 92–94). On purely a pitch data basis, his fastball is one of the best in this year’s draft class.
The reason Hamel isn’t higher on draft boards may be because of his breaking pitches: a low-80s slider and a curveball thrown at the same speed. They seem acceptable, even great at first glance, but there’s a flaw: Movement-wise, the two are nearly identical. It could explain why batters are whiffing on his curveball but not so much his slider. Given the elite raw spin rates on both offerings (2800+ rpm), a team could strive to convert some of the topspin on Hamel’s slider into sidespin and thus horizontal sweep, creating a contrast between the two pitches. With this simple adjustment, he could have three legitimate pitches.
In sum, Hamel is an analytical darling that I imagine has whatever models teams use sounding alarm bells. His current ceiling is that of a No.4 starter, but it’s a brittle one; the upside is real.
Conor Grady, RHP, Florida State
At a glance, Grady is an underwhelming prospect. His fastball averages around 89–90 mph, and while his changeup and slider pass the eye test, they don’t possess the sort of otherworldly movement that would convince scouts to look over the fastball.
And yet, he gets results. If there’s one pitching metric that can be used in lieu of others, it’s swinging-strike rate. This season, Grady’s changeup and slider returned swinging-strike rates of 28.2% (73 of 259) and 23.1% (84 of 364) respectively. You can count the numbers of D-I pitchers with similar rates on their secondaries on your fingers. Nobody flukes into so many whiffs.
So how does he pull it off? Stuff-wise, his individual pitches don’t stand out, but it’s how they interact that’s crucial. For example, there’s about 17 inches of separation between Grady’s fastball and changeup in terms of vertical break, and it’s a similar story with the slider. Meanwhile, there’s about 17 inches of separation between his changeup and slider in terms of horizontal break. They also have near-identical velocities, so good luck.
Grady struggled to find the strike zone in previous years, which might have eroded his draft stock. But 2021 was his cleanest season yet, as he walked a career-low 19 batters in a career-high 73.1 innings and struck out 99. The term ‘pitchability’ can have a negative connotation, but Grady embodies it in the best of ways. (Video courtesy of Brett Nevitt):
Peyton Wilson, C/2B/OF, University of Alabama
Wilson isn’t a sleeper based on his defense — his positional versatility alone is an attractive option for teams — but rather his offense. Despite possessing sneaky pop and bat-to-ball skills, there have been concerns over whether he will hit at the major league level; a .290/.353/.460 line isn’t exactly glamorous.
There’s a reason to be enthusiastic about the bat, however. Enter batted ball spin, which, unlike the normal pitch spin rate we’re accustomed to, indicates how a ball was struck. It’s easy to see the relationship between batted ball spin rate and pertinent metrics such as exit velocity and launch angle:
The logic here is intuitive: a ball with more backspin will hang in the air for a longer time. At the same time, hard hit balls usually have lower, knuckleball-esque spin, so finding a sweet spot is important. Based on the two plots above, I defined balls in the 1,500–3,000 rpm range as ‘ideal’ ones. Of the 2,858 college hitters I had data on, Wilson produced the most of these batted balls, with 53. Quite the accomplishment! If drafted into an organization that can assist him in developing decent power, he may become a force to reckon with. Per Eric, he tracks as a late second-round pick, and it’s interesting to think he might be a steal.
Brock Wilken, 3B, Wake Forest
The Wake Forest freshman isn’t part of the 2021 draft class, but he’s a reminder that preparation for the 2022 and ’23 drafts begin as soon as this one ends. Seemingly out of nowhere, Wilken launched 17 home runs this season to set a school record for most hit by a freshman. There’s the looming question of whether he can repeat this output, but maybe we should lean optimistic. Eric mentioned that Caleb Upshaw hit the second-hardest ball in play among the TrackMan data we received. But who’s in first place? Here’s the top five from this season, and, well:
Best EVs, 2021 D-I Season
Player
Max EV (mph)
Brock Wilken
120.6
Caleb Upshaw
115.3
Carson McCusker
114.8
Ben Fitzgerald
114.7
William Sullivan
114.7
SOURCE: TrackMan
On top is Wilken, and it’s not even close. Misread? Once-in-a-lifetime blip? Perhaps. If instead we looked at hitters’ 95th percentile exit velocities, his 107.6 mph mark would appear less impressive. But he did hit the ball somehow for TrackMan to say, “Yep, it exceeds 120 miles per hour,” and considering his age and fairly tough competition, it’s a feat one can’t ignore. Besides, a quick glance at his swing alone tells us what we need to know. Wilken is initially relaxed at the plate, then uses his lightning quick hands to pummel the incoming pitch. The bat speed on display here (for a grand slam, no less) is ridiculous:
On June 28, baseball media swarmed to the story of Gwen Goldman, a 70-year-old New York Yankees fan who after 60 years was finally granted a wish she’d made as a 10-year-old. In 1961, Goldman wrote to then Yankees general manager Roy Hamey asking for an opportunity to be a Yankees batgirl.
The response she received from Hamey was rife with the kind of sexism one might expect from a missive penned in 1961. “While we agree with you that girls are certainly as capable as boys, and no doubt would make an attractive addition to the playing field, I am sure you can understand that in a game dominated by men a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout.”
While it’s hard to overlook that Hamey thought it appropriate to tell a 10-year-old that adding women to baseball would be “an attractive addition,” it’s clear that he was also dismissing any arguments Gwen might have made in favor of her merit in her original appeal, which unfortunately has not been recovered. Baseball, and especially the Yankees, were clearly important enough to Gwen to risk applying for the job, and thankfully her rejection was not enough to dampen her enthusiasm for the game. Read the rest of this entry »
After much anticipation, the US National Baseball Team is heading to the 2021 Olympic Games. Given the 13 years since baseball was last played in the Olympics, the lack of overlap between this roster and the last Games’ is no surprise. But that’s not to say the team is entirely without Olympic experience. Eddy Alvarez competed for the United States speed skating team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where he earned a silver medal in the 5000 meter relay. When he told reporters after those Games that he planned to hang up his skates in favor of pursuing a baseball career, it’s unlikely he did so knowing the decision would start him on a path back to the Olympics.
Far-fetched as it may have seemed back then, Alvarez was indeed one of 24 players named to represent the US in the six-team Olympic baseball tournament later this month. The US and the Dominican Republic both qualified in June, joining Japan, South Korea, Israel, and Mexico, all of which qualified over a year and a half ago, when the Games were still slated to take place in 2020 (just one of many ways in which the global pandemic has already shaped this year’s Games, a topic I’ll examine in greater depth next week). This will be the first time baseball is played at the Olympics since the 2008 Games in Beijing, after which the sport (along with softball) was removed from Olympic competition. The 2008 roster featured Double-A versions of Trevor Cahill and Dexter Fowler, a Single-A Jake Arrieta, and a soon-to-be-drafted college pitcher named Stephen Strasburg.
It’s a special episode of the podcast, as we eschew the usual format to spend more than two-and-a-half hours previewing the 2021 MLB Draft, which begins Sunday evening. For this episode, I am joined by our very own well-connected draft guru, Eric Longenhagen, as we discuss the story lines to watch for and what might happen in the first round and beyond. In between our two discussions, we are joined by four staples of draft media for a series of quick-hit interviews during which each answers three questions from Twitter and, for those appearing on television this weekend, discusses their suit and tie choices. In order, our guests are:
It’s a whole lot of draft talk and little else, apart from a couple of tangents on Rory Scovel and the town of Magnolia, Arkansas. The podcast will return to its regularly scheduled format next week.
As always, we hope you enjoy and thank you for listening.
Join me this afternoon at 1:00 PM PT/4:00 PM ET for the first Friday edition of The RosterResource Show, live on the FanGraphs homepage or over on our Twitch channel.
The show has aired weekly on Wednesdays over the past few months and has included segments on both the majors and minors. In order to focus more on major league rosters and recent transactions, I’ll now be hosting multiple shows per week, with the minor league coverage airing on the Wednesday show and the major league content reserved for the Friday afternoon program.
Come chat on Twitch as I discuss the latest roster developments around the league while browsing through our RosterResource content. Along with the planned segments, such as Closer News, Trade Talk, Transaction History, there could also be live updates as roster moves are announced. Read the rest of this entry »
This week on FanGraphs Audio, we talk to a pair of scribes about the Chicago baseball scene before digging into the upcoming draft.
At the top of the show, David Laurila welcomes Bruce Miles and Mark Gonzales to discuss their many years of covering the Cubs, White Sox, and Chicago sports more generally. The trio discuss the reputations surrounding the fans of the two teams, as well as their differences in managers and owners. Bruce and Mark also share stories of covering particularly memorable managers like Lou Piniella, Ozzie Guillen, and Joe Maddon. They also talk about the great on-air talent covering the Cubs and White Sox right now, as well as what it’s like to be confronted by players who you wrote about critically. [2:36]
After that, Ben Clemens is joined by Kevin Goldstein to discuss the amateur draft, which begins Sunday. Kevin recently wrote about what goes on in draft rooms and shares his insight into the all-hands-on-deck chaos teams experience this time of year. Ben and Kevin also discuss courtesy picks, the importance of the defensive spectrum for a player’s future, and how a baseball draft is about both talent and value. The duo also touch on this week’s episode of Chin Music, which features plenty of additional draft content and experts. [35:09]
Let’s check in on the farm system rankings before the draft. I’m going to begin by pointing readers to a few useful resources. First and most importantly, here is a primer to remind you of the features of the rankings and here is Craig Edwards’ research on prospect valuation that helped inform our rankings methodology. Readers should consider the dollar amounts as an approximation of what the player might receive were they exposed to the open market, which in addition to acting as a filter that aids in our analysis of trades featuring prospect where money also changes hands, is also an illustration of the gap between what minor leaguers earn and what they’re “worth” to their organizations.
Next I’ll note that the “2021 Updated” section of The Board is now live. As players are added to (via the draft or trade) or subtracted from (via trade or graduation) an organization, the Farm Rankings associated with those teams will also update automatically. You may want to follow the FanGraphs Prospects Twitter account, which I typically use to tweet Board updates when players are added, subtracted, or move within the Future Value tiers. If you avoid Twitter because it crosses the wires of your brain and tears at our social fabric, you can simply access the feed on the Prospects Homepage. Just scroll down a little bit; it’s on the right. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe
