Prospect writers Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen will sometimes have enough player notes to compile a scouting post. This is one of those dispatches, a collection of thoughts after the second weekend of college baseball and first two days of spring training. Remember, prospect rankings can be found on The Board.

Eric’s Notes

Justice Thompson, CF, North Carolina: 6-for-10, 2 2B, HR, 2 BB, 1 K

There are going to be an inordinate number of pop-up college guys this year and Thompson appears to be one. He was seen by a ton of scouts early in 2020 during Northwest Florida State’s clash with San Jacinto (two prominent junior colleges), so teams knew who he was entering this season, but had he looked in ’20 like he looks now, he’d probably already be in pro ball rather than at Chapel Hill. This is a freaky frame/power/speed prospect, the kind not typically seen on college campuses at all, the sort of athlete who often signs out of high school. After the first couple weekends of Division-I ball, Thompson is slugging .920. Even at a lanky 6-foot-4, he’s shown an ability to pull his hands in to put the barrel on inside pitches, and drive them with power. I don’t know exactly where to put this guy on The Board just yet, but he has first round physical tools, and the typical issues that plague long-levered hitters don’t appear to be a problem here. Thompson had his 6-for-10 weekend against Virginia’s pitching staff, not some non-conference cupcake.

Elijah Green, CF, IMG Academy (FL) – 2022 eligible

Green is the first high schooler to sit atop a future draft board since I’ve been at FanGraphs, as he’s currently the top 2022 prospect. I talked with several scouts and directors who were in Florida throughout February (mostly to source JUCO dope) and the way they talk about Green (who is being seen a lot because he’s on a team with 2021 prospects at IMG) has a different vibe. Only the underclass excitement for Hunter Greene has really come close to this since I’ve been covering the draft. I’m wary of hyping high school underclassmen for any number of reasons (their athletic and personal development haven’t even come close to concluding, and I don’t want to help turn anyone into baseball’s Corey Feldman), but Green hit a curveball out of Globe Life Field over the weekend, which is not normal. He has big physical tools and is laying a really strong statistical performance foundation by hitting as much as he has as an underclassman. Read the rest of this entry »

While Jake Odorizzi is clearly the top free-agent pitcher still available as March opens, Jackie Bradley Jr. is the market’s top position player still on the shelves, No. 18 overall on our Top 50 Free Agents list. Beyond the fact that they and their agents may have aimed too high with their contractual desires in an industry still feeling the economic pinch of the COVID-19 pandemic and treating the $210 million Competitive Balance Tax threshold as a salary cap, the pair don’t have a ton of similarities beyond their availability. But like Odorizzi, Bradley could provide a clear boost to a contending team.

Bradley, who turns 31 on April 19, spent the past 10 years in the Red Sox organization after being chosen as a supplemental first-round pick out of the University of South Carolina in 2011. It took him awhile to find his footing in the majors: Since he couldn’t keep his batting average above the Mendoza Line over the course of 530 plate appearances in 2013–14, he bounced up and down between Triple-A Pawtucket and Boston and spent nearly half of 2015 on the farm as well before finally sticking around for good.

Since the start of the 2015 season, Bradley has produced at about a league-average level offensively (.247/.331/.438, 102 wRC+) and provided exceptional and often spectacular defense. His +33 DRS in center field is tied for fifth in the majors in that span, and his 19.9 UZR is sixth, though he’s somewhere around 10th or 11th on a prorated basis, depending upon the innings cutoff one chooses. Likewise, his 42 runs via Statcast’s Runs Prevented metric ranks sixth since the start of 2016. In a league where Kevin Kiermaier has dominated the defensive metrics, Bradley has just one Gold Glove to show for his efforts, but he’s nonetheless put together some enviable highlight reels. Here’s one that covers just the last eight weeks of his work:

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Here are two seasons, played 10 years apart:

We’re used to seeing a hitter’s numbers change over the course of that many seasons — sometimes improving in some areas, often declining in others. A table like the one above suggests both an incredible sustaining of abilities and an undying faith in approach. Ironically, that is not the story of Jason Heyward, a player who has been neither consistent in his performance nor trusting of his own approach, having tinkered constantly with his swing mechanics and his goals as a hitter. What the table above omits are the nine seasons between 2010 and 2020, which showed many different versions of Heyward that add up to a hitter far less valuable than the ones that bookend them.

To me, this table is much more interesting than the previous one, providing more information and simultaneously prompting more questions. Heyward started off as a very good hitter, then averaged merely okay performances for the next nine seasons, then suddenly reverted back to his rookie self as a 31-year-old during a pandemic year. The second table is the story I’d like to talk about. (You may be asking, “Then why show us the first table at all?” And to that I say, writing ledes is hard.)

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In a preview of my soon-to-be-launched weekly live stream, I explain a few of our RosterResource features while also giving my thoughts on some recent roster developments and things to keep an eye on as spring training gets underway.

The live version will be focused more on roster-related questions from viewers, as well as regular explanations of how the latest news around the league has affected playing time or Opening Day roster projections.

Our RosterResource features are updated as often as necessary to keep up with baseball’s fast-moving news cycle. It’s important that our readers have multiple ways of knowing what changes are being made and why. And while it’s easy enough to just ask me a roster-related question on Twitter, this stream will allow me to answer your questions while also utilizing our RosterResource pages to help show how I came to my answer. In essence, it will be a tutorial, live chat, and roster roundup all in one. Check out the preview episode and stay tuned for the first live stream in the near future. Read the rest of this entry »

Under the low, blue-grey sky in Jupiter, the clouds rolling in low from the sea, the people crowd in the seats, white hats and dark sunglasses on, in the annual ritual of anticipation. The latest in inoffensive country-pop blaring over the speakers, the salty food spilling onto the ground — with handheld video cameras, grainy images criss-crossed by thick netting, they zoom in on the players they’re here to watch. The classic red of the jerseys is loud against the muted landscape; it makes someone like the aging slugger, whom the camera follows with interest, look even bigger and more imposing than he is. And he is, indeed, imposing, much as he has been for the last decade: the Rawlings Big Stick appearing, in his hands, to have all the heft of a piece of driftwood. He is 37 years old, with a right knee that’s gone under the knife; for now, he will not run the bases, nor take the field. He glowers, alone, waiting for his one turn at the plate.

In the rest of the dugout, the bustle: the big grins, pounding gloves. Last year, they lost the pennant. This year, they should make a run for it again. Squint and you’ll see the catcher, who, during last year’s chase, sliced his finger nearly off with a hunting knife — an injury he assures everyone will not affect his ability to throw this year. Watch carefully, and you might catch a glimpse of the prospect. He doesn’t look out of his depth: he is as solid as the slugger ever was, and his demeanor betrays no trepidation. He only has one professional season under his belt; when the slugger debuted almost 15 years ago, he was only a little kid. But he is here, and with a vacancy on the hot corner, he could make the team. It’s a long shot, of course; everyone says it’s a long shot. It was a long shot for a 20-year-old in his first professional season to climb all the way to Triple-A by year’s end, too, but he did it. The chance may be small — but there’s a chance.

The slugger swings — a long, belabored swing, well behind the pitch, and the umpire’s arm punches through the air. The inning is over. The music plays.

***

“He was like a rock,” the team doctor says. He is talking about the prospect. Before a game was even played this spring, when players were reporting and getting their physicals done, they were talking about the prospect. There is such an incongruity between the reality of this young man and what one expects out of a player only two years out of high school, and within that incongruity is space for endless imagining. How quickly he rose in only a year; how quickly might he rise given another? It is spring, and he is with the big-league club — a chance for fans to catch a glimpse, to stoke the fires of their imaginations, before he returns, presumably, to the minors. The games don’t count, but the visions they produce can endure through entire disappointing seasons. If the slugger continues to decline, if the catcher’s near-severed finger hampers him, if they can’t get anything out of third base — they can return, whenever they want, to the low clouds of a passing winter, to a promise of what could soon be. Read the rest of this entry »

Jarred Kelenic is right, or at the very least, he’s not wrong. There’s no reason not to take the recent claims of the Mariners outfielder and his representative, Brody Scoffield, at face value. Their story — that Kelenic was offered a pre-debut extension and that when he declined to sign it, the club refused to call him up in 2020 for service time reasons — is totally believable, and is backed up by Kevin Mather’s now infamous remarks over Zoom to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club; Mather, the club’s President and CEO at the time of his remarks, resigned last week. The proposed extension, which Mather described as a “long-term deal, six-year deal for substantial money with options to go farther,” speaks both to Kelenic’s immense talent as well as the Mariners’ desire to lock him up on team-friendly terms.

Jerry Dipoto, who addressed the situation last Tuesday, is right, or at the very least, he might not be wrong. Dipoto said what one normally would about a highly-ranked prospect who is generating hype but isn’t on the roster yet. (Here it worth remembering that GMs operate within the budget strictures ownership set for them. That’s not to say Dipoto has no agency, and owners look for GMs who are willing to let this type of fiscal responsibility take precedence over winning baseball games. But in reality, ownership should be on the hook to a far greater degree than the front office in the eyes of fans.) Kelenic has only played 21 games above A-ball. He hit a very solid .253/.315/.542 in those 21 games, as a teenager mind you, and was actually remarkably unlucky, as evidenced by his exceptionally light .246 BABIP. Still, a little more seasoning in Triple-A, as Dipoto suggests, might be beneficial. Kelenic’s approach could use some tightening and his strength gains have come with some of his twitch going backwards, which is starting to hinder him defensively.

But those are nitpicks, not deficiencies that should have kept him out of Seattle. Evan White proves the case. White isn’t nearly as talented as Kelenic, but he signed a pre-debut deal and was instantly the Opening Day first baseman in 2020. His bat wasn’t ready, as evidenced by a miserable 66 wRC+ to go with an ugly 41.6% strikeout rate, yet he was there. Was White the Mariners’ best option? Maybe. But did the fact that he signed the sort of big league deal that Kelenic turned down drive the decision to have him with the major league team while Kelenic futzed around at the team’s alternate site in Tacoma? No question. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Royals and corner infielder Hunter Dozier agreed to terms over the weekend on a four-year contract that guarantees him $25 million along with a fifth-year option that could bring the total value to $35 million. The deal starts immediately, tearing up the one-year deal worth $2.72 million that was signed back in December in order to avoid an arbitration hearing.

Dozier’s deal buys out at least two years of free agency (and possibly three). It would be a mistake to think of this in the same kinds of terms as other players with two or three years of service time signing similar contracts: Dozier is not young, nor is he a budding star. It may feel like he’s young given his short history in the majors, but he’ll also be 30 by the end of the 2021 season, which saps his long-term value. Let’s start with the five-year projection for Dozier, with an important caveat that we’ll talk about below.

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As the calendar flips to March, exhibition season has begun (!) in both Arizona and Florida, and yet a few top free agents remain unsigned. Atop the list in terms of projected impact is Jake Odorizzi, who’s had the misfortune of mistiming the market, in part due to an injury-wracked 2020 season. Still, there’s no shortage of teams that the veteran righty, who placed 24th on our Top 50 Free Agents list, could help.

Odorizzi, who turns 31 on March 27, spent the past three seasons with the Twins, putting together a solid campaign in 2018 (4.49 ERA,4.20 FIP, and 2.5 WAR in 164.1 innings), and an All-Star one in ’19 (3.51 ERA, 3.36 FIP, and 4.3 WAR in 159 innings). Last year was a near-total loss, though, as he was limited to 13.2 innings by an intercostal strain and a blister. Prior to that, Odorizzi pitched four years and change with the Rays, that after being traded in blockbusters involving Zack Greinke and Lorenzo Cain (2010) — he was originally a supplemental first-round pick by the Brewers in ’08 — and then James Shields and Wil Myers (2012). In Tampa Bay, he totaled 6.5 WAR from 2014 to ’16 before a bout of gopher trouble (1.88 homers per nine) led to a replacement level season in ’17. That hiccup aside, he’s been very solid and (prior to 2020) rather durable, averaging 30.3 starts per year from 2013 to ’19; an oblique strain in ’15 and hamstring and back woes in ’17 kept him to 27 starts in those seasons. As best I can tell, he’s never missed significant time due to an arm injury.

Odorizzi has gone his entire career without signing a multiyear deal. He won back-to-back arbitration cases against the Rays in 2017 ($4.1 million) and ’18 ($6.3 million), the reward for which was being traded to the Twins just two days after the latter decision was announced. After making $9.3 million in 2019, his best season, he received a $17.8 million qualifying offer from the Twins, which apparently put a drag on his market before he could fully test the waters. Via MLB.com’s Do-Hyoung Park, Odorizzi received “a lot of interest” from other teams at the time, to the point of exchanging dollar figures, “but the uncertainty generated by the timeframe and the draft considerations ultimately led to his return to Minnesota.” The fact that Odorizzi wouldn’t be be subjected to another qualifying offer the next time he reached free agency, and thus wouldn’t have the millstone of draft compensation attached to his signing, was a factor in his decision.

Alas, his 2020 season didn’t pan out as planned. The intercostal strain landed him on the injured list to start the season, and so he didn’t make his season debut until August 8. In his third outing, on August 21, he was hit in the chest by a batted ball, suffering a contusion and landing on the IL again. Upon returning, a blister problem led to another early hook. Though he was on the roster for the AL Wild Card series against the Astros, he did not pitch.

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