The Fringe Five: Baseball’s Most Compelling Fringe Prospects

Fringe Five Scoreboards: 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a few years ago by the present author, wherein that same author utilizes regressed stats, scouting reports, and also his own fallible intuition to identify and/or continue monitoring the most compelling fringe prospects in all of baseball.

Central to the exercise, of course, is a definition of the word fringe, a term which possesses different connotations for different sorts of readers. For the purposes of the column this year, a fringe prospect (and therefore one eligible for inclusion among the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above who (a) was omitted from the preseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, John Sickels*, and (most importantly) lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and also who (b) is currently absent from a major-league roster. Players appearing on any updated list — such as the revised and midseason lists released by Baseball America or BP’s recent midseason top-50 list or Longenhagen’s summer update — will also be excluded from eligibility.

*All 200 names!

In the final analysis, the basic idea is this: to recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant.

Sandy Baez, RHP, Detroit (Profile)
A member of the Five back in early July, the right-handed Baez earned a promotion to Double-A Erie for his final two starts of the regular season. He acquitted himself well, striking out nearly a third of the batters he faced over 10.0 innings.

Most pitchers who record excellent statistical indicators and possess plus-plus velocity are ineligible ever to appear in this weekly column because they tend to populate top-100s lists. A combination of modest pedigree (he signed for just $49,000) and somewhat rudimentary secondary pitches, however, have conspired to create lower expectations from the industry where Baez is concerned.

In his start this past Monday, Baez showed a real willingness to use both a breaking ball and changeup, having some actual success with the latter of those.

Here’s an example of the breaking ball for a swinging strike:

And also the changeup, also for a swinging strike:

Garrett Hampson, 2B/SS, Colorado (Profile)
Colorado’s High-A affiliate in Lancaster featured an improbable collection of base-stealing talent this season, both prolific and efficient. Consider, by way of illustration, the following table, which features the stolen-base records of all eight California League teams, plus an estimate of the runs (wSB) — calculated with the major-league constants for 2017 — produced by those stolen bases:

By this estimate, Lancaster produced roughly 15 more runs — or about one-and-a-half wins — via the stolen base than the next-best club.

Outfielder Wes Rogers, who himself appeared in a recent edition of the Five, led both the club and league by this measure (+8.5). Hampson placed second on both accounts, with +3.8 runs.

This isn’t Hampson’s only virtue as a prospect. He also finished second among Cal League qualifiers by strikeout rate (12.8%) and produced something like 10 or 15 defensive runs while splitting time between second base and shortstop. He ended the season excellently, too, recording walk and strikeout rates of 11.3% and 5.7%, respectively, over the final two weeks (53 plate appearances) while producing a .196 ISO. Overall, he slashed .457/.519/.652 during that final period, a line equivalent to a 218 wRC+.

Joe McCarthy, 1B/OF, Tampa Bay (Profile)
Over his last seven games of the regular season, Joe McCarthy batted just .160. He also walked in nearly 19% of his plate appearances, though, and struck out in fewer than 7% of them. In a sample of just 31 plate appearances, the latter two numbers are more indicative of skill than the former — and better resemble the sort of control McCarthy has exerted over the strike zone as a professional.

McCarthy’s first appearance among the Five, last week, was largely a result of the capacity he’s exhibited this year not only to make contact at an elite rate but to elevate the ball at the same time. While his ability to hit the ball in the air didn’t translate into remarkable season numbers, he’s actually demonstrated more power recently, hitting three homers in his last 10 games (including a playoff game on Wednesday).

Here’s one of those home runs, from August 26th:

Sean Murphy, C, Oakland (Profile)
Murphy appeared among that group of players designated as the Next Five back in June after having compiled a batting line that was impressive even after adjusting for the influence of the California League — and even more impressive for a catcher’s whose defensive skills have been praised by a source of such incomparable authority as lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen himself.

The 22-year-old Ohio native was promoted to Double-A Midland at the end of June but not all of his statistical indicators survived the ascent. While Murphy actually improved his already better-than-average plate-discipline figures, his power numbers suffered considerably. Regard: after producing a .230 isolated-power figure in the Cal League (whose batters have produced a collective .144 ISO), Murphy recorded just a .066 mark over his first 204 plate appearances in the Texas League (where the league average is .126).

That said, Murphy ended the regular season well, not only posting strikeout and walk rates of 17.6% and 11.8%, respectively, over his final 17 plate appearances but also a .538 ISO. Indeed, Murphy hit as many home runs (two) over his last three games with Midland as he did in his first 50. It might seem absurd to extract any sort of optimism from a three-game sample, but Murphy’s contact skills and defensive ability create a low bar for the power.

Freddy Peralta, RHP, Milwaukee (Profile)
The traditional explanations for the kind of success Peralta has experienced this season aren’t particularly satisfying. When a pitcher of Peralta’s size (5-foot-11) and with Peralta’s velocity (91-95 mph, or almost precisely average for a major-league starter) leads basically all the minors in strikeout rate, that success is typically attributed to some combination of “command” or “deception.” (In some cases, as with Jharel Cotton, “transcendent platoon-neutralizing secondary pitch” is a third option. This doesn’t seem to apply in Peralta’s case, however.)

While it’s quite possible that Peralta benefits both from above-average command and deception, there’s no publicly available tool (spin rate, release point, effective velocity) for verifying that objectively. For those of us who lack the requisite skill, then, to observe such qualities with our eyes, there’s a maddening opaqueness regarding what allows Peralta to flourish.

What one can’t deny is Peralta’s success this year. He recently ended an excellent season with a pair of even more excellent starts, recording strikeout and walk rates of 42.6% and 8.5%, respectively, against 47 batters over his last 12.0 innings. Personally, though — as one who will face no consequences for being wrong — I’m suspicious of Peralta’s ability to survive as a starter in the majors. His breaking ball is pretty consistently great, but he seems to benefit also from an inordinate number of swings and misses on the fastball — a fastball that’s unlikely to generate a similar number of swings and misses in the majors. The size and mechanics evoke Francisco Rodriguez. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Peralta experience real success in a bullpen role.

In conclusion, two examples of that breaking ball:

And even more examples of whiffs on the fastball:

The Next Five
These are players on whom the author might potentially become fixated.

Yonny Chirinos, RHP, Tampa Bay (Triple-A International League)
Ben Meyer, RHP, Miami (High-A Florida State League)
Nate Orf, 2B/3B/OF, Milwaukee (Triple-A Pacific Coast League)
Hoy Jun Park, 2B/SS, New York AL (High-A Florida State League)
Wes Rogers, OF, Colorado (High-A Colorado League)

Fringe Five Scoreboard
Here is the top-10 list of players who have appeared among either the Fringe Five (FF) or Next Five (NF) so far this season. For mostly arbitrary reasons, players are assessed three points for each week they’ve appeared among the Fringe Five; a single point, for each week among the Next Five.