The Fringe Five: Baseball’s Most Compelling Fringe Prospects

Note: this edition of the Fringe Five contains no illustrative video footage, on account of it was largely composed by an author en route from New England to Chicago and by means of the fragile internet connections along that journey.

The Fringe Five is a weekly regular-season exercise, introduced a couple 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 in the Five) is any rookie-eligible player at High-A or above both (a) absent from the most current iteration of Kiley McDaniel’s top-200 prospect list and (b) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing on any of McDaniel’s updated prospect lists or, otherwise, selected in the first round of the current season’s amateur draft will also be excluded from eligibility.

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.

Austin Barnes, C, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
This represents Barnes’ third appearance in 2015 among either the Five proper or the Next Five. With regard to the eight editions of this weekly exercise from which he was omitted, Barnes was either a strong contender for them or ineligible because he was playing in the actual majors. And if he has been overlooked on occasion, it’s because his credentials as a ballplayer would appear to be sufficiently conspicuous as to render any further mention of them an exercise in redundancy. Yet, he remains in the minors and also remains eligible for inclusion here according to the haphazard criteria constructed by the author. The purpose of this entry, then, is to confirm that Barnes continues to exhibit the skills that have previously earned him a place here. Specifically, one finds that he’s recorded identical walk and strikeout rates over roughly 200 plate appearances for Oklahoma City — in addition, this, to one of the top isolated-power figures and speed scores among Triple-A catchers. “A disciplined batter with strong contact skills and above-average athleticism for a catcher”: this is a not inappropriate summary of Austin Barnes.

Matt Boyd, LHP, Toronto (Profile)
Provided the internet isn’t entirely full of lies, the left-handed Boyd has actually been scratched from his start today with Triple-A Buffalo — very possibly ahead of a promotion to the majors*. If and when such a transaction becomes official, Boyd will be ineligible for inclusion here among the Five. As of press time, however, he remains a minor leaguer — and, in fact, passed the entirety of the last week as a minor leauger, as well, during which interval he recorded his second start for Buffalo. It went well: against 21 batter over 5.0 innings, Boyd produced a 4:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio (box). Over two appearances and 12.0 innings against International League batters now, Boyd has recorded strikeout and walk rates of 25% and 0%, respectively.

*Credit to concerned internet citizen Aaron Carter for bringing this to the author’s attention.

Ryan Cordell, 3B/OF, Texas (Profile)
Among the contributions of Bill James et al. to baseball research is the notion that a player’s defensive ability ought to be measured by something more nuanced than merely his fielding percentage. It’s impossible for a fielder to mishandle a ball that he’s unable to reach. It follows, then, that Fielder A can post a lower fielding percentage than Fielder B while also converting a greater rate of batted balls into outs. That said, a player’s fielding percentage isn’t without significance, either. It does, after all, represent the rate at which a player has converted those batted balls within his range — the rate at which he’s converted them into out. Since appearing among the Five last week, Cordell has recorded five error — four of them while playing third base, to which position he’s receiving his first professional exposure this year. It’s possible, in other words, that Cordell won’t prove capable of handling the position. That’s unfortunate. On the other hand, he’s proved competent across all three outfield positions — and has exhibited a sufficiently robust offensive profile to continue as an outfielder alone.

Jharel Cotton, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
Last week, owing to his dramatic ascent from anonymity, Dodgers right-hander Jose De Leon was declared ineligible for inclusion here by the author. If the objective of this exercise is to “recognize those prospects who are perhaps receiving less notoriety than their talents or performance might otherwise warrant,” it follows that De Leon — the recipient both of Scott Boras’s and Keith Law’s attention recently — doesn’t require the tender ministrations of this author. Of considerable resemblance to De Leon, however — without the attendant fanfare — is the right-handed Cotton. Recently promoted to the Double-A Texas League, where he joins De Leon in Tulsa’s rotation, Cotton was not only a relative afterthought in the draft (from which he received merely a $75,000 bonus after being selected in the 20th round), but has also proceeded to produce a track record of performances in the lower minors which, like De Leon’s, is largely unrivaled. Over 247.1 innings now, the 23-year-old Cotton has posted strikeout and walk rates of 27.1% and 6.9%, respectively. His Double-A debut was no exception: in 6.0 innings at Springfield, he recorded a 7:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 24 batters (box). Reports indicate that he sits in the low-90s at the worst — which is to say, enough velocity not to be the quality which prevents him from continuing to succeed as a professional.

Max Kepler, 1B/OF, Minnesota (Profile)
It’s generally the case that the players included within the Five possess some manner of positive defensive value. Which, that’s not surprising, probably: by and large, the prospects who outperform expectations are those who exhibit a quiet base of skills (including defensive competence) as opposed to one or two superlative tools. Kepler appeared here last week because, despite having recorded the majority of his starts at first base this year, most reports suggest that he’s probably an above-average corner outfielder capable of not expressly failing in center field. Given his offensive profile at this point, however, it’s likely that Kepler would appear here even were he merely a true first baseman. Playing at two years below the average Southern League age, the German has produced a walk- and strikeout-rate differential of precisely zero in 218 plate appearances while also posting an isolated-power figure among the top 10% of all Double-A hitters. And as a testament to his speed and athleticism, consider: he’s authored four triples and a 3-for-3 stolen-base record since last Wednesday.

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

Gavin Cecchini, SS, New York NL (Double-A Eastern League)
Willson Contreras, C, Chicago NL (Double-A Southern League)
Ryan Etsell, RHP, Los Angeles AL (High-A California League)
Adam Frazier, 2B/SS/OF, Pittsburgh (Double-A Eastern League)
Sherman Johnson, 2B/3B, Los Angeles AL (Double-A Texas League)

Fringe Five Scoreboard
Here are the top-10 the players to 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.

*Currently ineligible for inclusion among the Five due either to (a) promotion to major leagues, (b) appearance on Kiley McDaniel’s prospect list, or (c) author’s declaration.