The Fringe Five: Baseball’s Most Compelling Fringe Prospects

Note: San Diego prospect Travis Jankowski and Minnesota’s Max Kepler would both have likely been included within this edition of the Five, but are both ineligible — the former due to a promotion to the majors, the latter for having appeared among the top prospects on Kiley McDaniel’s recent in-season update.

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) absent from the midseason prospect lists produced by Baseball America, Keith Law, and John Sickels, and also (c) not currently playing in the majors. Players appearing anywhere of McDaniel’s updated prospect list 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.

*****

Jharel Cotton, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
There appears to be a misunderstanding among the public — perpetuated, it seems, by a tired cliche — that taking candy from a baby is among the very easiest things one could find himself doing. And, in fact, perhaps the actual snatching of the treat from a child’s hands requires little effort. But, after that — well, are you familiar with children, at all? The majority of them pass their time on the verge of tears, as it is. What they’re looking for is the merest pretense upon which to launch into hysterics — and, as pretenses go, the burgling of confections isn’t so mere to a baby. His candy duly purloined, he’ll emit a series of shrieks at a frequency and pitch more likely than not to cause temporary deafness in the perpetrator. Now disoriented, the thief is at risk of serious injury… or worse. What’s easier than stealing candy from a baby?, you ask. Almost everything — but certainly selecting Dodgers right-hander Jharel Cotton for this edition of the Five. After appearing in last week’s installment of this same thing, Cotton has proceeded to produce strikeout and walk rates of 35.1% and 5.4%, respectively, over two appearances and 9.0 innings in the meantime.

Yandy Diaz, 3B, Cleveland (Profile)
Diaz recorded his first appearance here last week, following an impressive exhibition of power which consisted of four homers in roughly 50 plate appearances — this after having produced only two home runs in the 425 plate appearances before that interval. Indeed, Diaz has continued this recent promising trend, hitting another home run since the last edition of this weekly exercise while also posting a nearly even (3:4) walk-to-strikeout ratio in 32 plate appearances. Owing to his legitimately elite combination of contact ability and plate discipline, the 24-year-old Cuban has been a perpetual candidate for inclusion among the Five all year, anyway. The addition of power to that skill set — and also what appears to be above-average defense at third — creates an overwhlemingly promising profile.

Here’s perpetually looping footage of Diaz’s most recent home run — in this case, to the opposite field in Portland, ME:

Jordan Johnson, RHP, San Francisco (Profile)
Johnson appears this week among the Five not merely for the quality of his performance in 2015 nor for the physical ability that has facilitated it, but also for the magnitude of both those qualities in the context of his pedigree. Due to an elbow injury and subsequent Tommy John procedure, the right-hander recorded only 9.2 innings over his first two seasons at Cal State Northridge. His third was decidedly pedestrian: in 72.2 innings, mostly as a starter, Johnson produced just a 39:15 strikeout-to-walk ratio. That’s not the statistical profile of a top prospect, nor was he treated like one, really. Indeed, Johnson was selected in the 23rd round of the 2014 draft. As a professional in 2015, however, Johnson resembles something more significant than that. Still just 21, he’s produced strikeout and walk rates of 32.8% and 1.7%, respectively, over 46.0 innings across three levels — including his three most recent starts at High-A San Jose. Reports concerning his arm speed are also promising: during a recent start, he was sitting at 93-95 mph and touched 98.

Ariel Miranda, LHP, Baltimore (Profile)
Given the considerable amount of money that’s been invested in Cuban players in recent years, the notion of a low-profile signing by a native of that same island nation — it’s an unusual one. And yet, that’s certainly the case for the left-handed Miranda. After defecting in 2014, the 26-year-old signed with Baltimore for a sum that was both (a) undisclosed but also (b) confirmed by Dan Duquette to have been something less than $800,000. Despite the relatively modest bonus, Miranda has been excellent in affiliated ball, producing strikeout and walk rates of 26.9% and 7.8%, respectively, in 53.2 innings across three levels — perhaps unsurprising, that success, insofar as he’d recorded the highest strikeout rate among Cuban League starters the previous season. Nor does he lack sufficient arm speed: a recent report places his fastball in the 90-94 mph range.

Here’s an example of Miranda’s slider — for a strikeout to Nationals prospect Isaac Ballou — from the former’s recent 10-strikeout start:

Brandon Trinkwon, 2B, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
A seventh-round selection by the Dodgers out of UC Santa Barbara in the 2013 draft, Trinkwon appeared among the Next Five in last week’s edition of this same thing and, on the strength of continued success, graduates to the Five proper here. Trinkwon possesses a collection of attributes not unlike those belonging to Yandy Diaz above: he’s currently in the midst of his age-23 season, plays at Double-A, features plate discipline capable of producing positive walk- and strikeout-rate differentials, and is a defensive asset — at second base, that is, instead of third like Diaz. Also just as with Diaz, his power upside and overall ceiling as a major leaguer are strongly correlated. The development of the former will decide the height of the latter. In either case, given his profile, the floor for Trinkwon would appear to involve at least some kind of role in the majors.

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

Willians Astudillo, C, Philadelphia (High-A Florida State League)
Austin Barnes, C, Los Angeles NL (Triple-A Pacific Coast League)
Michael Feliz, RHP, Houston (Double-A Texas League)
Andrew Knapp, C, Philadelphia (Double-A Eastern League)
Ramon Torres, 2B/SS, Kansas City (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.

#	Name	Team	POS	FF	NF	PTS
1	Matt Boyd*	Tigers	LHP	7	4	25
	Sherman Johnson	Angels	2B/3B	7	4	25
3	Jose De Leon*	Dodgers	RHP	7	1	22
4	Jharel Cotton	Dodgers	RHP	6	3	21
5	Max Kepler*	Twins	OF	5	4	19
6	Ryan Cordell	Rangers	3B/OF	5	1	16
7	Gavin Cecchini*	Mets	SS	3	6	15
8	Rookie Davis	Yankees	RHP	4	2	14
9	Austin Barnes	Dodgers	C	3	4	13
	Junior Guerra	White Sox	RHP	4	1	13

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