The Fringe Five: Baseball’s Most Compelling Fringe Prospects

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 on 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.

Willie Calhoun, 2B, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
It’s possible that the author has made an error of some sort, but a thing that appears to be true — and which is relevant to this brief entry — is that, during the first five rounds of this past June’s amateur draft, precisely 46 position players were selected out of either a four-year or junior college. A second thing that appears to be true is that, of those 46 draftees, only three of them have recorded any sort of playing time at the High-A level of the minor leagues (or higher). Their identities are revealed below (sorted by wRC+).

2015 Position-Player Draftees at High-A

Name	Team	Age	PA	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	BABIP	wRC+
Willie Calhoun	Dodgers	20	57	8.8%	12.3%	.380	.439	.660	.390	193
Alex Bregman	Astros	21	154	7.8%	10.4%	.343	.388	.496	.369	139
Blake Trahan	Reds	21	26	0.0%	15.4%	.077	.077	.077	.091	-62

Alex Bregman, universally regarded as one of the most talented players available in the 2015 draft, was selected second overall by Houston out of LSU. Blake Trahan’s talent was less universally regarded, but he served as Louisiana-Lafayette’s shortstop for three years and was selected in the third round by Cincinnati. Finally, there’s Willie Calhoun. At one point a student at the University of Arizona, Calhoun was selected by the Dodgers in the fourth round this year out of Yavapai (Community) College. A second baseman, he’s roughly a year younger than either Bregman or Trahan and has produced decidedly above-average numbers by almost every measure — after also doing that same thing in the Pioneer and then Midwest Leagues, as well.

Willson Contreras, C, Chicago NL (Profile)
This represents Contreras’s second appearance among the Five proper and ninth total appearance overall within this weekly exercise — which combination has conspired to place him among the top-10 prospects on the arbitrarily calculated Scoreboard one finds below. Contreras has continued to exhibit the same collection of skills that earned him inclusion here on July 29.

Regard, in graph form:

Willson Contreras, Before and Since July 29

Dates	PA	BB%	K%	AVG	OBP	SLG	BABIP	wRC+
April 10 to July 28	355	10.7%	12.4%	.317	.397	.478	.354	151
July 29 to Present	147	12.2%	11.6%	.347	.435	.460	.383	159

The 23-year-old has posted a lower isolated-power figure but higher batting average on balls in play — and, most importantly perhaps (because they become reliable in smaller samples), his walk and strikeout rates are nearly identical (and excellent in both cases). The combination of this offensive approach and catcher positional value yields a very promising overall profile.

Yandy Diaz, 3B, Cleveland (Profile)
It’s possible that Diaz has, at this point, displaced Angels infield prospect Sherman Johnson as the sort of Platonic ideal of the fringe prospect. Signed for just $300,000 out of Cuba, the 24-year-old Diaz has produced for the second consecutive season a positive walk- and strikeout-rate differential and has been named for the second consecutive season his respective league’s best defensive third baseman. This represents also his fourth consecutive appearance among the Five. Since last week, he’s (unsurprisingly) recorded more walks than strikeouts (4:3 BB:K) and a .136 ISO in 28 plate appearances.

Jacob Faria, RHP, Tampa Bay (Profile)
Faria appeared among the Next Five last week on the strength (generally) of an impressive statistical record at Double-A Montgomery and (more specifically) a start on August 23 against Mariners affiliate Jackson during which he produced an 11:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio versus 23 batters over 7.0 innings (box). Impressively, this past Friday, Faria more or less reached that same threshold of excellence at D-backs affiliate Mobile, recording a 13:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio against 29 batters over 8.0 innings (box). This, all of it, from a 10th-round selection who received a relatively modest $150,000 bonus. His success appears to be a produced, at least in part, of an increase in velocity — an explanation which the pitcher himself corroborates.

Here’s what Faria looks like recording his 11th strikeout on August 23rd and you’re in Montgomery and you got tickets slightly on the first-base side of home plate:

Ramon Torres, 2B/SS, Kansas City (Profile)
This represents Torres’s first appearance among the Five proper — although he was also designated by the author as the most compelling fringe sort in the Royals organization this past April as part of Kiley McDaniel’s thorough examination of that system. What was appealing about Torres then remains appealing still: control of the strike zone, sufficient (if still probably below average) power, and the capacity to play shortstop. What’s earned him an appearance on this edition of the Five is the magnitude with which he’s exhibited his skills recently. Since last week, for example, Torres has recorded a 2:1 walk-to-strikeout ratio and also .316 ISO (including a home run) in 21 plate appearances. And here’s his (promising) line from August as a whole: 110 PA, 9:11 BB:K, .196 ISO (4 HR).

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

Willians Astudillo, C, Philadelphia (High-A Florida State League)
Malquin Canelo, SS, Philadelphia (High-A Florida State League)
Mike Clevinger, RHP, Cleveland (Double-A Eastern League)
Jharel Cotton, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Triple-A Pacific Coast League)
John Gant, LHP, Atlanta (Double-A Southern 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 a relevant prospect list, or (c) author’s declaration.