As we discussed at the site last week, the effects of COVID-19 are still being felt in the world of amateur scouting. And while the structure of this year’s draft will look a bit more like what we’re used to, last year’s shortened draft, truncated college season, and the ongoing challenges of scouting during the pandemic mean teams will have to adapt their approach to seeing players and building their boards. What follows is a conversation that we hope helps make sense of some of those dynamics.

Eric Longenhagen: I assume our readers know there’s a pandemic on, and that most of last year’s college baseball season was cancelled as a result. This year’s season will be messy and complex both from an NCAA perspective and for scouting. So, what’s missing at this point in time? At the start of a college season, how clearly defined is a team’s board? How clear was it at this time when you were in Houston?

Kevin Goldstein: Going into 2020?

EL: Yeah, if we’re about to start a new calendar year, how specific does a team’s draft board look at this point? The scouts I talk to have “groups.” They’ll put a sophomore in “Group 1,” or “Group A,” or different “follow buckets” to indicate priority to their cross-checker or director for the following year.

KG: A year ago, college baseball had started and the pandemic was seen more as something going on “over there,” as in Asia and Europe. Teams were ready to go. Most have draft meetings somewhere in the late November to early January timeframe to do just what you said: create groupings and talk about coverage. Some players need fewer looks because they are at a big school and there is going to be tons of video/data for them. Others are at schools with none of that, and of course, you need to see high school dudes. I think this year is different. Yes, there was some fall ball, and yes, there were some showcase events, but at the same time, there were way fewer of those. Teams lean on the Cape Cod League, but there wasn’t one in 2020. Plus, there is the larger issue — and we should get to it later — of just the sheer number of players to see because of last year’s shortened, five-round draft, which pissed off every team’s front office.

EL: Right, the Cape is weighed more heavily for some players than the following spring leading up to the draft. I think the single month of 2020 that we had was enough to uncover some college players for 2021’s draft, but there’s certainly a large swath of them (mostly hitters) whose names we don’t even know yet who are going to come out of the gates really hot and be tough to evaluate in the same way Andrew Benintendi was. Readers might remember that Benintendi was a draft-eligible sophomore who had a poor freshman year at Arkansas and then exploded as a sophomore. Track record is important for college hitters and in 2021 there will be lots of talented players with almost none to speak of because of the 2020 cancellations. So how long is long enough to know a college hitter is good? If we look to 2020 for some indication, maybe it is just a month? I’m thinking of Anthony Servideo specifically.

KG: You say that, but look at Zach Daniels, the Astros’ fourth-round pick last year. He does absolutely nothing as a freshman or sophomore, comes out of the gate wild, and you still don’t know. More conference games would have helped. I think for a guy like Benintendi, he starts hot, you say “Who’s this?”, and then he keeps it up in baseball’s best conference and you feel better about it. It’s tougher when they’re at a smaller school or program. Read the rest of this entry »

Forrest Whitley has slid precipitously in the rankings. A helium-filled No. 4 in 2019, the 23-year-old right-hander fell to No. 15 on last year’s FanGraphs Top 100 Prospects list, and has now slid out of the top 100 altogether. When Eric Longenhagen released our 2021 list on Wednesday, Whitley — “as enigmatic as any pitcher in the minors” — was on the outside looking in, coming in at an after-the-fact No. 106 as a 50 FV prospect.

He’s hell-bent on proving any, and all, doubters wrong. Following an offseason where he worked diligently to fine-tune both his physique and his repertoire, Whitley is in camp with the Houston Astros looking to show that the earlier hype wasn’t misplaced. A first-round pick in the 2016 draft, he’s now aiming to emerge as a front-line starter at baseball’s highest level.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with your height and weight. Where are you at right now?

Forrest Whitley: “I’m 6-foot-6 and 205 pounds.

Laurila: That’s low for you, right?

Whitley: “Compared to where I was the last couple years, it would be considered low. But I’ve experimented a lot, in many different ways. This is where I feel the most comfortable.”

Laurila: By “most comfortable,” I assume you’re referring primarily to being able to repeat your mechanics.

Whitley: “Yes. I feel like I have a lot more stability and body control, which plays a premium at my size. It’s definitely been a grind to get consistent mechanics down, and I think a lot of that had to do with strengthening all parts of my body, because there’s a lot more surface area to me than most guys. Hammering down all those areas was pretty much my main focus this offseason — getting everything as stable as possible. From the many bullpens I threw before I came here [to spring training] it seems to be paying off.” Read the rest of this entry »

Every year there are players who fall through the cracks between the boundaries of prospect coverage and big league analysis. These are often players who came up, played enough to exhaust their rookie eligibility, and then got hurt and had a long-term rehab in the minors. Some are victims of the clogged major league rosters ahead of them; others are weird corner cases like Adalberto Mondesi.

Regardless, prospect writers are arguably in the best position to comment on these players because they fall under the minor league umbrella, but simply adding them to prospect lists would open a can of worms — what do you do with other young big leaguers? So every year, I examine a subset of the players caught in this limbo to give curious readers an update on where once-heralded prospects stand now.

Dustin Fowler, CF, Oakland Athletics

Fowler has been squeezed out of a very crowded, platoon-heavy Oakland outfield for the last several years, and seemingly passed by fellow lefty bat Seth Brown for corner/DH type duties, and now has to compete with Rule 5 pick Ka’ai Tom for a part time role. Fowler spent all of 2020 at the alternate site and all of 2019 at Triple-A Las Vegas, where he hit .277/.333/.477 with 25 homers, by far the most homers he’s hit in a season. A lot of that was Vegas’s elevation and the PCL hitting environment. It’s not that Fowler doesn’t hit the ball hard; he does. His average exit velo was 91 mph and his hard hit rate was nearly 48%, which is a 60 if you map it to the 20-80 scale. But he remains a free-swinger with a relatively flat bat path, so he often offers at pitches he can’t do much with. I had a 50 FV on Fowler at peak and I still like him, but now as more of a .310 wOBA type of outfielder. I thought he was an average center fielder as a prospect but have no idea what the defense is like now. Remember that he ruptured his patella tendon colliding with an exposed electrical box a few years ago. Maybe he’s a platoon outfielder, but Oakland has a lot of those types right now. If Tom beats him out during the spring, maybe Fowler’s an interesting candidate for pro ball in Asia. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 910

As part of Prospects Week, this episode of FanGraphs Audio features interdisciplinary conversations between lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen and experts from non-baseball fields about the industry of competitive evaluation.

• At the top of the program, Eric welcomes Matt Lloyd, assistant general manager of the Orlando Magic. They discuss how analytics has changed basketball in recent decades and the many challenges presented by evaluating players in the sport. Matt also outlines what the year-round schedule of draft preparation looks like in the NBA and how trades come to be in the league. [5:14]
• After that, Eric is joined by Luis Scott-Vargas of ChannelFireball. Luis is a Hall of Fame Magic: The Gathering player who has been a dominant force in the game for many years. He and Eric talk about how a collectible card game spawned an immense following and the competitive analysis that has come along with it. Luis also offers insight into how things like technology and the resulting wisdom of the crowds has shaped the game, as well as the ethics of outsmarting your opponent vs. “angle shooting,” and how they are similar in MTG and baseball. [37:10]
• In the third segment, Eric talks to Steve Palazzolo of Pro Football Focus. Eric begins by asking Steve about his baseball career and what led him to working in football evaluation. Then the pair go over how different teams have started using analytics to their own varying degrees. They also discuss how the influence of research has started to change decision-making on the field, some of the unique challenges of trying to appropriately evaluate football players on a crowded gridiron, what the current best solutions are for most accurately understanding talent — and how all of this affects the draft. [1:08:17]

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

For the sixth year, ZiPS returns to crank out its top 100 prospects for the upcoming season. If you’re unaware of what the ZiPS projections are or the purpose they serve, please consult this article as well as this one while I reconsider my public relations strategy.

I like to think that I’ve developed a pretty useful tool over the years, but don’t get me wrong: a projection system is not even remotely a substitute for proper scouting. While ZiPS and other systems like it can see patterns in the data that are hard for humans to extract, humans have their own special tricks. Projecting prospects is hard, as you’re mostly dealing with very young players, some of whom aren’t even done physically developing. They play baseball against inconsistent competition and have much shorter resumés than established major leaguers.

That last bit is an especially tricky puzzle for 2021. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, we didn’t have a minor league season. Some prospects were left to train at home, while others saw time at their team’s alternate site or in Fall Instructional League. But those environments can’t replace live opponents who are trying to crush your hopes and dreams, and they didn’t generate much in the way of useful statistics.

You will also notice, as usual, that there are a few players who appeared on Eric Longenhagen’s Top 100 who are missing here, simply because they have only played in high school and no professional games. It’s not that ZiPS dislikes them or doubts their future, it’s just that the system doesn’t have anything useful to say. ZiPS has the capability to use college stats when it has little choice — which is why you’ll see Spencer Torkelson and Austin Martin appear — but there’s just nothing for ZiPS to work with when we’re talking about someone like Jasson Dominguez. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s common for our readers to want to know which of the players who aren’t on this year’s Top 100 might grace next year’s. Who has a chance to really break out? This is the piece for those readers, our “Picks to Click,” the gut-feel guys we think can be on the 2022 Top 100.

This is the fourth year we’ve conducted this exercise at FanGraphs, and there are some rules. First, none of the players you see below will have ever been a 50 FV or better in any of our write-ups or rankings. Second, we can’t pick players who we’ve picked in prior years. The two of us have decided to make this somewhat competitive to see which of us will end up being right about the most players. Here’s a brief rundown of how the site’s writers have done since this piece became a part of Prospects Week. You can click the year to go to that year’s list.

We’re altering the “one-time selection” rule so that it applies only to each of us individually. So, even though Eric still thinks Blake Walston will be on next year’s list, he can’t re-mention him here (though he just did), but Kevin can (he doesn’t) if he wants. Our initials appear in parentheses after our players. Players we both nominated have an asterisk next to their name.

At the end of the piece, we have a list of potential high-leverage relievers who might move through the minors quickly, because readers seem to dig that category. On past Picks to Click, these were not part of the 50+ FV forecasting (and thus are not part of the historical data above), but based on how we think pitching is starting to be valued, it should now be looked at more like the other categories. Read the rest of this entry »

Braden Shewmake’s name will rank highly when Eric Longenhagen’s 2021 Atlanta Braves Top Prospects list comes out in the not-too-distant future. A well-rounded profile is a big reason why. The 23-year-old Texas A&M product plays a premium position, and his left-handed stroke not only produced a plethora of line drives in the SEC, it did much the same in his first forays against professional pitching. Drafted 21st overall in 2019, Shewmake went on to slash .300/.371/.425, reaching Double-A by season’s end. As Longhagen wrote in last year’s writeup, Shewmake “was outstanding at the plate, with an excellent approach and sneaky power to go along with very positive public and private defensive metrics at shortstop.”

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with your position. Are the plans for you to stay at shortstop?

Braden Shewmake: “As far as I know. I haven’t been taking groundballs at any position other than shortstop, and I like to think I could play there. Of course, anything to get to the big leagues, right?”

Laurila: What are you doing toward that end? At 6-foot-4, 205 pounds, you’re built more like a third baseman than your typical shortstop.

Shewmake: “I’m trying to get quicker and faster, but I feel I can already move really well. I was kind of skeptical at first about out how much weight I wanted to put on — like you said, I’m 205 now — and what that would do to my speed and quickness. But this offseason we did kind of a baseline test, kind of a before and after, and I’ve actually gotten faster and quicker. I’m also stronger. I feel really good with where I’m at right now.”

Laurila: Did you get many comps from scouts prior to coming to pro ball? Read the rest of this entry »

FanGraphs player pages are a wild thing to look at these days. While nearly 1,300 players accrued big league service time in 2020 and generated a stat line, thousands of minor leaguers saw their statistical record go from 2019 straight to a series of 2021 projections. It’s as if 2020 never happened, and wouldn’t that be great? But 2020 did happen, and these players didn’t play. Sure, there were alternate sites (and likely will be again this year) and some limited instructional leagues, but players didn’t have a real season of development or anything anywhere close to it. Every team had a plan and worked hard to mitigate the damage, but the effect on these players in terms of their professional progression is almost certainly negative across the board.

Figuring out just how much the lost year will hurt prospects is a fool’s errand and should be evaluated on a player-by-player basis, and there are plenty of arguments for those most impacted, ranging from 16-year-olds at complexes to players already on the big league 40-man roster. Different types of players needed a season for different reasons. There’s no real conclusion here as to who is the most affected, as the lost 2020 season is uncharted territory, so in an abundance of caution, here are the primary player groupings that teams are most worried about.

Teenagers With Zero Plate Appearances

There are a handful of 2019 draftees who haven’t played yet, but the focus of this group is the 2019 international class. Yankees phenom Jasson Dominguez is the most hyped Latin American signing in recent memory, but he’s suddenly 18 years old and has yet to have a pro at-bat. Instagram videos of him hitting bombs are great and all, but a year of DSL action would give the Yankees much more comfort in terms of bringing him stateside.

That concern doesn’t just apply to well-known members of the class like Dominguez, Rangers slugger Bayron Lora or toolsy Royals outfielder Erick Pena; the same worries are there for players who signed for $100,000, or even $10,000. Dominican complexes can get very crowded, and games are needed to figure out who might get off the island. With restricted overall roster sizes going into effect and a continuing flow of signed players coming in, many will not get the opportunity they had in the past to prove their signing scouts right. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Aaron Sabato went in the first round last summer because of his bat. As Eric Longenhagen wrote when putting together our Minnesota Twins Top Prospects list, “teams were about as sure of Sabato’s hitting ability as they were of any player’s in the 2020 draft.” An accomplished slugger at the University of North Carolina, the 21-year-old first baseman is a masher with an admirable offensive ceiling.

Defense is the question mark. At 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds, Sabato is built for power and not speed, with some pundits already projecting him as a DH. The Rye, New York native’s take on that opinion might be best-expressed as, “Not so fast.” Sabato sees himself as a more-than-capable fielder who can help his team on both sides of the ball. As for what he can do with a bat in his hands, let’s just say that he agrees with the scouting community. Sabato isn’t cocky, but he certainly doesn’t lack confidence.

———

David Laurila: You were a middle infielder in high school, and now there are people projecting you as a designated hitter. What are your thoughts on that?

Aaron Sabato: “Guys read the height and weight, then they’re, ‘Oh, he played shortstop a couple years ago and now he’s on a corner at first base; he must be trending toward DH.’ I don’t see it that way at all. My feet move really well, my hands are really good. If you watch me — my actions and the way my body moves — you’ll know that I’m not a DH. Obviously, I’m not going back to the middle of the infield, but whether it’s third or first — I know it’ll most likely be first — I can play a corner. I think I proved to the coaches, and the staff, down in instructs that they didn’t draft a DH. They drafted a guy who could field, maybe an at elite level.”

Laurila: How big were you in high school?

Sabato: “My weight wasn’t as high — I was probably 215 — but I was chubbier. I grew an inch or two in college, and I also thinned out.”

Laurila: How were you playing shortstop as a “chubbier” kid? Were you at a small school? Read the rest of this entry »