dead and company rumors
First, "type," which categorizes a player for comparison among other players. Upgrade to a Disney Bundle plan and start streaming something for everyone today! His in-zone miss rate (i.e. That's not what you normally see in an elite high school baseball prospect, but Ford also does the baseball stuff pretty well. Baltimore's position-player development machine has turned another midlevel prospect into a real dude. Other tools like throwing for position players or off-speed pitches are more based on visual evaluations, but there are some objective figures to round observations up or down. Houston let Justin Verlander walk largely because of their rotation depth and Brown is probably their sixth best option now, so he will likely start the year in Triple-A then get another look later in 2023. We've sorted the teams with the most star power under control through 2024. His contact ability is just OK and his speed won't help him leg out many infield hits, but Alvarez's shorter arms and incredible strength make for a scary combination for pitchers. Type: Advanced hit/approach with enough power to profile everyday. Lesko injured his elbow during his biggest start of the spring, in front of over 100 scouts at a loaded tournament. He lasted until the 22nd pick in the 2021 draft and was 13th on my board. The Dodgers are hoping Vargas can be an average defender at third base, but he's a bit below that there and at second base. Possibly the highest compliment you can give this type of player: He's going to be annoying to fans of NL West rivals for a long time. Type: Smaller-framed shortstop with sure bat and glove, sneaky power. Type: Above average at everything except power. Abrams went seventh overall in 2019, area scouts told me there were two more underclassman prep prospects in the Atlanta area with that kind of potential: Johnson in the 2022 class, and Cam Collier (55th on this list) in the 2023 class. He made his big league debut last summer and should get an extended low-pressure big league look on the rebuilding Nationals this year. From an evaluator's standpoint, he also has additional markers that make you feel good about this projection: clean health record, continued multiyear improvement, advanced feel for the strike zone that limits prolonged slumps or a long break-in period, he can play multiple positions and has already proved he can do it in the big leagues. Cue the "how do they keep getting away with this" memes. He has posted plus-plus exit velos across Low-A, High-A and Double-A and hit 20 homers in 99 games while playing a solid center field. Expectations have come down a bit as Veen looks more like he might give you 55-grade tools across the board as a right fielder, which is a good-not-great player -- though there's still some chance he could still develop into a middle-of-the-order terror. He has a sweet lefty swing and will slide over to right field eventually, but there's a rare set of hitting tools here and he is with a team that has had plenty of fast-tracked young hitters shoot through the system. Wood transferred to IMG Academy in Florida, was on the national stage for a couple summers, then had a bad spring while Merrill popped up. The real reason for excitement here, like during that initial pitch by an agent, is that after a strong first full pro season, Montgomery may now have plus bat control, pitch selection, bat speed, and raw power -- so it's just a matter of how he wants to use those abilities at the plate, to be more contact- or power-oriented. That physical development now makes staying in the infield defensively a longer shot, but his bat will profile anywhere. College football reporters' NFL draft takeaways, Rangers-Devils Game 7: Key players, matchups and final score predictions, 'This is probably his best shot': Why the time is now for Harden and the 76ers, 10 fantasy football breakout players for 2023, Ranking the fights at UFC 288: Why Henry Cejudo's return tops the list, Man United in pole position for top four, but can't take their eyes off Liverpool, The VAR Review: Red cards for Jota, Skipp; Richarlison penalty claim, Will Levis opens up about emotional draft day, After hoopla of going No. Since he's a bottom-of-the-scale runner, Quero would become a first baseman if he can't catch, so his progress behind the plate (his arm is average, receiving is a bit behind that) will be important to monitor over the next couple seasons. Lewis has been on the verge of sticking in the big leagues for years now -- but the 2017 No. Instead of cruising to being a first-round pick in 2023, he left high school after two years to go get on a professional schedule to pursue baseball: this seems like pretty good outward evidence of plus makeup, as well. I wouldn't expect more than 15-18 homers at his peak in the big leagues, but that would be a really good everyday shortstop considering the contact skills and glove. Pfaadt popped up in the Cape Cod League as a new name scouts were intrigued by, a Division 2 righty from Bellarmine (KY) reaching the mid-90s with big league talent, but generally unproven and likely to end up a reliever. He inexplicably slipped to the No. Sources can get overwhelmed by all the names when I send them out for thoughts, but when I boiled it down to a list of 20-30 players and told them to pick a few guys they feel strongly about, almost every source named Zavala -- so here he is, despite only 176 plate appearances in U.S.-based professional leagues. At draft time, Painter offered a 6-7 frame with plus physical ability, starter command projection and four above average-to-plus pitches. There's a real shot he torches spring training, continues being ahead of schedule and grabs a spot in the big league lineup sooner than later in 2023, making me look a bit silly for hedging. I won't bore you with all the advanced data, but his raw power, hard hit rate, barrel rate and proxies for pitch selection and bat control all graded plus or better from his 45 games at Low-A last spring. Rodriguez signed out of the Dominican Republic for $2.5 million in 2019 and was in the midst of a breakout 2022 season before a June knee surgery ended it. Type: Late bloomer with three plus pitches, chance to start. Luciano signed for $2.6 million as one of many standout seven-figure signees in the 2018 international class that also included Francisco Alvarez, Diego Cartaya, Noelvi Marte (all ranked above Luciano on this list), Orelvis Martinez and Kevin Alcantara. They also both come with the injury risk and less playing time that almost all catchers have these days, limiting their upside. Type: Probably a catcher, with 25-homer upside. Soon after that his velo was starting to climb, his secondary stuff was accordingly getting more crisp, and his command wasn't suffering. Play Ball Youth Baseball & Softball. That's no problem, though, as Mayer is one of the best track-record shortstops in recent draft history, with scouts circling his name in their programs since early in his high school career. Essentially, putting the bat on the ball consistently shows you have the eyesight to see the ball, thus the ability to be patient, it's just a matter of training the discipline of laying off the pitch. Montgomery needs to have plus bat speed and plus pitch recognition to make longer levers work and to give his hands time to get in place. Norby was a pop-up prospect at East Carolina in 2021, lacking big tools but proving he could hit with enough skill to project as a low-end regular. Henderson and Carroll have separated themselves from the pack and are a near coinflip for the top spot. His numbers were actually better in 2022 than 2021 and his slider became his best secondary pitch. He has become more aggressive as his velocity has crept up to 90-93 mph with his plus command and plus ride that help it play up. Comparing the industry's 2023 Top 100 Prospects lists - MLB That means strikeouts. Frelick was a late bloomer as a standout multisport athlete in Massachusetts who turned into a middle first-round pick at Boston College. Susana didn't get much attention when he was included in the Juan Soto trade as he was the fourth-best prospect in the haul, behind James Wood, MacKenzie Gore and Robert Hassell. Brown's changeup and command are both fringy but fine, while his 95 to 98 mph heater, slider and curveball are all plus and his control is about average. For context, Carroll suffered a serious shoulder injury in the seventh game of the 2021 season (after missing the whole 2020 season because of the pandemic) at High-A when he swung so hard on a home run that his shoulder couldn't handle the impact. If this all feels negative, he is ranked this high because he could break out and hit .270 with 25 homers at shortstop if things ever just click into place. Henderson was No. How the Savannah Bananas are changing the rules of baseball. Angel Martinez, SS, Cleveland Guardians LHP: Brandon Barriera (TOR), Matthew Liberatore (STL), Kyle Muller (OAK), Jared Shuster (ATL), Carson Whisenhunt (SF), Brandon Williamson (CIN) C: They come and go a bit, but there's plenty to like here for a pitcher who could get an extended look in the big league rotation for the exciting D-backs. Right after C.J. Breaking down the next generation of stars to reach baseball's most iconic offensive milestones when sluggers Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols retire. A 10-15 homer likelihood eats into his overall upside, but he may be plus at everything else on the field and has lots of pro scouting support for his ranking after an excellent 30-game stint in Double-A after signing. Montgomery opted to focus full-time on baseball, and over the next two years the only real critiques that materialized were that he's probably more of a third baseman than a shortstop long-term (still probably true), and he was 19 years old on draft day in 2021. I graded him as a second-rounder that spring -- he was sitting 90-92 with 55-grade stuff -- and was when he lasted until the 91st pick. Jameson sits 96-98 -- sometimes reaching triple digits -- with solid fastball command and a plus slider that drew whiffs 40% of the time last year. Like Woods above, Walker was also a summer standout on the showcase circuit who swung and missed a bit while showing massive power. His splitter and curveball are both at least average and Bradley's command projects to be above average. As a bad outcome, that's still a solid-average everyday player, so there's very little risk. Topps Prospects Signed En Masse; $250k Bowman Jones SuperFractor Bounty; Most Watched Auctions April 26, 2023 By Rich Mueller A couple of months before Wednesdays release of 2023 Bowman Baseball, about 50 young players gathered at a house in Arizona to sign cards that would wind up in packs. FV of a prospect who is big league ready maps to this pretty well: the top tier (65 FV this year) of prospects are projected to have multiple peak seasons of 4-to-5 WAR while the MVP winner is usually around 7-8 WAR. Sports The Giants surprised some by paying him $2.5 million (late first-round money) in the third round in the 2020 draft. Mauricio has consistently been young for his level, so there's some natural growth to be expected as he matures, but he'll likely never be above average at this, as the concrete has mostly -- but not completely -- dried in my estimation. 42 overall pick, mainly because of questions about his ability to make contact and stick at shortstop long term. His fastball command is the main area for improvement, and he'll spend 2023 in the upper minors, where hitters are good enough to force him to improve. Bo was flat-out awful at Double-A in 2021, then torched the same level in 2022, earning promotions to Triple-A and the big leagues. He has easy plus bat speed and power potential along with a strong sense of the strike zone for a prospect of his age. Type: Lefty with above-average stuff and above-average command. After publishing my final rankings, I heard lots of buzz that Rushing would go in the 20s and I would've slid him up into that range in the days before the draft, buying into his hit/power combo and trusting that he'd figure out a way to stick behind the plate. He's a jacked, squatty prospect who will play a corner-outfield spot and while we need to see more than the 84 professional games he has played, all the information we have is pretty exciting. Ortiz was famous to scouts for putting up gaudy numbers in a bandbox at New Mexico State and being the "the shortstop is pretty good, too" next to eventual top-10 pick second baseman Nick Gonzales. Merrill played high school ball in Maryland, alongside James Wood (ranked 13th above) in some youth events. His slider and changeup are both above-average-to-plus and his curveball plays around average but brings a nice additional look to the table. That's also gone something like scouts expected, as he's now facing competition closer to his talent level. The striking rise in incredibly tall hitters succeeding (Oneil Cruz, Elly De La Cruz, and Spencer Jones all following in Aaron Judge's footsteps) gives Wood a little more credence than scouts would've given him five or so years ago when Judge and Richie Sexson were the comps at that height. Elly De La Cruz is going to become appointment viewing once he gets to the TV league, in the same way that Oneil Cruz and Fernando Tatis Jr. lit up Statcast on a nightly basis when they hit the big leagues, Velo: 95-99, Fastball: 65/70, Slider: 55/60, Curveball: 50/60, Changeup: 45/55, Command: 40/50, Reminds me of: (leans in, whispering, looking around) Justin Verlander. This makes the plane as close to flat as possible. He makes up for it with his arm and he has made progress in all the soft skills like game-calling while physically staying loose and flexible. He isn't the most nimble individual laterally, so his future at shortstop is a real question, though he could play at second or third base. Aside from those two things, there are a lot of similarities: Both will be 21 years old during the 2023 season, finished the 2022 season at Double-A and offer average hit and pitch selection to go with above-average power projection from powerful right-handed swings. He also has the tools to be an above-average defender at shortstop but can be a bit of an adventure at times, which could also still be corrected. Because De La Cruz is trying to do damage, has long arms and lifts the ball successfully, he's never going to hit for a great average, as the bat just won't stay in the zone as long as a Luis Arraez type. Collier, son of big leaguer Lou, reclassified into the 2022 class by enrolling at Chipola junior college and had a pretty remarkable spring for a 17-year-old facing largely 20- to-22-year-old pitchers: .333/.419/.537 with 8 homers, 12 doubles, 25 walks and 33 strikeouts. Manzardo was a late-rising draft prospect at Washington State leading up to the 2021 draft, getting sandwich-round buzz despite a number of teams seeing him more as a third- or fourth-rounder. Type: Maybe a catcher, with 30-homer upside. All three of these players have played only a little bit in Low-A but have plenty of upside so 2023 has a good shot at being their breakout year -- let's just be ahead of the curve, right? Top 100 Baseball Prospects | MLB.com Graceffo threw 139.1 innings in 2022, mostly in Double-A, so he is in line to get some big league time toward the end of 2023 if the deep Cardinals rotation shows some weakness or the bullpen just needs some length. Flores has a frankly bananas backstory. Today's list kicks off our 2023 top prospect coverage with our ranking of all 30 MLB farm systems coming Friday and our team-by-team prospect lists for both leagues scheduled to follow next week. Wood still swung and missed too often the summer after signing, but his approach clicked in 2022 to the point that he was done a disservice not being promoted to High-A by Washington after being the headliner in the Juan Soto trade (ahead of Robert Hassell and Jarlin Susana, both later on this list, and MacKenzie Gore, who has graduated but was on last year's list). Even after recovering from COVID-19, his velo would tail off in some starts just before the draft, while his command would come and go. On the other hand, I think he'll be good enough to play an average shortstop (sliding over if the Bombers have a true plus defender to force him to shift over) and deliver an above average on-base percentage with a chance for 25-30 homers. Caminero is a strong 19-year-old righty hitter with plus bat control, plus raw power and a decent idea of the strike zone already. Scouts are still concerned that he isn't quite nimble enough behind the plate and his arm strength plays down due to execution, though a robot ump future would help. Our way-too-early lineup rankings look at the best -- and worst -- offenses ahead of the 2023 MLB season. Francisco lvarez, C, Mets. Per usual, though, there are still plenty of compelling prospects on the board. Type: Late-blooming midrotation righty with a great changeup. His bat-to-ball skills have become more relevant as he has added enough power that he can now punish mistakes, hitting 19 homers last year across Double-A and Triple-A. The Cards now have a glut of young position players at-or-near the big leagues that need to sort themselves out, but Winn figures to get a crack at the shortstop job, probably in 2024. 1 overall pick missed the whole 2020 season, then missed the whole 2021 season with a torn ACL and his 2022 campaign ended early with surgery to repair a partial tear of the same right ACL and he won't return until at least June. At 6-foot-2, Ramos is shorter than Mayo and that's a big factor in why Ramos is also a solid average defender at third base who can also play a decent second base. I'm using the same description as last year because Dominguez is still the same player. He'll be 22 years old when the minor league season starts with a chase rate that is a 30-grade ability. He doesn't really use a changeup but more starters are now going multiple innings with two distinct breaking pitches, like Flores has. He now sits at 94 to 98 with a plus run-and-ride to his heater, a plus-or-better-flashing hybrid 83 to 85 mph breaking ball and a changeup that's also above average at times. Woods had a meteoric rise in 2022, going from roughly the 200th-ranked prospect in baseball going into the season to No. If he does, he'll hit 30 homers, give us fun bat flips and nobody will care much that he's just OK defensively. The Guardians turn mid-to-late-round college pitchers into real prospects at a frightening rate, and Bibee is the latest example. He could've posted even better numbers if he threw more breakers, but the developmental focus was fastball command. This isn't a true comparison, because most players don't have a one-for-one perfect analog. Flores is on a path to go from a completely anonymous junior college pitcher to a top-100 prospect making his big league debut in a three-year span. WebStatcast Leaders Baseball Savant Top Prospect Stats. He is probably not a star, but he should be good for a long time. That's plenty exciting, but the margin for error gets much smaller if he's first-base-only. Over the past two seasons, Rocchio has hit 33 home runs and stolen 35 bases, showing his feel for the game by getting the most out of good-not-great raw tools. The one thing I haven't mentioned is the contact ability -- and that's the one big question. His changeup is still plus and with the added arm speed, his two breaking pitches now play above average. The Rays picked him 63rd overall and it has gone very well so far. Our experts predict every series, Memphis wasn't 'fine in the West' -- getting there hinges on massive culture questions, Why the Lakers' real test begins now, after dispatching the No. He and lefty Frank Mozzicato were prep prospects who came out of nowhere ahead of the 2021 draft -- to the point that myself and many national scouts didn't know their names until March or April, when the draft was just a few months away. 2 Grizzlies, LIVE Transfer Talk: Man United, PSG to battle for Abraham, Liverpool rescue three points, chase top-four finish after surviving epic Spurs comeback, Bayern back in charge, Yamal makes history, Napoli's party spoiled: Weekend Review, Who has the most talent in the minors? Martinez seems like a familiar kind of prospect. He also has a slider and changeup that both flash above average but are rarely used. I mentioned above in the Termarr Johnson blurb that he and Collier were the two prep hitters in the Atlanta area and recognized by scouts as early as their freshman years for having high first-round potential. But the very positive early reviews since signing, followed by a great full-season debut with shockingly good advanced data, helped Merrill springboard into the Arizona Fall League with hype and he continued to deliver. You can expect a .260ish average with a plus walk rate (call it a .350 on-base percentage), plus power (let's say 25 homers -- but I bet he cracks 30 at least once) and above-average defense at third base, good enough to fill in at shortstop if needed. The 2023 fantasy baseball season is here! But with a strong 2023, he'll move up into that 60 FV tier with Harrison. The Rockies are a confusing franchise to try to understand as a whole but the top of their system took a step forward in 2022, with the emergence of Ezequiel Tovar and Amador alongside Zac Veen and Drew Romo. Hayden Wesneski, RHP, Chicago Cubs Povich is still likely to give effective bulk innings, likely as a starter, maybe as soon as the second half of 2023. Ford is also progressing behind the plate to where I think he'll be an average defender with an average arm in time, but that's still a question, though I think he'd bring defensive value at third base or in the outfield. Type: Above-average-to-plus fastball, slider, curveball and command. Hit: 40/45, Game Power: 55/65, Raw Power: 65/70, Speed: 40/35, Fielding: 45/50, Throwing: 55/55, Type: Powerlifter who catches and will hit 30 homers some day. Following the graduation of Yankees infielder Oswald Peraza, Mets 2022 first-round draft pick Jett Williams became the latest addition to MLB's Top 100 prospect Hit: 35/60, Game Power: 30/50, Raw Power: 55/60, Speed: 60/60, Fielding: 40/55, Throwing: 60/60, Type: Plus athlete with plus feel for the game. Despite that background, at age 22, he played a half season in Triple-A as a skilled, big league-ready prospect. Scouts now think he's a fringy defensive shortstop, right on the border of having to move to second base, basically as a tradeoff from that added power. In the aftermath of the blockbuster trade that sent Juan Soto to the Padres, some rumors about behind-the-scenes details circulated across the industry. Type: Plus athlete into the triple digits with a sky-high ceiling. Which teams came out on top and who lost big? Wicks went No. More prospect rankings: National League | American League | Ranking all 30 systems, Hit: 50/60, Game Power: 50/55, Raw Power: 60/60, Speed: 70/70, Fielding: 55/60, Throwing: 45/45. 2023 ESPN 100 Watchlist For game power, 50 equates to 15-18 homers per year, 55 is 19-22, 60 is about 25, 65 is about 30, etc. Max Muncy, SS, Oakland Athletics That said, Elly consistently hits the ball hard and can leg out infield hits, so I wouldn't just assume he's a locked-in .240 hitter against big league pitching, either. Type: If it all clicks, it looks like Max Scherzer. Naylor has an excellent approach, good-not-great contact skills and 55-grade raw power along with sneaky average speed. Type: Shortstop/third base tweener with plus power and patience. He might be more of a solid starter than a star and could debut in late 2023 or early 2024. Grayson Rodriguez, RHP, Orioles. He was pretty good in the complex league and Low-A, so Detroit sent him to the Arizona Fall League where his control was well below average. Alvarez's combination of game-changing power and premium position are the carrying tools. 3 or 4 in a rotation looking most likely. So there's an argument that Carter is the best on-base-percentage threat among the top prospects in baseball, and he's a good defensive center fielder on top of that. He's a disruptor on the interior, and Here's the good: He is an 18-year-old plus-plus runner with explosive bat speed and power. The reason he's still ranked this high is that he's big league ready and his floor seems like a .250 hitter with average on-base and power (15-20 homers) and solid second base defense. That's a big enough sample that it wasn't a fluke, and it would put him toward the risky end of the aggression/power-oriented spectrum, as opposed to Cowser and Carter above. Type: Switch-hitting shortstop with above-average power and speed. With the top free agents signed, here's where our experts think each team stands midway through the offseason. I find it difficult to come up with comparisons for the players at the top of these lists as they are outliers in many ways, which you then have to compare among the other outliers in the big leagues, and they rarely match up perfectly to another player. Salas has plus bat control, a decent approach and solid-average raw power along with a good enough glove to maybe stick at shortstop, though he might also slide over to second base. Now buzz is growing that Painter might break camp with the big league team this spring, as GM Dave Dombrowski remains one of few GMs in the league not trying to win a gold medal in the Service Time Olympics. Breaking Down ESPN's List of Top-100 Players By Team 13 overall in the 2021 draft out of a Florida high school. Here's a past one, for example. Matthew Liberatore, LHP, St. Louis Cardinals. Thats 87 players that the industry feels pretty good about -- nearly a top 100 of top 100-caliber players. He is a plus runner and at least a plus defender in center field, with 15-20 homer upside and solid feel to hit, but he can get too aggressive at times, which would undermine his contact and power potential. Players. Peraza joins Volpe as Yankees shortstops who are ready to impact the big league team, though Volpe may play a bit more at Triple-A to start 2023. Rodriguez was bitten by the aforementioned Best Pitching Prospect in Baseball snake last season, when he was limited to just 75 innings because of a right lat strain after earning the title on my preseason list. The questions back then were his hit tool and pitch selection, because there was literally no data to consider against top pitching. Type: Power-over-hit with unclear positional future. Here's who FOX Sports NFL Draft analyst Rob Rang ranks as the top 20 players Reminds me of: He's somewhere in the Venn diagram of Gary Sanchez, Cal Raleigh, Salvador Perez and Willson Contreras. Hence has thrown only 60 pro innings, but there are some who think he could become the top pitching prospect in the game when St. Louis lets him loose. Topps Prospects Signed En Masse; $250k Bowman Jones After Jones' shoulder surgery and with some positive post-signing performances, Holliday has now opened up a bit of a lead over the other two. Like Division-II product Pfaadt earlier on this list, Brown had a good arm with mid-90s velocity and some relief risk but Brown's separator then (and now) was a plus hammer curveball that is now a plus-plus pitch. He might not be able to do all three of those, but even just two of the three means he ends up like Bichette, Adames, or Bogaerts, who last year put up 4.5, 4.7, and 6.1 WAR, respectively. Type: Hit-over-power, well-rounded catcher. The only real concern here is that if he loses a notch of athleticism and moves down the defensive spectrum, he's probably playing first base -- and would he then also lose some quickness at the plate? Can street race king Perez challenge Verstappen for the title? He also has a rare, plus-plus ability to put the bat on the ball and a good enough approach (call it average pitch selection) that his contact skills show up in his raw stat line. Free agency tracker . He dominated High-A and Double-A in 2022 and is still just 21 years old. The analytics models that teams now use love nothing more than when a prospect is 1) young for his level, 2) plays an up-the-middle position well and 3) posts in-game exit velos that are way above average. Some execs suggested scooting Espino down to the back of this tier due to that risk, but all of them recognized he could also break out this year. Type: Funky lefty with above average stuff and feel. There's still some relief risk and he may fit best in a five-and-dive starter or other hybrid role, but Brown's stuff is lively enough that he doesn't need fine command to get outs. Brady House, SS, Washington Nationals The sales pitch at that point was 70-grade power that could produce 30-plus homers, enough hit/approach qualities to unlock that power and an 80-grade arm that gave him a shot to stick behind the plate.