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Top 100 Prospects Chat with Eric and Kiley
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Eric A Longenhagen
12:01
Good morning from Arizona and welcome, esteemed readers.
Reminder that the top 100 is here: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2018-top-100-prospects/
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:01
I'm also here!
Eric A Longenhagen
12:01
You probably already knew that but, if you haven't already, read the opening graph of the hundred which might answer a lot of your questions already.
12:02
Okay, let's beggin.
Lawgiver
12:02
Acuna listed as CF, his ACTUAL position, but with a 45 present defense?  I didn't buy into the hype from other outlets that suggest he might push Inciarte off of CF, but I haven't heard anything about him being below average defensively.
Eric A Longenhagen
12:02
We think he could be an Adam Jones type defender in CF where it works but it isn't great. But no, I don't think he's better than Inciarte or better than Pache will be.
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:04
And this is a bit of a situation where Acuna can choose his own adventure. He's never gonna be better out there than Inciarte or Pache, so maybe his body goes the Justin Upton route and he adds another grade of power and loses a tick of hit knowing he's playing a corner for the forseeable future?
Bye Ess
12:04
How do you view recent breakout players? I'm thinking Adonis Medina or Danny Jansen. You seem much higher on these folk than the unnamed other lists. Is this due to a more analytical tilt or just a small sample? How do you go about ranking players like that?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:05
Jansen definitely broke out, in part because he got corrective lenses and seeing the ball is an important aspect of hitting, obviously. We think he's fine, defensively, and the patience and bat to ball are pretty special. He's an upper level catcher with what we think are sustainable skills, but we don't expect him to hit like he did last year all the time.
Medina, I wouldn't agree broke out. his stuff was great in 2016, he had strong placement on my 2016 Phils list: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-33-prospects-philadelphia-phillies...
This is just natural progression from him, in my opinion.
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:06
And for future reference, we don't really have thoughts on how other places rank guys or what we're doing that they aren't doing. We just kinda put them where we think they should be.
Dan
12:06
Were Jose Adolis Garcia or Justin Williams close to being on the list?   Who do you like better?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:06
Jose was on the just missed and Williams is probably a 45 FV, so both are reasonably close
James
12:06
Can you mention a few guys not listed (or considered) who you are watching closely, expect will leap onto the list next year? Personal favorites or guys that have flashed top 100 tools but need to show you a little more?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:07
Tomorrow we will have an article exactly about this and we were just whittling down the list on the phone before we got on here. The idea is essentially using our current FV grades (40 or 45) as their current value, which guys do we think will increase in value next year. Usually it's due to us liking the tools/approach but thinking there will be more performance coming in the short-term
Pat
12:08
Was Pavin Smith a 50FV and just didn't make the cut? Obviously a first base only prospect has to hit but just curious where he lie among the FV rankings
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:08
45
Bob
12:08
Where would Francis Martes place on your list if he was still a prospect (heard so much about him from both of you over the years)?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:08
This is another article we'll have this week, examining where recently graduated prospects are at on the FV continuum.
Lawgiver
12:08
I assure you these Braves questions are because you guys supply great content, they are not complaints.  I do however have an inquiry about Soroka's 45 command.  If anything, his command/control is his calling card.  He has a career sub 2 BB/9, and spots his offspeed stuff as well as his FB.  Whaddup?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:11
I'll try to take it easy on Braves questions but this is a more general thing to address some comments I've seen about the list. The grades (present) are what we think they would do IN THE BIG LEAGUES, right now. So a 50 game power grade means we think the guy would hit (in a full time role) about 15-20 homers (or you could argue post 2017 that 25 HR is what an average regular does). So that means his 25 homers in the minor league season informs that 50 grade but doesn't mean we're wrong and it should be 60 because we're PROJECTING what we think he'd do at a tougher level TODAY. Same for Soroka. His command is his calling card but he's also had some bad days in AA and hasn't been in a big stadium before. It's probably 45 or 50 now in an MLB stadium today vs. MLB hitters and projects for 55 or 60. We kinda have to pick one of them and with pitching prospects it's easy to go conservative.
Willy
12:11
Do you think Kristian Robinson (ARI) could make a run at the top 100 this time next year? What have you guys heard on him so far?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:11
Saw him in the fall and he's sushi raw and wasn't helped by Arizona's need to keep guys like Hazelbaker and Tomas shapr in case they were needed for the playoffs. I'd say he's a potential eventual top 100 guy but I'd be surprised if it were next year.
THE Average Sports Fan
12:12
With the changes in pitcher usage, is a guy with 4-5 starter profile less valuable than a back end of the bullpen profile?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:13
Yes and we tried to reflect the changing value of these guys and guys that lift/don't lift the ball in the list. Mike Fiers might give you 150 good innings in the regular season, but he isn't making the postseason roster and McCullers' is going to go out there and throw a ton. Teams want more McCullers so we feel like we should rank according to that preference. Teams also seem more inclined to draft high effort high school arms with finessee issues to this end, so it's seeping into the lower levels of baseball. It's probably not just a trend.
Connor
12:14
Surprised to see Corey Ray even mentioned, seeing as he's already 23 and there were barely (if any) positive reports of how he looked at the dish last season. Is his inclusion solely on defensive ability with the hope that he can return to pre-draft form offensively?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:15
There's some definite issues, including swing mechanics/performance and possible platoon, while he's mostly shored up CF/LF questions. He's on there because the tools are still goofy--above raw power and 70 speed. Not a lot of those.
Eric A Longenhagen
12:15
I go deep into Ray on the Brewers list, too: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/top-30-prospects-milwaukee-brewers/
Wes
12:15
How far out of the top 100 is Hans Crouse? What does he need to breakout this season?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:16
Not that far. Eventually he could be in the Touki/Abrey area where we think the stuff is so good that he'll contribute heavily in some way even if it's in the bullpen, but he's a few years behind those two as far as time horizon to the Majors goes.
Jake
12:16
You have Tyler O’Neill higher than any list I’ve seen.  What makes you say he’s likely to reach base at an above-average rate?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:17
Dude hits tanks, has massive raw, draws walks and has improved each year, especially in the 2nd half of 2017. Again, not a long list of guys that fit that description and O'Neill lucked out that his skillset is more relevant than ever right as he's coming up. Doesn't hurt that he's with STL who has an excellent record of developing bats, too.
Eric A Longenhagen
Juan Pablo
12:17
Is Franklin Perez's ranking at 100 more of an indication of a lack of faith in him holding up and/or the development of the breaking ball? Say his breaking ball improves this year and he logs a ton of innings. Would he be a top 50 guy this time next year?
Eric A Longenhagen
12:18
We like Perez but he's had lower body issues and we think he's deceptively far from the big leagues because of how light his workloads have been.
JP
12:18
I'm sure there will be 1,000,000 questions on this, but you guys have Acuna's fielding at 45/50 FV, presumably keeping him from a 70FV. Most places seem to have him as a solid-at-worst defender, some have him as a plus. What have you seen/heard differently?
AvatarKiley McDaniel
12:20
We like Acuna a lot and he was the highest 65, almost a 70. You can call that a 67.5 FV if you want. And I know when I was at FG in the past I would call an average CF (0 runs in a metric) 55 to signify he would be above on a corner and provides positional value being average in CF but now we just say the position (CF for Acuna) and grade it what we think it will be. I don't think many scouts think Acuna will be an above average CF, but most think he will be an above average RF. So, in the old system we'd call that a 55 future field tool and now we call it a 50 in CF. Either way it's roughly 0 runs in CF, +3 to 5 or something in RF over a full season.
Abomb
12:20
Has there been ANY progress with Demi Orimoloye? So many tools, but at some point he's got to put things together
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