Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i Baseball America

@BaseballAmerica @BaseballAmerica BaseballAmericaMag ReadBA PROSPECT SEASON KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR Many of the game’s top prospects converge in the desert each year for the Arizona Fall League. This year’s class is headlined by Jo Adell. Visit BaseballAmerica.com for coverage of the AFL—or follow Josh Norris on Twitter: @jnorris427 YEAR-ROUND COLLEGE COVERAGE Baseball may be a spring sport, but that doesn’t mean Baseball America takes the summer or fall off—not by a long shot! Teddy Cahill and the college team have their sights set on the 2020 season and the draft in June. ■ The College Recruiting Rankings detail the 25 best incoming freshman classes in the nation. ■ Prospect rankings for the premier wood bat summer college leagues, including a top 50 for the Cape Cod League and a ranking…

BASEBALL FACTORY’S CHIEF BASEBALL OFFICER The consensus in the baseball industry seems to be that while the players may continue to get more physical and skilled, their overall feel for the game and baseball IQ seem to be going in the other direction. At Baseball Factory, we are constantly helping to build better athletes and working on individual skills, but at our player development events, we spend quite a bit of time teaching team fundamentals. We try to raise the players’ baseball IQs. We want them to learn to anticipate based on the situation. They need to know what to do if the ball is hit to them, how to communicate with teammates and to be ready for the next play. We want true baseball players, because let’s face it:…

Reading won a league-best 80 game, but it still wasn’t good enough to get them to the Eastern League finals. Trenton defeated Bowie to capture the EL title for the fourth time in franchise history. While Erie didn’t make it into the playoffs, the SeaWolves’ roster was one to remember. Righthanders Casey Mize and Matt Manning anchored a pitching staff that was joined by dynamic lefthander Tarik Skubal, who has firmly entrenched himself as one of the game’s elite pitching prospects. Alex Faedo returned to form as well, giving Erie one of the most prospect-laden pitching staffs in recent league history. 1. Nate Pearson, RHP New Hampshire (Blue Jays) AGE: 23. B-T: R-R. HT: 6-6. WT: 245. DRAFTED: JC of Central Florida, 2017 (1). Pearson helped answer concerns about durability…

The California League’s reputation as a hitter’s league continues to take a hit. Now three years removed from High Desert and Bakersfield being contracted, teams in the league scored an average of 4.71 runs per game in 2019, the lowest mark in 30 years. As a result, clubs have become less afraid to send their top pitching prospects to the circuit. In some ways, 2019 was the year of the pitcher in the Cal League. Lake Elsinore lefthander MacKenzie Gore, the top pitching prospect in baseball, recorded a 1.02 ERA in 15 starts. Visalia’s Josh Green and Modesto’s Logan Gilbert each posted sub-2.00 ERAs during their stops in the league. An additional five starters who pitched at least 60 innings finished with ERAs below 3.00. The combination of pitching standouts…

Following up on their Midwest League championship season in 2018, Bowling Green once again managed to grab attention this season. The Hot Rods gave a clear cut example of the Rays’ organizational strength in developing pitchers, with a handful of top arms, including 2018 first-round lefthanders Matthew Liberatore and Shane McClanahan and 2017 first-round righthander Shane Baz coming through the MWL. In addition to pitching, Bowling Green also played host to the top prospect in the game in shortstop Wander Franco, and while Franco was in the MWL for only half the season, it proved to be enough time to do damage and stand out to managers and scouts. As good as Bowling Green was, South Bend swept it in first round of the MWL playoffs on the Cubs’ way…

Typically a college-heavy circuit, the Northwest League was flooded with young talent this summer. That’s made clear by the prospects on this list and is brought even further into focus by some of the prospects who just missed the cut. Explosive Diamondbacks prospect Kristian Robinson overwhelmed evaluators with the tools and skills he showed against much older competition, and he was just the center of an NWL-champion Hillsboro squad that was the beneficiary of a seemingly endless pipeline of tooled-up players. The Hops’ pitching staff alone included fireballer Luis Frias, who manhandled the league for just shy of 50 innings, as well as five of Arizona’s first six picks in this past year’s draft. The sixth pick, outfielder Corbin Carroll, fell shy of qualifying for this list but was nonetheless…

While the talent was stacked at the complexes in Arizona for the Rookie-level Arizona League, that wasn’t the case this year in the Gulf Coast League. Several top draft picks just missed qualifying due to their limited playing time. Tigers outfielder Riley Greene (the fifth overall pick) made a strong impression in his brief time in the GCL before being promoted. Righthanders J.J. Goss (Rays), Kendall Williams (Blue Jays), Josh Wolf (Mets) and Matthew Allan (Mets) and outfielder Shane Sasaki (Rays) were all top 100 draft picks who missed the playing time cutoffs to be eligible for this list. Many of the top draft picks and high-profile international signings who did participate in the GCL struggled to perform. The main exception was Blue Jays shortstop Orelvis Martinez, who signed for…

If the Dodgers are going to continue their run of success deep into the next decade, their starting pitching prospects will have to have to flourish. The Dodgers have one of the oldest pitching staffs in baseball. Hyun-Jin Ryu is 32. Clayton Kershaw is 31. Rich Hill is 39. Kenta Maeda is 31. Ross Stripling turns 30 in November. Julio Urias is 22, but has yet to demonstrate the durability required of a major league starter. Walker Buehler at 25 is the lone pitcher the Dodgers can confidently pencil into their rotation beyond the next few years, with the rest still to be sorted out behind him. That is why 22-year-old righthander Dustin May is so important, and why the Dodgers declined to move him in any deal at the…

When draft picks sign, they typically play right away. High school players usually go to a Rookie-level complex league in Arizona or Florida, while a college player might spend his summer with a more advanced short-season team in the New York-Penn or Northwest league. For international prospects, July 2 is when 16-year-old players are eligible to sign. But unlike draft picks in the United States, those players aren’t eligible to play in official games until the following year. That’s because Minor League Baseball rules stipulate that players must turn 17 by the end of the minor league season to be eligible. At the age of 16, it’s remarkable how much players can change in a span of a few months. With the Dominican Summer League opening 11 months after these…

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1. Luis Robert, OF Charlotte (White Sox) AGE: 22. B-T: R-R. HT.: 6-3. WT.: 185. SIGNED: Cuba, 2017. After a 2018 season marred by injuries, Robert opened the year healthy and showed off a package of five tools, each of which has the chance to be plus or better. He finished the year as one of just two minor leaguers with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases, and should make an immediate impact in Chicago upon his debut early next season. 2. Bo Bichette, SS Buffalo (Blue Jays) AGE: 21. B-T: R-R. HT.: 6-0. WT.: 185. DRAFTED: HS—St. Petersburg, Fla., 2016 (2). Bichette missed seven weeks early in the season with a broken hand, then immediately returned to showing the world why he was so highly regarded. His elite…

The Southern League was stacked with prospects this year, with perhaps its greatest quantity and variety of position players in a long time. Despite being a 10-team league, the Southern League’s embarrassment of riches included 15 qualifying players who were first- or supplemental first-round picks. At least 20 players who ranked as Top 100 Prospects this season played in the league long enough to qualify for our ranking. The talent pool was so deep that a number of players who joined the league later in the season were excluded from the ranking because managers and scouts didn’t get the same number of looks as the more tenured players. Examples of quality prospects who were tough omissions from the top 20 ranking include Chattanooga third baseman Jonathan India, Montgomery second baseman…

Two of the top talents to play in the Carolina League both played for Winston-Salem but fell just short of qualifying for the list. Dynamic outfielder Luis Robert hit .453/.512/.920 in 75 at-bats, while 2019 No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn fell seven plate appearances short of the minimum after joining the Dash in late July. Wilmington’s pitching staff impressed managers the most. Pitching coach Steve Luebber returned from Double-A to guide a new wave of pitching prospects, and three of those arms—all first-round picks in the 2018 draft—ranked among the top 10 prospects in the league. 1. DL Hall, LHP Frederick (Orioles) AGE: 21. B-T: L-L. HT.: 6-2. WT.: 195. DRAFTED: HS—Valdosta, Ga., 2017 (1). Hall ranked fifth in the Carolina League with 116 strikeouts despite throwing fewer than…

Hickory catcher Sam Huff finished tied for eighth in the South Atlantic League with 15 home runs. That’s remarkable because Huff was promoted out of the league on May 8. In just 30 games, Huff set the league on fire, impressing with his power and solid work behind the plate. But because he moved on so quickly, Huff did not qualify for the SAL Top 20 Prospects list. Catcher Adley Rutschman, the No. 1 pick in the 2019 draft, also made a cameo in the league, but his late arrival meant he also did not qualify. Even without those catchers, the 14-team Sally League had plenty of prospects, though numerous managers and scouts noted that once again this year it seemed like the Midwest League had more elite prospects among…

Year after year, the Appalachian League has turned into a showcase for some of the top young international prospects. In 2016, Blue Jays third baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was the standout prospect in the league. In 2018, Rays shortstop Wander Franco was equally impressive. This year, Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez stood above the crowd. Guerrero, Franco and Alvarez were all in their age-17 seasons when they broke out in the Appy League. Johnson City won the Appalachian League title. The Cardinals had to win their final two regular-season games just to make the playoffs. The club then lost the opener of the best-of-3 semifinal and championship series, but both times rallied to win the final two games of the series. 1. Francisco Alvarez, C Kingsport (Mets) AGE: 17. B-T: R-R.…

1. Liover Peguero, SS Missoula (D-backs) AGE: 18. B-T: R-R. HT: 6-1. WT: 170. SIGNED: Dominican Republic, 2017 Peguero spent the second half of the 2018 season in the Arizona League at age 17 and struggled with the bat, but he came back to spring training this year noticeably stronger and a more mature hitter. That improvement resulted in an outstanding season with Missoula before being moved up to short-season Hillsboro, helping the Hops win the Northwest League championship. Peguero has an innate ability to find the barrel with good timing at the plate and the ability to control the zone. His above-average raw power will translate into more in-game power with experience. Rounding out Peguero’s solid package of tools is above-average speed, which he used to steal eight bases.…

FACTORY ATHLETICS TM is BA’s For the Love of the Game Selection Partner • JACK BLEIER, 14 CHANDLER, AZ: Because Jack is dyslexic, he struggles to process information, mostly math and reading. While he will never completely overcome his dyslexia, he has figured out how to learn differently than everyone else. Jack gets frustrated at times but won’t let dyslexia define him, and through hard work he often earns A’s and B’s. Jack has a huge goal: he wants to play baseball and football in college. He has been playing baseball since he was 5 and loves putting in work on hitting, fielding and pitching. • MADI TOLLE, 15 GYPSUM, KS: In April 2018, Madi’s mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Madi felt that instead of dwelling on the past,…

J.J. COOPER @JJCOOP36 Not long ago, the four largest independent leagues dreamed of fielding as many as 60 teams. When the 2020 season begins, the American Association, Atlantic League, Can-Am League and Frontier League will be fortunate if they field 40 teams combined. The Kansas City T-Bones, a long-running stalwart of the American Association, were facing eviction from their stadium because of more than $700,000 in back rent and utility payments owed. The Can-Am League’s Ottawa Champions have had their lease canceled because of more than $400,000 in unpaid rent. And the Frontier League crowned the River City Rascals as the league champion in a celebration that was also a fond farewell. The Rascals owners announced in August that they were shutting down at the end of the season. Coming…

C DAULTON VARSHO | D-BACKS Double-A Jackson (Southern) Varsho rode a second-half surge to an .898 OPS that led the Southern League, all while nearly going 20-20 as a catcher. (He fell just two home runs short.) The lefthanded-hitting Varsho stuck with his approach even when the hits didn’t fall in the first half. It paid off in the second half when he hit .344/.420/.599 in 52 games after the all-star break. 1B SETH BEER | D-BACKS Double-A Jackson (Southern) One of the more advanced bats available in the 2018 draft, Beer came off the board 28th overall when the Astros took him. He had already reached Double-A a year later when Houston traded him to the D-backs for Zack Greinke. Even with a poor August, Beer still ranked among…

1. Yordan Alvarez, OF Round Rock (Astros) AGE: 22. B-T: L-R. HT.: 6-5. WT.: 225. SIGNED: Cuba, 2016 (Dodgers). Alvarez led the minor leagues in home runs (23) when the Astros called him up June 9. His ability to crush any pitch over any part of the plate with plus-plus power made him a terror. Alvarez limits his swings and misses, manages the strike zone and uses the whole field, traits that helped him continue mashing in the majors. Even as a below-average outfielder best suited as a DH, his offense alone makes him a franchise player. 2. Keston Hiura, 2B San Antonio (Brewers) AGE: 23. B-T: R-R. HT.: 5-11. WT.: 190. DRAFTED: UC Irvine, 2017 (1). Hiura played in the PCL’s most pitcher-friendly park in San Antonio and raked.…

Amarillo won the Texas League championship in the debut season for the Sod Poodles franchise. The Padres’ Double-A affiliate defeated Tulsa 8-3 in Game 5 of the best-of-five championship series. Led by many of the prospects who help make the Padres’ farm system No. 2 in baseball, Amarillo received second-half contributions from Top 100 Prospects such as lefthander MacKenzie Gore, righthanders Adrian Morejon and Luis Patiño and outfielder Taylor Trammell. But none in that quartet played enough in the Texas League to qualify for this ranking. Outfielder Edward Olivares, second baseman Owen Miller and righthander Ronald Bolaños are the only Sod Poodles players to crack the top 20, and they rank near the bottom. Other top prospects who fell short of enough playing time in the Texas League to qualify…

How good was the Florida State League in 2019? For starters, it featured Wander Franco, an 18-year-old shortstop with an on-base percentage higher than .400. The FSL also had righthander Joe Ryan, the only starter in the minors to average more than 13 strikeouts and fewer than 2 walks per nine innings. And both Franco and Ryan were on the same team. The FSL also boasted the No. 4 overall pick from the 2019 draft in Jupiter outfielder JJ Bleday and a Lakeland lefthander named Tarik Skubal who showed he belongs in the conversation about the game’s best pitching prospects. Bradenton shortstop Oneil Cruz and Palm Beach third baseman Nolan Gorman showed off electric raw power. Those players alone would be a bounty for most leagues in most years, but…

The New York-Penn League was stacked with prospects this season, and Aberdeen catcher Adley Rutschman led the wave. Two pitchers managed to shine brightly this season among the position-heavy group. Lowell righthander Noah Song, a Red Sox fourth-round pick this year, lit up the radar gun and caught the attention of managers around the league. A graduate of the Naval Academy, Song may have military service requirements that could potentially slow down his progression to the big leagues. Tri-City righthander Hunter Brown, an Astros fifth-rounder out of Wayne State, also shined on the mound with plus stuff and arm strength but ultimately didn’t qualify. Brooklyn received a boost from 2019 draftees Brett Baty, Matt Allan and Jake Mangum, who helped the club to defeat Lowell in the NYPL championship series.…

The Rookie-level Arizona League continued its rapid growth. Three new teams expanded the league to 21, when just 10 years ago there were 11 teams in the complex league. Seven of the 14 organizations making up the league now have two affiliates, with the Athletics, Brewers and Dodgers adding second squads this year. The expansion made for a deep pool of prospects, perhaps the strongest in the history of the league. The top prospect was Padres shortstop CJ Abrams, the sixth overall pick in the 2019 draft. Lauded by scouts for his elite athleticism and advanced hitting instincts, Abrams was named league MVP and led all hitters with a .401 average and .662 slugging percentage. A dozen 2019 first-round picks made their pro debuts in the AZL, with Abrams, Bobby…

BALTIMORE ORIOLES As their recent draft class highlighted, the Orioles are focused on addressing a lack of high-end position prospects. However, the work of 22-year-old Ryan Mountcastle at Triple-A Norfolk this season gave the organization a reason for hope. The 2015 first-round pick led the Orioles’ system with 25 home runs in 127 games. He slashed .312/.344/.527 with 35 doubles and 83 RBIs. He led the International League with 162 hits and claimed MVP honors. That production came while Mountcastle, who was drafted as a shortstop and had shifted to third base, was learning two new positions: first base and left field. “He’s made so many adaptations,” Norfolk manager Gary Kendall said. “You’re talking about an everyday guy hitting in the middle of the lineup at 22 years old who’s…

JOE SHEEHAN @JOE_SHEEHAN Watching your favorite team finish out its season, you’ve certainly seen some new faces, young players called up from the minors to get a taste of the majors for the first time. Some are prospects, some are filler, but they’re all part of what is projected to be the last crop of September callups for a while. Beginning in 2020, Major League Baseball will cap rosters in September at 28, down from the current 40, and put an end to one of the game’s most polarizing traditions. In the negotiation, the union earned an extra roster spot for the other five months of the season, with the standard active roster increasing from 25 to 26 players. Put me down as disappointed by the change. For all the…