With the benefit of all the other pro pundits, all the off-season moves, and really trying not to have April stats color my opinions too much, here’s my “104 ranked prospects” for the system.
When I did this at the end of the 2025 season, I got lots of good feedback that i had some guys way too high or low. Hopefully I’m not so drastically off this time around as well. I went 125 deep at the end of 2025, which seems crazy. how did I get back to 104? Well, since the Sept post we’ve lost 33 of those 125 players:
- 2 were traded (Bennett, Linan,
- 15 became MLFAs and left the system; highest one was Nick Schnell in the low 30s.
- 2 were DFA’d and got claimed/Traded (Brzycky, Eder)
- 2 were released to pursue other opps or by their request (Lao, Baker)
- 12 were outright released; these are the embarrassing ones; how do you rank a guy who the team flat out released? The highest ranked release I had ranked in Sept 2025 was Armando Cruz, who I had ranked 57th basically clinging to the $3.9M the team wasted on him in 2021.
But, we’ve also added 12 players in the off-season who are now somewhere in the top 100:
- 4 2026 IFA signings, the highest of which is Serrano at #37.
- 8 prospects acquired in trade, including four of our top 10 in Ford, Fien, Perales, and Fitz-Gerald.
125-33+12 = exactly 104, and that’s exactly how many I’ve ranked in this iteration.
Nonetheless, posting this a week into May seems dumb, and next year i’ll do a better job of posting this before the season starts and won’t wait for Fangraphs’ ranking to finish. I’m basically posting this now so the work doesn’t go to waste.
Here’s my full list as it stands today:
| TB rank | First Name | Last Name | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eli | Willits | SS |
| 2 | Harry | Ford | C |
| 3 | Jarlin | Susana | RHP (Starter) |
| 4 | Travis | Sykora | RHP (Starter) |
| 5 | Gavin | Fein | SS |
| 6 | Alex | Clemmey | LHP (Starter) |
| 7 | Seaver | King | SS |
| 8 | Luis | Perales | RHP (Starter) |
| 9 | Devin | Fitz-Gerald | SS |
| 10 | Landon | Harmon | RHP (Starter) |
| 11 | Ronny | Cruz | SS |
| 12 | Luke | Dickerson | SS/CF |
| 13 | Ethan | Petry | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 14 | Coy | James | SS |
| 15 | Angel | Feliz | SS/3B |
| 16 | Yoel | Tejeda Jr. | RHP (Starter) |
| 17 | Jackson | Kent | LHP (Starter) |
| 18 | Miguel | Sime Jr. | RHP (Starter) |
| 19 | Davian | Garcia | RHP (Starter) |
| 20 | Yeremy | Cabrera | OF (corner) |
| 21 | Sam | Peterson | OF (CF) |
| 22 | Alejandro | Rosario | RHP |
| 23 | Marconi | German | SS |
| 24 | Eriq | Swan | RHP (Starter) |
| 25 | Christian | Franklin | OF (CF) |
| 26 | Caleb | Lomavita | C |
| 27 | Yohandy | Morales | 3B |
| 28 | Jorgelys | Mota | SS |
| 29 | Josh | Randall | RHP (Starter) |
| 30 | Cayden | Wallace | 2B/3B |
| 31 | Phillips | Glasser | SS |
| 32 | Andrew | Pinckney | OF (Corner) |
| 33 | Abimelec | Ortiz | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 34 | Riley | Cornelio | RHP (Starter) |
| 35 | Andrew | Alvarez | LHP (Starter) |
| 36 | Brayan | Cortesia | SS |
| 37 | Samil | Serrano | OF (Corner) |
| 38 | Sir Jamison | Jones | C |
| 39 | Rafael | Ramirez Jr. | SS |
| 40 | Kevin | Bazzell | C |
| 41 | Cristian | Vaquero | OF (CF) |
| 42 | Daniel | Hernandez | C |
| 43 | Nauris | De La Cruz | OF (Corner) |
| 44 | Isalas | Suarez | OF (CF) |
| 45 | Angel | Ramirez | OF (Corner) |
| 46 | Browm | Martinez | OF (CF) |
| 47 | Victor | Hurtado | OF (Corner) |
| 48 | Tyler | Stuart | RHP (Starter) |
| 49 | R.J. | Sales | RHP (Starter) |
| 50 | Clayton | Beeter | RHP (Reliever) |
| 51 | Dashyll | Tejeda | OF (CF) |
| 52 | Juan | Duran | OF (Corner) |
| 53 | Isaac | Lyon | RHP (Starter) |
| 54 | Robert | Cranz | RHP (Reliever) |
| 55 | Schultz | Thomas | RHP (Reliever) |
| 56 | Jose | Feliz | RHP (Starter) |
| 57 | Marquis | Grissom | RHP (Reliever) |
| 58 | Austin | Amaral | RHP (Reliever) |
| 59 | Liam | Sullivan | LHP (Starter) |
| 60 | T.J. | White | OF (Corner) |
| 61 | Randal | Diaz | SS/3B |
| 62 | Sam | Brown | OF (Corner) |
| 63 | Leuris | Portorreal | RHP (Starter) |
| 64 | Elijah | Nunez | OF (CF) |
| 65 | Brenner | Cox | OF (CF) |
| 66 | Johnathan | Thomas | OF (CF) |
| 67 | Tyler | Schoff | RHP (Reliever) |
| 68 | Erik | Tolman | LHP (Starter) |
| 69 | Andry | Lara | RHP (Starter) |
| 70 | Brayan | Romero | RHP (Starter) |
| 71 | Branden | Boissiere | OF (Corner) |
| 72 | Kevin | Made | SS |
| 73 | Elijah | Green | OF (CF) |
| 74 | Juan | Reyes | LHP (Starter) |
| 75 | Pablo | Aldonis | LHP (Reliever) |
| 76 | Orlando | Ribalta | RHP (Reliever) |
| 77 | Enmanuel | Carela | RHP (Starter) |
| 78 | Darrel | Lunar | RHP (Starter) |
| 79 | Adam | Bloebaum | RHP (Reliever) |
| 80 | Travis | Sthele | RHP (Starter) |
| 81 | Alexander | Meckley | RHP (Starter) |
| 82 | Merritt | Beeker | LHP (Reliever) |
| 83 | Bryan | Polanco | RHP (Starter) |
| 84 | Carlos | Tavares | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 85 | Greyson | Gimenez | RHP (Reliever) |
| 86 | Kyle | Luckham | RHP (Starter) |
| 87 | Luke | Johnson | RHP (Starter) |
| 88 | Holden | Powell | RHP (Reliever) |
| 89 | Max | Romero Jr. | C |
| 90 | Huff | Chance | RHP (Reliever) |
| 91 | Marcus | Brown | SS |
| 92 | Juan | Obispo | OF (CF) |
| 93 | Rony | Bello | 2B/3B |
| 94 | Manuel | Cabrera | SS |
| 95 | Nick | Peoples | OF (Corner) |
| 96 | Mikey | Tepper | RHP (Starter) |
| 97 | Seth | Shuman | RHP (Reliever) |
| 98 | Gavin | Dugas | 2B |
| 99 | Luke | Young | RHP (Reliever) |
| 100 | Jack | Sinclair | RHP (Reliever) |
| 101 | Elian | Soto | 1B/OF (Corner) |
| 102 | Leodarlyn | Colon | RHP (Reliever) |
| 103 | Everett | Cooper | SS |
| 104 | Matt | Suggs | C |
In the interests of not making this too long of a post, I’ll provide some commentary in batches of picks:
- 1-5: I’ve got the same top 5 as all pundits not named Longenhagen. Not much to note here. As we’ll discuss more later, with the benefit of April’s production there’d probably be different names in my top 5 now.
- 6-10: I’ve kept this a conventional list, so Clemmey and King remain high. I’m trusting that Perales is all that he’s been promised, and i’ve put our big dollar prep RHP Harmon right at #10 so that its consistent with most other shops ranking of him. King is making huge strides now, and probably moves into the top 5 in the next ranking along with Cruz (he was just named into BA’s latest top 100)
- 11-15: Ronny Cruz is going to start showing up on top 100 lists, so I’ve moved him to just outside the top 10 for now. If I was fully taking into account his April performance he’d be ranked 5th. I’ve also kept Dickerson here despite his 2025 struggles due to scouting reports remaining glowing, and have a couple of our younger stars in here as well.
- 16-20: four of the five end up being starters, including two guys in AA in Garcia and Kent who could be the part of the next crew of low-ceiling starters to push for the majors in the Irvin-Parker-Herz mold. Also, Sime has started incredibly hot and is looking nearly unhittable in Low-A; he’d be 10 spots higher taking April fully into account.
- 21-25: I’ve got a couple of injury-riddled starters here who might be higher in Rosario and Swan; i think people ranking Rosario anywhere in the top 20 are fools. Franklin remains here as the best of the AAA-addled corner OF we seem to have collected there this year.
- 26-30: Three college bats who have been much more heralded than they are now in Lomavita, Morales, and Wallace. I’ve given up fighting the Morales fight; he was #6 on my post-2025 list and honestly I have no defense of why i’ve pushed him this far down. Of course as I write this he’s raking in April in AAA so i’ll look like a fool when he heads to the majors and supplants Luis Garcia at 1B/DH. Randall’s AA debut looks great; he may be higher soon.
- 31-35 has two 4-A starters (Cornelio, Alvarez), and apparently two 4-A corner outfielders (Pinckney and Ortiz). They’re joined by Glasser, who may be our hitter of the year but will struggle to get any further in the system.
- 36-40 has a couple of DSL bonus-baby ranked players in Cortesia and Serrano; Serrano was our highest ranked 2026 IFA signing and is very well regarded by those in the know (Longenhagen had him #18). We also have two other pretty young players in Jones and Ramirez Jr here.
- 41-45: this is the range where we stick DSL types who have had one good season there, or who signed for big money but we just don’t know how good they will be. That includes Hernandez, De la Cruz, Suarez, and Rodriguez here.
- 46-50: Two injured arms who probably should be higher in Stuart and Sales, a solid reliever in Beeter who will be off these “prospect” lists soon, plus the $2.8M Hurtado who at least has made it to FCL in his 3rd pro year but needs to “do something” soon.
- 51-55: Three promising looking minor league relievers in Lyon, Cranz, and Schultz. Lyon is now leading the High-A roster and I continue to be amazed that we fetched both Ford and Lyon for a reliever with a 4.46 ERA last year (yes, I know he’s pitching better in 2026, but the point remains).
- 56-60: Three more relievers in Amaral, Grissom and Sullivan, plus TJ White, who has struggled for years but is finding his footing this year.
- 61-70: a hodge podge of players, including some failed starters and a MIA former top prospect in Cox who we now know is converting to be a pitcher after hitting sub .200 for three years in the low minors.
- 71-80 includes a couple of very high profile prospects who seem to be playing their way out in Made and Green, along with a few DSL starters who were solid in their first year and who might work their way up the ranks soon.
- 80-90: A couple of system starters in Meckley and Luckham, maybe they should be higher. We also have some hold-over starters here like Polanco and Johnson.
- 90-104: Backup catchers, backup middle infielders who used to be more heralded, and low-ceiling relievers.
A few more interesting tid bits:
- The highest player I have ranked who does not appear on a single other ranking list is 2026 IFA signing Juan Duran, who got $1m from us in January and who i’ve put at #52.
- The next three players on my list after Duran (Lyon, Cranz, and Schultz) also fail to appear on any other lists, likely b/c they’re essentially promising looking relievers who would never appear within a top 30 of a major shop.
- Pretty much everyone I have ranked about 75 only appears on my own ranking lists for the last couple of cycles. They’re ranked b/c they showed some promise, or earned promotions in the last couple of seasons. Mostly though, they’re “org guys” for now unless they blow it up and make a leap that hasn’t been really evident in their performances thus far.
Thanks for posting this, Todd. I totally understand holding until after FG. Their timing has been frustrating, but I find their prospect analysis to be simply the best available. They go so far beyond just rankings and tool grades by delivering (mostly) coherent scouting takes that deeply affect my understanding of our system. I’m much more likely to change my personal ranking because of an FG report than one from Pipeline or BA. Hopefully now that they have a team to help EL, they’ll get their reports done on time next year.
Overall I think your list is extremely solid, and I have almost all the same names in a similar order. I think 2 of my top 50 aren’t in yours – as I have Sam Brown and Lara in the 40s instead of Browm Martinez and Beeter. (I did have Jose Feliz around there too, until his recent injury.)
One thing I noticed is that I think you’re harsher than I on pitcher injuries, especially for the top guys. I still have Susana and Sykora at 1 and 2 (though Willits is showing enough power to make me think twice about that), and I have Rosario 7th, not 22nd. He’s a plausible TOR arm if he can get back to health. I get that that’s a meaningful “if”, and that’s he’s very high variance with a larger than usual bust rate, but he has a ceiling that makes that value prop work. What kind of medical news would you have to hear on Sykora’s TJ to knock him down 20 more spots? I think I’d need to see him actually pitch badly and have worse stuff upon return, or have the team give up on him or something. Ranking Rosario below Kent and Tejeda Jr and Davian Garcia seems crazy to me.
And speaking of Garcia, I do not understand the hype around him. I’ve moved him way up based on all the public reports but I can’t get him above 30th, and I’m not comfortable with him even that high. I know I’m no scout, so there must be some physical development or mechanical tweaks that folks think are coming, but I’ve watched a couple of his starts and, other than good but not exceptional velocity, I don’t see anything to separate him from the pack.
On bats, I’ve been mostly persuaded by EL’s take on Fien, plus his apparently drawing the short straw and having to move to RF during the low-A positional logjam. And I’ve also been really stubborn on Morales but am finally dropping him down some – though I have him 18th, not 27th.
I’m curious how you’d shift some of these folks based on the early results. I was way in on Sime preseason (had him 10th, so he’s only ticked up a couple of spots for me), but I’ve been as surprised by Ronny Cruz as anyone. I had him 22nd and now he’s 5th, knocking Fitz-Gerald to 6th despite him having an outstanding season of his own. I’ve become a believer in King’s bat, but I’m hearing enough static about his defense to make me worry so I’m still lower on him than most.
Here’s how I have the top 50, as of now:
FV55: 1.Susana 2.Sykora 3.Willits
FV50: 4.Ford
FV45+: 5.Cruz 6.Fitz-Gerald 7.Rosario 8.Sime 9.Harmon
FV45: 10.Clemmey 11.King 12.Fien
FV40+: 13.Perales 14.Kent 15.Cabrera 16.Dickerson 17.Petry 18.Morales
FV40: 19.A Feliz 20.Y Tejeda Jr 21.German 22.Swan 23.James 24.Lomavita 25.Cornelio 26.Alvarez 27.Jones 28.Ortiz 29.N De La Cruz 30.Garcia 31.Franklin 32.Cortesia 33.Serrano
34. Suarez
FV35+: 35.Petersen 36.Mota 37.Randall 38.Pinckney 39.Glasser 40.Wallace 41.Sales 42.Brown 43.Lara 44.A Ramirez 45.Vaquero 46.Hernandez 47.Bazzell 48.Hurtado 49.Stuart 50.R Ramirez Jr
SMS
8 May 26 at 2:00 pm
Quite the Herculean task, Todd. Well done. Overall, there’s very little I disagree with, but with 100 or so players, we’re bound to disagree on a few. Here’s a few where I differ:
Gavin Fien – I still need to see more than one good performance in the Breakout game to designate him as some superstar prospect. As of now, in an extremely limited sample size, he’s hitting .190/.250/.293 in his professional career. 5 is high to me. I’d agree with SMS’s rating a few tiers down.
Devin Fitz-Gerald – he’s basically the opposite of Fien. He’s excelled in every opportunity, and is displaying genuine 5 tool talent. He’d be in my mix for #5.
Ronny Cruz and Yeremy Cabrera – they’re the same in that they’ve come out of absolutely no where this season, and look like elite prospects if they can even moderately sustain this kind of performance all season. I know I’m judging this with more hindsight than you’ve allowed, Todd, but Cabrera is way too low at #20. Compare his performance to Luke Dickerson’s, for example. You can even ignore 2026, and Cabrera, the same age as Dickerson, still looks the better player, and should profile to remain in CF.
Yohandy Morales. While I may no longer rate Morales in our top 5, I still think he’s way better than anyone is giving him credit. The guy just hits. At every single level. He’s got a career .288 AVG in 280 pro games. That’s insanely good, even if the power isn’t quite as elite as predicted, he’s still got a career ISO of .153, which is… totally fine, especially when you get on base (career .368, presently .415) and hit for average. He also doesn’t appear to be done as an option at 3B.
Kevin Bazzell – too high. Compare him with, say, Max Romero. What sets him apart? He just hit his first HR yesterday in 106 career games. And he’s not a gap hitter either. That HR was just his 14th XBH in total in 427 plate appearances. He walks a bit, but can’t hit for average, and his defense is spotty, at best. What a whiff of a draft pick.
Dashyll Tejeda – I may be the only one, but he still looks to me like a really interesting 4 tool player (everything but power). I’m disappointed he didn’t get sent to Frederickburg, but that’s likely due to the glut of players already there, because A ball will be a big test. Still, there’s enough upside to dream on in comparison to others in his range.
Brenner Cox – too high. There’s a good chance now that he’s done as a hitter, we’ll never see him again, if this unlikely pitching switch doesn’t pan out.
Lastly, Eli Willits – I agree with SMS that I’d probably put Willits behind both Sykora and Susana (definitely Sykora, at least). Even with Willits playing his best case/90th percentile scenario, it’s still all a bit underwhelming. He’s hitting .267/.403/.442, which is wonderful. But everthing ultimately hinges on his age. If he were 2 years older, his performance (.844 OPS) isn’t any meaningfully different from Luke Dickerson (.824) or Nick Peoples (.865), the latter of whom barely features on the list…
But with age, there needs to be some potential untapped upside that Willits can fulfill. And while he is displaying more power than last year, does anyone now expect him to be more of a 20+ HR guy? I haven’t seen anyone predict that yet. If that changes, my outlook on him will too, but for now, even while he’s playing excellently, it’s still only 30% better than league average (132 wRC+). That’s great for a HS senior, and generally really good potential future value, but I don’t see the top 20 overall rating that so many have given him. By mid-season, he could be as low as 5 or 6 (leapfrogged by Cruz, Fitz-Gerald, maybe Cabrera. Or, if he can sustain more power, possibly 1st.
This is all nitpicky, though. It’s a really good list!
Will
9 May 26 at 3:09 pm
How would I adjust based on first 5 weeks of season? This top 5 is Willits-Ford-Susana-Sykora-Fein. I think if i was re-doing this right now my top 5 would be Willits-Sudana-Sykora-Cruz-King. Ford not impressing, Fein struggling. Right after that you’d have to elevate Fitz-Gerald based on his rocket-hot start, and put Sime in the top 10. I’m concerned about Clemmey, Rosario, Harmon’d injury. Can’t wait to see if Morales, Petry, Dickerson keep production up.
Todd Boss
10 May 26 at 8:59 pm
@Will – I agree 100% on Fitz-Gerald. Ordering him and Cruz was maybe the hardest comparison on the list for me. In the end, I preferred Cruz being a year younger and having an extra level of hype from the industry, over Fitz-Gerald’s slightly longer, slightly better record at A+ and the team’s vote of confidence in promoting him first. But they’re neck and neck for me and it won’t take much new information for me to switch them.
@Todd – That all makes sense. I’m getting worried about Clemmey too. It’s not quite as stark because pitcher development is even more non-linear than hitter development, but it’s kind of like how Green’s overall production is completely irrelevant until/unless he shows improvement on his strikeouts. I feel Clemmey’s control is similar and the most important number for him isn’t K% or FIP or ERA. It’s BB/9 and, by that measure, he’s been absolutely terrible. Huge step backwards. It’s just 23 innings, so could be a blip but he, Perales and Ford have been the biggest disappointments for me so far. I hope they can turn it around, and in the meantime I’m glad that there are a bunch of arrow up guys in the system to compensate.
SMS
11 May 26 at 11:10 am
Speaking of Fitz-Gerald …
https://www.baseballamerica.com/rankings/2026-top-100-prospects/?utm_source=BAPR&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=baseball-s-new-no-1-prospect&_bhlid=55bb12251380ee4e6016ce27bc296bb3cab4b7ba
BA just updated their top 100 for all of the minors, and Fitz-Gerald is now in the top 100. Nats on this list now:
Nats:
20: Eli Willits (was 24)
53: Jarlin Susana (was 59)
90: Ronny Cruz was 96
93. Seaver King (was 99)
98. Devin Fitz-Gerald was unranked
And, not in the top 100 currently are Sykora, Ford, and Fein, all of whom have been in major pundit top 100 lists in the last year.
This is great progress for the farm system, just in the first 6 weeks of the season.
Todd Boss
15 May 26 at 8:50 am
For sure, Todd.
I can’t remember ever having 8 players in the superset of top 100s. Part is that we’ve never had so many somewhat divisive top prospects, but you can’t deny that it’s genuinely impressive depth.
It’s pretty clear that we’re one of the top farm systems at this point, and since we expect to be sellers at the deadline and not graduate any prospects except maybe Morales, theres a good chance we will be #1 next offseason.
I’d obviously prefer to have the big league club in the playoff mix, but it’s better to have prospects than to have nothing.
SMS
15 May 26 at 11:20 am
Also interesting that the top-end position player prospects are infielders after the system was heavy on OF for so many years.
Speaking of Morales, any thoughts on when he will get called up? I feel like THIS roster ought to have room for a guy OPSing 1000 in AAA. I get that they may be showcasing guys to trade, but the return on the guys they are showcasing cannot be that high in expectation (though Soroka netted Cruz, so anything is possible). I just think it’s time to figure out whether Morales can be a real contributor.
Derek
15 May 26 at 2:24 pm
By the time the next major system rankings come around, we’ll have this crew of prospects, PLUS all our 2026 draftees, plus hopefully at least a few prospects received in return from Griffin and whoever else we can flip, plus perhaps some 2026 signees showing promise since we certainly spread around enough 7 figure signings to perhaps make a difference. Yeah; that’s some great news.
Todd Boss
15 May 26 at 4:45 pm
The Morales situation can be explained a few ways, none of which I think I buy.
First, Longenhagen FWIW explains his view is that Morales is a righty bat/glove 1st base only player with “no launch, 30 grade contact on fastballs” who is “late a lot of the time.”
Check this week’s chat. He may not be right, but that’s the negative case.
Second, I think there’s a bit of a roster squeeze both on the 40 man and the active roster right night now. There’s 3 backup / platoon infielders that they like right now in Vivas, Tena, and Mead, all with no options, and they just aren’t willing to cut bait quite yet. Mead is the righty 1B who can play two other IF positions, and they think they found something in him. Tena has really done nothing to show he’s less than whatever the Nats thought he was at the start of the year (122 wRC+ with statcast numbers mostly backing that up), and Vivas is exactly what they thought he was (low K, high OBP guy with acceptable defense).
If Morales actually could play 3rd, then the path to bringing him up might be to DFA Chaparro, send House down, and play Morales. That still might be early. I’d be comfortable losing Chaparro if I believed in Morales, but there’s also service time issues for Morales that would lead the Nats to give it maybe another month.
JCA
16 May 26 at 1:02 pm
I saw that from EL too. And, I guess. But Morales is literally leading all qualified AAA hitters in wRC+. Can that really be 30 grade contact on the pitch thrown most often? And he’s played 80% of this season at 3B. We don’t have access (at least I don’t) to useful defensive metrics for the minors, and I definitely haven’t watched enough games to have any idea of how he’s holding it down, but he has 2 errors in 244 innings. That doesn’t sound too bad. Cayden Wallace has 7 in fewer innings at AA, for example. So is he really 1B only?
I don’t know. I get the fastball thing (though his numbers against high velocity actually look alright, just not “best in AAA” like his overall line), and I can see that he gets a lot of his hits on hard hit groundballs. I expect his true talent BABIP to be much worse than he’s running, and maybe that’s a profile that particularly suffers against better defenders in the majors. But it’s really hard to compere him and, say, Ortiz, and to prefer Ortiz as a prospect.
I do think JCA is right about the team simply not wanting to cut anyone from the current bench. Which probably means we won’t see Morales until after the trade deadline. And then with Abrams and Garcia likely gone, I expect we’ll have Nuñez at SS, Mead maybe moving over to cover 2nd if they want to hold King back another year and Morales mostly taking Mead’s reps at 1B.
(Also, I forgot Ford earlier. If he’s able to turn his season around, he’ll definitely graduate this year, especially since he already has 28 days. But still, point stands, the system should be looking quite strong going into next season.)
SMS
16 May 26 at 1:26 pm
Ha, it was me that asked Eric the question about Morales. Figured now was a better time than ever to get his take. I’m a bit amused/annoyed by the contrast with his earlier answer to the question about Crews, where in spite of everything from Crews, he’s still a big believer, when in spite of all evidence of Morales being able to succeed IN SPITE of his weaknesses, Longenhagen doesnt even consider him a prospect of any note.
But the question got me to dig into Longenhagen’s criticisms, especially the “30 contact”, and you get most advanced Statcast stats for AAA, including Morales’ average launch angle, which is an abysmal 3.2°. That’s in large part because his groundbreaking rate is an awful 54.1%. To put that into context, both of those stats would presently be the 4th worst in all of the majors right now. That by itself is indeed “30 contact” kind of stuff. But contact isn’t only about launch angles, it’s also about frequency and quality of contact, and at that Morales is actually very good. He’s got a hard hit% if 52.5%, which is excellent. It would be 15th in baseball, tied with masher, Pete Alonso (an aside, James Wood leads MLB at this with a 61% hard-hitting!). He also has very good exit velocity, averaging 91.9, which would be 29th of 171 in MLB this season, and his max exit velo is 113.1, also would be 29th in MLB (tied with uber prospect Konnor Griffin, who Longenhagen probably gave 70 grade contact…
Morales isn’t great at the frequency of contact, sitting at 72.5% of all swings he makes contact on, which is below average (would be 40th worst of 171 in MLB, almost identical to CJ Abrams at 72.7%). His swinging strikes rate of 13.1% would also be 40th worst. But for guys with power you don’t want them yo make super high contact, like say Keibert Ruiz, because it comes at the expense of quality contact, which Morales is already doing.
All that said, it speaks to Morales being a flawed player at making contact, but he’s by now means a 30 grade contact hitter. You grade guys on their potential, not their present ability, and I see a flawed but fixable player. If Morales could boost his launch angle, he could translate that excellent power into a very fearsome hitter. And with the Nats having hired half of Driveline this winter, the sorcerers of quality contact mechanics, I see pretty impressive potential (much in the same way Longenhagen still sees Crews’ potential in spite of a couple seasons of unfulfilled performances).
But what do I know, I’m only president of the Morales fan club.
Will
16 May 26 at 2:57 pm
EL’s takes on Morales vs Crews: I think these pundits have an awful hard time letting go of certain opinions and double/triple down.
I also think in particular EL’s commitment to his whole “FV” scale prevents him from properly ranking certain types of prospects. Morales is one example, as is a guy like Alvarez. He’s just too far over valuing ceiling versus floor in his algorithms. But, it also highlights how difficult it is to rank/compare a 16yr old Dominican kid who was just signed for $1.9M in January and who hasn’t played a day of pro ball versus a SEC-battle hardened and seasoned AAA minor league veteran with now 4 full years of service time like Morales. That DR kid has an incredibly high likelihood of not even getting off the island, and a higher likelihood of never really acclimating to living in the US. How many have we seen basically end their careers at the first traveling minor league team stop, where they’re forced to deal with travel, feed themselves, find lodging for themselves, and frankly speak english in the real world for the first time… Morales is five minor league levels ahead of these DSL bonus baby children and 1000 miles ahead in terms of life experiences.
A proper evaluation balances risk and certainty, floor and ceiling, and the actual “value” of a player who actually makes the majors but is “just” a replacement player versus the profile that a 16yr old DSL player represents, which is 100% risk, 100% ceiling, 0% certainty.
Todd Boss
17 May 26 at 11:29 am
I think it’s worth spending some time fleshing out the ideas in Todd’s last paragraph.
To start, I have two specific follow ups:
1. What is the value of a replacement player, and why isn’t it zero?
2. Do players who make the majors but generate negative WAR destroy value proportional to that WAR and, if not, why not? In other words, was Carter Kieboom a better or a worse draft pick than Seth Romero? (In final impact, not by process – I think we can all agree that the Seth Romero pick is the worst failure of process during Rizzo’s entire tenure of drafting.)
SMS
18 May 26 at 1:18 pm
Borrowing from a comment on WNFF, Morales’s Baseball Savant page shows him absolutely crushing sinkers and splitters, and doing pretty well vs sliders and cutters but flailing vs 4 seams. Most dramatic is his xSLG:
Splitter – 1.039
Sinker – .764
Cutter – .566
Slider – .461
4-seam – .334.
xwOBA is less dramatic.
https://prospectsavant.com/player/691002
JCA
18 May 26 at 3:10 pm
Good thought exercise.
The value of a “replacement player” in the parlance of WAR definitions and discussions is indeed zero. BUT, a replacement player is much, much better than a 16th round draft pick who never gets out of low-A. That’s what I was alluding to; if you draft 20 players a year and sign another 10-15 IFAs, that’s a 90-95% failure rate of players ever even getting to the majors to even get to that “zero WAR” replacement level.
Todd Boss
18 May 26 at 4:47 pm