Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 4/4/25

Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe where we’re enjoying a little cold snap before the heat cranks next week. Let me see how fast I can clear the questions in the queue…

Guest: Shaw shown you any new info in just a week in MLB?

Eric A Longenhagen: Nah, especially with the Japan trip in there, he deserves a nice, long runway to get comfortable after essentially skipping Iowa.

Baron: After doing the bluejays list and hearing scouts input of players. Who are the guys you are excited to watch in their system this year?

Idiotic Failson: Will Chandler Simpson be a viable big leaguer? I have sort of a prospect crush on him (and he’s not even a part of my favorite team’s farm system)

DDG: Any matchups on opening day that you want or recommend people to watch?

Eric A Longenhagen: High-A: Dayton at West Michigan – Chase Burns against several of the Tigers best guys

Eric A Longenhagen: Low-A: whoever Carolina plays

Eric A Longenhagen: the Carolina roster is so much fun

Eric A Longenhagen: I mean, those are pretty nutty comps.

Eric A Longenhagen: I like Francisca a lot but those are a little much

szakyl: I thought you had said in a previous chat that DeLauter would be dropping in your rankings due to his newest injury. I am remembering incorrectly, or did something give you pause in downgrading him?

Eric A Longenhagen: I felt like the risk profile of those power hitters ranked near him was similar. The others for K’s, DeLauter for injury.

FreeMingo: are you higher on Ben Rice or TJ Rumfield as the Yankees backup 1B/DH of the future ?

Eric A Longenhagen: Yeah, Rice’s power gives him ceiling Rumfield doesn’t have. Might as well try it to see if Rice can actually hit.

Gonzo: What’s the highest FV you ever gave to a prospect that never reached the minors? Excluding those who retired because of non-baseball injuries or non-baseball crimes

Eric A Longenhagen: At one point I think I had a 40+ on Max Marusak, and then he went to college and didn’t hit.

Donny: Have you heard anything about Johnny King? I know he will be in extended spring training but it seems like it’s been quiet for him, any velocity/stuff jumps that you’ve heard?

Eric A Longenhagen: My Florida sources did not see him during minor league ST

Jay: What do you make of Jack Leiter’s start to the season? Obviously won’t keep up this level of production but does it change your outlook on his future and how you look at pitching prospects?

Eric A Longenhagen: If he can sustain it that’s great. You could argue he belongs toward the back of the top 100 stacked with the other relief risk arms. He’s had shaky control for quite a while now, though. I’m not sure I’m willing to take two starts as gospel rather than the four years of relative wildness.

A.Y.: Do you like the chances of either of the Dodgers’ duo of Emil Morales, or Joendry Vargas to take a step forward and improve upon their zone-contact this year, and really break out? Quintero has better bat-to-ball skills, so I’m leaving him out. Also separately, it would look like Vargas has the actual skill + ability and tools to stick at SS despite being long-levered and an atypical size/build for shortstop, is there no chance he ends up being able to stick there and be a plus defender?

Eric A Longenhagen: I saw way more of Vargas this spring and think he’s still pretty long, but it looks like he’s learning how to compensate for that. I’d guess his chances of reaching a viable place are greater. And he looks pretty good on defense. There is a point where one’s size becomes too much to move at shortstop, but there’s also a point where your size (and the easy plus arm strength it gives you) is an asset and I think Vargas is going to mature in that Goldilocks Zone.

Eric A Longenhagen: Plus glove, though? that’s a lot

Eric A Longenhagen: All Star

guest: colt emerson hit a ball 115 mph and had an avg bat speed of 77 mph (99th percentile for big leaguers) in spring training. did these numbers make you reconsider his power ceiling?

Eric A Longenhagen: Those are relevant data points, yes. My apprehension with Emerson has more to do with his seeming inability to cover elevated fastballs and less with how explosive his hands are (they’re explosive).

Eric A Longenhagen: Also remember I’ve got that guy ranked 30th in baseball, it’s not like I don’t like him. And I’d ask you if his actual power production might cause *you* to reconsider what it’s going to be. Colt Emerson – Stats – Batting | FanGraphs Baseball

Cobie: Was Grant Taylor’s ST surprising to you or was it kind of expected and just need health? I was surprised he didn’t jump up the ranks a little bit.

Eric A Longenhagen: The box he has to check is: show this stuff across a starter’s load of innings. It wasn’t possible for him to check that box during ST.

Ogbert: Which non-Big 3 Red Sox prospect is one to watch this minor league season? Perales? Paez? The Password?

D backs fan: Is Tim Tawa going to be this years ADLC? I know it early and it’s Reno, but he is smashing everything.

Eric A Longenhagen: I think he can be a valuable multi-positional role player but probably not an everyday stalwart. It’s awesome that he hasn’t struck out yet this year, though. If there have been real changes that help him make more contact, that’d be better. After six games, it’s early to sniff around whether or not that’s the case.

Moises Chace: What are the chances he’s able to stick as a starter?  And if he’s a reliever, does he have elite closer ceiling?

Eric A Longenhagen: Has a chance but those took a hit this spring because his conditioning and velo  have backed up. Elite closer, like Aroldis Chapman or Edwin Diaz type guy? Nah. But a closer? Yeah he could get there.

Charlie: I’ve heard a lot about Brewers reliever Craig Yoho. What can you tell me about his outlook?

Eric A Longenhagen: Plus-plus secondary stuff, gonna be a good reliever. Wish he’d have broken camp, he’s been hurt a lot and may only have so many darts in there.

Sadness: You’re the only prospect writer I’ve seen write about Nasim Nunez of the Nats. If all he ever does is play good defense, get on base (walks a lot), and steals a ton, why isn’t that good enough to start on some major league team? I feel like he was overlooked because he was a rule 5 pick, but maybe he’s rightfully overlooked because his lack of power.

Eric A Longenhagen: His skillset is that of a defense-oriented utility guy. He might start for stretches here and there, but on a good team he’s a defensive replacement.

Eric A Longenhagen: Which is still great!

Eric A Longenhagen: If it’s necessitated by injury, yeah. If X and Lopez are healthy all year then I kinda doubt it. Given the position the Marlins are in I’d think it’s more likely they cycle guys on and off the margins of their roster all year searching for guys on waivers and such who can contribute, rather than start Acosta’s clock.

Wood: Morning Eric! Any new info on Luiner Avila? Dude absolutely shoved in his first start this year. He had a 34% ball rate in the start.

Eric A Longenhagen: Assuming he’s the same guy I saw last fall, has backend starter look to me. Good changeup, other stuff is either average or shade below.

Mr. Burrito: If my Dodgers do trade another pitcher for prospects (and I’m not saying they should, but it feels possible) what kind of return should they seek? Power? Other pitchers? Lotto pick youngsters? Future draft capital? This week’s swap of Duran for Ruiz feels like a necessary risk because of Rule 5 issues, but other moves won’t be so forced.

Eric A Longenhagen: They’ve tended to trade for newly-drafted guys, which makes a ton of sense given that then they have as much time to develop those guys as possible. It also keeps them clear of 40-man clog for as long as possible. Consolidation trades for stars, and piñata trades where you ship out talented-but-blocked guys like Michael Busch are what they should be doing, and are doing.

Eric A Longenhagen: He’s a stud and it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up being the best guy from this rookie class

BP: early thoughts on this upcoming draft class

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m more enthused about it than some of my peers

TooDamnTall: I loved your audit articles from the past two years. It seems like two major recurring issues are projecting hitters abilities to handle higher level stuff and pitchers ability to develop new pitches. Do teams have any useful internal information on these things that you’re aware of?

Eric A Longenhagen: Thanks. I think it varies how resourceful teams are when it comes to finding potential pitfalls, or their foresight about how they’ll change a player once they acquire them. When we’re talking about lower-minors hitters who might eventually struggle with MLB velocity, it can be challenging because they face so little MLB-quality velocity that there’s virtually no sample screaming at you that it’ll be a problem. There are definitely teams who know, before they draft or trade for a pitcher, what dev stuff they’re going to do as soon as they get him.

Galen: What about Chase Dollander gives optimism that he will be one of only (if not only) Rockies pitching prospect to be succesful?

Eric A Longenhagen: Big stuff with movement that finishes in all four quadrants of the zone, pretty good command of that stuff, prototypical build and athlete

A.Y.: Esteury Ruiz seems to have strong EV’s for his size, “simple” as turning it into pulled liners and fly-balls?

Eric A Longenhagen: He’s already pulling it a lot. Chase has been his biggest issue.

Guest: In a dynasty league would it be crazy to take Josue De Paula over Roki Sasaki in a DMB projection league?  I always bake in pitchers will miss 1-2 years because of arm surgery.  It seems Sasaki has struggled a bit but not surprised by that… your thoughts?

Eric A Longenhagen: Trade down and take your guy. Get a haul for the Roki pick.

Guest: Kyren Paris had a pretty good spring/start to the year following a swing change. Is the swing actually better, or is this just SSS?

Eric A Longenhagen: Haven’t seen enough of him to have a cogent opinion. A scout this spring asked me if I was buying in or not, which either meant his interested was piqued by what he saw, or he was being sarcastic about what the internet was buzzing about.

Guest: You sometimes see a prospect be touted as a good, or at least competent, defender, and then he makes it to the majors and he’s visibly awful. How does that happen? The most prominent recent example is Jasson Dominguez.

Eric A Longenhagen: Evaluating defense is hard unless you have the tools to do it properly. In Jasson’s case, he missed so much time due to injury that one could have hoped he’d improve on defense with reps. But I agree it’s still incumbent upon the analyst to say “but hey he sucks out there right now”. Here is the final paragraph of my offseason report on Dominguez:

Eric A Longenhagen: Where he needs to improve is on defense. Perhaps because he’s missed extended time due to injury, Domínguez has sketchy feel for his position. His reads and routes can be wayward, and he looks uncomfortable at the catch point. He runs pretty well, but not well enough to play center field without good instincts and feel. The week of list publication, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters that Cody Bellinger and Aaron Judge will likely push Domínguez to left field, which is probably the best fit for him in a vacuum anyway. A more optimistic contact projection than a year ago outweighs what is lost from Domínguez looking like flub-prone defender, and he should be an above-average everyday outfielder and young, build-around bat.

a man has no name: any prospects that jump out to you in the NL west that may have floundered a bit in their first taste of the big leagues but could take a step forward this year? Kind of like what Heliot Ramos last year

Wood: We got MLB bold predictions at the end of spring. What are your MiLB bold predictions this year?

TooDamnTall: Do you you think your scouting results would be significantly different if you had team data on players, or that it’d be largely the same?

Eric A Longenhagen: Uh, I guess it depends what you’d give me access to that I don’t already have. I imagine some of the biomechanical stuff, or other proprietary data that I can’t even conceive of, might move the needle for me once I’m taught what to do with it.

Afterthought: Anything to Braxton Bragg? Was perfectly good in his first full-season (major caveat being 23 in low-A), 94-96 with sink, sweeper, changeup. Pretty good command, but concerns his fastball is too hittable.

Eric A Longenhagen: I have him sitting 93.5, funky low-ish release that becoming more popular, could probably stand to elevate more. Sweeper more average, changeup a little below with potential to be average. Swingman type.

Idiotic Failson: Can you give me like a 50th percentile outcome comparison for George Lombard (ie – if things go reasonably well he could be like x player)? Trying to figure out his toolkit.

Eric A Longenhagen: Trevor Story is probably a little too hot a comp for the 50th% outcome, but when I think “righty-hitting shortstop with lots of K’s but big power” he’s the guy who comes to mind.

Eric A Longenhagen: Tim Beckham feels a little too light to be the comp, too volatile from chase, but in that vein.

Guest: I read in the top 100 article a 50 FV player ranks in the top 15 at his position.  So is a 55 fv top 10 a 60 top 5 and 70 top 2?

Eric A Longenhagen: You can see who the two 70s are, there are a handful of 60s, Gunnar is on pace to be somewhere in that 60/70 mix, and then you transition into the 55s (thru Muncy) and then the next 10 or so guys I’d call 50s

Eric A Longenhagen: like 15th, give or take, over 6 or so years is what I’m aiming for as a 50

Lord Thunder: If I remember right, you were pretty high on Wehiwa Aloy a few months ago. Is there still a chance of him going in the top 10?

Eric A Longenhagen: I think so. Power hitting shortstop who crushed the Cape.

Jos: Hyeseong Kim 김혜성 has gotten off to a solid start with OKC — see anything new from him that encourages/discourages you about his big league potential?

Eric A Longenhagen: He’s a wee lad. Great athlete, think he’ll be a damn fine utility guy

Refugee: I look at hype videos of Jack Bauer and feel queasy at the idea of a teenager throwing 100 – is this how it’s going to be moving forward, or is he rare?

Eric A Longenhagen: You’ve got your Hunter Greenes and such but the track record of guys throwing that hard at this age is not the best. It’s way different doing it every fifth day for seven months than it is doing it once a week for closer to three

Eric A Longenhagen: He’ll go high, though.

Eric A Longenhagen: And he should, he’s good, but I’m sober about the risk there.

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m sure yee old social media is too, right? They’ve seen enough of this before to know how it might go. Right?

Stacy: What are some player comps for Kevin Alcantara and what do you see as his floor/ceiling?

Eric A Longenhagen: Has 30/30 ceiling if he actually hit and naturally develops feel for lift, might be Lewis Brinson

TooDamnTall: In a recent chat you mentioned that you wanted your colleagues to feel what it’s like to be wrong in front of a large audience. Isn’t it the nature of the game to be wrong pretty consistently? With top prospects busting or unheralded guys breaking out, I was curious how often you really feel like you messed up scouting a guy.

Eric A Longenhagen: I’m pretty hard on myself tbh

David Wiers: Ohmydays that Chase Burns video. I know you said reliever for him, is that for anything specific, or pitchers gonna pitcher?

Eric A Longenhagen: I said “relief risk” compared to the other guys in that FV tier (like Bubba and Sproat etc) but I think Burns can start. Miz too

TooDamnTall: What’s your take on Brewer’s Luis Pena. Is the bat going to be too light?

Eric A Longenhagen: No, he’s good. Wanna see it for like two weeks at Carolina as I work the Brewers list before putting him on the hondo right around Jefferson Rojas or so.

Eric A Longenhagen: hmmmm, that’s pretty close

El Zilcho: When do you expect to do updated draft rankings? Any idea what the top 5 looks like now?

Eric A Longenhagen: Gerth and I started working on those this week. Would ballpark them for two weeks from today.

Eric A Longenhagen: Top five? Jace probably falls out, his body and bat speed have backed up pretty badly. Arnold is still up there, Aloy still up there. Ther rest of my pre-season 50s probably hold. Kilen might be up there now.

DJ: Any non-drafted free agents from last year you’ve found interesting? Jack Hostetler seems to be gaining attention in Brewers circles.

Bog: What do you think about the Giants putting Birdsong in the bullpen?

Eric A Longenhagen: Bummed, but as they’ve shown with Roupp, it’s not necessarily permanent.

JV: What is Canarella upside as a big leaguer?

Eric A Longenhagen: Jackie Bradley

Salty Reds Fan: Why do you think you are lower on Sal Stewart than other outlets? Just want to see if I am missing something as well

Eric A Longenhagen: Head is flying all over the place when he swings, late and underneath a ton of fastballs.

Eric A Longenhagen: He has better feel for adjusting to breakers than Tyler Locklear, but my spidey sense were tingling for the same reasons there. And Jordan Beck. And Matt Mervis

Eric A Longenhagen: It’s a common potential issue that isn’t really expoosed until you face 94+ every day

Guest: Hey Eric, long time reader of yours, very much appreciate all the work you put in. please don’t interpret this as some sort of attack, just a curiosity. On July 7th of last year you published a 45+ for Kristian Campbell. He had already been up and successful against AA pitching for over a month. On Sep 27 you described yourself as having gone from the high guy to the low guy on him. You said you needed much more deep analysis vs upper level pitching to say if he’d be a surefire regular. what changed between then and him receiving a 60 with no further games played for you? could he have received a 60 with more analysis earlier?

Eric A Longenhagen: The other publications were more correctly aggressive with him than I was. When I wrote the Sox list last year he was breaking out, and at the time it was novel to have him as high as I did. After that the others raced past me and basically said “this is completely real” and they were right.

Eric A Longenhagen: Okay, I have to go because I’d like to polish the Giants list today as I ran into enough of their guys at random this spring to update a couple things. Look for that soon. Orioles and White Sox lists are also in progress. Hope everyone has a good weekend and enjoys the minor league ball.