Minor League Notables & Draft Pick Tracker - April 12th, 2026
40+ write-ups of nightly notables across all four levels & draft pick tracker
LOW-A ARMS
Devin Futrell | LHP | Boston Red Sox | Salem Ridge Yaks 5.0 IP / 0 H / 0 ER / 1 BB / 4 K / 52 NP
No-hit through five innings on 52 pitches in a 16-3 Ridge Yaks blowout over the Warbirds. Let’s sit with that pitch count for a second — 52 pitches to get through five innings without allowing a hit is not a guy grinding through traffic. That’s a left-hander with a plan, the stuff to execute it, and hitters who never had a chance to get comfortable. Futrell is the kind of arm that doesn’t announce himself with a radar gun reading that makes you drop your phone. He announces himself with results, and the results keep coming.
The profile here is built around deception, angle, and a four-pitch mix that keeps hitters from sitting on anything. As a left-hander working out of an extension-heavy delivery, the ball gets on right-handed hitters faster than they expect and the separation between his offerings makes sequencing genuinely difficult. The fastball has enough life to get through a Low-A lineup when he’s locating it, and the secondary stuff — a curve and a changeup that both have legitimate shape — gives him weapons on both sides of the plate against both handedness. He’s not overpowering anyone. He’s outsmarting them, and at Low-A that is a different and frankly more sustainable skill.
Dylan Brown is the name I keep coming back to in the Boston Low-A system and he’s a lock for My Guys Part 2 or 3. But don’t sleep on what Futrell is doing in Salem. The Ridge Yaks have a left-handed pipeline that is going to be worth tracking all season and Futrell is part of that conversation. He’ll be forcing his hand at a promotion to High-A soon enough
Sheng-En Lin | RHP | Cincinnati Reds | Daytona Tortugas 5.0 IP / 0 H / 0 ER / 2 BB / 5 K / 71 NP
It looks like Sheng-En Lin is going to be pitching full time in 2026 & stop me if you’ve heard this one — a pitcher goes five innings without allowing a hit, strikes out five, and the team wins 14-0. You’ve heard it tonight from Futrell too. Two no-hit outings through five innings on the same Low-A slate. The level is getting cooked.
But Lin is doing something worth examining independently of the blowout context. A 14-0 final can make a pitching line look better than it is because you assume the opponent folded. That’s not what happened here. Lin was dominant from the first pitch — two walks were the only traffic he created and the Tortugas offense just happened to also be putting up 14 runs behind him. The no-hitter through five is about Lin, not the score. He was dealing.
2.84 ERA on the season. The Reds have been quietly developing pitching at every level of their system and Lin is one of the names that deserves to be in that conversation. Especially if his focus is entirely on pitching this season. The command will be something to watch.
LOW-A BATS
JoJo Parker | SS | Toronto Blue Jays | Dunedin Blue Jays 4 AB / 2 R / 3 H / 1 2B / 4 RBI / 1 BB
The 8th overall pick in the 2025 draft goes 3-for-4 with four RBI, two runs scored, and a walk in a 13-6 Dunedin blowout over St. Lucie. Four runs batted in from the leadoff spot. Let me say that again — JoJo Parker was batting leadoff and drove in four runs. The contact tool that made him a consensus top-10 pick showed up tonight in a way that should generate real noise in the prospect community, and if it doesn’t, that’s on the evaluators who aren’t watching Florida State League games in April. I am. And I’m writing this down.
The extra base hit — a double — alongside three singles tells you the bat-to-ball is not selective. He’s making hard contact to multiple parts of the field and the RBI total reflects a hitter who is doing damage with runners on base, not just piling up empty contact. The walk caps off a night where Parker saw the ball well from the first inning to the last. This is the best individual performance from any top 2025 draft pick at the Low-A level tonight and it’s not particularly close. The Blue Jays knew what they were doing at pick 8. I want to give a shoutout to Blaine Bullard as well who has legitimate underlying metrics and is outperforming his draft stock. He looks like another piece in the Jays system that can climb the ranks with JoJo Parker.
Daniel Pierce | SS | Tampa Bay Rays | Charleston River Dogs 4 AB / 1 R / 2 H / 1 2B / 2 RBI / 1 BB
No home runs tonight but the professional nature of this line is what I keep coming back to. After going nuclear two nights ago — two home runs, four RBI, the kind of night that announces a prospect to anyone paying attention — Pierce came back and delivered something arguably more important: a process night. Double. Two RBI. A walk. He didn’t chase the big moment. He took what the game gave him and made it count.
That’s the thing about this 14th overall pick. The power was always going to show up — you don’t go in the top 15 of a draft without present tools that back the selection — but what makes a prospect a future big leaguer is whether the approach holds up when the stuff doesn’t all come together at once. Tonight it held up. .355 AVG on the season. The floor on this profile keeps rising and the Rays are going to have a decision to make about how long they keep him in Low-A.