"Your Guys - The 2024 Edition"
The team over at xwbaseball.com put together a prospect comparison/contrast between me and 3 other Prospect Analysts
If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can either click the link here: https://www.xwbaseball.com/your-guys-2024 or read through it here as I’ll share the contents in this post.
I did a short Q&A interview with the team over at xwbaseball.com and wanted to share it with you all if you hadn’t had a chance to check it out.
xwbaseball put together a compare and contrast in the form of a Q&A of the top 25 prospects between me and 3 other Prospect Analysts — NaeNae, Upside Prospect, and Beck from The Dynasty Dugout:
Green, the analyst ranked better than the group average. Red, worse.
Nae didn't rank Yamamoto but whatever, you're not really a prospect if you sign for $325mm
xwbaseball
Our own profile can be expedited. We're six dynasty analysts who debate and average our thoughts together.
We like Amador better than this group most likely because we tend to push ultra high floor players up our ranks, and Amador's hit tool is clearly one of the best in the minors. You'll also notice it's relatively rare for us to include pitching in our top 25, Yamamoto and Skenes being the notable exceptions.
On likely changes going into our next rank, I would be surprised if Termarr Johnson and Samuel Basallo don't force themselves into our top 25 in short order. Basallo certainly has the hype factor at the moment!
You can find our obp top 100 here.
@Prospect Tilt
1. So, your guy for 2024 is Walker Jenkins, ranked #5 on your list, highest from this group of writers. It’s early and irresponsible, but what kind of player comp would you throw out there for him?
In most years, Walker Jenkins would’ve been the first overall pick. The 2023 draft class just happened to include Wyatt Langford, Paul Skenes, and Dylan Crews — three of the most heralded collegiate players in recent memory.
I view Jenkins as a potential top overall prospect after this year when the others above him graduate. I think he’s that good and he combines a hit and power tool from the left side that is precocious for a prep bat. He had an excellent sample at the Complex and at Low-A last year, which confirmed my belief as he slashed: .362/.417/.571 with 3 homers and 6 steals.
He’s already listed at 6’3 210 and there’s reason to believe there’s more to project in terms of growth which indicates more power on the table. The hit tool is unquestioned as he showed an uncanny ability to hit for average as evidenced by his upper percentile Z-contact at Low-A last year — regardless of the small sample.
And as far as being early, or as you phrased it, irresponsibly early, I’m just weighing him into my top 10 as a fund manager would. It’s as much of a ranking based on where he stands today in my eyes and future projections. And I want to be early on that and have him weighed accordingly in my top 5 because my top 4 are a fairly safe consensus. It’s hard to throw around comps for players, especially this young, but Larry Walker is a comp that gets thrown out a lot with Walker Jenkins and it’s not just because they share the same name. Jenkins has a similar swing path and follow through and he profiles as a prototypical corner outfielder with plus hit and plus power potential to stick and produce like a premier player at the position.
If Jackson Chourio, Wyatt Langford, Jackson Holliday, and Junior Caminero are my Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft — then consider Walker Jenkins my Nvidia or AMD. I want a lot of shares early and I want a lot of the upside.
2. Gotta ask about Emmanuel Rodriguez, your #10 prospect. Three of the five writers involve in this piece didn’t rank him in their t25. This guy is divisive in the prospect world. What’s your take?
Let's go back to the world of stocks when discussing Emmanuel Rodriguez. The prospect world isn’t much different when weighing future projections. To put it simply, E-Rod has as much upside as anyone in the minors, though there are concerns.
The plate approach is notorious and I think he may be divisive because of his level of passivity when it comes to his approach. He doesn’t chase outside the zone and ran chase rates so low that they were borderline Death Valley, especially for a player so young.
As I mentioned earlier if Chourio through Caminero is my Google, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft, consider Emmanuel Rodriguez my CRISPR. There’s a lot of divisiveness when it comes to the tech yet nobody in their right mind doubts the upside and game-changing ability it offers. E-Rod is a potential 30-35+ HR bat if he were a bit more aggressive, and while the K rates may always be fairly high, his walk rates offset it, giving him a high OBP floor and a huge slugging ceiling. I view him as a consensus top 5-10 prospect at the end of this year, so why not include him where I see fit a year before if I’m projecting a breakout season?
3. Outside of Yamamoto, Cade Horton is your top true pitching prospect at #17. In your view, SP1 through SP5, where would be slot in for the Cubs based on skills today?
I think it was mid-season last year when I tweeted out a question posing whether or not Cade Horton was the best pitching prospect in baseball not named Andrew Painter — because I was leaning that way for some time. It was met with a lot of divisiveness and some confirmation — mostly from Cubs fans. Ricky Tiedemann, Noah Schultz, and Jackson Jobe were a few of the replies.
Fast forward a year later and Horton is a consensus top 3 prospect arm mostly everywhere with either Paul Skenes or Jackson Jobe leading the way. Horton leads the way for me. I think he’s safe and I think the floor is legitimate and he pairs a heavy fastball with good movement to go with a downright filthy slider. He also has a curveball that he can get over for strikes and can flash plus. That’s 3 plus pitches with a chance for a fourth in his changeup if he can develop it.
I’d say the ceiling is quite high with Horton and paired with his high-floor outcome, I see him as an SP2 with potential for more. He’s a short-armer and you can almost tell he was a former QB when he’s on the mound, but that doesn’t detract from his clean mechanics. He has some of the cleanest mechanics I’ve seen from a pitcher in the minors last year and it’s a repeatable delivery. There’s a little Dylan Cease in him if I look close enough.
4. Who is the player on your t25 that since doing these ranks, either via an early spring training look or additional research, you’re thinking: I probably need to push this guy up?
Coby Mayo and Samuel Basallo. I’m sure Orioles fans will love that.
I already have Mayo ranked 13th but I think his outcome is a lot more probable than some of the others. The kid mashes and he looks to be a staple in the Orioles lineup for years to come. They’ll find a place for him soon if he keeps hitting like this.
Every time I see a clip of Basallo swinging the bat, I’m in awe. I have him ranked 20th and that’s admittedly too low. In my Projecting the Future post which ranked the top 61 hitters for 2025, I ranked Basallo 6th and I’m starting to feel like that is more of an accurate placement for this type of bat. The defensive questions linger but the bat looks like it’s going to be prodigious.
Lazaro Montes is someone who was originally out of my top 25 but pushed up because I think he’s the second coming of a Yordan Alvarez type. He’s not going to post gaudy average numbers, but he’s going to maintain modest to above-average OBP’s while being a slugging monster. He is going to feast in his home ballpark this year and I can see the Montes hype train in full force by early to mid-season. He has all the makings of a premier slugger.
https://twitter.com/Prospect_Tilt
@NaeNaeTakes
1. Ethan Salas is your top hitting relative prospect for 2024 (versus peers, +5 spots higher). Only writer to t10 him in our sample. Clearly, he is a freak of nature for what he’s doing at this age, and playing inside an org that is not afraid to push players up the ladder. Two questions: best guess for when his debuts, and is he your presumptive #1 prospect for 2025?
Salas is tricky for me because although he’s so advanced, development is not linear and he might not keep improving at the same rate. There’s plenty of prestige and production on offense and he has the potential to be a Gold Glove caliber defender at the game’s toughest position. What he did as a catcher at his age was unprecedented but I wouldn’t expect that he debuts before the fall of 2025. The Padres like to push their players but catchers take time, even ones this advanced. He’s going to need some time for his raw power to come in and will have to adjust to upper minor pitching. As it stands, he’s my presumptive #1 prospect for 2025. He’s my highest ranked prospect that seems unlikely to graduate this year (with James Wood and Dylan Crews firmly in the “maybe” bucket). However, if it’s between him and the field, I’d bet on the field. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about prospects is that you should always expect the unexpected.
2. You must love what you’re seeing out of James Woods this spring after making him your #3 prospect in January. The strikeout rate in the minors has been a little high, but you looked through that clearly. What kind of offensive impact and shape of production are you expecting?
Yes, I’m a big James Wood guy. The strikeout rate at Double-A was definitely concerning but I think it’s important to look at the context of it. Most of his strikeout problems had to do with his swing decisions taking a step back compared to High-A. Wood’s long levers leave him prone to swing and miss but his actual bat-to-ball skills are quite good for his size. I like to bet on athletes figuring it out and there’s very few that are better there than Wood. If he finds his approach against better pitches, I believe we’ll see the strikeout rate come down to a more manageable number (though I’d like to note that even with strikeout problems he had a 124 wRC+ at Double-A). As for the shape of his production, I think he has 40 home run upside with high BABIPs and a solid walk rate. Wood has the chance to be the anchor of the Nats lineup while being a positive on defense and on the bases. That’s serious upside.
3. Jackson Jobe and Paul Skenes are your biggest pitching “guys,” each about 5 - 6 average slots above peers. There’s clearly been a shift in prospect rankings to fade arms for injury and RP risk. My sense is you are doing this less than others given you’ve t25-ed four arms. How are you threading this needle?
I would say that I do typically rank hitters above pitchers like most evaluators. Pitchers get injured more, they’re harder to project, and generally speaking they are worth less than hitters. With Skenes and Jobe finding their way onto the back of my Top 10 it speaks to the relatively low degree of risk that they come with. Skenes looks like he has 3 plus pitches with plus command in the body of a workhorse. He’s not perfect but those pitchers don’t come around often. I love the data and depth of Jobe’s arsenal and like Skenes, he looks like he’s going to wind up with ace level command. Jobe slides in 3 spots behind Skenes because I’d like to see him maintain his stuff and production across a bigger workload. These two leave few boxes unchecked which makes me feel comfortable ranking them with the game’s best prospects.
4. Who is the player on your t25 that since doing these ranks, either via an early spring training look or additional research, you’re thinking: I probably need to push this guy up?
Jared Jones of the Pirates was not in my Top 25 but he immediately comes to mind for this prompt. I felt that I was high on him at the time when I ranked him #63. Now he’s in camp throwing harder with improved shape on his fastball. If I could do it again I’d be a lot more aggressive with him and push him into the 30-40 range.
https://twitter.com/NaeNaeTakes
@upsideprospect
1. You placed the Martian in your top 5 versus industry consensus from this group outside of the top 10. What’s your read on him in 2024 for arrival ETA, and impact in that lineup?
Jasson Domínguez is an interesting example of the prospect hype cycle i.e., the ebbs and flows of prospects values as they develop. He signed for $5.1 million out of the Dominican to the team with the biggest media market. Ridiculous comparisons to Mantle and Trout were regularly floated. He proceeds to make the majors within 2 years of debuting essentially fulfilling the lofty expectations. Yet, here we are today, and he’s underrated.
One value-add of mine is translating scouting reports to dynasty value. I think that’s a factor here. Domínguez has sub-par defense, which tends to hold him back on non-fantasy lists. There are a couple of question marks around the hit tool, but in my opinion, they were mostly answered last year. As a 20-year-old in AA, he walked 15.2% of the time against a 25.6% K rate. He has posted double-digit walk rates his entire minor league career. Now, comes the fun stuff. He’s built like a tank and projects to ++power, and he runs. He just recorded a 19/41 HR/SB season. He’s going to run a fair amount early in his career, but there’s maturity risk. The maturity risk is mitigated by the fact that when his speed is declining his power should be increasing. Domínguez had TJ surgery and has a target return date after the All-Star break. I think once he’s gotten in an adequate number of rehab games, he’ll be up and hitting in the NYY lineup. When he returns, I’d expect him to be in the 6-9 range of the lineup initially.
2. Jett Williams is your second “guy,” +5 spots above peers at #16. What kind of ceiling does this guy have, what’s the power projection look like to go with the wheels?
Is Jett Williams getting Mighty Mouse talk yet? This 5’6” kid can smack the ball. Williams was drafted 14th overall in the 2022 draft so he comes with draft pedigree. He’s got a rhythmic bounce before a shallow load keeping his hands tight to his chest and does most of his damage with electric bat speed and a moderate leg kick. The result is that of a hitter looking to do damage. His GB/FB ratio has been well below 1.0x so far. His pull% has hovered around 41%. Given his frame, I marked the power at 45 grade, but the window is 40-55.
Williams jumped from Single A to a cup of coffee in AA at the end of the season. He posted an eye-popping 145 wRC+ for the entirety of the 2023 season. He got to that number with a very good eye and ++contact. In High A he had a 16.5% chase rate and a 6.3% SwStr rate. The numbers were similar in Single A. On the surface, that resulted in a 19.5% BB rate and a .425 OBP. You know what comes next. It’s in his name. When Jett gets on base, he puts his speed to work. He stole 45 bases. Speed is an integral part of his game. It’s also an integral part of fantasy baseball.
What are the risks? Jett still struck out 22.1% of the time. Part of the low chase rate is generally being passive. His Z-swing% was 58.1% in High A, so he’s flat out taking too many pitches he should be swinging at. Hitting the ball in the air a lot gets him to more power than his frame suggests, but it also leads to more in-play outs. There could be an AVG league vs OBP league divergence with Jett i.e., his AVG may be below average while his OBP well above. Longenhagen at Fangraphs noted Jett struggles with the upper part of the zone, which could be exposed by better velocity in the upper minors. That’s a watch item.
When I look at Jett, I see a very attractive fantasy asset led by speed, OBP, and more pop than expected. 70 grade runners that can tap into league average power or more are very valuable (and fun) in dynasty leagues. Throw on top of that combination a plus OBP and you have elite potential.
3. Luisangel Jose Acuña at #20 is pretty eye-opening. Only writer to t25 him. What’s your take here?
Don’t sweat the name, kid, because folks aren’t putting that kind of hype on you. Acuña is another speed + hit call that I think gets to more power than expected. Like his brother, Acuña loves to run. He stole a cool 57 bases last year following 40 the year prior. It’s a key focus for him and a key category for us. Lock it in. Inconsistency, specifically poorly timed inconsistency, is what impacts his current value. If the season cut off at the end of his Frisco sample (TEX AA), this wouldn’t be non-consensus. But of course, it didn’t so we’re left staring at a 76 wRC+ and a .243/.317/.304 slash line from Binghampton (NYM AA). When you have a larger sample, use it. Acuña got in 569 PA during 2023 and if he didn’t get traded, you’d be looking at a slash line of .294/.359/.410 with 9 HR, 57 SB, and a 9.1%/18.6% BB/K split when you pulled up his Fangraphs page as opposed to the split samples.
The power is undoubtedly a question mark. His set up is almost a carbon copy of his brother’s with the bat nearly vertical to the plane out in front and a big leg kick that leads him into a rotation that looks quite powerful to me. Acuña is 5’8”, but he’s compact and muscular even more so than Jett to my untrained eye. My thesis is that he’ll get to more power-than-expected and certainly more than he’s shown so far. Still, I didn’t stuff the rating and put a 45 grade on it.
Ultimately, Acuña’s value will ride on the outcome of his hit tool. He doesn’t swing and miss that often and has seen his K% fall from mid 20s to high teens as he’s progressed. The quality of contact is more of a focus. An out is an out and, while Acuña has wheels, he’ll need to show more consistent and better quality of contact to reach the top 50-75 fantasy players. Another aspect of Acuña’s prospect value is that he’ll start 2024 in AAA a phone call away from the majors. He has what I consider to be a fantasy-friendly profile and a near-term ETA without major K concerns. I like the stock.
4. Who is the player on your t25 that since doing these ranks, either via an early spring training look or additional research, you’re thinking: I probably need to push this guy up?
I’ll use this question to reiterate process in prospecting. Spring Training results don’t generally impact my rankings. I typically capitalize on the hype cycle in spring training through trading rather than adjusting expectations or analyses that were arrived at on a much larger and more competitive sample. You could slightly adjust up players that are surprise opening day roster adds to account for a closer realization of actual fantasy value, but it’s not exactly what you’re getting at.
I don’t want to leave you with nothing, so instead I’ll pick a guy outside of my top 50 that I think could be top 25 by midseason: Dylan Beavers. Tack him onto the long line of Orioles hitting prospects. Resembling Kyle Tucker, he’s a 6’4” lefty with plus athleticism. He had a nice debut in AA last season and should start there in ’24. I think he may be getting lost in the noise of a deep system because generally power + speed bats that are holding their own get a lot of attention. Go get him because the attention is coming.
https://twitter.com/UpsideProspect
@upper_Beck
1. Alright Beck, your biggest call on the t25 relative to peers is Chase DeLauter at #17. He hit that freaking bomb in spring training the other day that opened some eyes. Still feel good with the rank, or wondering if he belongs higher up already?
Chase DeLauter’s consensus ranking is probably a function of his short pro sample relative to his peers. His slide started during his draft year when a broken foot shortened his final year at JMU. Prior to that he was a pre-season golden spikes watch list candidate and a potential first overall selection.
I haven’t come off of DeLauter despite his losing time to injury in the years since his draft. He’s a physical outlier at 6’4, 235, and moves exceptionally well for that size. His bat-to-ball is exceptional largely because his bat path is optimized with no extraneous movement.
It’s super encouraging to see him perform as well as he has this spring. His 2023 season was just 242 plate appearances, of which only 28 were at AA, so being able to see how he contends with more advanced pitching has been a big deal. I am more bullish on him now than I was entering spring training and I think a coherent argument for him as a top 10 fantasy prospect is possible.
2. Colson Montgomery and Coby Mayo are your second and third top picks versus peers, each 3B and ranked pretty closely at #16 and #12, respectively. Can you compare their upside, floors, and overall production?
Coby Mayo has also been a big spring standout. Mike Elias and co. have proven they’re extraordinarily adept at maximizing their bonus pool, typically by targeting under-slot college bats with their early selection and buying high ceiling preps down the draft board. Mayo was one of those heists.
He has huge present power with the potential for more on the way and made about MLB-average zone contact at Triple-A, so it seems probable he’s going to get to that power without being a traditional slugging windmill. His 100th percentile outcome is something like Austin Riley and his floor is relatively high by virtue of his on-base ability.
Colson Montgomery is a little trickier for me. I’m a fan, especially after seeing him live in several games in last year’s AFL. I think he has an exceptional frame and big time athleticism, plus the skills to be a high OBP option on the left side of the infield. That said, he has more question marks in my mind than Mayo. He was still wearing a back brace in the fall and has missed significant time. His 100th percentile outcome is something resembling a toned-down Corey Seager but I’d project him as less likely than Mayo to reach their respective maximum potentials.
3. Did Jordan Lawlar’s 2023 season change your opinion of him at all? That was a rollercoaster in terms of perception, and he begins the 2024 season as your #9 prospect.
Lawlar’s 2023 didn’t change all that much for me, honestly. I was high on him at the top of his draft. It was encouraging to see a full workload coming off of his shoulder injury and a jump in his underlying data, but what we saw was also about what I had expected for him. I don’t put any stock into his brief MLB stint to close the year.
4. Who is the player on your t25 that since doing these ranks, either via an early spring training look or additional research, you’re thinking: I probably need to push this guy up?
Spencer Jones isn’t technically in the top 25, but his spring has really vaulted him up my board. Jones is an extreme outlier athlete — 80 grade when adjusted for his size — and has more damage potential on contact than anyone in the minor leagues. His 2023 saw him struggle to adjust to professional pitching and strike out in just a touch under 30% of all plate appearances. His contact rates were fine, hovering around 72-74% all season long, but his swing decisions were firmly below average. Should that change like he displayed in a small spring sample, he’s one of the very few prospects I can envision competing for MVP awards.
https://twitter.com/Upper_Beck