Recently I published my Peripheral Prospect hitters for 2021. In a perfect world I would have published my thoughts on a wider array of hitters periodically throughout the season. Alas, this is not a perfect world, so I settled for a year-end catch-all post.

Rinse and repeat for pitchers. The rules: (1) They pitched in the high minors (Double-A or Triple-A) but not the MLB level, and (2) they cannot be featured on any prominent top-100 list. Top-100 updates count (and all due respect to those updated lists, because revising your priors is not a bad thing!).

Brace yourselves: I’m kicking this off with three Cleveland farmhands with whom I implore you must familiarize yourself. Eight Peripheral Prospect pitchers for your fine Wednesday:

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In a former life, I had the time and energy to keep up with Peripheral Prospects on a semiweekly basis. That dream hibernated in 2020 when the pandemic killed the minor league season and died for good this year when I simply failed to uphold my end of the bargain.

But I love Peripheral Prospects and the inexact science/exact art of digging up breakout fringe and non-prospects with potential to make waves at the big-league level despite lacking the requisite hype. These breakouts make for feel-good stories, but for fantasy baseball purposes they’re market inefficiencies that can change the trajectories of dynasty (or even redraft) teams.

So, I want to spill at least a little bit of digital ink in honor of my favorite Peripheral Prospect hitters (and pitchers, coming in a separate post). A year-end catch-all post loses the dynamics of the ebb and flow of player performance; I benefit from these slash lines being etched in stone. But that hindsight should make the selections here a bit tighter than might have normally been picking five fresh names every other week for six months.

Anyway, here’s my list of top-8 Peripheral Prospect hitters from 2021 (because 10 was too many—this is rarefied air, y’all). The only rules: (1) They played in the high minors (Double-A or Triple-A) but not the MLB level, and (2) they cannot be featured on any prominent top-100 list. I’m going to rank them loosely from favorite to least-favorite. Let’s go!

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Back in 2019, Brad Johnson and I co-authored a weekly series called “Peripheral Prospects” that was extremely fun to write and (in my opinion) dropped some genuinely good nuggets on unloved fringe- and non-prospects. Because many of the players featured throughout the series did not debut in 2019 or even in 2020, I wanted to publish a post dedicated to keeping an eye on some of those circa-2019 peripheral prospects this past season.

That’s pretty much it. In the coming weeks, I’ll post lists of my favorite peripheral prospect hitters and pitchers for the 2021 season. Until then, let’s review how some of my favorite peripheral prospects from 2019 performed in 2021.

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In 2019, Brad Johnson and I published a weekly series in which we, each on a semiweekly basis, identified three or four or five players in the Minor Leagues who (1) had not appeared on previous top-prospect lists and (2) appeared to us to be capable of producing admirably, perhaps significantly, at the big-league level at some point for fantasy purposes.

Because of an actual force majeure (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic), Peripheral Prospects was rendered temporarily null as the Minor League Baseball season was cancelled. Alas, we published nothing about peripheral prospects. But that does not mean peripheral prospects did not thrive! Peripheral prospects indeed thrived.

I figured it would behoove me to not only review my favorite peripheral prospects from the end of 2019 but also highlight my favorite (existing) peripheral prospects heading into 2021, before a whole new batch of peripheral prospects is anointed. Yesterday, I revisited my 10 favorites from 2019; today, I’ll highlight another 10 eight whose progress I’m eager to monitor in 2021.

Presented in chronological order (and not by favoritism):

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In 2019, Brad Johnson and I published a weekly series in which we, each on a semiweekly basis, identified three or four or five players in the Minor Leagues who (1) had not appeared on previous top-prospect lists and (2) appeared to us to be capable of producing admirably, perhaps significantly, at the big-league level at some point for fantasy purposes.

Because of an actual force majeure (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic), Peripheral Prospects was rendered temporarily null as the Minor League Baseball season was cancelled. Alas, we published nothing about peripheral prospects. But that does not mean peripheral prospects did not thrive! Peripheral prospects indeed thrived.

I figured it would behoove me to not only review my favorite peripheral prospects from the end of 2019 but also highlight my favorite (existing) peripheral prospects heading into 2021, before a whole new batch of peripheral prospects is anointed. Here, I’ll revisit my 10 favorites from 2019; next time, I’ll highlight another 10 whose progress I’m eager to monitor in 2021.

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Last offseason, over brunch at some restaurant in Phoenix, Brad Johnson and I, in coordination with FanGraphs’ Powers That Be, revived a recently deceased series about prospects. We had to attribute to it a new name, but its purpose remained steadfast: to identify intriguing but unheralded Minor League talent. This is the corner of fantasy baseball in which Brad and I thrive. I’m not one for series — I never thought I had any good ideas — but I had always wanted to do something like this, but for fantasy purposes.

Alas, Peripheral Prospects was born, a phoenix from the ashes. (A good metaphor, this, because in Phoenix we ate at a restaurant with ashtrays.) We published every Monday steadily for months until the grind of the season wore us down. Just because Cody Bellinger tailed off the in second half doesn’t mean we remember his 2019 season as a bust. I’d like to think our weak finish sullies not our fine season. Several WARs, at least.

Here, I’d like to highlight some of my favorite peripheral prospects of 2019. (Brad will separately highlight his own, for I can ascertain why he picked the players he picked but it is better that he articulate his rationale on his own terms.) Let’s not waste any more time. Here are my 10 favorite peripheral prospects, sorted ascending according to their appearance in the series.

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Anyone within arm’s reach of my Twitter account is so. bleeping. tired. of me talking about Mike Tauchman.

But I have to bring him up. Tauchman was literally the first Peripheral Prospect. He led off the inaugural post. It’s imperative we revisit our old friend, because guess what? He is the 7th-best fantasy hitter the last 30 days, per ESPN’s Player Rater.

Seventh-best. Not out of just Yankees, not out of just outfielders — out of all hitters. His recent success alone has made this entire series worth it.

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From last week’s edition of Peripheral Prospects:

Alex likes to weave word-things before naming names. I’m impatient. Let’s jump straight into the action.

Brad’s not wrong.

This is Peripheral Prospects. We seek to identify obscure future fantasy contributors. Let’s take the plunge. Only four this week, because I’m feeling picky.

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Yo! It’s been a hot minute (read: a month) since Brad or I published a Peripheral Prospects piece. Sometimes, life gets in the way. Such distinct absences aren’t so bad, after all — it allowed us a little more time for some of the season’s early conquests to flesh out in larger samples.

Around this time last year, I became enamored with a hitter about whom no one knew hardly anything at the time but of whom everyone has heard now: Jeff McNeil.

alonso @ AA: .315/.442/.574, 18.2% K, 16.0% BB
mcneil @ AA: .329/.405/.633, 9.7% K, 9.3% BB

I DON'T CARE IF HE'S 26, GREAT HITTERS HAVE BROKEN OUT AT 27 BEFORE

— Alex "Oxlade" Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) June 14, 2018

At the time, Pete Alonso was slaughtering Double-A pitching. But so, too, was McNeil, with a strikeout rate (K%) below 10% — and a higher isolated power (ISO) than that of Alonso, the Mets’ premier power-oriented prospect. Between Double-A and Triple-A, Alonso finished with the higher ISO (.295 to .274), but McNeil, thanks to superior contact skills and (non-homer) batted ball efficacy, produced a wRC+ almost 20 points higher.

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Sorry for the late post, y’all. With Memorial Day, spending time with nieces and nephews, and then getting sick because of said nieces and nephews, it has been a bumpy week.

It’s a good mission statement, Brad. The mission statement in question: Peripheral Prospects seeks to identify obscure future fantasy contributors. That seems good, right? Let’s roll with it.

I missed last week with travel and then subsequent illness. There’s a lot of housekeeping to catch up on!

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