It’s hard to believe the minor league regular season is less than two weeks away from winding down. The playoffs will be here before you know it, which means reviews of the 2015 season are just around the corner!

Tyler Glasnow, RHP, Pirates: With Jameson Taillon on the sideline now for two full years (Tommy John surgery, hernia operation), Glasnow is the undisputed top pitching prospect in the system. Just 22, he opened the year in Double-A but has made his last five starts at the Triple-A level where his ERA sits below 1.00 and his strikeout rate is above 26%. Kiley rates Glasnow’s fastball as a present 65 grade (on the 20-80 scale) with a future grade of 70, while his curveball has 60 potential. With a changeup that also grades as better-than-average, this Pirates prospect has a big-time ceiling and might fit in nicely behind ace Gerrit Cole. He should be ready for The Show by mid-2016 at the latest and he should help shore up a rotation that isn’t overly deep especially with the potential loss of the perennially-retiring A.J. Burnett. [Value Up]

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Byron Buxton is back and that’s fantastic. Sure he struggled in his first major-league stint, a measly 11-game sample beset by strikeouts and not much else, but judging him based on such a small spell is not a good idea. He should be added right away in all formats. It seems like unnecessary advice until you consider he’s owned in 32 percent of Yahoo! leagues and 25 percent of ESPN leagues.

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Today at the Prospect Stock Watch, we’re looking at some players that could enter The Show in 2016 or 2017 and develop into impact performers.

Matt Chapman, 3B, Athletics: Oakland has focused on drafting college hitters in the upper rounds of the draft in recent years and Chapman was the club’s first pick in 2014. In just his first full pro season, the third baseman has shown outstanding pop in the potent California League with a .587 OPS in 77 games (helped by 23 home runs); considering home run potential was a question mark for him entering pro ball this season has to be very encouraging for the A’s. With offseason trade acquisition Brett Lawrie producing modest results at the hot corner (and even spending some time at second base recently), the club may be eager to help erase memories of the Josh Donaldson trade — and Chapman could very well help do that. He might need another full season in the minors but this slugger — and above-average hitter — could make a real impact in Oakland once he’s ready for The Show. [Value Up]

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Seeing as my usual Monday beat is second base, I decided to write a piece on minor-league second sackers who could make a fantasy impact down the stretch. As it turns out, that was an entirely fruitless endeavor. There just aren’t any players at the position that I’m excited about for the remainder of 2015, who aren’t already at least on the major-league club.

However, during my 90 minutes or so of dead-end research, I noticed Danny Worth’s shockingly productive stat line. In case you forgot, Worth is that guy the Tigers would always call up for some reason in each of the last five seasons, despite the fact that he owns a career .230/.293/.295 slash in 292 major-league plate appearances.

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As this year’s MLB draft picks have signed their contracts and entered the ottoneu player universe, owners have been auctioning them off like crazy. Dansby Swanson, Alex Bregman, and Brendan Rodgers in particular, have been flying off the shelves, and often at rather high prices.

Those three are all owned in more than a quarter of leagues with prices ranging as high as $15. So far, I have placed only one bid across all my leagues – $5 on Swanson in the original ottoneu league – mostly because I am not sure these players are worth the risk. But everyone else seems to think they are. So am I missing something? Or are you?

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A month before the season started, I introduced a model that predicts a Minor League hitter’s chances of Major League success based on his statistics during his most recent AAA stint. I will use that same model now to update the list of the National League’s top MLB-ready outfield prospects, the key term here being MLB-ready, not prospect — the goal is to identify players who scouts may not love but stats do.

The model looks at how a hitter once performed in AAA and compares it to his known career outcome, ultimately calculating probabilities that a certain career outcome will occur. These probabilities can then be applied to current Minor League players in order to project their currently unknown career outcomes. I discuss the model’s nitty-gritty, as well as its similarities with and potential shortcomings to Chris Mitchell’s KATOH, in the link provided in this post’s first sentence. Both models share the same goal and their methodologies are almost identical, so their results can be considered comparable; mine simply takes a more subjective approach, as I will explain shortly. This is not a turf war.

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At this time of the season, it’s a good idea for those of you in deep leagues to have a couple of second-half sleepers on your roster. Seeing as I cover the second-base beat here at Rotographs, I’ve identified a promising youngster with the potential for significant playing time at the keystone going forward.

One of the crucial aspects of identifying these players is finding holes on major-league rosters. So, seeing as we’re talking about second base, let’s discuss the Yankees. The days when Stephen Drew seemed like a legitimate major-league baseball player seem like ages ago, as the hapless second-sacker has followed up last year’s hilariously inept .162/.237/.299 season with a not-much-better .178/.239/.372. At least he’s hitting some homers, but that still hasn’t been enough to make him even a replacement-level player.

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The with the 2015 amateur draft now in the rearview mirror — but the excitement still simmering while fans await signing news — let’s check in on some of the top draft picks from 2014 and see how they’re doing.

Nick Gordon, SS, Twins: A year ago, people were calling Nick the better Gordon when compared to brother Dee. The Marlins shortstop, though, is enjoying an all-star-caliber season due to his .416 BABIP and improved defence. Nick could still overtake his brother one day but the early results in his pro career have not been great. Currently playing in Low-A ball at the age of 19, he features a disappointing .604 OPS with just eight of his 52 hits going for extra bases (.288 SLG%). Like his brother, speed is supposed to be a big part of his game but he’s only stolen 25 bases in his career (111 games) with 12 caught stealing. The second-place Twins have seen some success in 2015 despite dismal results from the shortstop position. Unfortunately, the club’s top shortstop prospect is probably at least three years away. [Value Down]

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With Carlos Correa playing in his first major league game last Monday, the fantasy gods provided me the most obvious topic for a Rotographs post as the guy on the SS beat on Mondays. Well, the gods have smiled on me again with Francisco Lindor getting the call and likely to start his first major league game tonight. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball Twitter was all atwitter on Sunday night as news of Carlos Correa’s call-up broke. Questions about Correa’s fantasy value immediately popped up in my notifications. Given that I’m tasked with the shortstop beat here on Mondays, the prompt for today’s post was a no-doubter.

To determine Correa’s fantasy value, let’s first start by projecting his plate appearances. Steamer has him at 214 PA, but that will obviously get an update soon given today’s news. It’s probably safe to assume he’s going to play every day for now, but the eventual return of Jed Lowrie sometime around the All-Star break could complicate things. My guess is that Lowrie will work in frequently at third base and not cut into Correa at short much so long as Correa is producing. As for his spot in the batting order, it’s likely to be somewhere in the 5-7 range.

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