Category: MLB

Our CPL continues on this bright and beautiful morning and the third spot in our community’s rankings goes to another left-hander in Gage Jump. The Athletics’ second round pick last year had an amazing first season in the professional ranks, starting the year in High-A before getting promoted to Double-A, where he spent the majority of the season. Jump is much closer to the big leagues than his fellow left-hander Arnold and could legitimately become an option for the Athletics this summer if things continue on the path that they’re on right now. It shouldn’t be much longer before we see him donning the Green & Gold.

Taking Jump’s spot in the nominations list will be shortstop Edgar Montero. The young shortstop out of the Dominican Republic had a tough start to his pro career but elevated his game in his second full season. There’s lots to like in his approach at the plate as he’s able to draw walks without sacrificing much power in the batter’s box. Like other current nominees on our list he’s a bit farther away from truly impacting the big league squad but Montero has the chance to become a quality prospect given enough time. Does he rank above his fellow prospects on this list though?

The process for this public vote is explained below. Please take a moment to read this before participating:

• Please only vote for one. The player with the most votes at the end of voting will win the ranked spot. The remaining four players move on to the next ballot where they are joined by a new nominee.
• In the comments, below the official voting, the community will nominate players to be put onto the ballot for the next round. The format for your comment should be “Nomination: Player Name”.
• If a prospect is traded, his name will be crossed out, and all other players will be moved up a space. If a prospect is acquired, a special vote will be put up to determine where that player should rank.

Click on the link here to vote!

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A’s fans top prospects, ranked:

1. Leo De Vries
2. Jamie Arnold
3. Gage Jump

The voting continues! Who will take the fourth spot? The voting should get much more interesting from here on out. Here’s a quick rundown on each nominee— the scouting grades (on a 20-to-80 scale) and scouting reports come from MLB Pipeline.

Nominees on the current ballot:

Henry Bolte, OF

Expected level: Triple-A | Age 22

2025 stats (AA/AAA): 488 PA, .284/.385/.427, 20 doubles, 6 triples, 9 HR, 56 RBI, 57 BB, 141 K, 44 SB

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Hit: 45 | Power: 55 | Run: 65 | Arm: 50 | Field: 50 | Overall: 45

Bolte is a tooled-up athlete who continues to fill out his big 6-foot-3 frame. His impressive raw power continues to show up in the Minors, though there is still a real concern over his swing-and-miss and high strikeout rate as he continues to struggle with offspeed stuff out of the zone. The A’s have worked with him to revamp his swing in order to improve his bat path and cover more of the zone, which has produced slight improvements in those areas, though there is still plenty of work to be done.

Another shining tool for Bolte is his near-elite speed, which was on display last season as he swiped 46 bags. That speed also comes in handy on defense, combining that with a strong arm that makes him a solid outfielder at all three spots. Further refining is required, but he remains an exciting talent with a very high ceiling who continues to steadily advance through the system.

Braden Nett, RHP

Expected level: Triple-A | Age 23

2025 stats (AA): 3.75 ERA, 24 starts, 105 2/3 IP, 116 K, 48 BB, 8 HR, 3.77 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 55 | Curveball: 55 | Slider: 60 | Changeup: 50 | Control: 55 | Overall: 55

While working around the injuries, Nett has continued to show stellar velocity, touching as high as 99 mph in the Minor Leagues last season. He typically sits 95-97 mph and gets swing-and-miss up in the zone thanks to ample carry. He also throws a tight 81-84 mph slider that ran a 38 percent whiff rate in ’24 and a sharper 90-92 mph cutter that can catch hitters off guard. He’ll mix in an upper-70s curveball with more vertical drop and he’s scrapped a low-80s splitter in favor of a much more effective 88 mph kick-change that really neutralizes lefties.

Nett has some effort in his delivery, and the 2025 season (pre-trade) was the first time he’d posted a walk rate below 13 percent at any Minor League stop. Combine that with the early injury concerns, and it’s easy to think he could be a reliever eventually. But his arsenal is deep enough, and his stuff is promising enough — when combined with strides taken this season — to keep landing him in a starting role in the upper Minors.

Johenssy Colome, SS

Expected level: Dominican Summer League | Age 17

2025 stats: None

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Hit: 55 | Power: 65 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 55 | Overall: 60

It’s not often that teenage prospects launch home runs. But Colome has a tendency to get to that jumpy pop with frequency, consistently leveraging his swing well – so well in fact, that one evaluator mentioned the most recent occasion on which he saw an international prospect continually get to their launch point in such a manner was Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Colome is a right-handed hitter with explosive hands and a solid contact rate, although he has been known to be a tad aggressive in the box as a means of getting to said power.

Something of an athletic marvel at 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds at age 16, Colome is an agile athlete who shows a lot of lateral quickness. The fluidity of his movements and strong arm led to a Manny Machado comparison being hung on him defensively. Much like the seven-time All-Star, Colome may move off short as his frame fills out, but he’s a tremendously dedicated worker and has the feet, soft hands and instincts to stick at the premium position.

Wei-En Lin, LHP

Expected level: Double-A | Age 20

2025 stats (A, A+, AA): 3.72 ERA, 13 starts (26 appearances), 87 IP, 117 K, 22 BB, 9 HR, 3.77 FIP

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Fastball: 50| Curveball: 50 | Slider: 45: 50 | Changeup: 50 | Field: 55 | Overall: 40

A 6-foot-2 left-hander, Lin has a combination of feel for as many as five pitches and projection to his frame. Right now his fastball averages just 91 mph, but it tops out at 95, and it’s easy to see that his frame has tremendous room to add good strength, with more consistent velocity to come. It already had the makings of a quality heater, thrown from around a 5.9-feet release height and with more than 18 inches of carry to it, helping it to miss a good amount of bats. His changeup has been his best secondary offering to date, with huge whiff rates during his debut. His short curve is his go-to breaking ball thus far, though he has a harder, shorter slider. He’ll also employ a splitter for another offspeed possibility.

It’s been a small sample size so far in his first full season, but Lin looks like he has the makings of being an extreme strike-thrower, showing particularly good command of his fastball and curve. If the teenaged southpaw is able to fill out and throw harder, the A’s could have a very interesting left-handed starting pitcher prospect on their hands.

Edgar Montero, SS

Expected level: Low-A | Age 19

2025 stats (DSL): 244 PA, .313/.484/.580, 14 doubles, 3 triples, 9 HR, 50 RBI, 60 BB, 54 K, 11 SB

MLB Pipeline grades and scouting report:

Scouting grades: Hit: 50 | Power: 50 | Run: 50 | Arm: 50 | Field: 50 | Overall: 45

A switch-hitting shortstop, Montero has shown the ability to impact the ball from both sides of the plate, with his natural right-handed swing more direct to the ball, though his left-handed swing is more picturesque and he obviously gets more plate appearances from that side. He has the chance to hit for average and power, with a solid approach that has allowed him to walk more than he strikes out for much of the summer.

Last year, Montero was slower and less athletic, but attention to conditioning and nutrition has helped him get leaner and stronger. An average runner, Montero has the instincts and actions to stick at shortstop for a long time, with a solid and accurate arm. If his body gets bigger as he matures — he played all of 2025 at age 18 — he could move to the hot corner, but the A’s don’t see that in his future. What they are hoping for is that he comes to instructs this year and stays in the United States as one of the better prospects to come out of their Dominican academy in some time.

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Programming Note: Each CPL vote will run for around 48 hours, so don’t delay making your selections!

Jake Bloss is a 24-year-old (25 in June), right-handed pitcher. We picked him up (with Joey Loperfido and Will Wagner) from the Astros, at the trade deadlin in 2024, for Yusei Kikuchi.

Kikuchi made 10 starts for the Astros and had a 2.70 ERA with a 5-1 record, helping them get the Wild Card spot that year (they lost to the Tigers in two games). He played for the Angels last year.

Bloss was #7 on our Prospect List last year. Tom M wrote:

Bloss uses an aggressive drop and drive deliver that gets him great extension and also a flat plane to the plate. That pairs well with his fastball, a four-seamer that sits 93-95 and occasionally touches 98 with above average carry. He throws three breaking balls: a cutter in the 87mph range, a sweeping slider around 82, and a solid two plane curve at 79. His change-up is his weakest pitch, a little too firm at 90mph and with some arm side fade but fringe movement overall. None of the pitches are plus (except the fastball when it’s at the top of its range), but at least three look above average and the sheer variety helps everything play. Bloss has good feel most of the time, but he needs to find more consistency and refine his approach to cut down on his walks.

Bloss is undoubtedly advanced for a player just a season and a third into his pro career, but his advancement to Houston last year had more to do with desperation than him actually forcing the issue. He has work to do to refine his command and approach, and I don’t think it would be a surprise or a problem if he spent most or all of the season in Buffalo before making his Blue Jays debut. His upside is as #3/4 starter once he makes those refinements, and I think there’s a good chance he’ll be pencilled into that role going into 2026.

Unfortunately, for Jake, he ended up needing UCL surgery in May of last year and ended up missing the rest of the season.

Baseball America has him listed as the Jays ninth best prospect coming into spring training this year, but he likely won’t be back on the mound until mid-season and then will have to show that he is still the same pitcher as before the surgery. Between that, and the number of pitchers we have at the major league level and the ones in the minors who seem major league ready, it is tough to see a path for Bloss to pitch in the majors. But he does have a fastball that can reach 98 mph so if a spot in the pen opens up, who knows.

Stream thinks that is the most likely outcome, figuring him to pitch in 12 games of the pen, with a 7.96 ERA in 12 innings.

As we write this, we’re wearing a tweed sport coat with patches on the sleeves. It’s office hours here on campus and we’re calculating report cards for the winter term.

In the Yankees’ case, however, this is more a progress report than final grades, since it feels like the Yanks have left some coursework undone. Sure, they completed their major project – re-signing Cody Bellinger – and added pitching depth. But they (hopefully) have more to do, which is why we’ll withhold overall marks right now. 

It does seem like they’re just running it back, doesn’t it? That might affect their final grade. The bullpen lost Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, so it might need more strengthening. 

Still, there’s some nice roster building here for a team that won 94 games. We will be updating as the offseason continues. Here are the for-now individual grades:

Cody Bellinger re-signed

It took a while and, while it always felt inevitable, it sure would’ve been scary had Bellinger bolted the Bronx. He was, obviously, the linchpin of their entire offseason and the sides finally agreed to a reported five-year, $162.5-million deal with opt-outs after the second and third seasons and a full no-trade clause. They needed him back. And badly.

Bellinger’s ability to offer good defense at all three outfield positions, plus spell and perhaps tutor Ben Rice at first base, is part of what makes him a tremendous Yankee fit. So is his contact hitting, sweet lefty swing, and production. He looked at home last season, his first in New York, where his dad, Clay, played most of his career.

Perhaps Bellinger, 30, can take even bigger advantage of the famed short right field porch after having a season of experience at Yankee Stadium. Last year, he batted .302 with a .365 on-base and .544 slugging percentage at home and hit 18 of his 29 total home runs there. 

In 2025, Bellinger had a career-low 13.7 percent strikeout rate, 16th-best in the majors. His ability to make contact, clearly a priority for him in recent years, judging by his numbers, is a crucial skill for the Yanks. They had the sixth-worst strikeout percentage in baseball (23.5 percent) last season.

Grade: A

Trent Grisham returned on the QO

There seemed to be a bit of odd glee in the public when Grisham accepted the $22.025-million qualifying offer, as if the Yanks somehow faltered by getting back a player with power and patience who can handle center field on a reasonable one-year pact. Uh, OK.

Front offices generally believe there are no bad short-term contracts. This deal did not preclude them from re-signing Bellinger. And if you think the Yankees were going to re-sign Bellinger and then get Kyle Tucker had Grisham not returned, well, are you even listening when Hal Steinbrenner speaks publicly?

Grisham, 29, was a key cog in baseball’s best offense. He slugged 34 home runs, had a .348 on-base percentage and an .811 OPS. Only 14 players in the sport hit more home runs than Grisham. He out-homered stars such as Julio Rodríguez, George Springer, and José Ramírez. His OPS was two points lower than Bellinger’s. He doesn’t chase and offered the Yanks a solution at leadoff, which had not been easy to find.

Can he duplicate his 2025? Well, there’s the risk. He doubled his career-best in homers and he was coming off three consecutive seasons in which his average was below .200. Defensive metrics don’t love his glove, even if the eye test is more appreciative. And he is a two-time Gold Glove winner. 

Grade: B

Prospects traded for Ryan Weathers

Weathers, a 26-year-old lefty who is the son of former Yankee reliever David Weathers, has massive upside, which is why he cost four prospects in a deal with the Marlins. He relies mostly on a four-seam fastball, a changeup, and a sweeper.

He averaged 96.9 mph on his heater last season in his eight starts, which means that the only lefty starter with a harder fastball, on average, was – gulp – Tarik Skubal. That’s part of the reason why MLB.com cited Weathers as a potential breakout pitcher.

For all his promise, Weathers has injury concerns, too, so there is massive risk here. He has never thrown even 100 innings in a season. Over the past two years combined, he has made only 24 starts and thrown 125 innings.

Still, the Yanks required rotation help, considering Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, and Clarke Schmidt are all starting the season on the IL. Weathers, if he stays healthy, could be a big answer. And he won’t be a free agent until after the 2028 season.

Grade: B-

Tim Hill’s option exercised

Hill, 36 in February, has been a reliable bullpen lefty the last two years and led the Yanks with 70 appearances in 2025. He’s worth the $3 million bill. His lefty sidearm approach helps him get ground balls at an elite rate – 64.8 percent last year, second among relievers – and he held lefty batters to a .444 OPS. Hill has been terrific in October as well, fashioning a 0.79 ERA in 13 postseason outings for the Yanks in two years.

Grade: B-plus

Amed Rosario re-signed

Rosario impressed the Yanks last year, batting .303 in 16 games as a post-deadline bench piece. He can play multiple positions, including the outfield, but his real skill for the Yanks is his ability against lefty pitching. Helping their lefty-reliant lineup might be worth the $2.5 million he’s getting. In his career, Rosario has a slash line of .298/.336/.464 against southpaws and he could sub for Ryan McMahon at third against a lefty starter.

Grade: B

Rotation depth kept

Because of the aforementioned recovering pitchers, the Yanks needed arms, so they retained Ryan Yarbrough (4.36 ERA in 19 games) and Paul Blackburn (6.23 ERA over 15 games between Mets and Yanks).

Grade: C+

The number six prospect, according to you, in the team’s system is another in their quest to not have a baseball drop in the outfield once it is hit the air. Unfortunately, this one may not be a starter.

Dante Nori – 74
Francisco Renteria – 47
Gabriel Rincones – 26
Matthew Fisher – 7
Moises Chace – 15
Cade Obermueller – 3

I’m still not sure what to make of Nori. There was some clear improvement on his part last year, but the profile still isn’t one that will get anyone all that excited. There is almost no power and the whole thing depends on if he can hit major league pitching. That is true of any prospect, but with Nori, his lack of being able to impact a baseball with much authority is going to be something that keeps him pegged down any prospect list.

2025 stats (w/ Clearwater, Lakewood and Reading)

577 PA, .261/.361/.372, 72 R, 4 HR, 47 RBI, 52 SB, 13.0 BB%, 14.7 K%, 109 wRC+

Baseball Prospectus scouting report ($)

It was a relatively successful first full pro campaign at first glance, as he was an above-average hitter for the bulk of the season at Low-A and matriculated up to Double-A by September (albeit in the “this might screw with another team’s model” way more than on merit; Escobar also got one of these promotions if you’re tracking who they might be preparing to flip this offseason). His stabs at the plate tend to sell out for contact, and he did post an in-zone contact rate slightly above 90 percent in the FSL, which was enough to carry a nice batting average. But he simply does not seek to do or effectuate much damage (100.5 mph EV90 and five percent pulled fly-ball rate) and he’s simply not some sort of Luis Arraez or Jacob Wilson-level bat manipulator, to where his contact ability is so good it will carry an entire offensive profile.

With each new post, we’ll reveal who won the voting for that particular slot, then post new players for you to vote on, adding another one to the list each time until we get to our final tally of 20. Once we get to 20 top prospects, we’ll do an honorable mention post at the end. If a player gets traded to another team, we’ll just chuck him right on outta here and all the players will move up a spot. If a prospect gets acquired, we’ll ask where he should go on the list.

Probably the most important thing about this whole process – please vote. Give us a few minutes of your time, just click a button and then we can discuss other players and things in the comment section, but don’t forget – VOTE!

The MacKenzie Gore trade made it abundantly clear that Paul Toboni is thinking about the long game. It is not just that Toboni traded Gore that has me thinking this. The prospect package he chose is full of high upside players that are multiple years from the MLB. Four of the five pieces in the deal have no chance of making the big leagues in 2026.

This does not bother Toboni because he is thinking more about building the 2028 Nationals than the 2026 Nats. All of Toboni’s actions suggest he does not believe this team has a prayer in 2026. It may be a harsh reality to accept, but he is correct. Even with heavier spending, this team would not be able to pass the Phillies, Mets or Braves in 2026.

Instead, Toboni is trying to build a team that can compete in the NL East at the end of this decade and entering the 2030’s. There are plenty of reasons to do this. With a lockout looming, the 2027 season is in a state of limbo. The Phillies, who have won the division the last two years are an aging team with only a couple years left in their competitive window.

When 2028 hits, the Nats should be ready to strike. Young big league pieces like James Wood, Daylen Lile and Dylan Crews would be truly entering their prime at that time. The Nats would also have a ton of reinforcements making it to the MLB at that point, especially on the infield. This organization has an embarrassment of riches on the infield in A ball. You would have to imagine that some of these players will really break out.

The Nationals have a ridiculous amount of talent in the lower levels on the minor leagues, especially on the infield. Willits, Fien, Fitz-Gerald, Coy James, Marconi German, Luke Dickerson, Angel Feliz and Ronny Cruz are all infielders who are 20 or younger

— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) January 23, 2026

There is no guarantee that CJ Abrams will be on the 2028 Nats, but Eli Willits should be on his way to take the shortstop job at that point. Gavin Fien, Devin Fitz-Gerald, Marconi German and others will also be charging towards their big league debuts. This has the chance to be reminiscent of those Orioles teams that seemed to have a new top 100 prospect debuting every week.

All of this sounds great on paper, but it is really frustrating for Nationals fans. We have been rebuilding for a long time now and this new guy is coming in asking for even more patience. It is tough for Nats fans and Toboni knows it. After the trade, Toboni talked about how tough it was to root for struggling Giants teams growing up and empathized with the fans. However, he made it clear that he thought these long term focused moves were what was best for the franchise.

Paul Toboni's message to Nats fans who have expressed frustration after another star-caliber player – and one of the main pieces from the Juan Soto trade – has been dealt away: pic.twitter.com/GfqNhNvTG0

— Bobby Blanco (@Bobby_Blanco) January 22, 2026

Back when Mike Rizzo was running the show, the Nats always felt like they were building towards 2026. Now, we are back to square one. That is not Paul Toboni’s fault though. It is not his responsibility to fix Mike Rizzo’s broken rebuild. His job is to build the team in his own image, something Barry Svrluga noted on the radio.

Is the Nats' rebuild more pain now for a sweeter moment later? That's Paul Toboni's idea, as Barry Svrluga elaborates. pic.twitter.com/sLjFb6ekmM

— 106.7 The Fan (@1067theFan) January 23, 2026

After losing 96 games last year, it was impossible to deny the rebuild was not trending in the right direction. Toboni has pointed that out on a number of occasions. He said that while it is not impossible to turn things around in one year, it is tough and that last season was a reality check.

With that in mind, Toboni does not feel like it is in the team’s best interest to build for 2026. Based on his actions, Toboni wants to use this year to evaluate what he has on the roster and go from there. There are a ton of unproven players with upside on this roster and Toboni wants to see who emerges from the pack.

This approach is probably going to lead to a lot of losses, but it is shrewd. If you want to see winning baseball in the Nats organization next year, the MLB team is not going to be the place to look. I think the minor league teams will take a major jump next year. That is where you will see what Toboni is building towards.

He is not going to neglect the MLB team entirely though. However, the goal of 2026 is more about individual progress than competing for a playoff spot. If James Wood, Daylen Lile, Dylan Crews, Cade Cavalli and Brady House make progress in their development, but the team wins 70 games, that is a successful season, at least in my books. I have a feeling Toboni would agree with me as well.

The wins will be taking place on the development side. Toboni’s Project 2028 will be a slower burn, but one that I believe will have steady progress. It is tough to talk about the 2027 season because of all the uncertainty. Right now, we are not even sure if there will be a season at all. The CBA expires and all the signs point to an all out war in the next negotiations.

I really hope the whole season is not wiped out because that would push back some of the Nats plans. The development of the Nats minor leaguers could be harmed by this strike. Minor Leaguers not on the 40-man roster would be able to play, but I imagine things would not be normal.

With all the young talent entering the Nats organization, I really do believe that this team will be good again. If the Lerner’s open up their checkbook eventually, this team could be great.

This version of the rebuild feels different to me. The people running the show have a much better understanding of the modern game. Mike Rizzo is a Nationals legend, but it did really seem like the game passed him by at the end. Meanwhile, Toboni is a young up and comer who is on the cutting edge.

It's early, but if I'm a Nationals fan, I'm excited about the tangible shift in the org led by Paul Toboni. The amount of upside acquired in these deals is eye-popping, even with creative smaller moves to complement and a total overhaul in scouting, PD and general approach.

— Aram Leighton (@AramLeighton8) January 22, 2026

Nats fans, this year is going to suck at the MLB level, let’s not sugarcoat it. While the lineup has the potential to be solid, this pitching staff is a barren wasteland. A few of these players could surprise us, but on paper this pitching staff is really bad. 

With Luis Perales, Jarlin Susana, Travis Sykora and others in the pipeline, there will be reinforcements. However, those reinforcements are probably not coming in 2026. When this team becomes competitive again, I have a feeling they will need to make an aggressive move for pitching in the free agent market. I do not have much faith that ownership will pull the trigger, but we can cross that bridge when we get there.

For now, Nats fans will have to take victories when they get them. In this new regime, I do think we will see more prospects break out and excite us. This should be a year of progress, even if it does not come in the standings.

Paul Toboni is not too worried about the MLB standings this year. To be frank, his goal is not to win the World Series in 2026, or even make the playoffs. His goal is to create Project 2028. If his plan works out, the Nationals should be ready to make a splash by 2028. As we enter the 2030’s, the Nationals should be a young and hungry team competing for championships. We are a long way away, but for the first time in a while, I truly trust the process. 

In this episode of the Royals Rundown Podcast, Jacob Milham and Jeremy “Hokius” Greco take stock of the Kansas City Royals while balancing baseball discussion with the reality of current events and the importance of community support. The hosts dive into the MLB Top 100 player and prospect lists, breaking down where key Royals stand, what Bobby Witt Jr.’s national recognition means for the franchise, and how injuries can reshape expectations heading into the season.

The conversation also explores the Royals’ prospect pipeline, player development trends, and potential roster moves still to come before Opening Day. Along the way, Jacob and Jeremy tackle the complicated Hall of Fame case for Carlos Beltrán, discussing how legacy, performance, and controversy intersect in Cooperstown voting. With thoughtful analysis and grounded optimism, the episode offers Royals fans perspective, context, and a clear-eyed look at what lies ahead.

Email Jacob directly at: jm17971047@gmail.com

Need your Royals fix? Head to royalsreview.com for news, analysis, and to engage with Royals fans around the world! Follow us online:

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– Jeremy Greco: @hokius.fromthehawkseye.com
– Jacob Milham: @jacobmilhkc.bsky.social

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– Podcast: @RoyalRundownPod

Ryan Clifford, a North Carolina native, attended high school at Leesville Road High School, a public school in Raleigh for his freshman and sophomore seasons. It quickly became apparent that he was a big fish in a small pond, as he posted a .526 with 4 home runs over 21 games in his freshman year, and hit .692 with 3 home runs over 4 games in his sophomore year, winning the 2020 Gatorade Player of the Year (North Carolina) Award for the COVID-shortened season in the process.

With his talent undeniable, Clifford and his family made the decision to have him leave Leesville Road High School and enroll him at the Pro5 Baseball Academy, a nearby baseball development program working in conjunction with Crossroads Flex High School to give students an elite, all-inclusive, year-round baseball development program while meeting state academic benchmarks. There, Clifford would be able to get year-round training and exposure in preparation for a professional baseball career. Over the next two years, his profile would rise and his name would commonly be bandied about by scouts and evaluators for his performance at workouts and in exhibition games across the showcase circuit.

Clifford was considered one of the better high school bats in the 2022 draft class, but due to a handful of circumstances, his name fell down most draft boards. A strong commitment to Vanderbilt University scared off most teams, but beyond that, Clifford’s less-impressive-than-expected numbers during his junior and senior seasons prompted many teams to pass on him. The Mets were one such team, high on Clifford and considering drafting him thanks to possessing the 11th and 14th overall selections in the 2022 MLB Draft but ultimately passing after not being able to make the financials work with the rest of the players Tommy Tanous and Mark Tramuta intended on selecting.

After not hearing his name called over the first ten rounds of the draft, Clifford was finally selected in the 11th round by the Houston Astros, the 343rd overall selection made. Astros scouting director Kriss Gross was initially unsure if the team would be able to find the financial flexibility to sign Clifford, but ultimately was able to make it work, buying him out of his commitment to Vanderbilt for a $1,256,530 signing bonus, roughly the equivalent of a second-round pick in the 2022 MLB Draft.

Clifford made his professional debut later that summer with the FCL Astros Orange, the Astros’ Florida Complex League team. Appearing in 13 games, he went 8-36 with 3 doubles, 1 home run, 2 stolen bases, and 12 walks to 16 strikeouts, a .222/.440/.389 batting line. He was promoted to the Single-A Fayette Woodpeckers and finished out the season going 11-41 with them with 2 doubles, 1 home run, and 10 walks to 15 strikeouts, a .268/.412/.390 batting line. All in all, his professional debut went well, as he hit .247/.426/.390 with 5 doubles, 2 home runs, 2 stolen bases, and 22 walks to 31 strikeouts in 25 combined games.

He began the 2023 season with the Woodpeckers and got off to a hot start, hitting .337/.488/.457 in 25 games with 5 doubles, 2 home runs, 3 stolen bases, and 25 walks to 27 strikeouts. He was promoted to the High-A Ashville Tourists in mid-May and was even more impressive there, hitting .271/.356/.547 in 58 games with 11 doubles, 16 home runs, 1 stolen base, and 21 walks to 61 strikeouts.

On August 1st, the Mets traded Justin Verlander to Houston and received Clifford and Drew Gilbert in return. Clifford was assigned to the Brooklyn Cyclones and finished out the rest of the season there, hitting .188/.307/.376 in 32 games with 4 doubles, 6 home runs, 1 stolen base, and 18 walks to 51 strikeouts. All in all, with all three teams, he hit .262/.374/.480 with 20 doubles, 24 home runs, 5 stolen bases in 7 attempts, and 64 walks to 140 strikeouts.

Clifford returned to the Cyclones to start the 2024 season, and while the numbers did not exactly jump off the pages, he was solidly above-average in the 31 games he played there. The 20-year-old hit .216/.412/.304 with 6 doubles and 1 home run, his power numbers suffering but his walk rate benefitting from a weak Brooklyn Cyclones lineup that made it easy to pitch around the young slugger. When he was promoted to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies in mid-May, Clifford began showing off the plus power that makes him so dangerous as a hitter and capable of carrying an entire team for days at a time. Appearing in 98 games, Clifford hit .231/.359/.457 with 21 doubles, 18 home runs, 3 stolen bases, and 63 walks to 117 strikeouts. On the whole, he hit a combined .228/.372/.432 in 129 games on the season with 27 doubles, 19 home runs, 4 stolen bases, and 95 walks to 160 strikeouts. His walk total led the Mets’ minor league system, while his home run and strikeout total both placed him in third.

The Mets had the 21-year-old remain in Binghamton to start the 2025 season, and he ended up playing the majority of the year there, suiting up for 105 games with the Rumble Ponies. Clifford hit .243/.355/.493 with 18 doubles, 1 triple, 24 home runs, 4 stolen bases in 6 attempts, and 63 walks to 113 strikeouts. In mid-August, the team promoted the slugger to Triple-A Syracuse, and he finished the season there, appearing in 34 games and hitting .219/.359/.395 with 5 doubles, 5 home runs, 3 stolen bases in 5 attempts, and 22 walks to 35 strikeouts. Overall, Clifford hit a combined .237/.356/.470 in 2025 with 23 doubles, 1 triple, 29 home runs, 7 stolen bases in 11 attempts, and drew 85 walks to 148 strikeouts. His 29 homers led the Mets minor league system, and his 85 walks led the system for a second-consecutive year.

The 6’3”, 200-pound left-hander stands tall at the plate, standing slightly open and holding his hands high with the bat head angled at 10:00. He swings with a slight kick/toe tap without much of a load or weight transfer. His left-handed stroke is smooth, efficient, and quick, producing light tower power, but it is also long and uppercutty, making him vulnerable to pitches in the upper half of the zone- though he may have made some mechanical adjustments to make himself more effective upstairs, as he hit .241/.477/.586 against pitches up in the zone in his 34 game sample size with Syracuse, where statcast data is publicly available.

Clifford boasts plus-plus raw power and is able to manifest much of that in-game, averaging a 93.6 MPH exit velocity on balls he put in play in Syracuse as per publicly available statcast data, but the swing-and-miss issues will make it difficult to fully tap into that power in-game consistently. Against fastballs, Clifford hit .410/.400/.667 with a 22% whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 96 MPH. Against breaking balls, he hit .231/.222/.577 with a 35.2% whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 90 MPH. Against off-speed pitches, he hit .214/.214/.286 with a 32.6% whiff rate and an average exit velocity of 93.9 MPH.

Clifford has an advanced approach at the plate and makes smart swing decisions, but he sometimes plays himself into poor counts by being too passive at the plate, waiting for pitchers to make mistakes instead of making contact with anything he thinks he can and letting his strength and power take over. Finding himself behind in the count, Clifford’s chase rate is virtually double in such two-strike situations, as opposed to when he is a more favorable counts.

After showing reverse platoon splits and struggling a bit against right-handed pitchers in 2024, hitting .216/.363/.415 against them as compared to the .290/.424/.449 he hit against left-handed pitchers, Clifford’s splits reversed in 2025. He hit an improved .247/.379/.497 against right-handers in 2025 but hit .204/.273/.381 against fellow left-handers.

Not much changed in Clifford’s batted ball profile. He pulled the ball at a 43.9% rate, went back up the middle at a 23.7% rate, and went to the opposite field at a 32.3% rate, all numbers comparable to his 2024 season. Likewise, his 21.3% line drive rate, 38.6% groundball rate, and 40.1% flyball rate were comparable to his 2024 season as well. The one area of noticeable improvement was the damage that was done when he hit the ball in the air. Clifford’s infield flyball rate dropped from 24.0% in 2024 to 19.4% this past season, and his HR/FB ratio increased from 15.7% in 2024 to 21.6% in 2025.

Defensively, Clifford provides little value at any of the positions that he plays. He played first base, left field, and right field in 2025, as well as DH, with the majority of his playing time coming at first base. At first, he is a sub-optimal fielder who will generally make the routine plays but will not do much more than that thanks to a lack of quick-twitch athleticism. In the outfield, he is also a net neutral fielder at best, with his above-average arm an asset, but his lack of athleticism and range a disadvantage. With more time in the outfield, his defense may improve in terms of his read of the ball off the bat, or the routes he takes may become more efficient. But with fringy speed to begin with, losing speed as he ages and matures may counter any experienced-based improvements.

One of the things that have always been synonymous with the long and illustrious history of the New York Yankees have been the sheer amount of cash their biggest superstars make. Since Babe Ruth was making $52,000 in 1922, numerous players in pinstripes have had the distinction of being the highest-paid player in MLB.

When Alex Rodriguez was acquired via trade from Texas just two years into his massive $252 million contract, it was the first time since Dave Winfield in 1981 that the league’s highest-paid player played for the Evil Empire and the perennial MVP candidate was being added to a team who had won six of the last eight AL pennants and four World Series since 1996.

Rodriguez was able to opt out of his massive contract after 2007 and there was initially some doubt whether A-Rod and the Yankees would come to a reunion, but the two sides eventually came to terms on a new-record breaking contract that would have a complicated legacy in pinstripes.

Alex Rodriguez
Signing Date: December 17, 2007
Contract: 10 years, $275 million

Rodriguez could’ve retired after the 2007 season and would’ve been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Since debuting 19 days shy of his 19th birthday in 1994 for the Seattle Mariners, A-Rod had amassed 2,205 hits, 518 home runs, 1,503 RBI, 265 stolen bases, and a career .306/.389/.578 slashline through when he opted out of his contract at age 32. Every milestone, record, and distinction was absolutely attainable for him at this point.

The one thing that had alluded the three-time MVP, however, was a championship. He was an integral part of the Seattle playoff runs in 1997 and 2000 that fell short due to the Yankees, but had missed out on the 116-win Mariners after signing his mega-deal with the lowly Texas Rangers ahead of 2001. He arrived in the Bronx with the highest expectations imaginable, but his first four playoff runs had been underwhelming, to say the least.

Despite winning two MVPs and posting four elite seasons from 2004-07, Rodriguez had managed just one good postseason in 2004, where the Yanks brutally collapsed against Boston, before combining to go 3-for-29 in 2005 and 2006 before a so-so ALDS in 2007. After nearly a decade of perennially playing in the Fall Classic, the three consecutive first-round exits had frustrated the Yankee faithful, and A-Rod’s struggles in the playoffs were right in the middle of it.

So how do you think George Steinbrenner and the Yankees responded when A-Rod officially opted out of the final three years of his contract… during Game 4 of the World Series? The comedically bad timing, courtesy of (who else?) Scott Boras, pissed everyone off. MLB was pissed, the Yankees were pissed, the New York fans and media were outraged. It got to the point where the late Hank Steinbrenner said there was “no chance” the Yankees would look to re-sign Rodriguez after the stunt.

10/28/2007 – A-Rod opts out of his contract in the middle of game four of the World Series. Weeks later, he'd re-sign a 10 year deal. pic.twitter.com/pKYStdEwGV

— River Ave. Blues (@RiverAveBlues) October 28, 2016

Not only was the manner in which he opted out frustrating to the Yanks, but it also hurt them financially. As part of the trade to send Rodriguez to the Bronx prior to the 2004 season, Texas had agreed to pay $21.3 million of Rodriguez’s 2008-10 salary, had he not opted out. This absolved them. It was sort of similar to the Giancarlo Stanton contract, where the hulking slugger did have an opt out (which he obviously didn’t use) that would’ve offset the $30 million that Miami is sending to New York for the final three years of the deal.

At first, it seemed Boras’ gamble was a big mistake. The Yankees stayed true to their word for a while, focusing more on retaining Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera. A-Rod’s steep price tag also priced him out of almost every team, with only moderate interest coming from teams like the Giants, Angels, and Dodgers. Eventually, though, the sides got together and agreed to a framework of a new deal in mid-November, not signing it for another month.

The new deal was the richest in baseball history and would pay Rodriguez $27.5 million a year through his age 42 season in 2017. He also had huge milestone incentives in the contract, which would be paid out if Rodriguez got to 660, 714, 755, and 762 home runs. He would only reach one of those.

A-Rod had an okay season by his standards in 2008, finishing eighth in MVP voting and leading the American League in slugging percentage, but the Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in 15 years, heightening the frustration in the fanbase. It also didn’t help the slugger that he had to admit to using PEDs while he was in Texas in February 2009.

All the frustrations would be soothed in 2009, however. Winning often solves everything and Rodriguez finally had the iconic run that fans had been waiting for. After failing to make the All-Star Game for the first time in a decade with his worst regular season as a Yankee, Rodriguez slashed .365/.500/.808 in 15 games as he finally got the ring to complete his illustrious career.

There wasn’t much left in the tank after that. He extended his streak of 30+ home run seasons to 13 straight in 2010 before injuries held him back in 2011. He was named an All-Star two more times and slowly accumulated his counting stats to eek closer to 3,000 hits while getting to 629 career homers through his age 36 season. There was enough gas in the tank, and plenty of cash, to get A-Rod to 700 and beyond.

The postseason performances were rough again following the World Series victory. He slashed a grotesque .152/.250/.177 in his final 22 postseason games from 2010-15 and it re-invigorated the “playoff dropper” narrative that ate him up prior to 2009. He was a World Series champion, however, and one of the greatest to ever do it. They couldn’t take that from him… until 2013.

Rodriguez’s body was failing him as he entered his late 30s and he missed a vast majority of the 2013 season due to a second arthroscopic surgery in his hip. That would be the least of his problems that year, as the Biogenesis scandal destroyed whatever was left of his public image and established that he would never have a plaque in Cooperstown. If he wasn’t already one of baseball’s biggest villains, he was public enemy No. 1 now.

He would become the first player in major league history to be suspended a full season due to PEDs when Bud Selig put a 162-game ban (shortened from 211) in August 2013, costing the aging superstar an entire year of his career and effectively ending his hopes of reaching the home run milestones that once seemed a certainty.

He recovered to mash 33 home runs as a newly minted designated hitter in 2015, but that was the last gasp. As he approached his 41st birthday and struggled through the 2016 season, the Yankees bit the bullet and announced Rodriguez would play his final game on August 12th, releasing him the next day to make room for a certain 6-foot-7 outfielder that you may know of.

The Yankees would pay out the final $27 million of the contract while Rodriguez was a special advisor in the organization. He had offers to play in 2017, but elected to retire a Yankee, finishing with 696 career home runs. In his second contract, he slashed .269/.359/.486 with 178 home runs, a 123 OPS+, and made two All-Star teams.

It’s safe to say that the Yankees did not get the bang for their buck after extending Rodriguez, but it’s rare that you do when you ink a 32-year-old to a lucrative 10-year contract. The $360 million deal that Aaron Judge got after 2022 was in a similar circumstance of paying a lot of money to an MVP into their early 40s, but the current Yankees’ captain has already been worth the deal with how absurd his last three seasons have been.

The one thing that the contract did yield was a World Series. The Yankees do not win in 2009 without Rodriguez’s contributions in October, even if he was subpar in almost every other postseason. Without 2009, the Yankees would be on a 25-year title drought, the longest in franchise history. Despite the bad press he brought, the 27th World Series that he helped bring home means it isn’t one that Brian Cashman and the Steinbrenners regret.

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See more of the “50 Most Notable Yankees Free Agent Signings in 50 Years” series here.

Keith Law of The Athletic published his Top 100 prospects list for the 2026 season, and a pair ofYankees made the cut.

-- SS George Lombard Jr., No. 24

-- RHP Carlos Lagrange, No. 88

Here’s Law on Lombard:

If he’d spent half the year in High A instead of four weeks, his year would probably look more promising on the surface, and since he won’t turn 21 until June he has time to return to Double A and show he can handle the pitching there. He’s at least a future everyday shortstop and still has upside beyond that because of the potential for a plus hit tool.

And on Lagrange:

The Dellin Betances comps are inevitable here, but Lagrange moves better on the mound and has more weapons already. He should stick as a starter, and could end up in the top two spots in a rotation depending on how far his control improves.

Lombard was ranked No. 46 by Baseball America and No. 32 by MLB Pipeline. He still has some refining to do, as he struggled during his brief taste of Double-A. The former first-round pick hit .215 with 124 strikeouts in 108 games.

Lagrange, a big-bodied starter at 6-foot-7, pitched to a 3.22 ERA for Double-A Somerset in 2025, appearing in 15 games. There’s a chance he begins 2026 at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and he could potentially make an impact in the majors this season. 

There is latent hope in just about every baseball prospect. Prospect, by definition, implies a good bit of promise and a lot of expectation with variability.

With Arnaldo Lantigua, though, there’s an added bit of prospect pressure. Acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers, he was dealt to the Cincinnati Reds for an amount of international bonus pool cash that was directly used by the Trolleys to sign Roki Sasaki out of Japan, meaning the Reds – with Lantigua now in-tow – directly financed their rivals adding a potential star.

Lantigua, to his credit, has hit the ground running since joining the Reds organization despite the otherwise outsized expectations. In Arizona Complex League play in 2025 he swatted 10 homers in just 49 games – a mark that tied him with Dario Reynoso from the Giants organization for most in the league – and he slugged .445 with a .763 OPS in 129 PA after being promoted to Class-A Daytona in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League.

For reference, the likes of Tyson Lewis (.417 SLG) and Sammy Stafura (.410) were his teammates in Daytona, and Arnaldo just turned 20 years old in December.

There’s a whole lot of power in Lantigua’s bat, and there’s a whole lot to like about his power potential. That makes for quite the intriguing prospect, one you collectively ranked 10th in this year’s Community Prospect Rankings over the weekend!

The Dodgers’ $240-million signing of Kyle Tucker revived anguished cries that the team is ruining baseball. It also revived a strange chapter in team history, with frenzied online commentary that the signing of Tucker was made possible in large part because Major League Baseball long ago rewarded the Dodgers’ owners with preferential financial treatment that continues to this day.

Is that true?

Yes and no.

Uh, thanks. Go on.

Remember Frank McCourt, the Dodgers’ former owner?

Read more:Shaikin: Kyle Tucker is really going to trigger a lockout? Come on now

In 2011, after then-Commissioner Bud Selig rejected a proposed $3-billion local television deal between the Dodgers and Fox Sports, McCourt took the team into bankruptcy court before agreeing to sell. That meant Selig and the MLB owners would not pick the new Dodgers owner. McCourt would, in a process controlled by the court.

With the Dodgers’ local TV rights soon to expire, McCourt realized bidders for the team might offer more — and he might make more — if the bidders knew in advance how much the league would take from the sale of those rights.

In a settlement with McCourt — and to avoid the risk of the judge imposing a deal less favorable to the league — MLB agreed the fair-market value of a Dodgers TV deal would be based on the very Fox deal that Selig had rejected.

Why did that matter?

That value was $84 million for the first year and would increase thereafter, with the league taking its standard 34% cut and sharing that among all its teams.

However, with a bidding war looming between Fox Sports and Time Warner Cable, Selig knew the rights would be worth more than Fox had offered in its extension with McCourt, who needed immediate cash.

In bankruptcy court, an attorney for Guggenheim, the winning bidder and still the Dodgers’ owner, said the settlement represented a “substantial component of the value proposition of the transaction” — that is, a primary justification for the then-record $2.15-billion purchase price.

In 2013, one year after buying the team, Guggenheim sold those local TV rights. Were they indeed worth more?

You might as well ask if Shohei Ohtani is good. The rights that McCourt wanted to sell for $3 billion were bought by Time Warner Cable for a record $8.35 billion.

Because of the settlement, the league would take its cut based on a deal worth $3 billion rather than based on a deal worth $8.35 billion.

And the league was fine with this, because it wanted to help a marquee franchise return to glory?

LOL, no. In 2012, an MLB attorney had warned the court that the settlement could result in a league of “the Dodgers and the other 29 teams.” Under its terms, the Dodgers could keep tens of millions of dollars each year that otherwise would be shared with the league.

In the wake of the massive Time Warner deal, Selig’s office told other owners it planned to treat television revenue for the Dodgers like television revenue from any other team.

Read more:One last roundup for Clayton Kershaw: He'll pitch in World Baseball Classic

However, thanks to McCourt, the bankruptcy court was in charge, not the league. MLB did not have the power to redo the court-approved settlement, because Guggenheim could have asked the court to uphold the deal and order the league to abide by it.

After negotiations, MLB and Guggenheim made a modest adjustment, setting the “fair-market value” of the Time Warner deal at about $130 million for the first year rather than $84 million. That figure is used to determine the league’s cut, which for all local TV deals has since increased from 34% to 48%.

Just about every report on the Dodgers’ TV deal says the team is guaranteed $334 million each year. Is that accurate?

That $334 million is the annual average. The deal started at a lower value and increases every year.

By the time the deal ends in 2038, the Dodgers will be getting more than $500 million per year.

How is that possible? Aren’t local sports channels dying?

The parent company of the FanDuel Sports channels — including the one that carries the Angels — emerged from bankruptcy last year but now is fighting to remain in business. If your company spends millions upon millions on sports rights, and if your financial success depends on cable and satellite customers paying for a programming bundle that includes sports channels most viewers do not watch, you’re doomed.

The Angels’ local television revenue took a big hit last year and probably will do so again this year. The Milwaukee Brewers, the team that plays in the smallest market in the majors, reportedly got $35 million in its FanDuel deal last year.

The Dodgers own SportsNet LA through a related entity, American Media Productions (AMP), and the television revenue comes via a marketing and distribution agreement with Charter Communications, which inherited the deal when it acquired Time Warner Cable in 2016.

Charter’s revenue in 2024: $55 billion. The giant television, telephone and broadband company is not going out of business anytime soon, even as it is stuck with a money-losing Dodgers deal.

What did Dodgers chairman Mark Walter say upon the establishment of SportsNet LA?

“The creation of AMP will provide substantial financial resources over the coming years for the Dodgers to build on their storied legacy and bring a world championship home to Los Angeles.”

Read more:Shaikin: Make starting pitchers great again? MLB isn't. This independent league will try

Nailed it. So why would Walter consider forsaking some of those substantial financial resources?

In 2028, when MLB national TV contracts expire, Commissioner Rob Manfred would like to offer traditional networks and streaming services the chance to bid not just on national broadcasts but on an all-baseball, all-the-time outlet where fans could watch any team, wherever they lived, and with no blackouts. With that, the league believes, it could strike gold — and then share the wealth among all 30 teams.

That would require teams to turn over their local broadcast rights to the league. The Dodgers’ local television revenues provide a massive competitive advantage. It’s hard to imagine Walter (and owners of other big-city teams with similar TV riches) surrendering those riches without the league offering him something significant in return.

Like what?

Perhaps a chance to exempt the Dodgers from sharing ticket revenue, or to secure the Japanese television rights now controlled by MLB. Maybe the league would buy SportsNet LA. Could be anything. But that is a 2028 issue. First up is collective bargaining, and the possibility of owners shutting down the sport next winter in pursuit of a salary cap.

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Ben Williamson doesn’t rush; he just moves quickly. The defensive standout’s quick feet and steady hands earned him a promotion to MLB after just 689 plate appearances in the minors, despite his college career coming in the decidedly mid CAA. And he spent most of the first two-thirds of the 2025 season as the Mariners’ starting third baseman, despite questions about his bat.

Yet by August 1, he was back in Triple-A. While he’d been showing improvements with the bat over the course of his rookie campaign, an Eugenio Suárez reunion was too tempting for the Mariners to upgrade Williamson’s .253/.294/.310 line.

But that batting line only tells part of the story. Williamson’s 2025 reveals a fascinating development puzzle: he improved his plate discipline and contact rates as the season progressed, yet his power indicators collapsed. And while it’s as if a light bulb clicked on when he got back to Tacoma—turning in a 135 wRC+ over the last two months in AAA—key questions lingered.

The May Baseline

We checked in on B Willy after his first month in the show, when his 63 wRC+ looked concerning but there were promising signs under the hood.

The clearest room for growth was in his approach. He chased at unacceptable rates, swinging at 22.3% of pitches in the chase zone and 42.6% of pitches that were in the shadow zone but not the strike zone. And he was simultaneously too passive on hitter’s pitches, swinging at just 64.8% of pitches in the heart of the plate, compared to the league average of 72.4%. He was going fishing while avoiding meatballs like it was a Friday during Lent. While he made enough contact to avoid a Kelenic-esque strikeout rate, his walk rate jumped off the page in a bad way: 3.1%.

But under the hood, his power indicators offered hope. His dynamic hard hit rate (DHH%) was above league average, suggesting big raw power even if it wasn’t always showing up in good contact. DHH% is the best indicator for young hitters because it shows power potential by measuring how hard a player hits the ball relative to launch angle: Despite being a worse result, an 80-mph pop up requires much more strength than an 80-mph line drive, so DHH% gives a player more credit for the pop-up. In addition, despite not swinging at the right pitches, he still managed a hard-hit rate and a barrel rate around league average. It suggested that if he could improve his swing decisions, the offense would pop.

As the season progressed, so did Williamson, but not always in the ways the early data suggested.

Improving at a Cost

From there, Williamson’s plate discipline improved—mostly. He showed real improvement in the shadow zone, learning to lay off borderline pitches, and his walk rate doubled while he cut down his strikeouts by a quarter. But he didn’t improve much on pitches even farther outside the zone, in the chase region.

Zone	Pre-5/15	Post-5/15	MLB Average
Chase	31.5%	32.2%	22.6%
Shaddow (balls only)	56.1%	37.8%	43.1%
Heart	64.8%	65.5%	72.4%

How could both be true? The League figured out how to attack him. He’d go fishing on changeups and sweepers about 25% more often than average. So pitchers peppered those pitches and knew they had a fat margin for error outside the zone.

This isn’t just a question of spin on the sweepers—he also struggled with sliders, but it wasn’t as pronounced. And his swing decisions and contact rates were actually better than the league against curveballs. Nor was it purely a question of timing—again, he was better against curveballs. Rather, what this suggests is a problem with horizontal movement. That’s what the changeup and sweeper have in common.

Making matters worse, the hope that he’d tap into his power crumbled along with his launch angle. He started his MLB tour with an elevated groundball rate, at 47.8% through May 15, relative to the league’s 41.8%. But from there, it’s like he was deliberately taunting the Shai-Hulud, spiking his groundball rate to 61.8%, second-highest in MLB over that stretch.

The good news is that a lot of those groundballs got through, as he kept his hard-hit rate around average. The bad news is his DHH% was a small-sample mirage, as it went from above league average before May 15 to about half of league average afterwards. There’s not as much power potential as we’d hoped, and he’s not a swing-path change away from becoming a 30-doubles hitter.

So his overall results got better, raising his wRC+ from 62 to 83, but the adjustments he made in his swing decisions weren’t enough to outrun the league figuring him out or the collapse in his launch angle. He became a better hitter in some ways while losing what made him projectable.

The Tacoma Breakthrough?

Ben Williamson’s best  trait has long been his coachability. If you don’t believe me, ask his college coaches, as Kate did last summer. So it came as an encouraging sign that he seemed to learn some lessons from his first tour of MLB.

After he returned to Tacoma, his offense exploded, even by the standards of the PCL, where every night is 90s Night.

Metric	MLB 5/15 – 7/31	AAA post-7/31	PCL Average
Slash line	.262/.311/.311	.327/.417/.510	.271/.360/.440
BB%	6.1%	12.8%	11.0%
K%	19.7%	12.8%	21.6%
ISO	.049	.183	.172
wRC+	83	135	100

But the power was illusive. Even in Triple-A, his barrel rate was just half the PCL average, and his launch angle was just 1%. He wasn’t solving the fundamental bat path issue, just thriving despite it. His success came more from contact and discipline than from barrelling up the ball.

Unfortunately, his time in Tacoma tells us little about whether he solved his vulnerability to changeups and sweepers. He saw just 33 changeups and 43 sweepers after his demotion. The good news is he looked a lot better against the ones he saw. He cut his chase rate on changeups in half and then some, going from 45.1% in MLB to just 21.1% after his demotion; and he only whiffed twice on the 14 total swings on changeups. And against the sweepers, his chase rate fell from 39.1% to 23.1%; and he only whiffed three times out of his 19 total swings. The results were better, but the reality is that 33 AAA changeups and 43 AAA sweepers aren’t enough to know if he actually solved anything.

The Floor

Even if Williamson will never be Kyle Seager or Eugenio Suárez with the bat, his glove continues to give him a floor you could live with. He led AL third basemen in DRS at the time of his demotion, and ultimately finished sixth in MLB despite playing in just 85 games. While that didn’t show up in OAA, the eye test suggests DRS is truer to reality.

So even if his Tacoma results are his true AAA talent, and his MLB results are his true MLB talent—and it’s too early to know if either is true—you still can’t slap a Quad-A label on him.

Consider what it looks like if an 85 wRC+ bat with elite defense at third base is all he is? That’s the version of Williamson that we saw between May 15 and July 31, and it put him on pace for 1.2 fWAR over 150 games, but that’s using OAA for the defensive component, which I don’t trust for Williamson’s 2025. Looking instead at Ke’Bryan Hayes’s 2022 and Maikel Garcia’s 2023, I see pretty similar profiles (with slightly better baserunning) netting out to a 2-3 win player. Baseball Reference, which uses DRS for its defensive component, suggests a 1-4 win player.

That’s not a cornerstone of a championship favorite, but it’s good enough for an everyday player on a contender if he’s one of your weak points.

Seattle might be able to do better than that at third base in 2026. Suárez is still available for money, and Colt Emerson is knocking on the door. But having Williamson as a floor option leaves the Mariners in fine shape, even if his improvements in AAA don’t translate back to the bigs. And if they do, Williamson’s a star.

Editor’s Note: We are privileged to have today’s piece written by former Let’s Go Tribe/Covering the Corner writer, Matt Schlichting, who is one of my (Quincy’s) all-time favorite baseball writers. He writes the number nine prospect recap for us each season. Thank you, Matt!

Thank you, Brian, for inviting me to contribute to the Prospect Countdown once more. In previous years, I’ve had a lot of fun with the ninth spot on the Prospect Countdown. Ralphy Velazquez invented interstellar travel by smashing an airplane past Voyager 2 last year.

Today, there is no back catalogue of backs, zydeco tapes, or stock footage of an ambulance. There is simply Juan Brito, our no. 5 prospect as voted by readers in 2024 and 2025.

The infielder entered last season as a top contender to start at second base. In 2026, he is one of many vying for the role. Thumb surgery and a hamstring strain can do that, and they also fog the statistical lens. EXAMPLE:

Brito slashed .256/.365/.443 in 652 plate appearances across 144 games for the Triple-A Columbus Clippers in 2024.

In 2025? Ninety-Nine plate appearances. Twenty-four games. .256/.357/.463. While the slash line looks familiar, his strikeout rate rose 5% to 21.2%.

Prior to the injury, Brito posted a 143 wRC+, slashing .320/.390/.540 with a 15/10 K/BB/% in fourteen games. Injuries limited other second base prospects, including former first overall pick Travis Bazzana. However, missed opportunities often hurt worse than their causes.
-Matt Schlichting

Juneiker Caceres, OF (Age 18)
2025 (CPX) 160 PA, .289/.419/.469, 3 HR, 5 SB, 16.9 BB%, 11.3 K%, 139 wRC+
2025 (A): 130 PA, .250/.331/.345, 1 HR, 2 SB, 6.9 BB%, 13.1 K%, 103 wRC+

Impressed at the complex league, then hit the ground running in a late season promotion to Single-A before running out of steam late in his age-17 season. Loaded with potential.

Jaison Chourio, OF (Age 20)
2025 (CPX) 27 PA, .261/.370/.304, 0 HR, 1 SB, 14.8 BB%, 37.0 K%, 95 wRC+
2025 (A+): 353 PA, .235/.380/.284, 2 HR, 9 SB, 18.7 BB%, 21.8 K%, 103 wRC+

Chourio was lining up to be Cleveland’s top prospect after a sensational 2024, but he was slowed in 2025 by a nagging shoulder injury and had a very average season. He’s looking to bounce back in 2026.

Josh Hartle, LHP (Age 22)
2025 (A+): 22 GS, 103.1 IP, 2.35 ERA, 3.06 FIP, 24.0 K%, 8.9 BB%, 1.05 WHIP
2025 (AA): 2 GS, 10.0 IP, 4.50 ERA, 2.79 FIP, 16.3 K%, 4.7 BB%, 1.50 WHIP

Acquired from Pittsburghin the Spencer Horwitz trade, Hartle was one of Cleveland’s most successful starting pitchers in its minor league system in 2025. Stands 6-foot-6, but doesn’t have a ton of velocity.

Jace LaViolette, OF (Age 22)
2025 (NCAA) 262 PA, .258/.427/.576, 18 HR, 7 SB, 21.8 BB%, 25.2K%, 120 wRC+

Cleveland’s first round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, the 6-foot-6 LaViolette instantly becomes one of the top power hitting prospects in the system. Strikeouts and contact have been an issue, however.

Alfonsin Rosario, OF (Age 21)
2025 (A+) 354 PA, .268/.362/.490, 16 HR, 12 SB, 10.8 BB%, 25.1 K%, 139 wRC+
2025 (AA): 145 PA, .211/.303/.391, 5 HR, 2 SB, 10.3 BB%, 33.1 K%, 105 wRC+

One of Cleveland’s most impressive hitters in its minor league system during his stint at High-A Lake County as a 20-year-old. Rosario has a unique combination of speed and power, but will need to overcome his strikeouts.

Kahlil Watson, OF (Age 22)
2025 (AA) 253 PA, .247/.337/.461, 8 HR, 7 SB, 10.3 BB%, 28.5 K%, 134 wRC+
2025 (AAA): 176 PA, .255/.358/.477, 8 HR, 10 SB, 12.5 BB%, 26.7 K%, 121 wRC+

Acquired in the Josh Bell trade, Watson had his best season in 2025 after switching to the outfield from shortstop. Possesses a unique blend of speed and power mixed with great athleticism.

Daniel Espino, RHP (Age 25)
2025 (AAA): Threw 0.2 innings in Columbus at the end of the season, and threw 4 and 2/3rds innings in the Arizona Fall League. In those 5 and 1/3rd innings, he struck out 8 batters and walked 3. He gave up 7 hits (some rough batted ball luck)
2024 (IL): Missed all of 2024 and 2023 due to shoulder capsule repair issues, but as a 20 year-old in High-A in 2021 he had a 14.92/3.38 K/BB/9 and a 3.08 FIP

Espino has long been an object of wistful dreaming for Guardians’ prospect aficionados with his upper 90’s fastball and slider that might be even better than the heater. The question is whether he can ever be healthy enough to make the big leagues, where his path is probably now as a reliever.

VOTE BELOW:

Our list so far:
1. Chase DeLauter, LHH OF
2. Travis Bazzana, LHH 2B
3. Parker Messick, LHP
4. Ralphy Velazquez, LHH 1B/RF
5. Angel Genao, SH SS
6. Braylon Doughty, RHP
7. Cooper Ingle, LHH C
8. Khal Stephen, RHP
9. Juan Brito, SH 2B/1B/RF/3B

24. Wilder Dalis (93 points, 11 ballots)

The 19-year-old Venezuelan switch-hitting third baseman and shortstop was signed as an older 16-year-old in May 2023 (most of the highly touted prospects sign in January) to a small enough bonus that it wasn’t reported, indicating that Dalis wasn’t highly sought after as a prospect. No matter — Dalis went straight to the Dominican Summer League and though he struggled in 2023 there (69 wRC+), he was much improved when he repeated the DSL in 2024 (144 wRC+, 21 SB, more walks than strikeouts).

Dalis impressed again in fall instructs, then was a key player for a very good Rockies ACL team in 2025, where he was 1.6 years younger than league average. In 219 plate appearances, Dalis hit .352/.440/.525 with three homers, five triples, and 12 doubles along with 10 steals while walking in 13% of PA — good for a 149 wRC+ and a top 10 ranking in many offensive categories. He was even named the organizational player of the month for July.

After the ACL season ended, Dalis got a nice birthday present with a late July promotion to full-season ball with Low-A Fresno, where he was 3.2 years younger than league average. He got off to a hot start in Fresno with two multi-hit games off the bat, but he cooled off down the stretch. In 31 games at the level, Dalis hit .241/.333/.379 (100 wRC+) in 137 plate appearances, including three homers and seven doubles. On the year, Dalis was more effective hitting lefty (.890 OPS) than in a 46 plate appearance sample hitting right-handed (.733 OPS).

In the field, Dalis played mostly third base for the complex team but saw nearly half of his action in Fresno at shortstop with some second base sprinkled in. He committed 10 errors in 58 games at third, four in 22 games at shortstop, and another two in six games at second base.

Here’s some video of Dalis in Fresno this past season, including some slo-mo looks at his swing:

Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs identified Dalis as a prospect of note last January, describing him thusly:

Dalis is a medium-framed 18-year-old Venezuelan infielder who had a good second year in the DSL, where he was among the team’s leaders in hard-hit rate.

Dalis has clearly become a prospect to watch with his strong stateside debut, though the national scouts haven’t quite caught up yet. He’ll likely begin 2026 back with Fresno, where he’ll still be one of the younger players in the league. Dalis is at least a 35+ FV player for me pending updated scouting reports and continued good performance in full season ball, ranking just off my top 30 list.

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If you’ve been paying any attention over the last few years, you’ll have noticed thata smaller and smaller percentage of movies to make it to the theaters. These days, many if not most are being released directly to streaming. This used to be the sort of thing movie production companies only did when they had absolutely no faith that a movie would be well-received, now it’s the norm.

Thing is, movie companies own the streaming services, much like they used to own the theaters before the US Government forced them to divest in an anti-trust case. And the movie companies prefer the steady income of a subscription model to the boom-or-bust of the theater, so they release their movies directly to streaming – much to the frustration of the artists creating the films – because that’s all they really care about. It removes a lot of the risk from the equation for them – as long as they continue to create content and host old content that people still enjoy, they’ll get their $5-$20 bucks a month. A movie might be a critical bomb, but in this set up it can’t really be a commercial bomb – assuming they budget correctly for how many subscribers they have. On the other hand, without that risk, there’s no reward for a movie that does incredibly well, either. K-Pop Demon Hunters was a surprise smash hit for Netflix, but because it’s on their streaming service instead of in movie theaters, it couldn’t add hundreds of thousands in ticket sales; it simply maintained their subscriber numbers or maybe bumped them a little.*

*This has nothing to do with the point I’m trying to make, but spelling things out like this really gives you insight into why Netflix views “content” the way it does. Why would you give the creatives a little more time or money when it won’t benefit you in potential additional profits?

“What does this all have to do with baseball?“ I can hear you shouting, and, well, that’s easy. Baseball, with its focus on being a business, has adopted a very similar low-risk, low-reward plan. With a handful of exceptions.

The big-spending baseball teams buck the trend

People complain about the Dodgers and the Mets spending. But they don’t complain about the Yankees – except out of remembrance for what they did in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. I haven’t heard anyone complain about the Blue Jays, White Sox, Cubs, or even Red Sox despite those teams also residing in super-sized markets. Why is that? Well, because the Dodgers and Mets are doing what precious few other teams have been willing to do in recent years. They’re taking “risks.”

The Mets have an owner who has thrown the team’s maximization of profits out the window in an effort to chase wins because he’s a fan of the team first, and a business owner in his other endeavors – as I have often advocated MLB owners should be. The Dodgers are buoyed by not only a TV contract significantly better than most of the rest of the league, but one that they are not responsible for sharing with anyone else due to loopholes added to the team when MLB needed to find a buyer.

“Be mad your owner isn’t doing this” pic.twitter.com/6OXhZXspu4

— Christopher Chadwick (@lonestarfriar) January 17, 2026

But the reasons these two teams are willing to outspend everyone are less important than the reality that they are willing to do it. The Yankees and Blue Jays didn’t get Kyle Tucker because they were simply unwilling to take the risks that the Dodgers were. And this is the thing that sets these two teams apart.

Some teams could have been doing much better

But it’s not just the Yankees who have been playing things safe. This brings us to the Milwaukee Brewers, a team held up as the modern ideal of a middle-market club in MLB. Last week, the Brewers traded away their ace, Freddy Peralta, for prospects – high-level prospects, to be sure, but prospects. They explicitly made their team worse in 2026, a year after reaching the National League Championship Series. Why did they do this? Was it because they couldn’t afford Peralta’s $8M salary? No. It was because they decided that they weren’t going to try to offer him an extension to keep him around for the rest of their young core after this season and they could improve the franchise’s total talent over the next few years by trading him. They traded known talent now for future potential talent. This is the kind of move that used to be reserved only for teams approaching the trade deadline who realized they had very slim odds of reaching the playoffs, but which are now common among the “smart” mid-to-small market teams such as the Brewers, Guardians, Rays, and even Mariners.

The Brewers, as I said earlier are held up as the best franchise going that doesn’t spend a ton of money. Royals owner John Sherman even pointed to them as the franchise he hoped to mold the Royals into. And, on the surface, that sounds like a good thing. They’ve made the playoffs seven of the last eight seasons. They’ve won their division five times in that span, including in each of the last three years. What Royals fan wouldn’t salivate over that kind of success?

But they’ve also only made it to the Championship Series twice, getting swept out of it last season, and they’ve gotten knocked out in the Wild Card round four times in those seven playoff appearances. They haven’t made the World Series even once. And after taking the Dodgers to a CS Game 7 in 2018, they haven’t gotten close.

The Cleveland Guardians have made the playoffs in seven of the last ten seasons. They have made it to the Championship Series twice, the World Series once – in 2016. They haven’t won it all. The Rays have made the postseason five of the last seven seasons, but neither of the last two. They’ve made the Championship Series and World series once each, in the same season. The Mariners have won more games than they’ve lost in each of the last five seasons, but made the playoffs only twice and the Championship Series in 2025 was the limit of their reach. It was also, notably, the first time in years that they approached the deadline by adding some of the best available talent in Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez at the deadline instead of trading away some of their players for more prospects.

How different might things be if these teams took a few more risks? Sure, there’s a chance they’d make a dud move like signing Albert Pujols, Anthony Rendon, or Jason Heyward. But if one of these teams had been the ones to add a Teoscar Hernández or Brandon Nimmo or Cody Bellinger, how much more success might they have had? But risk-aversion means they play it safe, consistently win games, but never end having a real shot at glory. They do just enough to keep their fans invested, but never enough to get over that hump because they’re more terrified that they’ll miss than motivated to try to win.

The Royals are different – but only a little

The Royals have set themselves apart from these other small market clubs with their willingness to spend in recent years. Two offseasons ago they went out and gave real dollars – though not a ton of them – to pitchers Seth Lugo and Michael Wacha to stabilize their rotation. Then, over the past two seasons, they’ve given those guys extensions to keep them around while their farm system catches up. At the trade deadlines, while other teams with similar records like the Guardians and Diamondbacks were selling, the Royals were buying. This off-season, it’s easy to be frustrated with how little the Royals have done, but look around the league at what other teams are doing.

The Guardians have added no one, though at least they’ve also not lost anyone of note. The Rays have traded away Kam Misner, Shane Baz, Brandone Lowe, Jake Mangum, and Josh Lowe. They refused to tender Pete Fairbanks despite him being one of the better relievers in baseball last season. They’ve added only Gavin Lux, Cedric Mullins, and Steven Matz – once-good players nearing the ends of their respective careers. The Mariners kept Josh Naylor and added Rob Refsnyder, but let Jorge Polanco and Eugenio Suárez go.

The Brewers, the so-called model franchise, let Rhys Hoskins go before dealing away Nick Mears, Isaac Collins, Tobias Myers, and Freddy Peralta. They’ve added no one projected to be worth even a single fWAR to their major league team.

This isn’t a defense of the Royals. They’d be easy favorites for the division if they’d been willing to take the risk of signing Cody Bellinger or Bo Bichette. But they’re still trying harder than their peers, and that means something. At least for now. As I said earlier, John Sherman wants to ultimately become a Brewers clone. If he ever gets there, we might be in for the same frustration that I am sure Brewers fans feel right now of watching their team sit right on the edge of greatness but unwilling to ever take a step forward toward the ultimate prize for fear of tripping over their own feet.

Jonathan India is the prime example of the Royals sitting in the middle-ground

If Jonathan India hadn’t played for the Royals last year, and KC had given him the deal they did, many Royals fans would be celebrating the choice to bring a bounce-back candidate in to give Michael Massey some competition for his roster spot. Especially because at one year and $8 million, it’s an extremely reasonable contract to give a guy who is still only entering his age-29 season, who still showed elite chase rates in 2025, and was a productive major leaguer for the previous four seasons. It would be a risk, sure, but a reasonably smart one.

Instead, because he did play for the Royals last year it reads as an extremely safe play, a choice to preserve the floor he represents to the team rather than go out and take a real risk by signing someone like Jorge Polanco or Bo Bichette. And that, I think, is the lens through which to view their move in keeping India.

The problem with keeping India isn’t that his contract is a little risky, it’s that the upside of such a risk is so low as to feel pointless. Let’s be clear, the Royals could have cut him and “played it safer”; certainly other teams made those choices such as when the Rays moved on from Christopher Morel or the Brewers dealt Isaac Collins. But it’s one of the “safest” risks the Royals could have made. And that’s why it disappoints so many of us. Go big or go home, as the saying goes.

The Royals are trying to straddle a line that pretty much no other team is even willing to approach. We’ll have to see both if it pays off in 2026 and if they’re willing to continue being even this aggressive into the future.