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Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat
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Eric A Longenhagen
1:13
Watson was 93-94 with 45 secondaries this weekend. Russell needed to step away from the game last year.
Mike M
1:13
What are YOUR impressions of Ohtani thus far?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:14
He'll be fine. Saw him once against Tijuana. Was up to 95, saw a few 7 splits and sliders. No curveball feel, command not there. He's working through things but I'm not concerned.
Andy Ibanez
1:14
Am I even a 40 grade prospect at this point?
Eric A Longenhagen
Finnegan
1:15
Should the Red Sox be worried about Jay Groome's WHIP from A ball last season?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:15
no
Martin
1:15
Can Brailyn Marquez end up as a top 10 prospect for the Cubs after the season?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:15
Yup. Rare arm strength for a lefty, secondaries are solid.
Curious Reader
1:15
How do you chose which questions to answer?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:17
I take them in the order they come in. If I don't have a good answer off the top of my head (which is the case with open-ended questions like 'Which rookie pitcher will have the most impact the second half of this year') it usually gets skipped. Or if it references other publications, also skipped. There are a lot of question fragments in here where people thumbed the ENTER key too soon. Mostly I just go in order.
Wilmer Font
1:18
What is my ceiling at this point?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:18
Good reliever
Wayne
1:18
One more question on Funkhouser: is his stuff all the way back to where it was in college?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:18
When healthy, yes. And I'd argue his changeup is better than it was in college.
mike sixel
1:19
If  a GM didn't trust his scouts more than a "magazine"....that would be bad.
Eric A Longenhagen
1:19
Correct
Kevin
1:20
Fascinated by your convo w/ Carson on "reverse projection." Are there any prime prospects of the 2018 class that come to mind who may be in line for a bump once immersed in pro ball?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:20
Grayson Rodriguez
IndyMets
1:21
What names come to mind when you think of toolsy high risk, high reward hitters that are sleeping outside the top 100?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:22
You can add Alexander Canario to the guys halfway down the list: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/heres-some-lower-ranked-prospects-we-l...
Bravesy McBravesface
1:22
How many of the first 30 draft picks do you think will come from Georgia or Florida?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:23
Twelve
Charles Finley
1:23
Did you play baseball in high school?  College?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:25
In high school I was cocky and had just finished reading Moneyball so I didn't want to bunt, didn't like the coach, quit the baseball team as a sophomore. That was it. I was also out of shape and would have sucked. Have logged thousands of hours playing wiffleball, though.
Frank Menechino's Dog
1:27
I have a somewhat theoretical question about upside.

Can a player ever really *lose* their upside? For example, if a teenage prospect receives very high marks from scouts, but then "falls off," so to speak, with a run of poorer performance, isn't that initial appraisal still valid? It seems like, more than other sports, baseball prospects have a longer route to "figuring it out" as they progress through the minors.

As an A's fan, I'm thinking specifically of guys like Matt Olson. He was considered one of the better high school hitters when drafted, and made a couple Top 100 lists those first couple pro years, then he seemed to disappear from top-prospect discussion entirely. After 2017, it seems like the high-upside appraisal is entirely justified.

Put another way: should we be less reactionary with prospect appraisals, and instead have a longer-term mindset?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:32
1:33
and we can talk about being overly reactionary as writers and the things that influence our thinking and how it deviates from people in baseball.
1:34
In general, my answer would be that most people in baseball look at prospects as amorphous talents. They see how things might break for a guy, good or bad, and have a good sense of who they like better of the players they've seen based on that.
1:38
The whole idea of ranking these guys (which is just what gets clicked on most and that's why it's done) leads us to do things like what you're describing and creates this idea of granular certainty that just isn't true. It's our best guess and we put a lot of effort into trying to line guys up in a way that makes sense.
1:39
Like with Maitan. He looks bad right now. He's also a teenager who everyone was raving about two years ago. Those two things need to be balanced against one another and you have to rank the guy, but those are extreme things to balance and so there's probably not an objectively correct way to do it.
1:40
Okay, I must go. Thanks for sticking around this week and please consider a FG subscription.
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