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FanGraphs 2026 Top 100 Prospects Chat
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Drew
1:41
So if Ryan Sloan takes a step forward in terms of workload, he’s a candidate for #1 overall next year?
Brendan Gawlowski
1:41
Candidate for No. 1 pitcher maybe...
Scott
1:42
Can you provide any insight on the difference in grades for Willits and Josuar Gonzalez? They're similar ages with seemingly similar profiles and tools, to a certain extent. Is it the difference in quality of competition they have faced so far? Thanks for the great list!
Eric A Longenhagen
1:42
Good question. Those two make sense as bedfellows who get paired together, yes. Josuar has a little less physical obvious projection. There are definitely ways for more compact athletes like him to hit for power (Lindor is the example) but Willits' frame has more obvious room. He's not Corey Seager or anything, but there's a more powerful look to how his hands work and Josuar was expanding in a way that cost him damage when I saw him in the fall.
Kate
1:44
Does giving davalillo a 50 with a 45 fastball give you any pause?  How many good mlb starters are there with below avg fastballs?
Brendan Gawlowski
1:44
Yes and we kicked that around with him. At the end of the day, he has a couple big secondaries and a well-rounded arsenal that should allow him to use the fastball as a complimentary piece. But it's a risk -- good question.
Eric A Longenhagen
1:44
70 split/change. In the instances where guys with below average fastballs succeed in a no. 4 or better SP role (it happens) it's often because there's a 70 or 80 grade thing lurking.
Guest
1:44
Who are some names either on or off the top 100 who you think are most likely to make a major jump up the list by the end of the season
Eric A Longenhagen
1:44
Any of the young hitters ranked in the 40-50 range
Pat
1:47
Assuming Emmanuel Rodriguez drop off the list is a combo of his passivity & injury proneness?
Brendan Gawlowski
1:47
And inability to catch anything in the upper half of the zone. And some concerns about his defense in CF. It all just added up.
529
1:49
Now that we've had some time, what impact has the contraction of the minor leagues had on prospect development?
Brendan Gawlowski
1:49
There are a bunch. The most obvious is that it seems like it's killing young hitters -- perhaps Latin American ones especially -- with raw hit tools. But it's also a factor in why a bunch of really good players are moving so quickly. One fewer hurdle to clear. We could list a bunch of others.
Hazmat Corntail
1:50
For us dynasty leaguers who will finally get a crack at last year’s draft class (in addition to everyone else), where do you see the most value across positions in terms of ML-ready talent at this stage? Is there anyone from last year’s class that has a shorter apparent trajectory to the majors than the others?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:50
The pitchers who ended up in Boston; Kyson and Phillips, Bremner (duh), Jamie Arnold if the strikes come back (I really hope so, he's a lot of fun), Gage Wood. College arms from teams who either have a track record of racing guys through the minors (Atlanta, Anaheim), or building/competitive clubs with an obvious need for pitching (Sacramento, maybe Arizona with Pat Forbes)
Brendan Gawlowski
1:51
If Kade Anderson only made 15 minor league starts, I wouldn't be shocked
Marco
1:53
Surprised to see Yolfran and Celestin so high. What do you see in them that others might not? Or are you just not as discouraged by their lack of production to date?
Brendan Gawlowski
1:53
Extremely projectable athletes. The kind of players you give a lot of runway to.
Brendan Gawlowski
1:54
Yolfran in particular was a funny conversation because we both wanted to include him and both (or at least I) sorta thought the other person wouldn't want to do it.
Scott
1:54
Eric, reading the “How’s my driving” piece, it seems like you risk overfitting the updated scouting reports to the singular eventual outcome. As an example, look at Victor Robles. He’s listed as a big miss (projected FV65, actual FV40+). But his rookie year produced 3 WAR, which naively proves that’s he was capable of being at least an FV55.

How were you supposed to know that they were going to deaden the ball? Or that COVID or bad coaching or whatever would disrupt his trajectory? To my mind, you can only own the error as yours if you either think his 2019 was a lucky fluke and not his real talent level at the time or if you think his later underperformance was due to his own bad choices and you should have picked up something suspect in his makeup. Neither of those explanations seem right, or complete, to me.

So my question is this: how do you reckon with a gap between verifiable ability and eventual results? And which of the two – ability or results – is it your job to predict?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:54
You're overfitting to a singular outcome. One year of performance as an indication of ceiling is fine, but it's a much more singular outcome than what I'm doing, which is looking at a six-year window of production. A player's grade should not be there peak season. Carlos Gomez wasn't a 70 just because he had two huge seasons. 40+ describes exactly what Robles was during his pre-free agency years. Mostly performed like a below-average outfielder (40, below average) with two random peaks (+).
Guest
1:56
What kept Bubba Chandler from reaching the same grade as McLean? His last 3 starts were a level few pitchers can taste. 19/0 bb/k, 17% swstr, all 3 games below a .200 xwoba. Platoon neutral arsenal and hasn't even found a slider yet.
Brendan Gawlowski
1:56
Edge to the guy who already found a slider, no?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:57
(nods emphatically)
Actually my own boss
1:57
Can you write a note to my boss, excusing my lack of attention today?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:57
Sure, I'll trade you if you write Appelman an email explaining why the fangraphs youtube algo is now all Brian Entin.
Bustin makes me feel bad
1:58
Can you explain how a prospect with a 50% probability of being a bust ends up with a 50FV?
Brendan Gawlowski
1:58
The cold, mathematical reality of retroactive outcomes-based analysis collides with the hopeful optimism of scouting
T-Bone is the villain
1:59
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I seem to remember you (Eric) saying you preferred Early to Tolle. Has that changed?
Eric A Longenhagen
1:59
I think Early has a better chance to start because of how loose and athletic he is, but Tolle's fastball is such an elite, dominant thing, and we ended up really caring about that.
Adenolith
2:00
I've always had it in my mind that sometimes players get called up too quickly and it ruins their development. Is that an actual thing? Is there a reason a player's long-term outlook might be negatively impacted by an aggressive promotion even if they get sent back down?
Brendan Gawlowski
2:00
It can be a factor, particularly if they start developing bad habits to cope with the competition. Juan Flores turning into a swing-at-everything hitter is a mini example.
Lovelayingdown
2:02
Is there anyway to get the player linker back for the chats?
Eric A Longenhagen
2:02
I can put links in the transcript but not in the live chat.
Meh, I guess we can paste links to the player pages in here as we talk. Is that something people want?
2:03
Would you find it helpful if we posted player links in chat as we go?
Yes, I'm not familiar with these dudes (15.5% | 18 votes)
 
Yes, I'd rather just click on something than search for it myself (30.2% | 35 votes)
 
No, I mostly know who you're talking about (54.3% | 63 votes)
 
Total Votes: 116
1b truther
2:04
only 3 (4 if you include lazaro) 1b on the list. is this a new inefficiency emerging? seems like we've gotten to a crazy place of teams undervaluing 1b, and overvaluing ss. is willits or arias really that much more valuable than ralphy?
Brendan Gawlowski
2:04
A lot of the guys on this list projected to other spots are going to wind up at 1B. Florentino, Condon, Liranzo all candidates right now. And then there's going to be a surprise 1B from injury or need. looking at current 1B, Vlad, Busch, Contreras, etc. all were graded elsewhere and wound up at first.
DEF
2:05
Where would Walcott rank without the injury?
Eric A Longenhagen
2:05
For me: sandwiched between Benge and Duno.
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