A skilled but impatient hitter who can really pick it, Tovar is poised to be the Rockies' everyday shortstop and probably will be for a while. He has incredible defensive range, especially to his right, and his footwork around the bag is balletic. At times he's too bold and rushes throws that he should just holster, but Tovar is only the age of a college draft prospect, so details like this will likely tighten up as he matures. The area where it's most imperative for Tovar to show improvement is his plate discipline. His fantastic bat-to-ball skill has enabled him to rake in the minors, but he has a tendency to offer at pitches that are way, way off the plate, pitches most hitters instantly know aren't competitive. He chased at a 37% rate in 2022, which isn't terrible in a big league context, but is pretty bad when viewed through the minor league lens, where fewer pitchers have chase-inducing stuff. While his ball/strike recognition isn't good, Tovar is otherwise an advanced hitter. He tends to work contact to center and right field, especially against fastballs, and he has a clear two-strike approach where he ditches his leg kick and takes a more conservative swing. It will be interesting to see how Tovar's speed helps inflate his extra-base output in Coors Field; he might end up turning a lot of doubles into triples there. If not for the risk created by Tovar's plate discipline, he'd be in the 55 FV tier, as he's otherwise about to produce like a complete up-the-middle player.

Naylor's 2022 rebound is a great example of why it's prudent to give catchers with any sort of offensive potential more developmental grace than their peers. He was coming off a putrid 2021 in which he hit just .188, the first severe offensive struggles of a career that, to that point, had been all about offensive performance. In a 2022 split evenly between Double-A Akron and Triple-A Columbus, he slashed an impressive .263/.392/.496 with 21 homers and 20 steals, walking nearly as much as he struck out while with the Rubber Ducks. To call Naylor's 2022 a return to form isn't exactly correct, however, because much of his resurgence was due to swing alterations that made his bat path a little more variable, which he outlined in an <a href="https://blogs.fangraphs.com/clevelands-bo-naylor-has-a-new-swing-and-a-unique-profile/" target="_blank">interview with our own David Laurila</a>. There are still visual and underlying statistical indications that Naylor is going to end up with a below-average hit tool (his swing is so uphill that he'll almost certainly be vulnerable to whiffs in the strike zone), but he has very impressive bat speed and power (especially for a catcher) that is weaponized by his selective approach, which targets the up-and-in quadrant of the zone. Naylor's speed is also rare for a catcher. His stolen base total itself is not an indication of speed, but Naylor is running home-to-first as fast as 4.10, which is a plus run time, and he should swipe double-digit bases in his physical prime, relevant for fantasy-playing readers.
Naylor's defense is still pretty rough around the edges. He's an okay receiver and framer, catching on one knee with the bases empty, utilizing a traditional crouch with two strikes and with runners on base. He sometimes sets up to block breaking balls too quickly, tipping off baserunners and peeking hitters to what's coming. The lateral agility to block pitches in the dirt is obviously here, though Naylor is sometimes late getting to the ground. His 2022 throwing was not quite as good as previous notes indicate, with lots of one-hoppers to the bag or throws sailing on him, though Naylor's pop times remain close to average. These are things that need some developmental love before Naylor can assume the primary catching role in Cleveland, but he's young and athletic enough to project that they'll be worthy of that mantle relatively soon. Cleveland added him to their 40-man toward the end of last year but never optioned him, which means he still has three option years left for those defensive skills to percolate. There's no present danger that he needs to revisit third base (which he played plenty of in high school and early in pro ball) or anything like that, and Naylor continues to project as a 2-WAR primary catcher.

Marte had a long and eventful 2022 that culminated in him looking absolutely gassed during the Arizona Fall League. After playing some winter ball for Gigantes del Cibao, Marte saw 520 regular season plate appearances, changed organizations as the highest-profile prospect in the blockbuster Luis Castillo trade in the midst of those, went to Germany as part of Team Spain's WBC qualifier roster, and then came back to the US and played for another six weeks in the Fall League. His desert lethargy was understandable, but it's still the most recent thing the industry has seen. 
There have been prior instances of prospects, including Mike Trout and Buster Posey, who had a terrible Fall League coming off a long year simply because they were tired and then rebounded the following season. It's prudent to bake this context into how one thinks about Marte, but there are also some statistical yellow flags evident in his regular season performance as well as some harsh realities to come to grips with regarding his trajectory on defense. His frame is maxed out, and Marte is not currently mobile enough to project as a big league shortstop defender. Because he's still so young, the chances are better that Marte can course correct in this area, and there's recent precedent for that path in Julio Rodríguez, who became sleeker and faster to stay in center field. 
But assuming that third base is now his likeliest position, more pressure will be put on Marte's bat, and while there's good news in that regard, there also needs to be refinement if Marte is going to hit enough to play an everyday role at third base. For instance, Marte isn't easy to beat in the strike zone. His hands load in a pretty typical spot that keeps him short back to the baseball, and he doesn't swing and miss a ton. He's also shown some ability to make mechanical adjustments, trading a high leg kick for a lower, longer stride that makes it even more evident just how powerful and balanced his lower half is than his previous swing did. Still, the quality of Marte's contact, as much as he might make, is not consistent or authoritative, and this was true in the regular season when he looked twitchier and looser than he did in the fall. Considering how strong he is and how much contact he makes, there is a shocking dearth of measurable, high-quality contact happening here. It's possible Marte simply lacks feel for squaring up the baseball, and/or that his power output was caricatured by the hitting environments of Seattle's A-ball clubs (Everett is hitter-friendly, and pockets of the Cal League are extremely so), or was simply over-evaluated in the first place. It's not typical for a prospect who was just put on a 40-man roster to have this much perceived volatility or create this level of polarization. You can do some thought exercises around where he'd go were Noelvi a 21-year-old draft prospect, or play "would you rather" with the names of other prospects to try to triangulate where he should fall on the FV scale, and all of that went into placing him here.

Julien hit 17 dingers and slashed .278/.398/.556 as a freshman at Auburn, then was ruled draft-eligible as a 20-year-old sophomore not because of his age, but because he had attended a year of secondary school in Canada before heading to college, which made him three years removed from high school. He was suddenly a young-for-the-class college bat who might have gone very high in the draft if he'd hit like he had the year before and gotten better at second base. Unfortunately, he did neither. Julien's stock fell early during the 2019 college season as he struggled badly, then he got hot during a tumultuous postseason run; the Twins drafted him on Day Three. Julien tweeted he was going back to school, then went to the Cape and had a great two weeks, after which the Twins' offer rose to just shy of $500,000, inspiring him to sign. He had Tommy John in August of 2019 and rehabbed during a 2020 season that he would have missed anyway. 
Julien finally got underway in pro ball in 2021 and since then, he's had two good seasons en route to a 40-man roster spot. He's as patient as any hitter in the minors and has walked at a 19% career rate; he has a .437 career OBP in the minors. When Julien does swing, he does so with bad intentions, taking a high-effort rip capable of putting balls out to all fields. He's going to reach base a ton and hit for power. It's enough that Julien comfortably projects as an everyday second baseman if it turns out he can stay there, and even though he has experience at other positions, second base is the only one he played in 2022. Julien has been without a true defensive home since college and didn't look great at the keystone during a prolonged look in the Arizona Fall League. He may just be a DH, which would obviously make it tougher for him to profile, but there may be elite on-base ability here and that plus the power might be enough for Julien to make an impact that way, too.

At a time when everyone has a camera in their pocket and the internet exists, it's almost impossible for an early-round prospect to be hidden in a true sense, though the 2020 shutdown contributed to Carter's lack of notoriety. Many other teams knew of Carter, but did not know his prospectdom in a thorough sense; some thought he was unsignable, others were entirely unaware of him, as we were. The Rangers took him 50th overall and he signed for $1.25 million. Carter has put up video game numbers in the mid-minors but his visual scouting report doesn't really jive with his surface-level output. He slashed .287/.388/.476 at High-A in 2022 and hit 43 extra-base hits during the year, but Carter's game is much more about soft skills than premium tools. A patient, discerning hitter, Carter's breaking ball recognition and feel for the strike zone is excellent. So are his reads and routes in center field, which he runs well enough to play right now. A downward cutting swing and middling rotational athleticism limit Carter's offensive impact to the doubles variety, and even though he's young and has a huge, rectangular frame, Carter's lack of explosiveness tempers long-term raw power projection here, and we consider him more of a high-floor prospect than a future star. The defense will hopefully hold as Carter ages, and Jake Marisnick presents a precedent in this regard. Carter looks like a high-OBP, table-setting center fielder in the Brandon Nimmo mold.

Bleis signed for $1.5 million out of the Dominican Republic in January of 2021, and after a solid showing in the DSL that year, he created huge buzz on the complex in Fort Myers throughout 2022 because of his bat speed and power. This is one of the toolsiest prospects in all the minors and one of the players on the Top 100 who has a chance to "Chourio," i.e. leap into the top-10 overall prospect mix within the next year. 
Bleis has all-world bat speed and rare rotational athleticism. His swing is a little odd and upright, and his hands load with a bit of a hitch, but he is still able to guide the barrel around the zone and produce shocking raw power for such a lithe teenage hitter. Though he's of relatively narrow build, Bleis still oozes projection, and his present footspeed gives him room to fill out and slow down some while remaining in center field. Even though his career walk rates are extremely low (7%) for a complex-level prospect (where pitchers often struggle to throw strikes), Bleis' chase rates are closer to average. Whether he adjusts to more cautious and competent pitching as he moves through the minors, we just won't know until it happens, but the more granular statistical indicators here (what Bleis' underlying contact and chase rates are relative to his strikeout and walk performance) suggest he's going to improve in these areas. Even if you dismiss that, the measurable power that's already here is incredible and reinforces the visual evaluation of Bleis' electric talent. His rate of hard, impact contact is near the top of the scouting scale when you adjust for age and is already comfortably plus relative to the big league rates in some areas (like barrel rate). When you bounce his skill set off of those of recent top high school prospects, Bleis' compares favorably. If you dropped him into the 2022 draft class (with high schoolers Bleis' age), he's going in the top five picks.

Powerful and explosive, the exciting Caminero was among the DSL's home run leaders in 2021 before coming over from Cleveland in a 40-man roster deadline trade for pitcher Tobias Myers that offseason. He took a throw to the face during extended spring training, but was back for the start of the Complex League season and was one of that league's most dominant hitters, slashing .326/.403/.492 with a 13% K% and 10% BB%, and earning a promotion to full-season ball, which also went swimmingly (.299/.359/.505). Caminero is much bigger than his team-listed height and weight, and is very likely a third base-only fit, though the Rays continue to give him some middle infield reps. He also has sizable raw power thanks to his plus bat speed and a promising early-career bat-to-ball track record. Caminero has a big leg kick, loads his hands low, and swings with bloodthirsty effort, with plus bat speed driving big pull-side power. His peak exit velocities are absurd for a teenager, and while his breaking ball recognition and overall plate discipline are both crude, his in-zone feel for contact is also very promising. The hit/power combination to profile at third base is pretty comfortably here, and Caminero might yet come into more power at physical maturity. He might have to augment his swing to get to all of that power, and the chase component threatens to drag the hit tool down, but guys who hit the ball this often and this hard tend to turn into good big leaguers.

Quero is a switch-hitting catcher who only had 39 professional games under his belt coming into 2022, the majority of which were played on the complex the previous year. He finished that season with a 10-game A-ball stint, where he struck out in 16 of his 42 plate appearances. But in 2022, he righted the ship and then some, putting up a .312/.435/.530 line while fanning just 17.7% of the time and walking at a 14.2% clip. The switch-hitting Quero demonstrated improved feel for getting his barrel on the ball from both sides of the plate, bopping 17 homers and 35 doubles. His lefty swing is more powerful while his righty cut is more contact-oriented. Defensively, he shows an accurate arm, thwarting 29 would-be basestealers in 2022. Still just 19 (his 20th birthday coincides with his first game of the minor league season), Quero has the foundation of a viable defensive catcher but still needs to polish the finer points of his defense. His patient approach and bat-to-ball skills from both sides of the plate inspire confidence in his ability to eventually become a reliable starter.

Manzardo put up video game numbers at Washington State, slashing .336/.404/.533 during his time with the Cougars and walking nearly as much as he struck out during his draft year. He had among the highest average exit velocities in college baseball at a whopping 98 mph, though that came with what would constitute 40-grade peak exit velocities, around 105 mph (and with a BBCOR bat — major league players' average is 110 mph with wood). Those metrics illustrate the way Manzardo's skill set is tailored. He doesn't have big, over-the-fence power, and instead boasts premium feel for contact and a great idea of the strike zone that makes him a dangerous lefty stick who grinds away at opposing pitchers. Manzardo hasn't hit a single speed bump in pro ball and moved into the Top 100 during the middle of 2022 on the strength of his statistical performance and visual feel to hit. He slashed .327/.426/.617 combined at High-A Bowling Green and Double-A Montgomery (for the final month), hitting 22 homers across the two levels. He barely ever chases and sprays hard line drives and fly balls everywhere, covering all but the very up-and-in corner of the plate, where he tends to get jammed. Every aspect of his offense is plus except for his raw power, but Manzardo's precise feel for the barrel and tendency to hunt pitches he can drive (or spoil ones he can't until he gets something hittable) should enable his game power to play above his batting practice raw. He's similar to DJ LeMahieu and Vinnie Pasquantino from a skill set standpoint and should provide a long-term answer at first base for the Rays within the next couple of years.

Arroyo is a hard-swinging shortstop who is off to a much more powerful offensive start than was anticipated when he signed out of high school. Back then, he was a switch-hitting, switch-throwing prepster who would pitch left-handed and play the infield, too talented to be a sideshow but not enough to go in the first round, as 10 high school shortstops were drafted ahead of him. He fell behind some of the other high school infielders in his draft class due to doubts that Arroyo could stay at short as well as concerns about his hit tool. 
To an extent, each of those things is still true. Arroyo hit for a surprising amount of power at Low-A Modesto before he was sent to the Reds as part of the Luis Castillo trade, golfing out 13 homers and slugging .514. He doesn't have huge raw juice (his peak exit velos are in the 106-108 mph range — a bit shy of big league average, but still good for a player Arroyo’s age), and his bat-to-ball and chase rate stats are comfortably below average, but Arroyo lifts the baseball with remarkable consistency. His left-handed swing has natural pull-side loft and he’s adept at impacting the baseball way out in front of the plate from the right side, accomplishing the same goal with a slightly different look. His open batting stance and deep pre-stride crouch are much more extreme than they were last year, and this change might have enabled him to see the ball better (similar to the way opening his stance helped unlock peak D-backs Luis Gonzalez) and improve his bat-to-ball ability enough for all of his modest power to play, especially in the Cal League. For a relatively compact hitter, Arroyo’s swing is swift and explosive. He’s going to get to whatever raw power he ends up growing into and has a good shot to be a middle infield regular, though probably not until 2026 or so just based on his 40-man timeline.There are mixed feelings about his defensive fit, with most of Eric's sources projecting him to second base (a mix of scouts and analysts), which is where he had him coming out of high school. He shares many similarities with Eduardo Escobar.

Freeland was a prominent high school prospect who went to a mid-tier college and hit .289/.405/.485 across two seasons, as he was draft-eligible after his sophomore year. A switch-hitting left-side infielder, Freeland's best offensive skill is his freel for the strike zone. He struggles to cover the outer third of the zone from both sides of the plate but sprays extra-base contact to all fields. Freeland's actions, internal clock, and arm strength are all fits at shortstop, where he played in college, though he may not have enough range to play there in the big leagues and could slide to third base. He deserves a shot to prove he can play short as he climbs the minor league ladder. He projects as a role-playing infielder.

It was a surprise when Isaac came off the board in the first round of the 2022 draft and even more of a surprise when he signed for full slot. It's difficult to clear the major's sky-scraping offensive bar at first base, and the track record of 1B/DH-only athletes coming straight out of high school is checkered at best. Teams, especially those the industry feels are more analytically-inclined, tend only to wade into these waters when there's a relatively high degree of confidence in the prospect's bat, as there was with Nick Pratto and Triston Casas. Often this confidence is the result of a large sample of data generated against elite peers on the showcase circuit and in geographic locations where the quality of varsity baseball is extremely high, like Southern California and Florida. That wasn't the case with Isaac, and so this pick is a departure for Tampa Bay. There were other teams on Isaac in roughly this range, through pick 60 or so. He has pretty serious juice for a high school hitter and can do damage when he's off balance through sheer strength and bat speed. Isaac tracks pitches well with his eyes and shows you the ability to move the barrel east and west at the bottom of the strike zone, either poking contact the other way or taking a healthy, pull-side rip depending on the situation. Visual indications of an exciting hit and power combination, even for a first baseman, are definitely here, it's just that they were shown against pitchers throwing 84-89 mph. The elements of Isaac's eyeball report are enough to consider him a prospect, but it's hard to know <em>how</em> good those elements are until he starts accumulating pro at-bats.

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Not all of the pitchers who showed a velocity increase during 2020 Instructional League activity, which came after the prolonged pandemic layoff, have sustained that bump. Bradley has, and he's done so while building an innings count that should help vault him into the Rays rotation at some point in 2023. He only averaged 91-94 mph during the 2019 season, but he has been parked in the 94-97 range since that '20 instructs period. His pitch efficiency has been ludicrous and actually got better in 2022, when he walked just 6% of opposing batters. Bradley hammers the zone with his heater (he threw strikes with his fastball at a 71% clip in 2022), and the uphill line and carry on the pitch make it difficult for hitters to get on top of, especially at these velocities. His slider often has curt, unspectacular-looking movement, but Bradley's command of it and the way he sets it up with well-located fastballs make it a dominant pitch. He's adept at dropping it into the top of the strike zone, around the hands of left-handed hitters who think it's a fastball above the zone until it cuts down onto the corner. These two pitches are Bradley's most-used weapons by a wide margin, as his splitter and curveball are both used 6-7% of the time. Because his delivery is so elegant and consistent, Bradley's splitter has deep projection. Yes, he's reached Triple-A, but this is a 21-year-old we're talking about here. He's likely to develop feel for that pitch over time and have a more complete arsenal at peak. His fastball's underlying traits will make his current style of pitching effective at the big league level, and Bradley's demonstrated durability and command mean he's going to consume a ton of innings and have some years where he's one of baseball's top 25 or so starters from a WAR standpoint even if that splitter is only ever okay.

Ortiz rocketed through the system in 2022, skipping High-A and spending most of the season with Double-A Altoona before making his big league debut across four starts in September and October. While he was already throwing quite hard, Ortiz came into even more velocity in 2022 and averaged 97 mph on his fastball, up two ticks from 2021. The pitch has natural tailing action, but Ortiz can also blow it past hitters at the letters when he wants, and his TrackMan data shows he's mixing in four- and two-seamers in the locations where they're most effective. His finishing pitch, though, is his slider, a nasty upper-80s sweeper that generated a 50% whiff rate and 38% chase rate in 2022. He commands it consistently enough to his glove side to project as a starter. In the past, Ortiz's high-effort delivery and sub-optimal fastball shape put him on the starter/reliever line, but he's thrown plenty of strikes across multiple seasons while simultaneously developing more velocity and comfortably projects as a starting pitcher now. How impactful a starter may depend on how his changeup, currently a tertiary offering, develops at the big league level. It shows above-average arm-side action on occasion, but he's only throwing it 12% of the time. Poised to compete for a rotation spot when 2023 camp breaks, Ortiz is one of a few high-upside Pirates youngsters who look like they'd fit in a contender's rotation.

Tiedemann was passed over as a SoCal high school hurler in the 2020 draft due in part to an ill-timed injury. He spent a year at a JUCO, where he was good but not totally dominant, to the consternation and befuddlement of some scouts. But his stuff, body projection and age (even after a year of JUCO ball, he was still just 18 when he was drafted in 2021), were enough for Toronto to pick him up in the third round. Opinions on Tiedemann vary depending on how much stock is put in his early professional performance: He sat 96 mph at instructs in 2021, but skeptics questioned whether that was a short-term effect of him airing things out in short stints, or if receiving higher-quality development and instruction than he got in his amateur environment had actually unlocked something. It appears the latter is true. 
Tiedemann has shifted toward the first base side of the rubber and has closed off his stride direction slightly, which creates additional deception in his already-funky low-slot lefty delivery. The funk-factor made up for a slight dip in velocity; the heater sat in the 94-95 range, but he still managed whiff and chase rates well above average on the offering as he made his way from Low- to Double-A in his first year of pro ball. He throws two plus secondaries — a mid-80s changeup and a low-80s slider, each with good movement and high whiff-rates — and he’s shown the ability to locate each of his offerings, boasting strikeout rates over 34% at all three minor league levels. Sometimes the length of his slider is so ridiculous that it's actually tough for him to control. He has three potential plus pitches and front-end upside.