Brendan Gawlowski Prospects Chat: 6/24/26

Brendan Gawlowski: Hello everybody

Brendan Gawlowski: I am chatting from beautiful Bend, OR, where I absconded for a few days after finishing the Marlins list.

Brendan Gawlowski: Eric is working furiously on the Rays, that will be up later this week and then we’ll be mercifully done with those… for a few months.

Brendan Gawlowski: I’m staying with a couple family friends, one of whom is Austrian and knows nothing about baseball, but he gave me a piece of advice just before starting here: “Don’t embarrass yourself.” So, with that in mind, let’s go.

KURTIS SWENSON: Christian Oppor is making me sad, is there any hopes he gets over his intense yips hes having this season?

Brendan Gawlowski: Sure, but he’s gonna fall off the T100 in our next update.

leoneforthird: Ok higher WAR over the next 4 years Ryan Sloan or Kade Anderson?

Brendan Gawlowski: Whoever stays healthier. Anderson will get there first so, tentatively, him.

David Wiers: Feel free to hit me with a “SSS” but what do you think of Pratt’s .358 xWOBA vs his .309 wOBA. Come October, will his actual line be closer to his current or his expected? Also, is he like the second base and speedy version of Daric Barton? Good defense and good eye, but not enough power to do enough damage?

Brendan Gawlowski: As requested, I will hit you with SSS. It’s eight games, let’s let this play out.

Eugenio Velez: Have you watched way more Taylor Dollard/Walter Ford starts than you expected this year?

Brendan Gawlowski: Only in the sense that I’m a little surprised Ford keeps getting run out there.

brendonkuhn: Does Juan Sanchez have t100 chance this offseason? Has his defense improved at all over recent months?

Brendan Gawlowski: Chance? I guess so, but I think he’s going to be more in the PTC conversation. Talented, been better, still striking out a bunch. Fair to want to see more progress before going nuts on him, imo.

Brendan Gawlowski: Good case of where, were I scouting for a team, I’d put the everyday grade on him. But there are quite a few more of those players than guys on our T100

rossredcay: Slow start for Diego Tornes on the complex.  Anything to be concerned about here or is this just him getting his legs under him after a late start to the season?

Brendan Gawlowski: Eric was unimpressed in his look this spring.

Brendan Gawlowski: Atlanta has had a number of very, very positive developments on the farm this year. That isn’t one of them.

rossredcay: Any looks at Kahlil Watson since his promotion?  Ton of Ks so far.

Brendan Gawlowski: That’s part of the package.

Brendan Gawlowski: 28% strikeout rate at Triple-A is pretty high, particularly for a guy without elite power.

rossredcay: Rumfield running a 120 wRC+ so far.  How long do we need to see this before re-assessing his FV grade?

Brendan Gawlowski: At the risk of sounding stubborn, a lot more?

Brendan Gawlowski: First baseman with fringy power. He’s in an ideal hitting environment for that skill set, which is great for him and COL.

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s certainly possible that he’s more of a second division guy than a bench bat, and true everyday regular is in play, he’s been good. But this isn’t a grade I regret or think I need to reassess much at this point.

Brendan Gawlowski: For all of you who really value the x-stats, his xwoba is 50 points lower than his actual woba fwiw.

Beer:30: Would love your thoughts on MLBs proposal to eliminate high schoolers from the draft. As a lifelong baseball fan in my mid-50s, high school status has held a great deal of intrigue each year and been a significant part of the culture, in my view. Do you think it’s more reality than most are giving credit or just a talking point in the early stages of negotiations?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s an attempt to shift the window on negotiations, I’d be very surprised if it goes through.

Brendan Gawlowski: That said, the fact that it’s even on the table says a lot about the league’s and the owners lack of interest in the long term health of the game.

Brendan Gawlowski: It really is just dollars and cents for most of them. Disappointing.

mlommler: I did some outside drinking in Bend back in fall of 2020. You dig some Crux Fermentation Project?

Brendan Gawlowski: Went to Crux earlier this week!

Baseball Learner: Kind of the anti-prospect, but how long do you think 38 year Goldy can keep this up?

Brendan Gawlowski: I suspect he’ll fade in the second half.

Brendan Gawlowski: Hope he doesn’t, want him to cement his HOF case as best he can.

war2d2: If a fairy godmother appeared and made you god-king of the Cubs’ front office this year, which direction would you go at the deadline? They’re playing better but still don’t have much reliable pitching, they’ve depleted what was a top-5 system a couple years ago with big-swing trades that didn’t really work out, and now just as they get one important part of their rotation back they lose another (possibly for a long, long time) and get notified that their erstwhile ace that’s been rehabbing TJ probably won’t pitch the rest of the year. The D is the best in the league and the O is streaky as hell but can run up the score when it’s going good. That said, they have a handful of high profile free agents that they probably can’t/won’t resign that could help rebuild the system, and the controlled guys are young enough and theoretically good enough that you could rebuild on the fly. To put it all in one question: if you’re Jed, do you sell?

Brendan Gawlowski: No, I’m buying. Go get some pitching and compete.

apeloton: How do you weigh age to level vs results? This is mostly a Mike Sirota question but guys like Ayers and O’Dowd have also been making it interesting recently

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s a factor but it’s not a case where you can make a formulaic age-level adjustment that works for every player.

Brendan Gawlowski: In the sense that, a talented guy can be held back and we shouldn’t necessarily think less of him just because his employer isn’t ready to promote him. Or, on the flip side, I don’t want to give Andrew Salas any credit for completely flopping as a guy very young for his level.

kingkash7788: I’ve seen Nimmala rocket up prospect rankings over the last couple months. Do you think this can be sustained, or will it be like last year where he begins to struggle for the second half of the season

Brendan Gawlowski: Let’s see what happens when he gets healthy. Holding serve for us thus far, which is a positive thing, we had him evaluated pretty aggressively, I think?

mlommler: Lots of international draft chatter lately. If you were in charge, how would you structure the International pipeline into MLB?

Brendan Gawlowski: The task of fixing this market is a compelling reason to avoid seeking a leadership role here altogether

Brendan Gawlowski: I don’t like the draft domestically, and I’m not in favor of one internationally, but I’m sympathetic to the people of good faith who think it’s the only real way to clean things up in Latin America.

crzy_guy: What’s going on with the Giants? The major league club and management is in disarray, but the farms system is better than ever? Is there systematic thing they are doing, just have really good scouts? (and a lot of them now)

Brendan Gawlowski: Fascinating organization right now, to say the least. The Vitello hire was really weird and we’re obviously seeing that play out in a couple of ways. Has a Bobby Valentine in Boston flavor to it, seems like an experiment that is not working and it wouldn’t surprise me if SFG moves on fairly quickly.

Indymets: Would you rather live in a AAA town or a AA town?   I feel like the upside on my local AAA team is underwhelming.

Brendan Gawlowski: AA but I think High-A is the sweet spot.

apeloton: Do you have any favorite more under the radar/lesser known prospect sites or writers?

Brendan Gawlowski: Big fan of FanGraphs. Small but scrappy.

Brendan Gawlowski: I don’t otherwise have a place to share this thought, so I might as well embarrass him here… One of the things I really like about Eric is that he’s got that dog in him. Like, if you go to his house on a work day, he will probably have somebody’s DSL game up on Youtube on his tv. He may have a second screen set up with a trackman readout of what’s going on there.

Brendan Gawlowski: If you go with him to a Fall League game, he may have a second screen going with Texas Tech’s fall ball game, and he’ll watch that between innings.

Brendan Gawlowski: That’s the guy who’s built the place. It’s pretty cool.

rainingmozzarella: Demetrio Crisantes and Kayson Cunningham have both performed exceptionally well this year. Have their seasons changed your evaluations of them?

Brendan Gawlowski: Crisantes just needs to stay healthy, on talent I/we have always liked him.

Brendan Gawlowski: From a scout’s perspective, he’s graded as an everyday guy for years

Brendan Gawlowski: From a valuation perspective, the injury history is pretty scary, particularly for a guy who isn’t real big

Brendan Gawlowski: I want to look into Cunningham’s glove more, I saw him last week in Everett briefly but he didn’t get a lot of action.

Brendan Gawlowski: Short answer on him is ‘not really,’ had him as a plus hit tool guy without much pop and a shaky glove. That still seems about right.

jackberris: What are your thoughts on Johnny Farmelo? Too much swing and miss?

Brendan Gawlowski: Really long swing

Brendan Gawlowski: Swing and miss is going to be part of the package, speed/power combo remains too enticing to ignore even with substantial hit tool risk

JuicedBallEra: Wie funktioniert die Abseitsregel?

Brendan Gawlowski: Du legst einen schlechten Start hin, Andreas.

InsertWittyNameHere: Which ready prospects are currently blocked by the big club and should be traded to get their opportunity?

Brendan Gawlowski: River Ryan.

Chad Dubick: Is it surprising how much power Eli Willits has shown so far in his pro career?

Brendan Gawlowski: No.

wallyworld2199: Surprised that Hartman is still in Hi-A? Feels strange for an org that historically moves players along quite quickly

Brendan Gawlowski: Seems fine, honestly, he’s young and relatively inexperienced against high-level competition.

Brendan Gawlowski: I’d be a little surprised if he’s not in Double-A by mid-August

scioscia: As an organization would you rather have: Kade Anderson or Seth Hernandez or Tyler Bremner & Johnny Slawinski?

Brendan Gawlowski: I’d take ’em in the order you gave me

higginsford: Vegas is where pitchers go to die – Wei-En Lin version!

Brendan Gawlowski: Tough environment for the skillset.

InsertWittyNameHere: I agree with your draft stance, that there shouldn’t be one.  Say we get there eventually, how do you think it would shake out?  Could/would Cleveland ever be able to sign a big prospect that way?

Brendan Gawlowski: There’s nothing stopping the league and PA from keeping the bonus pools if/when they scrap the draft.

strosfan26: kinda random, but did you work with Paul Skenes at all?

Brendan Gawlowski: Zero

Brendan Gawlowski: Other than banging the table for him on draft night, and teaching him the splinker

Brendan Gawlowski: (I kid, I kid)

sammysamsam: What do you and Eric have planned for Draft coverage this year? Seems like this class is very cluttered, so I’m very curious to get more info amongst the top round guys

Brendan Gawlowski: Eric is at the combine right now, as is Michael Baumann, so that’ll help with the draft prep.

Brendan Gawlowski: All three of us will be in Philly for the draft.

higginsford: Any thoughts on Zack Gelof’s resurgence this year?

Brendan Gawlowski: Utterly bizarre career, low key one of the most surprising parts of the 2026 season for me

MadFlyDisease: Why do minor league teams not play on Mondays? Is it a rest day for players? Do they do instruction? Travel? Can you make them play games to entertain those of us reading box scores?

Brendan Gawlowski: Rest and travel

Brendan Gawlowski: The six game series has been a massive quality of life improvement for the players, coaches, and scouts. A huge win.

Person: whatever happened to Orelvis Martinez? not sure a first time PED suspension has ever derailed someone so completely so quickly

Brendan Gawlowski: Wasn’t just that. He never grew as a player, tools over skills with little improvement from his A-ball days.

rhawe: Should I be treating Theo Gillen as something more than a 45+? Insane numbers so far

Brendan Gawlowski: Stay tuned for Friday

fangraphsreaderbutwoke: Would you say aloud Cherington deserved to be fired if you thought so given you worked with him?

Brendan Gawlowski: The threshold for me to call for somebody’s job is really high

Brendan Gawlowski: As far as Ben goes… I get why Pirates fans are frustrated. The team hasn’t won under his watch, and regardless of the constraints, you have to do so at some point.

Brendan Gawlowski: But Ben has done so much good work

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s not all visible, but he has built a really strong operations group, all of the scouting arms have improved under his watch, the pitching pipeline is humming, etc.

Brendan Gawlowski: He’s a good boss who treats people well.

Brendan Gawlowski: I hope it works for him in PIT and think he deserves more time.

Sir Nerdlington: When does practice happen in the pros? Is it all just indy work before games?

Brendan Gawlowski: There’s a ton of pre-game work.

Brendan Gawlowski: Most guys stay busy in the offseason as well

wenz: Six-game series in MiLB are a win for fans, too! When an exciting prospect is in town, I’ve got the whole week to find time to get to a game

Brendan Gawlowski: Good point

Justin Krupp: Keyner Martinez has huge stuff and great strikeout numbers, but the numbers at A ball for an almost 22 year old are concerning. New top 100 addition, any new feelings even though the Giants list is pretty fresh?

Brendan Gawlowski: Betting on the traits there

Brendan Gawlowski: We really value a guy with that size, delivery, arm strength, and secondaries.

Brendan Gawlowski: Maybe he remains too wild to profile; it’s a risk.

Brendan Gawlowski: But there’s a lot of very good things going on there.

strosfan26: another random question, but what is the coolest thing you have had to do for your job. Meet players attend certain games, etc

Brendan Gawlowski: With the Pirates, in my first year, my schedule just so happened to place me in the stands for Raleigh’s walkoff to end the Mariners playoff drought. The day before, I was in the park when Shohei carried a no-hitter into the eighth. That was a pretty cool couple days.

ado64: Any thoughts on Sproat? He’s been gradually improving in results this season. 3.5 ERA June, which included Coors and Vegas, is good. And though June was his best, the improvement’s been building up to there, with May his best month before June. Think he could be very scary as he matures

Brendan Gawlowski: Staying patient, he hasn’t been good writ large but want to stick with the ingredients and traits

lmb2020: Is Baumann a local celebrity in Philly? Or is that just a fantasy in my head?

Brendan Gawlowski: Lemme report back on that in a few weeks

Brendan Gawlowski: You wouldn’t believe some of the headlines he’s come up with that Meg had to squash

Zachary Bergman: What are the pirates doing with Valdez? Why is he up if they aren’t going to play him?

Brendan Gawlowski: Just to prove I’m not a complete homer: I don’t think the Pirates have done a great job of putting their rookies in a position to succeed in recent years. A lot of them come up and sit on the bench. Maybe Yorke/Canario/Cook/Peguero were never going to be good but playing sporadically didn’t help.

crossedup: Yorger Bautista and Nick Becker had strong weeks but seem to have contact issues early on in their careers. What do you make of the two currently and maybe more generally.. where is the industry at in improving hitter contact as players develop? How much development can there be for a 59% contact rate in ACL.

Brendan Gawlowski: Scout enthusiasm has been tepid

crossedup: Over / Under 1.5 Starting Pitchers traded by Seattle by Opening day 2027 (whenever that is).

Brendan Gawlowski: Under, I think they deal one of them.

Person: higher number: current Dodgers prospect OFs traded this summer, or in the 2028 opening day lineup?

Brendan Gawlowski: Hmmm that’s a good question. I’ll say traded this summer.

appayipyip: Hot Take: the high school draft is good because 20 year old phenoms are oodles of fun

Brendan Gawlowski: Ice cold and correct take

Thomas Delaney: He’s cooled off a bit in AA, but thoughts on Luke Hill? Has he at least made himself relevant after not making your all’s offseason Guardians list?

Brendan Gawlowski: Contact data is a little scary but yes

Brendan Gawlowski: utility IF chance

Tony Plush: Let’s all take a moment to enjoy what sure looks like the Cags breakout

Brendan Gawlowski: Indeed

CherryTomato: Josh Owens has been great as a pitcher (in short outings) and coming around big time with the bat despite high Ks. Has anything changed on him since preseason?

Brendan Gawlowski: Perhaps the biggest development is that both paths still look viable.

Brendan Gawlowski: The game has a way of forcing players to choose a lane sooner rather than later; not in this case.

Fangraphs Man: if you’re a team doing a selloff and far from contention, would River Ryan’s age concern you? Even with the full 6 years of team control, you might be looking at a guy that will be in his 30s by the time you’re in a contention window. Does it make sense for him to be in a prospect-for-prospect trade (or 3 team trade) with him going to a team closer to contention?

Brendan Gawlowski: No, I’d happily take the ready made starter and deal with the decline phase as it happens

adamakbani99: Do you guys plan on updating the farm system rankings after the Rays system is finished?

Brendan Gawlowski: It’s on the list

wingedbeater: Favorite WC team to watch so far? Hard not to say Argentina but the US is for the first time ever a legit candidate

Brendan Gawlowski: South Korea has been a pleasant surprise; Switzerland’s game against Bosnia was really fun.

rainingmozzarella: Manuel Pena has hit a boatload of homers this year. Do you have any thoughts on him?

Brendan Gawlowski: Want to see what it looks like outside of Amarillo and the weird 2026 ball, so glad he’s up in Re… aw fuck.

Brendan Gawlowski: He certainly deserved his promotion

Brendan Gawlowski: One article idea kicking around in my head is to dive into “guys who get asked about in chats a lot”

Brendan Gawlowski: He’d be on that list

appayipyip: I’m telling meg you did a swear

Brendan Gawlowski: Like she’d give a fuck

doughboy: I ask a lot of Tigers questions about rando prospects that don’t get answered. Chalking it up to maybe unfamiliarity with those players. Any chance can get one positive tidbit rando thought on any tigers prospect of your choosing??

Brendan Gawlowski: I don’t see any from you today, so I can’t comment on Tigers guys specifically. As a general matter, in a chat format, I do tend to prioritize answering questions about guys I know something about off the cuff. An off the radar guy having a good couple weeks is fair game to ask about, of course, and I will sometimes put on video/do a quick stats dive while I’m chatting, but it’s hard to answer a ton of those types of questions on any given chat.

Brendan Gawlowski: Sometimes I’ll ask people to check back next week if I don’t have a good answer, and that’s seemed to work

Daron: Which is more common from your experience: 1) A player with an everyday grade doesn’t materialize into an everyday player; 2) Player with a backup role grade becomes an everyday player

Brendan Gawlowski: 1

Brendan Gawlowski: Look at previous Top 100’s, by the time you’re in the 40’s, they mostly don’t make it

jonloughridge: Brett Squires incoming!?

Brendan Gawlowski: Might’ve missed the window on the hot streak

Brendan Gawlowski: 236/.300/.361 over his last 28 days

second-pot: Are you surprised at how well Josiah Hartshorn has been performing? Are these results something like what you expected, or does this kind of performance by a 19 year old in their first year of pro ball merit consideration for the hondo/getting 50’d?

Brendan Gawlowski: Obviously he’s crushing it, he’s on the list of guys to cross check in advance of our T100 update.

wingedbeater: Anything on new NYY IFA Chien-Fan Lai?

Brendan Gawlowski: None, check back next week and I’ll take a look in the interim

muenstertruck: What’s the general skill level of ACL players? Asking because Alejandro Blasco is tearing it up for the Guardians ACL team, and I need to know if I can dream on another short switch hitter.

Brendan Gawlowski: Pretty low, I wouldn’t take surface numbers down there very seriously.

Adam S: Not a question, but random note. Just spoke with a friend who is headed to Bend tomorrow. Small world.

Brendan Gawlowski: Hope he has a good time.

Brendan Gawlowski: It is now time for me to head out of Bend, though, so I’m going to shut it down here.

Brendan Gawlowski: Thanks for bearing with me this week on the different window.

Brendan Gawlowski: I’ll be back to a normal Tuesday schedule next week, we’ll go long.