On Monday, CBS Sports published our ranking of the top 25 prospects. Over the coming weeks, we’ll start to roll out our list for each individual team. That exercise will culminate early next year with the release of our top 50.
In an effort to be transparent about a complex process, we wanted to follow up the rankings by explaining why some notable prospects didn’t make the cut. Specifically, we wanted to focus on Colorado Rockies prospect Charlie Condon, who, you might recall, we ranked as our No. 1 draft prospect back in the summertime. (Condon was subsequently drafted No. 3 overall by the Rockies.) Rest assured that Condon will be part of the top 50; still, we felt it would be worthwhile to explain why we didn’t include him as part of the initial top 25, the way we did with a few of his peers.
One of the big challenges of prospect coverage is figuring out how to weigh each player’s initial professional look. We spend months upon months analyzing these players and building out expectations for how they’ll perform over the years to come. It’s smooth sailing when the players meet those expectations after joining the pro ranks; it’s more interesting when they don’t — be it by over- or underperforming.
As a general rule, we tend to treat small sample sizes with warranted skepticism. Follow baseball for long enough and you’ll come to understand that it’s foolish, though understandable, to overreact to a few good weeks here and or a few bad weeks there. A lot of evaluative mistakes get made trying to react to every piece of new information; oftentimes, it’s better to keep the big picture in mind while giving water time to still.
Sometimes, though, a player veers far enough from those expectations in a way that makes you take notice and reconsider your prior evaluation. Bill James originated the concept of “signature significance.” It’s basically the idea that extreme performance can tell you something about a player, even if it’s contained in a small sample. Your mileage may vary on the idea (or how that idea is applied in baseball analysis), but we fear that it’s within reason to classify Condon as an example of it in play.
Condon wasn’t just bad in his first pro experience; he was bad in a concerning way. He hit .180/.248/.270 in 109 plate appearances against age-appropriate High-A competition. More worrisome than his topline results were some of his underlying measures. Condon ascended to the top of our draft list thanks to his blend of contract, power, and discipline. Those weren’t on display when he struck out in 31.2% of his trips to the plate; or when he walked in fewer than 4% of those plate appearances; or when he recorded six extra-base hits … one for each pop-up he launched.
We’re not suggesting those few weeks doom Condon to the dustbin of history or anything. It’s possible that he was worn down from his collegiate season, or that he was dealing with some physical or mechanical malady that will be corrected over the winter. Clearly we’re not giving up on him entirely — we’re still ranking him in the top 50 — we’re just acknowledging that he was really, really bad, to a degree and in a way that demanded some kind of correction on our part. This is that. All we can do now is hope Condon looks more like the player we expected him to look like heading forward.
With that explanation out of the way, here are three other notable prospects who didn’t make the top 25 — and our reasoning why.
1. Jac Caglianone, 1B/LHP, Kansas City Royals
Caglianone was the most famous draftee in the class thanks to his two-way brilliance at Florida. He has one of the most interesting offensive profiles in the game, an unusual combination of power and bat-to-ball ability. If things break right, he’ll probably end up resembling something along the lines of Anthony Santander or Diet Yordan Alvarez. Alas, we continue to harbor reservations about both Caglianone’s approach (he struck out 15% more than he walked after turning pro) and his viability as a pitcher (he doesn’t have a starter’s command), enough so that they prevented us from placing him in the top 25.
2. Bryce Eldridge, 1B, San Francisco Giants
Speaking of first basemen with two-way experience. We like Eldridge a lot. He too will be part of the top 50 and he undeniably has the chance to become a middle-of-the-order force. We just have a personal rule of thumb when it comes to young first basemen, and that rule is that we don’t buy in until they’ve demonstrated they can hit Double-A pitching — the offensive bar for the position is so high that you’re justified in being skeptical of any given first-base prospect’s chances of clearing it. Given that Eldridge played in nearly as many Triple-A games (eight) last season as Double-A games (nine), it’s possible the Giants could graduate him before he has a chance to clear our requirement.
3. Noah Schultz, LHP, Chicago White Sox
On paper, Schultz looks like a star in the making. He’s a low-slot lefty with a nasty slider who posted a 1.48 ERA and a 10.77 strikeout-per-nine ratio across 16 Double-A starts. He should debut in 2025. Nevertheless, we have him in the 25-to-30 range for two reasons. Foremost, Schultz has thrown just 115 innings over two full pro seasons. Additionally, some evaluators we trust flagged his fastball’s effectiveness against right-handed batters, suggesting he could suffer from platoon issues in the majors. We will note that Schultz has indeed had a sizable platoon split in the minors (.413 OPS with the advantage, .603 without it for his career). That hasn’t stopped him from dominating in the minors, and who knows, maybe it won’t in the majors, either.
