Welcome to Prospects Week

The FanGraphs Newsletter, February 22, 2022 [READ IN BROWSER]( February 22, 2022 Welcome to Prospects Week Good Afternoon, We know you are tired of reading about the lockout. We know you want baseball back. So this week, we are going to return to our daily publish schedule to present you with FanGraphs Prospect Week! Nothing symbolizes the hope of better days ahead quite like the hype of a prospect. Over the next several days we will focus our attention on baseball's future stars, releasing our 2022 Top 100 Prospect list, while exposing you to conversations with people who are responsible for evaluating talent in the game. We hope you enjoy! ⚾️ PROSPECT WEEK PRIMER Welcome to another edition of Prospects Week! It’s like Shark Week except with fewer severed limbs, better editing, and a mandatory mention of [Hunter Harvey](. It’s been a while since we’ve done a thorough-going procedural refresher before getting into the meat of the week, a rundown of what it is we’re doing, why we’re doing it, and how we came to do it this way. For those of you who have been following prospect coverage at FanGraphs for a while, you’ve likely read and/or listened to versions of this before. There have been no significant changes to our process, so for you, the word pile below should mostly serve as a review. For those new to this process, however, welcome! I’m glad you’re here and sorry this is so meticulous ▪️ 20–80 SCALE: If we map WAR production for hitters to the 20-80 scale, it looks like this: Don’t let the decimals fool you into thinking this is perfectly exact. These WAR bands are based on actual big league standard deviations, but the lines between the buckets aren’t as stark as the chart makes it seem. The takeaway here is that grades toward the upper end of the curve are rare. In a normal distribution, only about 2% of the population exists two or more standard deviations above the average, which means that in a big-league player population of about 800 guys, only about 10-15 would be “70s” or “80s.” 👉 [READ MORE]( 🔝 How To Use The Board: A Tutorial The following is our video tutorial for how to use (and get the most out of) The Board, which houses much of our work on amateur and pro prospects, including Future Value, org rankings, reports, tool grades, and video. The tutorial was initially recorded as part of [Prospects Week 2021](. A transcript, which has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity, can be found [here](. 📖 MORE PROSPECT COVERAGE [A Conversation With Red Sox Amateur Scouting Director Paul Toboni]( by David Laurila [Week 1 College Baseball Notes]( by Eric Longenhagen Kevin Goldstein, and Tess Taruskin [Catchers '22: The Changing Catcher Prospect Landscape]( by Tess Taruskin [A Conversation With Orioles General Manager Mike Elias]( by David Laurila The Mug in white! [ORDER HERE]( [Tempering Expectations for Blake Snell]( by Miles Temel, Pitcher List [DH'ing Pete Alonso May Help Save Him From Himself]( by Mark Simon, Sports Info Solutions Blog [The death of pitch framing? A potential automated strike zone looms over the future of catching]( by James Fegan, The Athletic ($) [A hurricane of activity: 8 things that will happen once the MLB lockout ends]( by Buster Olney, ESPN [@fangraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [RSS]( [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2022 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 1200 N Hartford St. Apt 312Arlington, Va 22201 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](