Here in Arizona, we are two weeks into our fall league and there have been some schedule changes (a few days canceled and a make-up doubleheader on Tuesday) due to the tropical humidity on Mexico’s Pacific coast. While about 60% of the roster remains, there are already a few players that have moved the scouting needle for me or for the many guys here who pitch with gutsy bell routes and walk tendencies to deepen their club’s understanding of these players. I’ve pushed a bunch of updates to the 2025 Fall League tab on the board, and there’s a map key below so you can quickly parse the basics of those updates, as well as some scouting notes on players whose grades or projections have changed.
Trend Bar Chart Key
You’ll notice the “Trends” column on the board. There are several (mostly self-explanatory) symbols in there that give you an idea of what the player looks like. The “up” arrow means someone is playing well enough, or looking different enough, that I can increase their FV rating from previous reports. The upward trend will likely continue through the fall, with player grades improving again during offseason roster work. In cases where players perform so poorly that they earn a “down” arrow, I’m not diminishing their FV rating at this point because historically there have been plenty of great players who struggled in the AFL due to fatigue, apathy, or other reasons that had nothing to do with their talent.
The target “🎯” indicates a player I haven’t seen yet, or possibly an up arrow player if they reinforce a good early look with more of the same. At some point (say a week from now), the game I decide to run on a given day will depend entirely on who is left on my target list. The “new” tag indicates players who weren’t on the board before, and the band-aid “🩹” names indicate players I haven’t seen, or players who haven’t played due to injury.
new faces
Esmerlyn Valdez, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates
Owen Ayers, center, Chicago Cubs
Hudson Leach, RHP, Houston Astros
Valdez had a stellar 40-man plateau in the 2025 High-A and Double-A seasons (.286/.376/.520 with 26 homers). He’s had a stellar fall league campaign, hitting his eighth home run in the ninth game yesterday. The most important part about Valdez in 2025 is his drop in strikeout rate. His strike rate dropped from 30% in 2024 to 24% this year. This improvement coincides with mechanical changes (his hands are more vertical than in 2024), so there’s at least some visual evidence that Valdez has actually changed, although he’s still swinging on a lot of fastballs. There’s more to his latest report on the board, but in a nutshell, he looks a lot like Randall Grichuk (rally right corner outfield gear) and should contribute to Pittsburgh’s outfield mix in late 2026.
Pirates rookie Esmeline Valdez has hit 26 home runs in 123 games this season.
What power does he bring to the AFL?
Look at the home run in his fall league debut? pic.twitter.com/mLEXmtokqG
— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) October 8, 2025
Ayers has an incredible arm, he has the lightning-quick exchange ability of an undefeated gunslinger in the late 1800s, and has regularly hit sub-1.9 pitches for me this fall. The rest of his receiving defense isn’t great, but Ayers is a recent small-school prospect ($50,000 from Marshall in 2024) who deserves time to develop there. Can he fight? He excelled as a senior hitter in Low-A in 2025 (Ayers is 24), excelled against mostly bad pitches in Arizona, had roughly average raw power but was susceptible to high velocity. He’s definitely in the spotlight right now, but his role and projections are still pretty vague and dependent on his improvement as a receiver.
Hudson Leach is a potential power reliever who has the best pure breaking ball I’ve seen so far this fall. Check out his latest report on the board for more information.
as a major league starter
Luke Sinard, RHP, Atlanta Braves
Spencer Miles, RHP, San Francisco Giants
Anderson Brito, RHP, Houston Astros
One of the fun thought exercises when looking at the entire fall league is, “Which of these guys can be a major league starter?” Some years there are a few good guys, and some years there are just one or two. There are several candidates on this year’s team (like Luis De Leon, Jake Bennett, Jose Conil, and Hagen Smith, all of whom I think you could make a coherent argument for belonging on top-100 lists this offseason), and there are more emerging, including the names above.
The 6-foot-8 Sinard didn’t start playing baseball until his senior year in high school. He began his college career at Western Kentucky University and then had a breakout season as a sophomore at Indiana University, setting the school’s single-season strikeout record with 114 strikeouts in 86 1/3 innings. He excelled as a regional starter in late 2023 with Tommy John and returned in time for some pre-draft bullpen scouting in 2024, including at the combine. Sinard looked good enough in those situations that the Braves used a third-rounder on him before he made his first pro appearance in 2025 and pitched an efficient 72 innings between low-A and high-A innings. He missed about six weeks in June and July with a stress reaction in his elbow, which is why he caught the ball in the fall league. He adds a splitter he didn’t have in college, he can mix breaking ball shapes from cutter to curveball, and he can control a 92-96 mph fastball with a precision rare for a guy his size.
Myers and Brito are greater rescue risks. Myers is 6-foot-3, built like a starter and has a starting four-pitch combination, but due to multiple injuries, he has barely pitched since turning pro in 2022 and has logged essentially zero innings. He is Rule 5 eligible this offseason and will likely end up in the bullpen if he is drafted this offseason. If the Giants don’t roster him and no one drafts him in December, his chances of starting (thanks to another purely development-focused year in 2026) increase.
Astros junior righty Anderson Brito (who I’ve seen both bad and good at times) is only 5-foot-10 and weighs about 160 pounds. There are far more relievers who are similar to him physically and mechanically than there are starters. But Brito has a hell of a curveball that’s extremely difficult to throw for a 5-foot-10 guy and still has many years to develop as a starter since he’s not Rule 5 eligible until 2027. Sonny Gray provides some precedent if you want success as a starter for a guy that small, but he’s probably the only guy in the last decade or so to have a long career as a starter at 5-foot-10. For every Sonny Gray, there are more David Robertson (if Brito can become a career playmaker like Robertson, that would be a great result) and Deivi Garcias. I think it’s worth developing Brito into a starter and seeing what happens, but he’s one of the guys I least believe will continue in that role.
Bounce back after inconsistent season
Seaver King, SS, Washington Nationals
Jared Thomas, University of the Colorado Rockies
King, the 10th overall pick in the 2024 draft, hit a combined .244/.294/.337 at High-A and Double-A in 2025 for just an 87 wRC+. Scouts believe his swing still needs work to really get the most out of his athleticism, but King has excelled on both sides of the ball, making it easier to view his mediocrity in 2025 as an aberration. After Jared Thomas was promoted to Double-A Hartford in the second half of 2025, his strikeout rate soared to over 30%. A fairly lean, projectable left-handed hitter with plenty of power in his hands, at least when I watched it in person, I was more excited than worried about his offensive skill set. Both men are outstanding athletes who are still only 22 years old and at a stage of physical and technical development where they need to be predicted rather than feared.
