Moore: 2014 Arizona Fall League offers prospect intrigue

From Jeff Moore at Baseball Prospectus on August 27, 2014:

The Arizona Fall League is the Mecca of the prospect world, giving scouts and fans the most saturating collection of prospects gathered in any one spot at any point on the baseball calendar, save perhaps the one-day Future’s Game. Unlike that all-star exhibition, however, many of the game’s top prospects will ascend to the desert to play for something more than just national exposure and that third digit on the radar gun, with 32 games to refine their skills against fellow top prospects.

In what has become known as a “finishing school” before the majors, there are six teams, each of which consists of prospects from five specific major-league organizations. Within the constructs of the roster, teams assign players to the league based on positional availability. Teams use their roster spots in different ways, everything from an end-of-the-year test for a top prospect to a make-up for lost time for a prospect injured during the year.

From a scouting standpoint, the AFL is a great chance to see a large collection of top prospects at once, something which is especially convenient for someone like me who is trapped in one corner of the country. Here’s what I’ll be looking forward to when I go out to Arizona this fall.

Read the full article here (subscription required): http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=24516



Originally published: August 27, 2014. Last Updated: August 27, 2014.