Teenage prospects are scary. Unless you’re a prodigy, there are so many unknowns regarding the development of teenage talent. In some cases, the physical frames are not yet finished developing, and the idea of adding muscle is still very much a possibility, making power projections particularly challenging. You shouldn’t eat raw meat, and likewise you shouldn’t put your faith in these raw prospects.
However, to completely ignore teenagers in your dynasty leagues is to artificially cap the ceiling of your farm system. These prospects are highly volatile, but that is also their appeal. Stats from rookie ball and A ball are deceptive, and should be taken with much more than a grain of salt—but standout talent still requires our attention. Many readers have already had their FYPD, but there’s a good chance many of these names are either available for cheap on the trade block, or outright available for claim.
No player included here has a Fangraphs FV of 40 or above, yet they have considerable upside worth talking about. Lets take shots in the dark and look at a few teenagers to watch for 2025 and the distant future.
If there is one name you may recognize on this list, it’s probably Beltre. As a 17-year old, he put together an eye-popping .326/.453/.618 slash for the DSL Twins in 2024. With 11 Home Runs and 10 Stolen Bases in 43 games, young Eduardo has pop and pace.
What’s intriguing is that Beltre is not a monster of a human. He stands 5’11, 175 lbs—which is not the stature you’d expect from someone slugging .618. The main thing with Beltre is that his HR/FB rate was 31.8%
Yep.
31.8%
One might see that and think he’s getting absurdly lucky, but I’m wagering that this is a sign of excellent game power and maximizing his tools. Certainly, the raw power is prevalent, but the ability to hit the ball hard does not mean you hit tons of home runs (looking at you Oneil Cruz). For a seventeen-year-old, his first steps into affiliated ball have been gargantuan, so while he is currently outside of most top prospect lists, another step into A ball next year could put the league on notice. Buy while the price is still low.
Let’s look at a table, shall we?
What you are looking at is every player 18 or younger to have at least 100 PAs in A-ball with a WRC+ of at least 100. Getting out of rookie ball into A-ball is a tough leap for a teenager to make, so it should be unsurprising that so few are producing at an even adequate level. Look through the list and you’ll find a few top 100 prospects, some notable outsider names, and players with relatively high expectations.
Yet topping this list is a player without a Fangraphs scouting report! How could this be? Luis Merejo was aggressively promoted to A ball and put together a very balanced .282/.372/.466 slash line across 121 PAs. He didn’t steal many bases (at all) or post a double-digit walk rate but Merejo provided strong production against serious competition—certainly for an 18-year-old.
I am, however, skeptical of his profile. Merejo seems like he should be a ‘high K%, high ISO’ kind of player, but he doesn’t really slug. Seven home runs in 77 minor league games in 2024 is totally fine, but Merejo—a first baseman by trade—is going to need to pump those numbers up in order to have success at higher levels. Clearly, he’s doing something right—you don’t just luck your way into a 145 wrc+—but a power surge may be necessary in order to vault him up prospect lists. Merejo hits a lot of fly balls and a lot of pulled balls, so perhaps the 18-year-old just needs to bulk up instead of radically altering his swing and plate approach. If he can increase his raw power, we could be seeing fireworks here.
Sann Omosanko
You don’t know who Sann Omosanko is. He has never been mentioned on this website, has almost no articles about him anywhere that I could find outside of international signing lists, and has no scouting report on Fangraphs. Here’s what we know about Sann Omosanko: He’s a 19-year-old 6’1 Brazilian right-handed pitcher who signed for $100,000 in 2023. He threw 55.1 innings for the Blue Jays DSL team last year and posted an ERA of 2.44 and WHIP of 1.05. He struck out 47 batters while walking just four.
Wait.
Hold on.
FOUR???
An 18-year-old walking just FOUR batters across 55.1 innings is ridiculous, no matter the level. That walk rate of 1.8% is by far the lowest of any minor league pitcher at any level, and it’s not like he was surrendering lots of hard contact either. His CSW% was 40.8%.
The problem is, uh, that’s where my reporting ends. I tried, I really tried, but there is nothing else available. I looked if there was anything in Portuguese, any radar in the background of his Instagram posts, but found nothing except one Twitter video of him pitching. So I can’t tell you if he has a good fastball, slider, whatever. All I can tell you is to keep an eye on this kid—this level of control doesn’t come around often.
Juan Valera
14 players who were 18 at the start of the 2024 season pitched in A ball that year. Being promoted to A ball that young is a tremendous achievement, as pitchers usually take much, much longer to make their way through the minors. Juan Valera was another international signing from the 2023 class, signed for just $45,000 out of the Dominican Republic. He is only barely eligible for this list, as his prospect pedigree is now high enough that he placed 18th on MLB Pipeline’s top 30 Red Sox prospects. He deserves mention here because of two reasons: 1) He was still available in our PL Dynasty League, and 2) He really deserves some mention based on his excellent 2024: