Before the season started, Duran was the 83rd-ranked prospect in baseball per MLB.com and the 99th-ranked prospect by Baseball Prospectus. He has risen to the 66th-ranked overall prospect per Baseball America, who ranks him as the 4th-best prospect in the Rangers’ system. He was one of the pieces sent to Texas as part of the Joey Gallo trade.

Duran has improved his stock without appearing as high as Triple-A. In Double-A, he has a .317/.365/.574 triple slash line through 200 plate appearances this season. He spent all of last season in High-A. Duran will play third base today, but he has the ability to play up the middle. Of course, the Rangers doled out millions this winter for Corey Seager and Marcus Semien to play second and shortstop, respectively. Both players are signed through 2028.

Josh Smith was placed on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left shoulder, per the team. Smith, also acquired in the Gallo deal, has raked in his first taste of the big leagues, going 5-for-12 with a pair of walks to just one strikeout over five games. Smith is the Rangers’ 9th-ranked prospect, per Baseball America.

Before the injury, Abrams was impressive as a 20-year-old playing above his station in a league where players were roughly four years his elder on average. Regardless, he slashed .296/.363/.420 over 183 plate appearances prior to the injury, good for a 112 wRC+. At the dish, Abrams put forth a fairly well-rounded game with an 8.2 percent walk rate, 19.7 percent strikeout rate, and .123 ISO while also stealing 13 bases in 15 opportunities. Power isn’t his primary skillset, but Abrams showed enough pop at his age to suggest there’s more growth to come in that department.

The question for Abrams right now, beyond his return to health, is where the Padres hope to station him in the field. He has remained a shortstop, but a certain Fernando Tatis Jr. has aims on holding that spot long-term. Of course, the Padres experimented moving Tatis around the diamond in 2021, driven at least publicly by a desire to keep him from re-injuring his shoulder. Abrams played a little second base in Double-A, and maybe that’s where he ultimately ends up in order to secure a spot on the Major League roster. The first hurdle will be proving himself healthy, and if the season eventually gets underway, he’ll either be back in Double-A for a time or jumped ahead to Triple-A. Either way, the Padres will hope to see Abrams somewhere on the diamond in Petco Park before the end of the 2023 season, if not sooner.

Grisham’s absence, in particular, changes the dynamics of the Padres’ position player group. The Gold Glove award winner plays a strong centerfield, and in 2020, he was a multi-faceted weapon on offense: he walked at an above-average 12.3 percent clip, stole 10 bases, and provided pop with a .205 ISO. The 24-year-old has kept his foot on the gas when healthy this season, posting a 149 wRC+ in 154 plate appearances with an 11.7 percent walk rate, seven stolen bases, and a .213 ISO.

A foot contusion landed Grisham on the injured list for the second time this season on May 24th. Jurickson Profar has seen the most playing time in Grisham’s stead, and while he’s made some impressive plays with both his arm and his glove, he does not have the same offensive potency that Grisham can provide.

Like Grisham, Nola has a pair of stints on the injured list, but he’s missed more time in the aggregate. Nola has accounted for just 38 percent of the Padres’ playing time behind the plate this season, second behind his theoretical backup Victor Caratini. Nola brings more bat to the position with a 108 wRC+ in 59 plate appearances (versus 88 wRC+ in 138 plate appearances for Caratini).

Pomeranz, meanwhile, is a power arm whom the Padres would like to use to supplement Tim Hill in the bullpen’s lefty cohort. With Ryan Weathers in the rotation and Pomeranz on the injured list, Hill is the sole southpaw available out of the pen right now. Before landing on the IL with lat tightness, Pomeranz had a 1.98 ERA/2.70 FIP in 13 2/3 innings over 14 appearances.

On the whole, the Padres have been perhaps the most snake-bitten teams of the 2021 season with 842 total days accrued on the injured list, per the injury ledger from Baseball Prospectus. That mark leads the league by a fair margin – the Rays are second with 674 days missed.

With that in mind, the Friars are sticking with a six-man rotation for the time being, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com (via Twitter). Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, Joe Musgrove, Chris Paddack, Weathers, and Dinelson Lamet are currently all healthy and lined up to start games. As the youngest of the group, Weathers is probably the man on the bubble, though he has held his own with a 2.30 ERA/4.82 FIP in 27 1/3 innings as a starter this season.

Adell was chosen tenth overall in the 2017 draft. When he inked a deal that came with a $4,376,800 bonus, the consensus was that Adell would need a fair amount of time to hone his evident tools into MLB-ready skills.

As it turns out, Adell has moved much more quickly than anticipated. He finished the 2018 season at the Double-A level despite spending his entire first pro campaign at rookie ball.

The 20-year-old’s progress has made him one of the game’s best-graded overall prospects. Baseball Prospectus was especially bullish, ranking him second among all pre-MLB players leaguewide.

Unfortunately, Adell still hasn’t started his 2019 campaign owing to an ankle and hamstring injury suffered this spring. While he could resume his swift rise in short order, Adell likely won’t have a chance at forcing his way onto the MLB roster until relatively late in the 2019 season — if at all.

• Pirates starting pitching prospect Jameson Taillon will have surgery next week to fix an inguinal hernia, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Travis Sawchik tweets. Taillon will miss two months, so the injury is likely to end his season. He had already missed the entire 2014 season after having Tommy John surgery and had not pitched in 2015, so he will effectively miss two years of development. Taillon was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2010 draft, and his talent remains significant, but his injury problems appear to be denting his prospect status.
• The Reds promoted top prospect Robert Stephenson to Triple-A Louisville, where he debuted Friday night, as MiLB.com’s Daren Smith notes. Stephenson pitched well for Double-A Pensacola, with a 3.68 ERA and 10.2 K/9 in 78 2/3 innings, although he walked 4.9 batters per nine. MLB.com currently rates Stephenson the Reds’ best prospect and the 18th-best prospect in baseball, praising his fastball (which can reach into the upper 90s) and excellent curveball. (Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America largely agreed on Stephenson’s place in baseball’s prospect hierarchy, ranking him 16th and 23rd, respectively, heading into the season.) At Louisville, he’ll likely need to continue working on his control. “There have been a couple things we’ve been working on, but the big problem was that I was nitpicking too much and being too fine with my pitches,” says Stephenson. “The other thing was that I was rushing it a little bit, and when I sped up my tempo, I wasn’t able to repeat my motion and throw strikes. When I slow it down, I’m able to repeat my arm slot every time.”

Here are some more amateur notes as we enter the final weekend before the draft:

• As he prepares to join the professional ranks after being declared a free agent, Cuban outfielder Eddy Julio Martinez has moved into the top spot on MLB.com’s international prospect list, as MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez writes. It’s unclear as yet whether Martinez will sign in this period or the new one beginning July 2, but he’ll have to put pen to paper in short order if he’s to head to the Yankees or Angels. Those two clubs will be unable to spend more than $300K after this July 2 class closes, and they are among the teams who Sanchez lists with interest. The Cubs, Blue Jays, Nationals, Rockies, Tigers, Dodgers, and Giants have also reached out to Martinez’s camp, per the report. “I’m working hard to get to my goal to play in the Major Leagues, ” says the 20-year-old. “That’s what I have always wanted to do.”
• The makeup of the amateur draft has changed over time, as Ben Lindbergh of Grantland explains. Mocking the draft is a more-or-less hopeless endeavor, says Lindbergh, but some trends have emerged. For one thing, the number of pitchers has continued to rise rather significantly. While this year’s class lacks premium talent, Christopher Crawford of Baseball Prospectus tells Lindbergh, some teams — the Rangers (who have the fourth overall pick) chief among them, based on their recent history — could well continue to stockpile arms. The Diamondbacks, who of course sit at first overall, have leaned toward position players recently, although they have an entirely new front office installed this time around. Meanwhile, the percentage of high school players taken has plummeted in the long run, but has jumped more recently. In particular, says Lindbergh, the Red Sox and Blue Jays have moved toward heavy drafting of prep players, who of course represent generally riskier but (in some cases) higher-upside investments. The Nationals have skewed most heavily toward college players — the spread is rather amazingly wide — though that could be due in part to draft circumstances. There are plenty more details in the piece, and I highly recommend a read to prepare for the coming draft.
• Bonus allocations (which come with the penalty of stark limitations in future drafts) have had a marked impact on clubs’ total outlay on draft-eligible talent, argues Ronald Blum of the Associated Press (via the Denver Post). Draft spending has remained flat over the last three years, with Blum calculating that an analogous increase of total cash commitments to that observed in free agency — which was often the case prior to the new rules — might have delivered an additional $100MM to amateur players over that span. This area is obviously full of complicated questions, including considerations of an international draft, and it’s extremely difficult to identify clear-cut solutions. The piece is full of interesting quotes from notable figures around the game, and is well worth a full read.

• Dayn Perry has an enjoyable series at Baseball Prospectus called Mock Blockbuster.  He proposes trades that would benefit both teams.  His latest: Greg Maddux and Brian Giles for Jordan Schafer.
• Rays Index wonders whether Eric Hinske or Gabe Gross could be expendable once Willy Aybar returns.
• Joe Capozzi remembers Mike Piazza’s five game stint as a Marlin.
• Pokey Reese sighting!
• Ned Colletti told struggling free-agent-to-be Derek Lowe the Dodgers aren’t slamming the door on him coming back.
• The Red Sox signed an Australian teen named Boss Moanaroa.
• Athletics Nation chats with Billy Beane.
• Jerry Reinsdorf hasn’t ruled out re-signing Joe Crede after the season.
• R.I.P. Geremi Gonzalez.  I remember him as a bright spot on the ’97 Cubs.  I mailed him a baseball card for an autograph, and it came back signed.

PECOTA sees the Yankees winning the AL East and the Angels taking the AL West.  They have the Indians and Tigers playing a tiebreaker for the AL Central and the Red Sox as the league’s wild card entry.

As for the NL, the Mets take the East.  The Cubs win the Central, while the D’Backs and Dodgers tie for the West.  The wild card would be the Brewers.  BP’s Nate Silver discusses the standings a bit more here.

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