I’m still undecided on exactly what direction I’ll take this blog, but it’s very likely that it’ll put a lot of focus on the Angels’ farm system. While I don’t claim to be the best prospect evaluator, I enjoy keeping track of the farm system, and hopefully I can occasionally offer some unique insight.
With the Salt River Rafters being eliminated, the Angels’ 2025 minor league season came to an end. I thought this would be a good opportunity to take a quick look at and grade the eight prospects for the Angels who featured in the Arizona Fall League (AFL).
The AFL isn’t as strong as it once was, especially among pitching talent where only one top 100 prospect made an appearance. Baseball America delivered a fascinating stat that showed that across their respective minor league seasons, AFL pitchers walked 15.2% of batters. Of the 339 pitchers in MLB to pitch at least 50 innings, only Toronto’s Brendon Little walked batters at a higher rate.
Very few of these pitchers will go on to make the big leagues, and as a result the AFL is an offensive league, which I’ve kept in mind when grading players. The best ERA posted by an Angels pitcher was an absurd 6.43, which is why I might be considered to be generous with my perspective on their performance; the curve here was set incredibly low.
Raudi Rodriguez - A+
Raudi Rodriguez built on his breakout 2025 season, posting an OPS of 1.164 and being, without a doubt, one of the AFL’s best players. He was rewarded for his performance by being named the Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game MVP, and was also named as an outfielder on the All-Arizona Fall League Team. The OPS number here should be viewed with a grain of salt, due to the poor standard of pitching, but it’s impressive that by OPS Rodriguez was the fifth-best hitter in the entire league.
This performance was an encouraging sign. After a great year in Low-A, the biggest question for Rodriguez was if he could perform at a higher level. While it’s debatable if the pitching in the AFL constitutes a higher level than Low-A, and there are the obvious sample-size issues, the fact that Rodriguez outperformed just about every other prospect, including some top 100 names, offers hope for his future.
Looking at the advanced data, which the AFL provides access to for the first time, reveals a prospect who swings a ton, including a lot of chases and whiffs, but makes enough contact to avoid striking out at a concerning level. There are also some solid exit-velocity numbers here for a young prospect; Kyren Paris serves as a decent power comparison.
While I’m still anxious to see how Rodriguez’s chase-happy profile works out over a full season of High-A or Double-A ball, he didn’t put a single foot wrong in Arizona, and it’s hard not to be thrilled with his performance.
Juan Flores - B+
Wherever Juan Flores goes, the tagline “youngest” is typically thrown around. That was no exception here, as the catcher was the youngest player to appear in the AFL.
Flores is a defense-first catcher who has rushed through the Angels’ farm system due to his advanced defensive skills. This aggressive assignment has often left Flores at a level too high for his offensive skills to fully catch up, though he has still flashed offensive potential throughout his time in Low-A and High-A.
The AFL presents a good opportunity to compare Flores to FanGraphs’ 20th-ranked prospect, Alfredo Duno. Duno, who is a few months older, is similar to Flores in many ways but has experienced a less aggressive push through the minor league system.
In 2024, Flores and Duno were essentially the same players offensively in Low-A. However, the Angels promoted Flores to High-A during the 2024 season, where he initially struggled, while Duno remained in Low-A throughout 2025 where he flourished.
Flores eventually figured out High-A pitching and had a second-half OPS of .743, which included a hot August where he posted an OPS of .854 in a pitcher-friendly environment. To me, this exposes a flaw in prospect rankings: Flores had a season that was perhaps more encouraging, yet Duno gets the top-20 prospect label due to the luxury of repeating his Low-A year. This is despite MLB Pipeline and FanGraphs having Flores regarded as the better defensive catcher.
To look at how steep the increase in difficulty is from Low-A to High-A, let's look at some players who recently appeared for both Tri-City and Inland Empire in the same year.
On average, these prospects saw a 35% decrease in OPS when moving between Low-A and High-A in the same season. While the math here isn’t perfect, if we apply that same adjustment to Flores’ High-A numbers this season, we can assume Flores could have theoretically posted a Low-A OPS of .960, a number superior to Duno’s.
It sounds extreme, but the transition represents a huge step up in competition, and it’s why we see so many promising prospects struggle to make it out of High-A. The fact that by the end of the year Flores was performing well against High-A pitching, despite his young age, shows that he is well on his way to the majors.
With both players now on a level playing field, and aided by available Statcast data, we can see that Flores recorded better exit velocities and made contact at a significantly higher rate. Alfredo Duno had better walk numbers, but his low-swing profile worked well in the desert environment where most opposing pitchers struggled to find the strike zone. When swinging, Duno managed only a .213 batting average compared to Flores’ average of .273. Duno's OPS was .654 compared to Flores’ .775.
One could still make an argument that Duno is the better prospect, but hopefully this exercise leads to a reevaluation of thoughts on Juan Flores. Flores is one of my favorite prospects in the system, and a player who I would not be shocked to see break out into the top 100.
Najer Victor - C+
Najer Victor was the Angels’ 14th-round selection in 2024. He possesses a great arm that can touch triple digits in relief and had a promising High-A stint where he posted a 2.96 FIP and a 25.6% K-BB%.
Victor’s 9.72 ERA in the AFL is obviously ugly, but there were some things here to get excited about if you look under the hood. He primarily used a four-seamer, cutter, and sinker, all of which looked like they could be MLB-caliber pitches. The four-seamer and sinker sit at 97-98 mph and generated many whiffs. The cutter, at 88.7 mph, induced whiffs at an absurd rate of 72.7%. Overall, he was around the zone a promising amount and was able to get batters to chase at a good rate when he missed the zone.
The issue for Victor was that when he was hit, he was hit hard. This is why his ERA was so poor, despite an elite K-BB% of 28.6%. His FIP was somewhat more forgiving at 4.59, but overall, we’ll have to wait and see if this was bad luck in a small sample size or indicative of a fundamental issue in Victor’s approach.
If this performance proves to be an anomaly, Victor has the arsenal to move quickly through the Angels’ system.
Brandon Dufault - C-
Brandon Dufault was a 16th-round selection of the Angels back in 2021. He is a relief prospect who has bounced around the Angels’ organization but has never managed to consistently stand out.
In Arizona, Dufault posted an Angels-best 6.43 ERA. He was able to generate a lot of soft contact but struggled significantly to find the strike zone, walking 23.4% of batters. He missed the zone often, and his stuff wasn’t tempting enough to entice batters to chase his pitches outside of the zone.
He has some pretty promising spin rates, and his pitches move enough to often induce soft contact. However, given how long he has been in the system, it is questionable how much patience the Angels will have for him to refine his command.
David Mershon - C-
David Mershon was an 18th-round pick in 2024, signed for $405,000. He is a diminutive utility player who will naturally draw comparisons to David Eckstein.
Mershon initially looked like he would be a fast mover through the Angels’ system. He made a promising professional debut in Double-A, stood out in the 2024 AFL, had a good Spring Training, and then started the year in Triple-A. Unfortunately, from that point, Mershon never found an offensive rhythm and finished the year with a .559 OPS.
The AFL this year was a good platform for Mershon to recover, but he produced mixed results over the short season. His slash line does a good job of telling the story of who Mershon is as a player: the .425 OBP demonstrates his patient approach and ability to walk more than he strikes out, but the .295 SLG was indicative of his poor 79.9 mph average exit velocity.
That exit velocity isn’t a death sentence, but he would need to combine it with elite contact skills and plate discipline to have success in the major leagues. At the moment, his contact rates just aren’t good enough, and he’ll need to greatly improve them if he wants to reach the next level.
Fulton Lockhart - C-
Fulton Lockhart was the Angels’ 13th-round selection in 2024. Lockhart projects as a relief prospect who, if he can ever find the zone, has a good arm that will give him a chance to succeed in the major leagues. His arm reached 101.3 mph this year, but the significant downside is that he walked a quarter of all batters faced. The short AFL season was more of the same from Lockhart, as he walked 24.3% of batters en route to a 14.85 ERA.
In the AFL, he primarily used a sinker and curveball. The sinker sat at 97 mph and had an encouraging whiff rate. The curveball looked like it could be a devastating pitch, but it only found the zone 27.3% of the time and wasn’t able to get opposing batters to chase outside the zone.
Lockhart absolutely has the arm strength to remain a relevant name in the Angels’ farm system, but his significant control issues mean that he has a long way to go before he can reach his potential.
Ryan Costieu - D-
Ryan Costieu was a nice under-the-radar prospect heading into 2025. As one of the last surviving names from the Angels’ infamous all-pitchers draft, he had a lot of success in 2024 despite his workload being managed due to various injuries. He still wasn't on most prospect radars, but his 2.84 ERA in High-A stood out in a farm system that was begging for somebody to break out.
Costieu was able to handle a heavier workload this year but struggled, posting a 5.23 ERA across High-A and a handful of appearances in Double-A. The struggles continued for Costieu in the AFL, where he recorded a 6.97 ERA in five appearances.
His main pitch was his 91.9 mph four-seamer, which only managed a 9.3% whiff rate. The changeup and slider showed some promise but were hit hard when opposing batters made contact. It’s not a profile to get excited by, and it leads one to wonder how much longer he will remain in the Angels’ system.
Benny Thompson - D
Benny Thompson is an under-the-radar reliever who enjoyed a breakout in 2025. Spending the year in Low-A, Thompson increased his fastball velocity from 91.6 mph to 94 mph and lowered his ERA to 1.91 over 61.1 innings.
He still showed issues with his command, but his 14.7 K/9 indicated that his stuff was dominant at the Low-A level; per Baseball America, the Stuff+ model loved all four of his pitches. Similar to Raudi Rodriguez, Thompson ended his season with the biggest question mark being if he could adjust to higher competition.
Thompson was a late inclusion to the AFL rosters. He showed up with a fastball that was two ticks below his average velocity and recorded an absurd walk rate of 43.8%. He only appeared in five games and finished with a ghastly 13.50 ERA. I’m giving Thompson some benefit of the doubt here, as we saw so little of him, and the little we did see was not at all indicative of the success he had in 2025. Hopefully, he can move past this performance and get ready for a strong 2026.
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