Inbox: Drafting top choices for the Fall League HR Derby

Now that the World Series is over, what’s a baseball fan to do? Check out your team’s -- and the game’s -- best prospects and what they’re up to, of course!

Most of that action is still going on in the Arizona Fall League, which doesn’t wrap up until Nov. 14. And winter ball is underway, with six Top 100 prospects in the Dominican Republic alone. So be sure to tune in to all the action this “offseason,” and keep sending in questions for our MLB Pipeline Inbox like the ones we got this week, two of which are Fall League-related.

We answered this question on this week’s MLB Pipeline Podcast, so be sure to give that a listen (bonus: Sam Dykstra’s interview with Dodgers prospect Charles Davalan). Jim Callis and I had a mini-draft (three players each) of who we would like to see in the home run derby, and who we think would put up the best numbers, all with the caveat that we don’t know yet who will be participating. We might re-draft when we find out who is actually in the Derby, but here’s what we ended up with:

1. Alex McCoy, Padres (Mayo): We both agreed he’s the no-doubt No. 1 pick, with size (6-foot-5, 260 lbs), as much raw power as anyone in the AFL, and absurd exit velocities to boot.

2. Jack O’Dowd, Rockies (Callis): You have to give credit where it’s due, and O’Dowd is tied for the AFL lead in homers with five after smashing 23 in his first full season of pro ball and leading all hitters with his .759 SLG.

3. Antonio Anderson, Red Sox (Callis): Jim used a combination of performance (three homers, .593 SLG) and data (third-highest exit velo this fall) to make this selection.

4. Chase Harlan, Dodgers (Mayo): I was honestly surprised Jim didn’t take Harlan (and Jim was too!), given that he often brings him up when we are looking for Top 100 names. He has the third-longest homer in the AFL this year. 

5. Vance Honeycutt, Orioles (Mayo): We talk about his raw tools all the time, including his tremendous raw power. He’s fourth in the league in OPS and while there are still swing-and-miss issues, that doesn’t matter in a Home Run Derby.

6. Kyle West, Yankees (Callis): West hit 20 homers in his first full season and has added three this fall, with Jim perhaps influenced that all three have come within the last week, including a two-homer game on Monday.

To date, Dax Kilby, the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect, has played a grand total of 55 Minor League regular-season games since being the team’s first-round Draft pick in 2025. He’s added 14 more in the Arizona Fall League, and performed well there, with a .994 OPS. I mention this because with a grand total of 69 games under his belt, it’s a little too soon to really worry about how the Yankees’ big league infield will play out once he gets there. He’s played only shortstop so far, both with Single-A Tampa and in the AFL, but because he missed 3 1/2 months of his first full season because of hamstring issues, there’s a very good possibility that they wanted to keep things simple and get him reps while sticking at the position he played as an amateur.

Moving forward, it wouldn’t surprise me if Kilby starts seeing time at other positions. Even coming into the Draft, there were some who felt he’d be better at second base or even in center field, where his athleticism could play nicely. George Lombard Jr. provides an interesting model. He played mostly shortstop in his first year-plus of pro ball, with some time at second and third, keeping in mind he had a largely healthy year, playing 110 games. That pattern continued in 2025 and this year before his callup, with over 80 percent of his time defensively spent at the six. And remember, this was while it seemed like Anthony Volpe was entrenching himself at the position in New York.

I’d imagine the Yankees will do something similar with Kilby: Let him get most of his time at short to keep him athletic (and who knows what happens in the future in the Bronx) while introducing some other spots so that when his bat is ready, there are options.

Man, what a year for the Pirates’ No. 4 prospect. The No. 73 overall pick in the 2025 Draft out of Fresno State, Gray was sent out conservatively to Single-A Bradenton because he had a long layoff from the end of his junior year and largely because the Pirates wanted to work on his biggest issue at the plate – a severe tendency to swing at pretty much everything – at a lower level. He checked off pretty much every box the Pirates had for him, earning two promotions in his first full season. Even in Double-A, where his numbers were a bit more pedestrian (.258/.395/.484 in 45 games), he made impressive adjustments, with an .899 OPS from Aug. 1 to the end of the season, finishing the year with 32 homers, a .969 OPS and a 146 wRC+.

Gray is still an aggressive hitter who had a 30 percent chase rate in 2026, down a tick or two from his last year of college. But he also drew a ton more walks (11.8 percent), while keeping the swing-and-miss in check (20.4 pct) and showing he can get to his power against good pitching. His strong finish to the year with Altoona means to me that he could start the 2027 season in Triple-A Indianapolis, the proverbial phone call away. I think he will force his way into the lineup by midseason at the latest. Nick Gonzales had a very nice year, finishing fourth in the National League with his .303 average as the Pirates’ primary third baseman, but there are a couple of paths for Gray to get to Pittsburgh sooner than my timetable, including Gonzales moving to second if the Bucs don’t bring back Brandon Lowe and maybe seeing how Gray looks with a first baseman’s glove.

I’m not sure what you consider to be “buzz,” but Ramirez has been, and remains, very much on our radar. He was No. 23 on our 2026 Top 50 international prospects list and the Mets signed him for $1,372,500. And he’s now No. 20 on the Mets’ Top 30, having been added in late June. Maybe you need to hang out with us more?

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That being said, I will caution you against reading too much into Dominican Summer League stats. It’s a small sample size (41 games, 145 at-bats) in a hitting-friendly league. It’s a promising start for the 5-foot-9 right-handed hitter, especially in showing more thump out of the gate than expected, but let’s see what he does when he comes to the United States, and over a longer period of time, before getting too excited.