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Please see our player page for Samuel Zavala to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.

1. LHP Noah Schultz | 21 | AA | 2026

At 6’9” 220 lbs with a low-three-quarters release, Schultz brings a unique look that has helped him dominate throughout his minor league career. His command feels like an overlooked part of the profile, as he spots his slider extremely well, especially for a pitch with that much movement, which gives him upside beyond his pitch-mix. Despite the dominant outcomes (0.98 WHIP in 88.1 innings across two levels), his changeup has work to do, and his fastball could use some tweaking to play better up in the zone, but I suspect, given his delivery and release, a cutter and sinker will be auditioned at some point, so his fastball could be separated into a few different pitches (4-seam, sinker, cutter) across time, at which point he’d be a nightmare matchup for just about anybody. 

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1. SS Jackson Merrill | 20 | AA | 2024 

Supreme contact skills from the left side give Merrill a fantastic base from which to develop his game over the next decade. He struck out just 62 times in 114 games across two levels last year, posting a 111 wRC+ in High-A and a 104 in Double-A despite being 4.3 years younger than the league average age. He’ll open in Triple-A and could look ready for the majors in April. There’s a chance the club trades Ha-Seong Kim and/or Jake Cronenworth this winter and opens an early avenue for Merrill.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Despite trading away everything from last year’s top prospect group, AJ Preller’s cupboards are not bare. He won’t have the talent to make moves for Juan Soto or Josh Hader this summer, but Preller himself is an elite scout who has little trouble adding new waves of gifted young players every year. It’s a skill that builds itself out across time. Preller probably had good vision for the game as a young person, but as a long-time executive who makes more trips to the field than anybody, his eye has been honed the hard way: 10,000 hours at a time. Malcolm Gladwell, eat your heart out. 

One way you know Preller is good is James Wood. Another is Jarlin Susana. How anyone else looked at these guys and said “meh, no thanks” is beyond me, but it’s a complicated game. You can’t just target giants and hope to thrive, but if you do see a giant who happens to move like a meta-human, trust your eyes and run, don’t walk, to add them to your squad. 

This trust-your-eyes talent likely provides him an edge in building a scouting department, too. Talent or skill in a craft doesn’t always equate to skill at teaching that ability, but it’s certainly better than being clueless about scouting and then interfacing with a scouting director. All this is to say I spend a lot of time watching young Padres squads and give the team all the minutes I can find before publication day. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?