Deal Sniper

Double-A prospects

The jump the industry watches hardest: the level that separates prospects who will play in the majors from those who will not.

What Double-A is

Double-A is widely treated as the biggest single jump in the minors. Rosters carry a mixture of genuine prospects and experienced players, and the pitching is the first that resembles a major-league staff in command as much as in stuff.

What it means for a card

Performance here moves markets more than performance at any other level, because it is the level scouts and front offices weight most heavily. A player who holds his production through the Double-A jump re-rates; a player who does not tends to fade quietly rather than crash, which is the harder outcome to sell into.

We track 1,074 players at Double-A. 395 have enough behind them — a real stat line or market evidence — for a page of their own. The rest are followed and will appear here as data lands.

Top of the level

Best-rated first, by the same prospect score the board uses.

A cross-section of the rest

Sampled at even intervals down the rest of the level, so this shows the middle and the tail rather than only the peak — and so every player we track has a way in from here.

The other levels