“The Dynasty Diamond”: August 12th

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  • By Jeff Clowers

    Last Updated on August 12, 2025 1:20 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: August 12, 2025

    It’s wild to think but with the way the schedule shakes out, after today there are only two more Dynasty Diamond articles to come during this inaugural season! Looking at our scoring chart below, we’ve covered nearly 100 different prospects from all levels of the minors, each with their own unique set of skills – and occasionally, flaws as well. As expected, many of the names in the Unrefined category have been shuffled on-and-off our radar throughout the season but we’ve also seen a few particularly promising farmhands climb the ladder from tier to tier, eventually finding their way into consideration for the upper echelon (looking at you, Eduardo Quintero!). Despite a relatively modest hit rate from the lowest rung, this still gives me some hope that our system is working as intended in identifying exciting up-and-comers.

    Though time is running short, there’s still enough season left for some of the names below to stake claim to their own placement in a higher level. After all, the minor league season is just as much – if not perhaps more – of a grind as its major league counterpart, which means many players are running on fumes towards the end of the year. Those that don’t stall out over the final months will push themselves even further up rankings and fantasy lists.

    The usual preamble;

    This article will come out every two weeks, highlighting the ten most noteworthy performances for MiLB players during that window. The players discussed will come from a mix of levels (Triple-A, Single-A, etc.) and because of that, I will attempt to contextualize their statistics for both the quality of competition, as well as the player’s own age, to the best of my abilities. In other words, a 25-year old slugger going on a home run binge isn’t going to get my attention if they’re facing off against a 20-year-old pitcher on a daily basis. On the other hand, an 18-year-old holding their own against more advanced pitching is going to skyrocket them towards the top of the rankings very quickly.

    Since we could go as deep into the minors as the Complex and Dominican Summer Leagues, this is intended as more of a companion article for deep dynasty leagues, as opposed to those that shallow enough to essentially just focus on players listed on Top 100 lists. This is more for the sickos who want to be able to brag about having the next Jesus Made or Jung Hoo Lee on their roster more than five years before they make their MLB debut.

    That said, there’s a chance some of our mining leads to some true diamonds in the rough emerging – just look to what Kristian Campbell did last year for example. So with that in mind, I will have a specific section of each article that focuses on how the upper echelon of prospects is performing, in addition to geeking out over the future wave of breakout stars. And as we go through the season, I’ll denote each player written about as one of three categories;

    Golden 🥇 (the best of the best)

    Gems 💎 (exciting up-and-comers)

    Unrefined ⚒ (has tools of interest)

    As the weeks go by, I’ll track each player and how many times they appear in the article under each category in a chart at the bottom. Hopefully by year’s end we’ll then have rough ranking of the most interesting players from each tier as a guideline that you can then use for your own dynasty purposes!

    Statistics are up to date as of August 11th.

    Robby Snelling – SP – MIA 🥇

    Last 14 Days: 12.0 IP – 0.75 ERA/1.83 FIP/0.75 WHIP – 18:0 K:BB – 1 HR (AAA)

    Season: 100.0 IP – 3.06 ERA/2.92 FIP/1.15 WHIP – 119:27 K:BB – 1 HR (AA/AAA)

    Marlins fever is running wild at both the MLB and MiLB levels! Though they’ve now lost three straight, the big league club has been riding a hot streak that has landed the team just six games back of a Wild Card spot. They’d still have to hop four or five other contenders to stake their claim, making the odds still quite long, but if they do decide to call up reinforcements for a last-ditch playoff push, Robby Snelling could be the first among them.

    Through 72.1 innings at Double-A this season, Snelling managed a 3.61 ERA and 1.22 WHIP while tallying 85 strikeouts in 72.1 innings – impressive rebound numbers after he put up a combined ERA of 5.15 and WHIP of 1.52 last year. Even more impressive are his numbers since getting promoted up to Triple-A; over his first five starts, he’s averaged more than five innings per outing by pitching 27.2 frames while posting a 1.63 ERA, 2.99 FIP and 0.98 WHIP. His control metrics have also seen a noticeable jump, with his K% bumping up 3.9% and his BB% dropping 2.6% over that stretch.

    On the odd occasion that hitters have been able to get a hold of one of his offerings – they’ve mostly done minimal damage, as Snelling sports a strong 28.4% hard-hit rate against at Triple-A. Oddly though, his home rate allowed has simultaneously increased, with Snelling having given up three homers already in his time at the level, for a HR/9 of 0.98, compared to a 0.75  mark at his prior stop. That’s undoubtedly directly tied to his rate of flyballs allowed ratcheting up to 36.4% after sitting at 28.9% at Double-A this year and 31.2% in 2024.

    Based on his overall performance though, it’s fairly easy to wipe away those concerns as an adjustment period considering his home run rate is more likely than not to regress back to his previous baseline. Don’t forget that Snelling is also competing against batters several years older than him on average as he is still five months from his 22nd birthday.

    Thomas White – SP – MIA 🥇

    Last 14 Days: 10.2 IP – 1.69 ERA/1.21 FIP/1.03 WHIP – 16:4 K:BB – 0 HR (AA)

    Season: 65.2 IP – 2.47 ERA/1.95 FIP/1.13 WHIP – 102:31 K:BB – 1 HR (AA)

    Back to back weeks with Thomas White and Robby Snelling earning honors – at this rate, I may have just earned myself a gift basket from Jeets! (Is that reference officially dated? Am I officially old?)

    Though Snelling has arguably been the best on-field performer of the two this season, White stands a reasonable step ahead of his fellow farmhand when it comes to their future ceilings. Their prowess in accumulating strikeouts is about equal but where White excels even further is his ability to limit hard contact. Though we unfortunately don’t have publicly available batted ball metrics for anything below Triple-A, White nonetheless stands out for his incredibly low number of extra base hits allowed. Over 166.0 professional innings across three seasons, White has given up just seven home runs, which earns him a HR/9 of 0.38 – a figure that would come in comfortably ahead of Paul Skenes’ mark of 0.44 this year, for comparison. White even beats him by HR/FB as well, with Skenes at a 5.5% rate and White coming in at 2.0% this year.

    Don’t mistake that as a direct comparison to Skenes, but for further confirmation of White’s elite skillset, simply look to his season-long FIP that continues to start with a “1.” this late in the season. It would not come as much of a shock to me if Snelling is up with the parent club in early September, with White taking over the rotation spot vacated at Triple-A.

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    August 12, 2025, 1:20 pm