Interesting that Bryce Teodosio makes the leaderboard for all three outfield spots. He's really fast, 40/44 on the bases. Too bad he's not much of a hitter.

Most of the debate I've seen is about Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt Jr, and deservedly. Judge is still the front runner, but his recently snapped homerless streak has allowed Bobby to move closer. Looking at BBref WAR:

Judge 9.6

Witt 9.0

Duran 8.7

Nobody has talked about Duran, but he's potentially one big series away from passing Witt. One thing I look at in situations like this is the defensive side, and whether it seems real.

Judge is -8 runs, he's playing center field because the Yankees need him there but everyone knows he's not really a center fielder. Still, Statcast has him a bit better, 4 runs below average, and Statcast is the most accurate. Using that he's a 10 WAR player.

How about Witt? BBref has him at +6. Statcast says +13. So maybe Bobby should be at 9.7 WAR - still right on Judge's heels.

BBref has Duran at +24, which is +18 in center and +6 in left. He's had a great year. Every time I see him he's running down a ball in the gaps, catching one while crashing into a wall, or playing it off the Monster and holding runners or throwing them out. But he's not +24. Statcast says +11, which is still very great, but not stretching the bounds of believability. So his adjusted WAR is 7.4, a very comfortable margin behind the top two. He's got a chance to finish third, but even with Gunnar Henderson and Juan Soto in the same league he should at the very least finish top 5.

I don't want to say he has zero chance, but he would have to do something legendary. For example, let's say from tomorrow to the end of the season he hits .491 with Bondsian OBP and SLG. He puts the Red Sox on his back and carries them to the final wild card spot by one game. Against the team they have to beat to get that spot, Duran goes 7 for 8 with a homer, double, and 6 RBI against the Twins.

Sounds impossible, but somebody did that. That outfielder on the Giants? It was his grandpa that did it in 1967. Is it likely? Hell no. It's impossible. But Carl Yastrzemski made the impossible dream into reality. Duran has to do something like that if he wants the MVP award.

Sample size. If the top prospects gave you 180 innings in A ball, 180 at AA, and 180 more at AAA then they might be useful.

Not much you can do when a guy comes up to the big leagues with 64 career minor league innings. Kumar Rocker has been great in those innings, but the projection just isn't going to trust such a small sample.

Paul Skenes had only half as big a sample. If you want a to project how these guys will do, the stats can't be trusted. You need to evaluate their stuff and command from a scouting or Statcast perspective.