2026 Arizona Fall League Roster Breakdown: Salt River Rafters

As Minor League Baseball wraps up, it is time to turn our attention to the Arizona Fall League. My mind is already in Arizona as I look forward to seeing more prospects play and get a chance to see quite a few that I have never seen before.

With the AFL just a few weeks away, it is the time to break down each team’s roster and to give thoughts on players who could see their stock increase in the prospect world.

We are working our way through the AFL team previews, with this one being the AFL Preview for the Salt River Rafters. The team is comprised of prospects from the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, and Washington Nationals.

Salt River Rafters Roster Breakdown

Pitchers

Best Arm

Jarlin Susana comes into the Arizona Fall League as the best pitcher in the league. It’s big-time stuff to go along with some feel for throwing strikes.

Jarlin Susana is able to get his fastball up to 104, and he has been playing around with his fastball shapes. He has a meh four-seamer but he can throw it around 103 so shape is less important. He has played around with a sinker and that itself is a quality pitch. He kills any vertical movement on the pitch and gets a ton of horizontal movement. He gets 5 inches of IVB and 16 inches of horizontal break on the sinker, all from a 6’0” release height. This sinker brings into play his slider, which is solid. There are some questions about a third pitch, but before he got injured last year he ripped off a few good changeups, so there is some feel here. Maybe he adds a splitter, or a bridge cutter, or tinkers with the slider more. 

Susana missed most of 2026 recovering from a lat injury. There is some sizable relief risk here, but he has a chance to just be the best reliever in baseball. The comp I have for him is a Baby K-Rod. But there is some feel for throwing strikes here that should allow him to remain a starter when he continues to round out the arsenal a little bit.

Arm Who Could Increase Stock

Fastball up, breaking balls down go brrrr. That is the Patrick Forbes playbook, and when he has pitched it has been effective. The problem this season is e has only amassed 29 innings of work across both the Complex and High-A. But in that time he has punched out 35% of the batters he has faced this year. 

Forbes, like I mentioned, is a very extreme north-south pitcher. It’s four-seam up and then he goes curveball/slider down. He gets ample whiffs with this approach at High-A, but he will have to develop some sort of east-west pitch to keep the best hitters in the world honest. This season was not full loss development wise, because he showed his stuff gets whiffs, and he throws an ample amount of strikes. 

It would be nice to see Forbes bust out an east-west pitch during the fall league, and if he does that could go a long way. We will get some statcast data on him, which I am very excited to see, as I have always liked Patrick Forbes I think more than consensus.

Sleeper Arm

After what was a vague upper body injury, we have only seen 13.2 innings of R.J. Sales, who was part of the return the Nationals got back at the 2025 MLB Trade Deadline for Kyle Finnegan.

Sales comes at hitters with a high three-quarters slot, and he releases the ball from a sub 6'0" release height. His fastball hovers around the mid-90s and gets decent movement. He mixes in a few other pitches that play well with the mid-90s fastball, headlined by a sharp horizontal gyro slider that gets around -8 inches of induced vertical break.

He throws a good amount of strikes and looks like he could profile as a potential back end of the rotation starter. Let’s hope the upper body injury, which wasn't reported as a shoulder or an elbow issue, is behind him, and he can profile as a potential streamer type in fantasy.

Hitters

Best Bat

I remember seeing Demetrio Crisantes for the first time when I made the mistake of going to a camp day game; it was 11 o’clock and I was one of five adults at the ballpark. And to his credit, Crisantes has become one of the better prospects in baseball. Thanks to a blend of contact, damage on contact, and proximity to the majors, Demetrio Crisantes is an appealing prospect.

Crisantes being a second baseman does help boost his fantasy value, because well, look at who you are starting at second base on your dynasty teams. Crisantes in his brief time at Triple-A didn’t light the world on fire, but it was only a 50-game sample. He didn’t hit the ball particularly hard in that sample, posting a 100 mph 90th percentile exit velocity in his 50 games or so. There was a good amount of contact here, posting a 90% zone contact rate.

It’s an all-fields approach here, and maybe the slight bump down in competition will do him well. If he comes out and hits the ball and posts much better EVs, his stock will rise. There is a shout for him to maybe be a top 50 prospect after a great performance in the desert as a homecoming of sorts for the Arizona-born Crisantes.

Bat Who Could Increase Stock

Dax Kilby is alive and well, and he will make his way down to the Arizona Fall League to make up for lost time from a hamstring injury. He was only able to appear in 34 games in 2026, but he looked good, striking out 35 times and walking 40 times while hitting 4 homers and stealing 12 bases.

Dax Kilby’s hamstring injury did sap some of his athleticism and wiggle, which is a big part of his appeal as a fantasy piece. The other interesting trend this past season is just how selective (or passive) Kilby was. A 37% overall swing rate is quite passive, especially when paired with a 58.5% zone-swing rate, as both figures are well below average. The Major League average zone-swing rate is around 66%, so in order for Kilby to do more damage, we will have to see him get more aggressive. The encouraging thing, though, is that Kilby rarely swings outside the zone, posting an impressive 18% chase rate. If he can maintain that discipline while bumping up his zone-swing rate, we could see him fly up rankings in 2027.

Kilby has the tools: he is a twitchy athlete and has a good understanding of the strike zone. I will be interested to see how he fares against more advanced pitching. If he holds his own, he could fly up to become a top-50 prospect by the new year.

Sleeper Bat

Yasser Mercedes is one of the more tooled-up prospects in the Arizona Fall League, with what might be plus power and plus speed at the end of the day; the question will be what the hit tool will look like. as Yasser is far too whiff prone, as he swings and misses In the zone far too much.

Yasser Mercedes had some buzz in 2024 and points of 2025, but the lack of a consistent hit tool had him hit a skid at Single-A, up until this season, as the third time at the level was the charm. He did dominate Single-A this year, posting a .321/.439/.642 line in his 98 plate appearances, but then he went back to having contact issues at High-A.

It’s eye-popping tools, but the lack of a hit tool means he will probably not hit the lofty ceiling he once had. But on the off chance he does, it will take a while; he is your classic slow-burn guy who gets slightly hurt by the current rules that pertain to a player’s 40-man timeline. He

If he comes out and destroys some batted balls in this offensive environment, that can go a long way to resuscitating his prospect stock, as it’s at the lowest it’s ever been. It is fun to dream on a guy with plus power and plus speed.