The April 9 PPI deadline has passed. Final accounting: seven prospects preserved, three downgraded to None. Konnor Griffin signed a 9-year $140M extension on April 8, one day before the deadline, six days after his debut, and Pittsburgh kept the pick. Payton Tolle’s CUP moves up to 28% on the Oviedo injury. Aidan Miller’s moves down to 10%. Yesavage is progressing through rehab.
The April 9 deadline is the most structurally consequential date in prospect promotion analysis. Once it passes, the draft pick incentive is gone permanently. Teams that did not promote eligible prospects by April 9 lose the compensation pick regardless of what happens the rest of the season.
Seven prospects preserved their PPI eligibility by being on MLB rosters: Wetherholt (STL), Benge (NYM), Basallo (BAL), DeLauter (CLE), Early (BOS), McGonigle (DET), and Griffin (PIT) via the special case below. Three were downgraded to None: Ritchie (ATL), Tolle (BOS), Ford (WSH). Emerson (SEA) and Yesavage (TOR) were already None before the deadline. McLean (NYM) eligibility remains under review pending confirmation of total 2025 service.
Griffin is 3-for-17 through his first five games, with a double and three RBIs. He went 2-for-4 against the Padres on April 7 with two RBIs, showing early signs of adjusting to big-league pitching. Pittsburgh is 7-4 overall. The model had Griffin at 34% CUP with an ECD of April 17 via Pathway B. He resolved 13 days ahead of the mid-ECD. The calibration log records that as an early resolution, not a miss.
The extension framing matters for the model: at run date, extension risk was priced as a suppressor. The outcome was that Pittsburgh managed the timing to preserve the PPI pick without sacrificing service time. That is exactly the type of non-observable org decision the model flags with Medium confidence, the signal was visible (no viable MLB SS alternative), the specific sequencing was not.
Ritchie threw seven innings of one-run ball on April 8 at Triple-A Gwinnett, recording seven strikeouts on 83 pitches. Six of the seven strikeouts came on his curveball. Through three starts, he carries a 1.72 ERA and 1.09 WHIP with 15 strikeouts in 15.2 innings. Per the org, he is not on the 40-man roster and is not even next in line for a callup.
Spencer Strider has begun a rehab assignment targeting an early May return to Atlanta’s rotation, which reduces the urgency for Ritchie in the short term. The rotation has deeper structural problems with Sale, Holmes, and others carrying injury histories, but the org appears to be managing Ritchie’s path deliberately rather than reactively.
The PPI downgrade is a formal checkpoint update, not a CUP revision. Ritchie missing the April 9 deadline removes the 1.12× PPI multiplier from the model, but the rotation path remains open. The 55% CUP holds. The org has 10 players on the IL and the rotation path is clear when Ritchie gets the call. The model priced the stat line he is producing. What it could not price was the 40-man management decision that pushed the call-up back.
Tolle’s CUP moves from ~22% to ~28% this week. The trigger is Johan Oviedo’s elbow injury. Boston placed Oviedo on the injured list with a right elbow strain after he told reporters his arm had locked up in the days following his season debut. Tolle is down in Triple-A Worcester and is the depth arm first in line when Boston needs a starter.
Tolle threw seven strikeouts in an April 5 Triple-A start. He posted a 2.53 ERA in spring training over 10.2 innings. Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval are both working their way back from injury and are not yet ready for big-league action, which means Tolle is the active option if the rotation takes another hit. The opportunity multiplier in the model engages when an org-level injury directly opens a roster spot. That is what Oviedo’s IL creates. ECD revised to approximately April 20. PPI was downgraded April 9 before Oviedo went on the IL, the pick is gone, but the path just opened.
Bazzana is hitting .209 through his first 10 games at Triple-A Columbus. He has two doubles, two triples, and two stolen bases, and has drawn walks, but the batting average is soft. His primary blocker Gabriel Arias is hitting .105/.150/.263 with nine strikeouts in 19 at-bats. When Arias briefly went down with a hamstring strain, Cleveland called up Juan Brito instead of Bazzana, a clear signal that the org is managing his service time deliberately, not promoting on performance triggers alone.
The model’s 35% CUP was built on Pathway A: service time suppression window resolves in May. Manager Stephen Vogt has said the May/June window is the target. The Arias call-up over Bazzana confirms the org is following that plan, not accelerating it. CUP holds at 35%. Window remains May.
Miller has not played a single game in 2026. The Phillies confirm he has resumed swinging a bat, but Dave Dombrowski stated there is still no timetable for his return to game action. MLB.com lists him as injured with no active assignment. The original ECD was April 16. That window is gone.
The model revises CUP from ~22% to ~10%. The back injury was non-observable at the March 20 run date in terms of severity. The original brief flagged it as a suppressor. The actual severity was worse than the available information at run date indicated. This is a calibration audit item for June 18: the model priced the injury as a known risk, not as a season-length event. ECD pushed to June at earliest, contingent on Miller returning to games and accumulating Triple-A at-bats before the Phillies decide he is ready.
Yesavage made his second rehab start on April 9 at Single-A Dunedin. The line was rough on paper, four runs over 2.2 innings, but manager John Schneider described it as a positive development from a health standpoint, noting that velocity held at 94.1 mph throughout and that all four runs came in the first inning while he was working through early control. Schneider confirmed Yesavage is lined up for one more minor-league outing, targeting around 70 pitches, before returning to the Blue Jays rotation. Target: late April.
The urgency is real. Toronto has four starters on the injured list: Yesavage (shoulder impingement), José Berríos (right elbow stress fracture), Shane Bieber (right elbow inflammation), and Cody Ponce (right ACL sprain). The rotation is running on depth arms. Once Yesavage clears the rehab progression, the return is not gradual, they need him. The model had him below 8% CUP at run date based on the IL designation. The 90-day window closes June 18. He will almost certainly appear in the majors before then.
Miller (PHI): The model flagged back injury as a suppressor at run date. The actual severity, no game action through mid-April with no timetable, was worse than observable signals indicated. CUP revised from 22% to 10%. This is a Phase 3 calibration audit item: injury status was listed as recovering at run date; actual severity exceeded that framing. The model’s confidence interval around back injuries for young prospects needs review in the next version.
Tolle (BOS): The Oviedo IL is exactly the type of org-level injury event the opportunity multiplier is designed to capture. CUP response from 22% to 28% reflects the direct roster opening. This is the model working as designed. Tolle’s PPI downgrade on April 9 is a separate formal checkpoint update that does not affect the CUP calculation.
Griffin (PIT): The extension sequencing, debut first, contract second, was a deliberate org decision that was non-observable at run date. The model priced extension risk as a suppressor via medium confidence. The outcome (PPI preserved) is positive for calibration on that feature. The model did not miss the call-up; it correctly priced the probability at 34%. The sequencing detail is a model refinement item for v0.5.
Ritchie (ATL): 1.72 ERA through three starts is exactly the performance the model priced for in its 55% CUP. The PPI downgrade is a checkpoint update, not a model failure. Ritchie will still likely appear in MLB this season. The 40-man management decision was not in the model’s observable inputs at run date. This is a structural item for the org coefficient: ATL’s coefficient should incorporate 40-man management patterns for non-roster prospects.