I’m working through my final Top 100 update of the regular season, aiming to post it next Sunday, and it’s been a lot of fun so far. After grinding through a much quieter and quicker 2020 season, it’s amazing to me how much an actual season of baseball can change our perspective on prospect world. Earlier this year, we didn’t know if we’d have the Dominican Summer Leagues at all, and the lower level complex leagues were little more than a fuzzy possibility in the eyes of prospect diehards. With the development ladder of baseball reshaped but functional again from the ground up, the full picture of our game is coming into focus. Let’s start with a couple DSL standouts on the cusp of ascending the bottom rung.
Colorado SS Adrian Pinto — only one team would let an 18-year-old hit .422 with a .538 OBP across seven weeks in the DSL. What is Pinto learning by dominating his competition to that extent? Bad habits, if anything. Pinto’s true skill will be unknown until we see him hit against older arms, but we can only maximize the opportunities we’re given in life, and Pinto is doing so.
Cincinnati OF Ariel Almonte signed for $1.9 million in January and is handling the DSL pretty well for a 17-year-old, swiping 13 bags in 30 games and slashing .265/.409/.392 with two home runs, good for a 135 wRC+. With the Reds development staff, Almonte should be able to gain strength and loft across time. I’m expecting a prospect-stock breakout for him in 2022.
19-year-old Baltimore OF Mishael Deson leads all the complex leagues in hitting at .369/.416/.515, a line that comes with three home runs, two triples, two doubles and 11 steals across 32 games. Deson came over from Colorado as the player to be named later in the Mychal Givens trade last year, and while I like Vavra as a utility piece, Deson looks like the big prize to me. He’s listed at 6’3” 155 lbs, and while he’s likely a bit stronger than that today, it’s impressive he’s getting to his extra base pop in games while being pretty spindly.
Until a few days ago when he was promoted to High-A, San Diego SS Euribiel Angeles was the top hitter across all Low-A leagues, slashing .343/.397/.461 in 87 games as a 19-year-old in full-season ball, good for a 128 wRC+. He’s not the twitchiest athlete, but with a simple swing and great hand-eye coordination, Angeles is likely to climb the ladder without many hiccups and will always be ranked highly by the statistical-model crew. I think he’s a buy right now where he’s free, but I wouldn’t make him an untouchable piece of a rebuild by any means. Baseball has plenty of room for straight-up hitters, by which I mean dudes who just battle every pitch and make a ton of contact a la Luis Arraez, but the better path for Angeles would be to buddy up with Jake Cronenworth and see if he can turn that plus barrel feel into genuine thump.
Another newcomer to High-A, Los Angeles (NL) 2B Jorbit Vivas, is having his way in a loaded lineup. I went looking for a cut in my 15-team dynasty this week and landed on Vivas for a moment, thinking it would be awhile before he mattered for that first-place team just barely clinging to its two-point lead over Meckard, the defending champion of the Ditka Razz Auction Dynasty League. While my cursor was hovering over his little red X on Fantrax, Vivas stormed into my office, flipped a chair and fired a fastball toward a locker I keep in back, threatening something ominous about our future encounters if I ever released him.
Or wait, that was a different dude, different time when penetrative threats were a little more PC. In Vivas’ case, I merely visited his game logs, something I try to always do when pondering a transaction. Season lines become somewhat meaningless in the arc of time. I want to see how these people are playing now. And Vivas, well, he’s living it up every day, slashing .343/.425/.400 in his nine games as a Great Lakes Loon. Power from the former Cal league in Low-A doesn’t always carry over to Loon land. It did for teammate Eddys Leonard, who’s admittedly much more physical than Vivas, but even if Jorbit can’t quickly channel that 13 HR burst he showed at Rancho Cucamonga, he’s a player we have to track and add where we can while we can.
Some players are in here all the time. I apologize for the redundancy, but it’s late in the season, and Tampa Bay 2B Jonathan Aranda is the AA player who interests me most today. He’s slashing .332/.417/.559 across 73 games at the level. He was promoted from High-A after just 21 games earlier this year because he was slashing .351/.449/.554. His prolonged stay at a level he’s obliterated for nearly three months is likely a harbinger of things to come for Tampa prospects. We’ve felt the squeeze already in places, but the Willy Adames trade worked out great for our purposes, as many Tampa trades do, but this becomes a differently shaped issue if guys like Aranda can’t even crack the AAA roster after leading AA in hitting for almost a full season as a 23-year-old. This blurb wasn’t meant to become a Chicken Little situation. As with the other great organizations, the play here is to keep adding Tampa prospects and ignore whatever the sky looks like on a given day, but clouds will gather from time to time. When that happens, imagine this guy in a standard organization like the Cubs or White Sox, where he’d be a top five prospect with ease generating wild hype given his MVP level slash lines.
Cleveland RHP Cody Morris is carving it up with plus command at AAA: 0.84 WHIP, 25% K-BB, 1.33 ERA, .157 opponent’s batting average. His fastball, curveball, changeup combination is Cleveland pitching sleeper 101, as is his college pedigree (lots of experience), draft round (7), off-speed command and late-developing velocity. Scoop him up where you can. He’ll be an up-and-down rotation piece for them next year.
And finally, for what it’s Wuertz, Philadelphia C Raphael Marchan looks like a timeshare catcher with JT Realmuto sliding over to first base to cover for Rhys Hoskins (and perhaps extend his own career a little). I’ve always liked Marchan, and while he did not hit in AAA this year, he’s an add for me in deep leagues, especially while he’s within most leagues MiLB eligibility thresholds. Catchers always trade for more during winter than in-season, in my experience, as everyone in the league takes a beat to assess their build.
Thanks for reading!
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