Today is the day Cleveland will finally deploy one of its best pitchers, almost three months into the season. Gavin Williams earned this opportunity more than a month ago and hasn’t dominated to quite the same extent since he was left to linger. His 2.93 ERA and 1.09 WHIP with 61 strikeouts in 46 Triple-A innings still look good enough for us to glimpse his mountainous upside. Just anecdotal, but it feels like there’s been real reward for the teams who don’t drag their feet on promotions this year. The Reds have ripped off ten straight wins, and even they’ve been on the conservative side of aggressive, if that makes even a strand of sense.
Pittsburgh dragged its boots a bit in promoting Henry Davis and now occupy fourth place after having first place to themselves for an awkward few hours. It’s not a one-plus-one thing where they’d definitely still be in first if they’d been more aggressive with their top prospect, but it’s a question they’ll wind up asking themselves on dark and stormy nights.
Both the above made the top five in my recent stash list: Meaner Than a Junkyard Dog. These lists have been rolling hot lately, for what it’s worth. I only built this one for Sunday because four guys had graduated the week before, and with Red Sox SS and Itch-fave David Hamilton winging his way to Minnesota, we’re already at three call-ups between Sunday’s stash list and about noon on Wednesday. I mention the time because Hamilton’s promotion is not official yet. Boston has waited about two months too long already. What’s another minute or two?
I did not invent this genre of prospect article, but I’m enjoying making it my own. I’ve noticed other lists take tacit credit for every promoted rookie atop their articles, whether they’ve mentioned them in the preceding weeks or not. They don’t provide a link to the previous piece, so they’re just hoping you give them the credit and don’t look it up. I’m sorry, but if you didn’t have Emmet Sheehan on your top 25 redraft stashes a week ago, you probably shouldn’t casually imply that you did in the opening segment. Also, how did you not have Emmet Sheehan on that list? Painting’s been drying on that wall for a month. I don’t often think of the call-up prediction game as particularly difficult, but I guess it can be. Might be a more useful skill for readers if NFBC leagues weren’t operating under rule sets built in 1985, but so it goes.
Pirates RHP Jared Jones made his Triple-A debut last night, allowing five base runners and three runs in 5.2 innings. A high school draftee in 2020 (44th overall), Jones will turn 22 on August 6 and could pitch in Pittsburgh before then if the team wants to fight for 2023 from four games back in the division.
A while back, I said Rockies OF Yanquiel Fernandez had passed Zac Veen in the organizational rankings. Last night, Fernandez made his Double-A debut a memorable one thanks to his 18th home run of the season at his third affiliate of the year. He won’t turn 21 until New Year’s Day and might already be their best big league outfield option by then.
Rangers SS Luisangel Acuña (21, AA) played centerfield last night, an important development for a player as blocked as really any Rangers infield prospect would be right now. He’s slashing .307/.374/.458 with five home runs and 29 steals in 31 attempts across 55 games.
One telltale sign that an organization struggles at player development shows itself whenever the org graduates guys in waves according to dates on a calendar, rather than treating each individual player as a human running his own race. Kansas City bumped approximately 200 pitching prospects up one level this week. Chandler Champlain, a 23-year-old repeating High-A, was among them. He should’ve been in Double-A last month. 22-year-old David Sandlin threw seven shutout innings in his 11th Low-A start but was held in place for his 12th anyway despite a K/BB rate of 6.08 and K-BB percentage of 28. I’m cherry picking a guy with 79 strikeouts in 58.2 innings against younger men, but he’s not unique in an organization littered with arms bullying younger hitters.
On the one hand, sure, take your time. It’s not a race. On the other hand, hurry tf up; it very much is a race. You only get so many years with each player before they’ve got to be added to the 40-man roster. Every inning burned at a level below a player’s competency is an inning wasted in the worst way. Promotions in bunches aren’t always bad. Sometimes it’s just a natural domino effect. But it does always read as a little lazy to me. Reality simply doesn’t line up with the concept that all these players are ready for their next challenge on the same date.
Some quick hits in the lower levels:
Orioles 2B Rolphy Cruz is a 5’11” switch-hitter who earned a quick promotion to Low-A by slashing .500/.594/1.192 with four home runs and three steals in eight games. Keep an eye out here as this has the look of a physical leap by a 20-year-old who walked twice as often as he struck out in this small sample.
Cubs C Moises Ballesteros (19, A+) posted a 143 wRC+ across 56 games in Low-A, where he was 1.9 years younger than the average age. He’s now 3.3 years younger than the average player in High-A. He’s an Alejandro Kirk body type at 5’7” 215 lbs, but it’s not all dead weight. Ballesteros handles himself well behind the plate and walks more than he strikes out without relying on passivity to get there.
Rangers SS Sebastian Walcott was not hitting in the Dominican Summer League (.161 BA) but was taking his walks (.381 OBP). Texas brought him up to the complex league today after just nine games in the DSL.
I’d recommend checking your leagues for Yankees SS Enmanuel Tejeda, who has three home runs, ten steals and a .571 on base percentage in 12 complex league games. An 18-year-old until Christmas Day, he’s 1.4 years younger than the average age at that level and won’t be there long if he keeps producing like this. Feels pretty rare to get in at the ground level with an underhyped Yankees prospect.
Thanks for reading!
PS: I’ll be traveling with my family over the next couple weeks, so I might be a little slow in the comments section depending on service issues and whatnot. I’ll still post on Sunday and Wednesday though and will work whatever I miss into the body of the following articles.
