The Captains finished with an above .500 record (65-64), helpful to the Marketing dept. who no doubt have an easier time selling advertising for a team with a winning record who fans come out to see.
However, unlike some of the other teams in the Guardians organization, Lake County had very few true prospects on their roster, even when you consider guys who passed through Eastlake on their way to bigger and better things.
That being said, let's take a look, in order, at the top prospects who played a significant amount at Lake County this season.
1. Chase DeLauter - I have said repeatedly that DeLauter had the best bat-to-ball skills I ever remember seeing from a Cleveland minor leaguer. Of course, most of my experience in seeing these guys was before the days of MiLB.TV and consisted of watching players play a handful of games in my infrequent visits to minor league parks. Still, he got the barrel to the ball A LOT in his time at Lake County. He has a weird batting stance which may sap his power and he is likely to be limited to RF or maybe even LF if his arm won't play in RF in the major leagues. He is a big athletic guy who runs well once underway (a tick better than Oscar Gonzalez) and he hustles out ground balls and will take the extra bag although his sliding needs some work, I think, especially with his foot injury history. The only other POSSIBLE red flag I can see with DeLauter is his ability to hit LHP. Unfortunately the sample size is extremely small (44 PA) but his OPS split between LHP and RHP is extreme (.592 compared to 1.027). Overall, DeLauter is one of the top prospects in the Guardians' organization and his bat looks like it might play in the majors by next August if he continues the progress he showed in 2023.
2, Juan Brito - Putting him on this list is a bit of a cheat as he spent the bulk of the year in Akron. But the Baseball America Cleveland Guardians Minor League Player of the Year did get in 132 ABs at Lake County so here he is. Brito has extreme OB skills and, after seeing him several times in spring training and seeing him on MiLB.TV all year, I honestly believe he could walk a lot more than he does right now. I believe the Cleveland organization conversation with him this spring went something like this: 'Juan, we know you can take a walk. But we need you to produce hard contact at a much higher rate than you are currently doing and you can't do that with the bat on your shoulder.' His defense was weak in ST and in Lake County but you could already see improvement (which continued in Akron and Columbus) all through the season. At this point he is a passable defender at second base. He still does not steal many bases and isn't that fast even after he gets underway. He showed only marginal power in the minors this year and so it looks like he will be a guy with high OBP guy with 10-15 HR power. His true value will be in whether he reaches that power potential and how much he can improve on his base-stealing and hitting for average while consistently improving his defense. While it's not the focus of this post, the numbers Brito put up this year, the fact that he had to be put on the 40-man last winter and that Nolan Jones was arguably the best position player in Colorado this year, says to me that the Jones for Brito trade was very lopsided in favor of Colorado.
NOTE; Literally, I could stop here. There aren't any other great prospects who played in Lake County this year but there are some interesting guys who MIGHT blossom into something down the road. So let's look at them.
3. Ethan Hankins - How can a guy with a 4.70 ERA be #3 on this list? It's because he is a former top prospect who has hardly played in the last few years due to injury and COVID. If you think his ranking here is a surprise, wait until this winter where, I think, the Guardians will have no choice but to put him on the 40-man to protect his from the Rule 5. Hankins certainly wasn't sharp this year but was healthy and showed the stuff he displayed before and right after he was drafted. Putting him here (and on the 40man, if that happens) sort of demands a breakout season from him next year. I think the chance of him breaking out next year and competing for a 26-man roster spot at the beginning of 2025 are high but, for all of you who read my predictions before the 2023 season, you now know how little value my breakout predictions actually have.
4. Ryan Webb - Webb did not dominate as I hoped he would at Lake County. Like Hankins, Webb's development has been slowed by injury but he came through the season healthy and is headed to the AFL where he will get needed experience although I am skeptical that he will have success this fall as his stuff might not play well in the hot Arizona air. For the future, however, I think he looks like he is slotting in well in terms of his value from the 2021 draft class.
5. Dayan Frias - I think the 2023 WBC will be shown to have a huge positive impact on the minor leaguers, especially young minor leaguers, who were able to play. Frias may be the poster child for that and he certainly broke out as far as his power this year. His .782 OPS speaks out as far as his potential and he is another in our class of MIF prospects with Frias maybe being able to slide over to 3rd base if his power is really starting to blossom and is not just a one year blip. Like Brito, Frias does not run that well and he knows how to take a walk.
6. Khalil Watson - His performance at Lake County matched what I read about him at the time of the Josh Bell trade. Loud tools and even louder impression that those tools are not being optimized by the player. Yes, how can you scoff at a SS who has a .442 SLG and a .782 OPS and is still very young. For comparison, look at Jake Fox. Similar to Watson, Fox is a high 2021 draftee. Fox is considered one of the top prospects in Cleveland's organization but the difference between Fox and Watson is that all the latter needs to do is hone his already existing skills and keep his attitude in check. Fox, on the other hand, will really have to add to his power, speed and OB skills to reach his potential.
7. Cooper Ingle - Look, it pains me to put this 2023 extreme overdraft this high on this list but, in his small sample size he showed Brito-esque (or better) plate discipline and good bat-to-ball slap hitter skills...and maybe some true gap power. The question is will he be able to be a ML catcher and can he leverage his existing skills into starting 2024 in Akron. If he does and is successful offensively in 2024 in Akron, it could provide Cleveland a good offensive backup catcher by mid-2025, just about the time that we all hope Bo Naylor is rounding into perennial all-star form.
8. Jake Fox - I have already covered Fox's weaknesses in the Watson review above. The key strength that Fox has is that he has no glaring weakness, being solid at almost all aspects of the game. He should continue to appear on Guardians' top prospect lists this winter and next spring and the Guardians should be able to get a real good look at him in 2024. Note that he is still so young in his professional career that the Guardians don't have to worry about adding him to the 40-man next winter as he was a HS draftee in 2021.
9.Tommy Mace - Although Mace cratered when he was promoted to Akron, he still showed some potential in Lake County. His stuff looks like it might play a lot better as a reliever as his FB velocity as a starter is a tick below ML average. Right now he looks like somewhere between Peyton Battenfield and Hunter Gaddis in terms of his potential but that might change if he moves to the bullpen. 2024 will be a crucial year for Mace as the Guardians will really have to figure out what they have in him as he is rule 5 eligible after next season.
10. Parker Messick - It would be easy to classify the polished pitcher in Messick as an organizational disappointment this year. He didn't exactly dominate the Carolina League even though he should have, given his age and polish. Ditto for the Midwest League after his promotion but one thing changed. In the MWL he showed a ML average fastball which was missing in Lynchburg, where he sat at 89-91, maybe touching 92 and trying to fool younger hitters with breaking stuff which a number of them centered up because it was not really quality breaking stuff. In Lake County the increase in FB velocity made his breaking pitches play up and you could start to see a glimmer of hope of him turning into a quality ML pitcher in the future. But this was just a glimmer. If he continues to throw below average he will get chewed up and may never even make it to AAA, let alone Cleveland. Time will tell.
11. Composite ranking: Tyler Thornton, Shawn Rapp, Lenny Torres, Jr. , Magnus Ellerts, Trenton Denholm, Franco Aleman - Minor league relievers are, generally, very fungible. Still, every once in a while one of these guys breaks out and carves out a ML middle reliever career for themselves. Every one of these guys has this potential and Aleman may even have setup or closer potential down the road. Reliever was one of the strengths of this team in 2023 and I think these relievers are worth watching going forward.
Not ranked due to insufficient date:
Will Dion, Tyrese Turner
Very disappointing seasons/guys who are trending, without dramatic improvement, at becoming organizational soldiers
Every major league team has prospects that fail to become major leaguers. However, Josh Wolf, Joe Lampe, Nate Furman, Steve Hajjar, Justing Boyd, Christian Cairo, Yordys Valdes, Isaiah Greene, Will Bartlett, Junior Sanquintin, Jorge Burgos, Aaron Davenport are guys who really stand out to me as they all had potential to become priority prospects but now are looking like organizational soldiers. Some of them (Furman, Lampe, Boyd) are the first wave of prospects who are slap hitters to fall flat on their collective faces, bringing this unusual draft/acquisition criteria into question, and in a BIG way, as these guys are failing early in their minor league careers when they should be dominating A+ ball pitching, even if this unusual skill set for college players SHOULD have played well in A ball.
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