When I title a post like this, people might think I am going to be talking about prospects who are close to or in the majors; those who have not established themselves yet but are on the brink of being MLB regulars or disappearing into the minors forever as AAAA players. So, while guys like Jose Tena, Angel Martinez, Juan Brito, Tyler Freeman, Brayan Rocchio, Gabrel Arias, Jhonkensy Noel, George Valera, Jonathon Rodriguez, Estevan Florial, Deyvison De Los Santos, Daniel Espino, Will Brennan and others have a lot to prove in what might be a make-or-break year for many of them, that is not who this post is about.
Instead, let's talk about guys further down the minors who truly are at an important crossroad in their career. Guys who need to do it this year or maybe never will, at least not with Cleveland. Not all of this pressure falls on the shoulders of the players, either. It falls on the people who drafted them very high in the draft, front offices who acquired them in trades for viable major leaguers and in the Player Development department whose job it is enhance the skills that these players came to the Guardians with.
So let's dive in...in no particular order of importance.
Alex Mooney, SS - 2023 draft 6th round (bonus $1 million, equivalent to a 2nd rd. pick)
Why am I starting with a 6th round draft pick you might ask? Mooney, to me, is the poster child for this draft team. Since we have gone to 20 rounds in this draft, the Guardians had signed every player they drafted in both 2021 and 2022. They also went over the bonus allotment by 4.99% in both years, meaning they spent as much money as they could spend on those 21 picks each year without forfeiting a draft choice. Basically, they had a blueprint and worked that blueprint to perfection. Not that I liked the 2022 draft. I didn't. But you gotta give them credit. The guys they drafted they fit into that bonus allotment like world-class jigsaw puzzle masters.
Then we come to 2023. Last year the Guardians signed only 19 of their 21 selections. Well that's pretty good, you say. But it's not 21, like in the previous 2 years.
One hypothesis is that Mooney, a draft-eligible sophomore, required a much higher bonus than anticipated. For a master jigsaw puzzle guy you just can't give them a puzzle piece bigger than what it is supposed to be or the whole thing doesn't fit together. I think that is what happened with Mooney. I think the intent all along was to sign Mac Heuer and Ryan Marohn. However, when Mooney requested a larger bonus ($1 million, making him, essentially, as important as a 2nd round pick) than expected and stuck to those demands, the Guardians had two choices. Punt on Mooney and sign the two HS pitchers or sign Mooney and lose the two HS pitchers, both of whom, in my opinion, were set to sign for bonuses right in line with the puzzle pieces within the bonus structure they represented.
I think they decided that Mooney, a draft-eligible sophomore, was a higher priority and gave him a HUGE bonus for a 6th round pick.
So that is why Mr. Mooney and the Guardians draft brain trust is on the hot seat. That plus the fact that Mooney's first minor league season sucked huge, rotten eggs. He hit .152 with a .470 OPS.
Million dollar college bonus babies shouldn't struggle like that against 18-, 19- and 20-year olds. So let's give Mr. Mooney a mulligan on last year.
But, this year, he and the Guardians' draft team have a lot to prove relative to him not only proving he is worth that bonus but proving that he was worth more than Mr. Marohn and Mr. Heuer.
Parker Messick, LHP - 2022 Draft - 2nd round
The Guardians stacked the deck in Messick's favor by starting him at Lynchburg last year. On paper, he was only slightly older than average but that is skewed somewhat as teams will send their organizational soldiers (like the Guardians with college late round draft picks Tyrese Turner and others) there to fill holes on teams. For a 22 year old 2nd round pick to start his pro career at Lynchburg stacks the deck in his favor. The soft tossing, command specialist did OK at A ball but had a 1.1 WHIP against younger hitters with only 1 HR allowed. When he promoted mid-season to the more age-appropriate Lake County, his numbers tanked with a 1.33 WHIP and 10 HR and 11 HB in 65 IP. To his credit he maintained his K rate after the promotion with almost a doubling of his walk rate.
Messick's performance was one of the most disappointing for a 2022 Guardians' draft pick and had t not been for the poor performances by Joe Lampe and the poor Lake County performance by Nate Furman after his promotion from Lynchburg, Messick's poor stats at Lake County would look even worse.
The issue with Messick was that he didn't have power pitches to get hitters out, leading to long ABs and short outings, with him only going 4+ innings on average in Lynchburg. His innings total was good at 121, up from 98 in college so he is set for a full season in 2024 where he will likely either make or break his career.
Messick wasn't a terrible pick, but in my 2022 mock draft I went for a hitter rather than a soft-tossing college pitcher who I felt didn't have a very high ceiling. Between Messick and Player Development, let's hope they can produce a guy worthy of a second round pick.
Doug Nikhazy, LHP, 2nd rd, 2021 and Tommy Mace, RHP, 2 rd supplemental, 2021
This is a classic case of good draft picks not developing or, at best, developing more slowly than expected. Nikhazy has not harnessed his control in 2 full years in the minors, walking almost 100 batters in 2023 and Mace not harnessing his command/developed his stuff, leading to him not missing many bats during the 2023 season.
Call it the Guardians' pitching factory, call in the Guardians' Finishing School for College Pitchers...call it what you want. The truth is that whatever the pitching gurus in Cleveland are selling, Nikhazy and Mace are not buying.
Is it possible that we have lost enough pitching development people that the 'factory' is non-operational any longer? Maybe.
To me, this is a no-brainer. These polished college pitchers should be more effective than they are now, especially when you consider the success that almost every college pitcher picked in the 2021 draft by Cleveland has been more effective than Nikhazy and Mace. Almost every one. Look it up.
The Guardians need Nikhazy and Mace to develop to provide major league depth in the second half of th 2024 or, at least, be valuable trade bait. The factory needs to get their machinery running and tool up these guys.
Tanner Burns, RHP, 1st rd. supplemental, 2020
2020, outside of Logan Allen, was a really disappointing draft for the Guardians. There is still a chance for this draft and a lot of the improvement in the output would come from Burns positioning himself as a ML pitching option.
Burns, like Mace, has shown very limited ability to miss bats. However, when he was moved to the bullpen in Akron last August, he pitche in 10 games, putting up 11.2 innings and gave up 2 ER on 9 hits, 3 BB and 9 K and 0 HR.
Obviously relievers can hump up on the fastball and Burns certainly showed an increase in velocity when I saw him out of the bullpen, hitting 94-95 compared to his 91-92 as a starter. This made his off-speed stuff play up.
As the 15 appearances he made out of the bullpen in 2024 were the first he had EVER made in his college/pro career, there is a lot to dream on with him making a big jump as a reliever in 2024, maybe even ending up in the Guardians' bullpen or as a valuable trade chip at some point in calendar 2024. However, if he fails to make this conversion, he now becomes a failed professional starter and a failed professional reliever after being moved from starter. That is a tough sell for any organization to give him an extended chance in AAA, let alone the majors.
Pitching factory...have at it!
Joe Lampe OF, 3rd rd 2022, Justin Boyd OF 2S, 2022 (Reds), Nate Furman 2B, 4th round 2022, Steve Hajjar, LHP, 2nd rd, 2021 (Twins)
I have lumped these 4 together because they are all over-hyped underperformers. Lampe and Furman are LH slap hitters from the 2022 draft and Boyd and Hajjar were obtained for Will Benson, with Boyd being a 2nd round supplemental pick in 2022.
None of them performed well in 2023 with Boyd (.140 BA, .490 OPS at Lake County) and Hajjar (52 BB/57 innings at Lake County) being pathetic and Lampe and Furman just being bad at Lake County, although Furman looked good beating up younger pitchers at Lynchburg. This, again, a situation where the players themselves and the Player Development department have to pull a rabbit out of a hat and turn these guys into viable prospects.
SUMMARY
Each of these guys have 3 things in common:
(1) They were college draftees
(2) They were high draft picks
(3) They have flamed out or stalled in the middle minors, some even in A ball, something that shouldn't happen to college-polished high draft picks.
There is time for each of these guys to reach the potential exemplified by their draft slot and tools. But this is the year where they need to make that happen. Guys with these pedigrees just don't flame out before they get to AA or AAA. They just don't, at least not in an organization like Cleveland where their lifeblood is generating major leaguers from their player development system.
These are the kind of guys who can make a minor league system successful or, if they all fail, can make our system much thinner than it should be, given that we don't spend money bringing in veterans in trades (of prospects) or free agency.
The time is now. No one should sleep on the importance of these guys having successful years. I know I will be rooting hard for their success. Besides being important to them it is INCREDIBLY important to the Guardians that they are successful.
