RADIO
If you've been following my series on sleeper prospects, you probably correctly noted that there are actually more than the four divisions I've already written about. Who knew?!
No worries Rotoballers, a six-week gap isn't enough to keep me from tucking my tail firmly between my legs and returning to finish what we started. I can't, and won't, leave you hanging. Take a quick peek back at my favorite sleeper prospects in baseball in the AL Central, AL East, NL Central, and NL West. They're definitely worth a read, as is all of Rotoballer's prospect/dynasty coverage.
Today, we get the AL West, home to the AL champion* Houston Astros. As a collection, this is an odd division from a prospect and development perspective. In 2020, Oakland and Houston are the classes, but LA is coming on hot, and then a steep drop to Texas and Seattle. From a development perspective, all of these teams are a little all over the map.
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AL West Overview
In Baseball America's Top 100, the whole division had just 13 representatives thanks to Seattle's five. But most of that cream of the crop were either trade acquisitions (Jarred Kelenic, for example) or are very young and most of the hype is based on tools projection (Julio Rodriguez). There's just not a lot of faith that these teams can consistently get the most of their talent. This perception should color the way we value their prospects. If Seattle drafts a prep flamethrower in the early 2nd round, and the Rays draft a similar guy in the 3rd or 4th round, sight unseen I'd probably lean towards Tampa because they've had more success developing those guys into valuable big-leaguers. At the end of the day, Rotoballers, it's a dart throw. But setting your sights on better situations generally yield better results.
All that said, there's a lot of talent to be mined. Houston has built a juggernaut on the back of a once-stacked system that has only recently begun re-stocking the cupboards. They have a handful of promising pitchers, but outside of Forrest Whitley, reliever Bryan Abreu, and "prospect" Jose Urquidy, reinforcements are a ways off. Los Angeles of Anaheim boasts one of the top prospects in baseball in outfielder Jo Adell, who has more tools than a hardware store but precious little in terms of production. In a way, Adell is a microcosm of the whole system; tons of talent, little to show for it.
Seattle has the most top 100 darts to throw at the board, including uber-teenager Julio Rodriguez, but have also seen stock drop off on several high profile prospects, including Justus Sheffield, Justin Dunn, and Kyle Lewis before a surprising late 2019 surge. Oakland is a little underrated, consistently churning out big league-ready options. The problem they have, which it seems like many smart teams deal with these days, is quantity over quality. Matt(s) Olson and Chapman are recent success stories, but where is the stud to tie it all together? Texas may have the highest upside in the division, but that upside is few years off, and their handling of top prospects comes into question when considering recent development issues with Leody Tavaras and high-profile international signing Julio Pablo Martinez.
Keep in mind that we're looking at players that are down a bit from the top 10s. Before the 2019 season, guys like Jarren Duran, Tahnaj Thomas, Andy Young, and Ivan Herrera were overlooked by even their own fanbases. Now, they're real assets that you can rebuild around or as trade pieces to reinforce your championship run. Rotoballers don't waste picks, even in deep dynasty drafts. Many of these players will require patience, but stick with Rotoballer, and you'll find yourself with a farm system that will be the envy of your competitors for years to come. Championships aren't won, after all. They're earned.
Houston Astros – Hunter Brown, SP
Houston’s system is extremely depleted from years of trading prospects for MLB talent while they contend for titles. I’m sure Astros fans aren’t weeping over split milk, as their last three seasons have included three AL West Division Championships, a 2019 World Series appearance, and the 2017 World Series title. That’s a lot of pennants to add to Minute Maid Park, which also happens to be one of the best parks to watch a ballgame.
The once and future Colt .45s recent indiscretions led to the dismissal of GM Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch, but this sudden turnover shouldn’t impact their farm system in the short-term. The team is still a juggernaut offensively, leading to a potential logjam at a variety of positions in Triple A, potentially hurting development of some of their higher-level prospects. The pitching staff, on the other hand, is looking fairly depleted after a number of high-profile defections and some likely regression for guys like Roberto Osuna and Zack Grienke.
Which brings us to Brown. Once an overlooked member of Division II’s Wayne State College, Brown had a monster junior year thanks in large part to a screamer of a fastball that touches 100 in a normal start. Having a 100 mph fastball isn't the super skill it used to be, but Brown can actually manipulate the speed on his fastball as well. He uses this skill in combination with his newfound heat to create a wide range of outcomes that get hitters extremely uncomfortable. Evan Longoria talked about this a couple of years ago in relation to Chris Sale, who if you hadn't heard is pretty good. Check out a breakdown on the variety of speeds in Sale's pitch mix.
This variety gives Sale many more options than just his standard mix of pitches. He effectively has dozens of weapons that he can deploy against hitters, making it extremely difficult to hone in on any one or two options. I'm not saying Brown can become the next Chris Sale but if he can deploy his trademark fastball and a change at different speeds, and mix in the odd slider or curveball, he'll be an extremely rich man's no. 3 starter.
All of that said, the research on mixing pitch speeds is incomplete, with little consensus on how effective it is to mix speeds. But I'll leave it for you to decide, so here's a piece from the Hardball Times that serves as a pretty good primer on the subject.
Regarding Brown, his fastball could play in the bigs right now, and word is he's making solid progress on a. If Houston needed a reliever, they may be in position to call him up for a cup of coffee late in the season. Based on their organizational depth and general developmental approach, I'm betting the Astros will be patient with him and allow him to improve his slider and change, which is very good for his chances to remain a starter.
Honorable Mention: Jordan Brewer, OF; Jose Rivera, SP
Los Angeles Angels – William Holmes, SP/OF
Before we dive into Holmes, here's a little honesty Rotoballers. I don't really know what to do with two-way players long-term. I don't have any shares of Shohei Ohtani or Brendan McKay, but did win a dynasty title last year making use of the gifts of one Michael Lorenzen. The Red's reliever/slugger made waves in 2019 by becoming the first player since Babe freaking Ruth to play the field, hit a home run, and log the win as a pitcher in the same game. When you do something that no one's done since the '20s, you're going to be a thing.
Lorenzen is a good pitcher (2.02 ERA, 9.18 K/9) with a good shot to earn some saves in 2020, but outside of that splashy headline hasn't had an opportunity to be a true threat in the batter's box. The COVID-shortened 2020 season may feature a curveball (pun intended) that may be the beginning of the end of pitchers being forced to take at-bats in the National League, offering even fewer opportunities for hitting pitchers. Lorenzen is interesting because he hit four dingers in 2018 and reportedly wants to play the field, but at the major-league level players generally have to choose if they want to be effective at pitching or hitting at the expense of the other discipline.
All that brings us to William Holmes, one of LA's projects to develop a true two-way threat (I'm excluding Ohtani because he came to the MLB a relatively finished product). The 19-year-old is a genuine physical specimen in the mold of Yasiel Puig. He looks like a star. He also has monster tools, including a jumpy fastball that touches the high-90s and a sweeping curveball. As a hitter, he shows natural command of the strike zone and possesses good contact skills. In his first taste of pro ball, he hit .326 with a .920 OPS and chipped in seven steals while striking out 38 batters across 24.1 innings on the mound across three Rookie-league stops. He packs a good amount of juice in his swing, leading scouts to slap "above-average" on his game power scores.
Why is Holmes more interesting to me than other "two-way" prospects? Holmes' mechanics are largely quiet and smooth, which scouts will argue gives a player a solid base for development. On the pitching side, his strong body and smooth hips allow him to consistently repeat his delivery. This keeps his body in line when he's generating the torque he needs to get the velocity and movement on his pitches that he needs, while also allowing him to pinpoint where the pitch is going.
If he's swinging his hips with reckless abandon and never has the same release point for when the ball leaves his hand, then he can't command the pitch to go where he wants it, leading to tons of walks. And if he adjusts his torque to help give himself more control, he takes velocity/movement off his pitch, making it easier to see and hit. This is a lot to work on and develop, which is why two-way players are so rare.
Holmes seems to have an effortlessness to his game that could allow him to buck the trend. He is smooth and composed on the mound and in the batter's box. The tools are there for Holmes to be effective on both sides of the ball. The question is whether it's as a hitter, pitcher, or both. His development will be one of the more interesting to follow over the next couple of years. Given the relative dearth of exciting options in the Angels' farm club and Holme's high level of athleticism, I'm betting that they'll get something useful out of him, with the upside being a legit two-way star. Holmes is an ideal late round stash for dynasty players.
Honorable Mention: Adrian Placenia, SS; D'Shawn Knowles, OF
Oakland A's – Greg Deichmann, OF
Let it be known that I am am not an ageist.
Truth be told, some of my favorite prospects to poach in late rounds of prospect drafts are the guys who are old for their level, and for one reason or another have something click. The bigs are littered with guys who finally found their mojo in their mid to late-twenties. I think Deichmann is the next in a line of reclamation projects that will yield fantasy goodness.
The 24-year-old outfielder has not been on the radar since being drafted in the second round of the 2017 MLB draft. The lefty slugger showed power and the ability to spray the ball to all fields at LSU, ending his junior season with a sterling .308/.417/.579 line with 19 dingers in 72 games. He showed early returns in his draft year, but two weeks into the 2018 season, Deichmann experienced a hamate bone fracture that, due to misdiagnosis, Deichmann tried to rehab through with disastrous results. A line .199/.276/.392 across 47 games in a hitter-friendly environment is a bad way to start a pro career, and the injury wasn't correctly diagnosed and treated until after the season ended.
The presumably healthy outfielder's 2019 didn't fare much better. The A's pushed the youngster to AA rather aggressively, but Deichmann's game hadn't quite recovered from the ordeal. A .211/.282/.346 line with little of the expected pop seemed to spell the end of his prospect status, and he didn't even make Baseball America's top 30 Oakland prospects.
Cut to 2019 Arizona Fall League, and the former Tiger showed up looking like a new man. He talked about being looser and more comfortable with his swing, which took work after the extended injury issue. By the time AZL wrapped up, Deichmann had launched nine homers in just 23 games. For reference, no one else had more than four. FOUR! He led the league in slugging, OPS, and fell just short in leading extra-base hits as well. It wasn't just pop either, as the .256/.347/.634 line against high-level competition when he's only had a single season of healthy play that occurred after his injury of disaster should make your ears as tingly as it does mine.
Because of the stats I mentioned, and the lack of hard data from the AZL, this is as much of a narrative call as it is a "scouting one". The A's added a 17-degree-launch angle change to Deichmann’s swing, pairing it with his natural plus power and big exit velocities. He shows an above-average eye at the plate, and one of the few constants in his minor-league numbers is walk rates over 10%.
He struck out a ton in 2018 and 2019, including in the Fall League, but the A's aren't afraid of using a three true outcomes-style masher in a role that maximizes his ability and hides some of his weaknesses. The A’s have found success taking a player with specific gifts and adding a piece to better unlock a skill they can use on the major league roster. With Deichmann, it’s obvious that the skill the A’s want is a right-handed platoon bat with serious torque.
Deichmann is the rare under-the-radar prospect who could provide major-league value in 2020. The A's outfield, outside of speedster Ramon Laureano, is in flux. Mark Canha, Stephen Piscotty, and Robbie Grossman are all various levels of "fine", and if you told me that two of the three were gone and in their place a combo of Seth Brown and Deichmann, I wouldn't bat an eye. All the 24-year-old needs now is health, which he appears to finally have for the first time in years. Although his minor league numbers are pedestrian, buy into the narrative and you’ll receive easy return on your investment.
Honorable Mention: Brayan Buelvas, OF; Marcus Smith, OF
Seattle Mariners – Milkar Perez, 3B
I promised myself when I started this that I wouldn't make the Seattle selection Noelvi Marte. If you don't know about Noelvi Marte, well now you know and knowing is half the battle (GI Joooooe)!
Anyways, since we're mining the depths for fantasy goodness, allow me to introduce you to Milkar Perez. The 18-year-old with the 80-grade nickname "Milk" showed out in the 18U Pan American Championships shortly after signing for just $175K in the 2018 J2 class. Perez played alongside current "name" prospects like fellow Panamanians Daniel Espino and Ivan Herrera, Canadian Bo Naylor, and Americans Bobby Witt, Riley Greene, Corbin Carroll, CJ Abrams, and Brennan Malone. My point is that the 18U Pan American Championships is a good place to scout talent as they are competing against the cream of the crop of amateurs. It was against that group that Perez's .274/.381/.388 line with a BB% of over 13% was good enough to land him on the all-tourney team, showing that he not only belonged among that group, he excelled.
That .381 OBP should jump out at you, as it's Perez's defining skill at this point in his career. His approach is extremely advanced, showing a strong eye for the ball regardless of which side of the plate the switch-hitter is batting from. That eye led to a 13% BB% in the 18U tourney, an outcome that is even stronger than the number suggests since, to date, he's never played stateside. This should keep his OBP high, even if he's having a cold spell at the plate.
Speaking of the plate, his swing is tight and compact, but contains lots of juice. His eye and selectivity at the plate keep him from taking cuts and bad balls, and his above-average contact ability gives the Mariners the hope that the bat will eventually top out as plus. When he does make contact, Perez produces plenty of torque, leading the Mariners to again believe that he'll produce above-average to plus game power.
For those that aren't following, we have an above-average eye, above-average approach at the plate, above-average hit and contact tools, and above-average pop. If you want to get lofty with the comps, that's a poor man's Kris Bryant. Perez likely isn't a superstar on Bryant's level, but the young man is hungry and has shown a lot to like to evaluators. We'll know more when he hits the states whenever 2020 happens, but today he's an ideal end of the draft stash in your deep dynasty league. "Milk" will be on my radar going forward, and Rotoballers should definitely do the same.
Honorable Mention: Dom Thompson-Williams, OF; Joey Gerber, RP
Texas Rangers – Maximo Acosta, SS
I’m cheating a bit here, as Acosta has built quite the following in scouting circles since being signed for $1.6 million during the J2 signing period. The 17-year-old was overshadowed by fellow Rangers signee Bayron Lora, who commanded a massive $4.2 million. Lora and Acosta are very different players, with the former a hulking man-child with 70-grade raw power and the latter a pure plus athlete with little “baseball” seasoning. You’ll see both Lora and Acosta earn honorable mentions to top 100 lists this offseason, and it’s for good reason.
Once Acosta got exposure with major league quality coaching and scouts, he proceeded to open a ton of eyes with far better than expected polish. The hyper-athletic, quick-twitch was all there, but so was a more dynamic bat, quality defense, and pitch recognition that is well beyond his years. He’s already adjusting to spin and breaking balls, using a short and smooth swing that keeps the barrel in the strike zone. He makes fantastic contact, with a potential plus hit tool to go with what is expected to be above average pop at maturity. Add plus speed that is smooth and effortless, and you have the potential for a true five-tool player.
I wish there was more analysis, but we just don't have the numbers yet. Whenever the 2020 season happens, where Acosta plays and how the Rangers move him will be on the top of my watch list. Acosta has drawn comparisons to Yankees shortstop Gleybar Torres and, while I hate overly optimistic player comparisons, I have to admit that scouts that were interviewed that made the comp seemed like they were initially cagey about letting that name fly. What that tells me is that this isn’t a comp that was made flippantly, but rather an assessment that felt both honest and considered. While Lora was the more celebrated (and expensive) prospect, it’s clear that the Rangers struck gold in Acosta.
Honorable Mention: Ricky Vanasco, RP; Zion Bannister, OF
More MLB Prospects Analysis
