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Sal Stewart's is a potential fantasy baseball prospect sleeper, stash, waiver wire pickup. Matt's suite of fundamentals evaluation tools provide dynasty outlooks.
Cincinnati Reds infield prospect Sal Stewart is due up first in a series in which I examine the evolution of the pro offensive fundamentals of 2022 MLB Draft signees from the high school class.
The still-evolving batted ball profile casts the righthanded batter as a purer hitter who will be biased toward producing batting average rather than slugging percentage points.
After an explanatory refresher of the player evaluation models to be used, I will break down Stewart's professional offensive outcomes and what fantasy league players should focus their attention on.
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Prospect Analysis: Sal Stewart
Evolution of Pro Plate Profile
The Reds selected Stewart with the 32nd overall selection in the 2022 MLB Draft. The parties agreed to a $2.1 million bonus that was slightly under the pick's slot value.
His subsequent 2022 pro debut consisted of a mere 33 plate appearances with the Rookie Arizona Complex League affiliate. 93 K Avoid and 76 BB+HBP Ratings were very nice marks for a recent high school graduate who mostly faced a mix of current draft year collegians and international free agent signees from prior annual classes.
A solid enough small-sample batted ball profile was led by IFFB Avoid and a decent volume of LD and OFFB. The OFFB were sprayed unfavorably late, per a 23 Pull OFFB versus 48 OFFB. The GB were sprayed unfavorably early per a 6 Pull GB Avoid versus 38 GB Avoid.
Stewart went to the Low-A affiliate to open 2024 and turned 387 plate trips there. 81 BB+HBP and 91 K Avoid Ratings were very on par with the 2022 marks. The LD + IFFB Avoid + Pull GB Avoid trio of the batted ball profile grew stouter but he could only generate hits at a 45 AVG on Batted Balls clip. Almost plus LD production may explain how he generated a fair amount (48) of ISO despite so few OFFB and still fewer Pull OFFB relative to circuit peers.
The final 131 PA of 2023 were taken in High-A. BB+HBP and K Avoid barely budged versus the Low-A marks. IFFB Avoid and Pull GB Avoid fell versus Low-A, but a few more LD per batted ball helped generate a 70 AVG Rating that registered closer to what he should have posted while in Low-A. OFFB stayed fewer and later-sprayed, producing limited (15) ISO.
His 2024 High-A campaign would end prematurely on July 14 due to a wrist injury. For the whole season, Stewart rated above plus at all three of BB+HBP, K Avoid, and Batted Ball Profile. An outstanding 94 LD + 88 IFFB Avoid + 85 Pull GB Avoid hit trio produced a lower frequency of hits than expected per a 73 AVG. Meanwhile, 72 ISO was well on the high side, given a 56 OFFB featuring contact that was still skewed late per 26 Pull OFFB.
By conclusion of the third pro season, the righthanded batter had proven himself quite a menace to lefthanded pitchers per four Overalls versus Oppo-Handed Pitchers that ranged from 98 to 100 percentile points. Conversely, the 2024 High-A stint was one of the four in which the Same-Handed Pitchers Overall rated at least plus, and also the only one in which Same-Handed Pitchers Batted Ball Profile Rating was above the mean (a nearly plus 83).
Stewart logged 30 PA in 2025 MLB spring games with plus BB+HBP and half plus K Avoid turning out to be the relative strengths of the FaBIO profile. The batted ball profile was light in LD, more so than Pull OFFB, and produced not quite league-average AVG and ISO marks.
Evolution of Pro Offensive Running
The burlier 6-foot-1, 224-pounder has twice rated below full minus at Offensive Running in pro three seasons, including an 11 Rating in 2024 High-A. With the As Batter mark below minus at three of four pro stops and just above minus at the fourth, Stewart plays especially slow up the first baseline.
Dynasty Fantasy Baseball Focus
The new to Double-A Stewart has the potential to post big LD + IFFB Avoid + Pull GB Avoid hit trios in MLB that should eventually translate into circa plus or better hits (AVG) on batted balls.
The persistent late spray bias to outfield flyballs seems more owed to a center-to-off-field approach than to delayed acclimation to pro-caliber fastball velocity. Stewart now more prominently features doubles than homers in his extra-base hits portfolio, though the coziness of the Cincinnati MLB park could create bonus home run opportunities for him on flyballs driven to the center, or opposite-third.
Factor in potentially plus pure-hit fundamentals with BB+HBP and K avoidance percentage ratings that might each slot within a half-to-full plus window, and we can expect him to emerge as a high on-base percentage batter who puts the ball in play very often relative to peers in the absence of a walk or hit by pitch.
The righthanded batter seems a cinch to do damage to left-handed MLB pitchers (take notice, daily fantasy players). The relative wild card then stands to be how well the walk plus hit by pitch game and batted ball profile coalesce to create times on-base against right-handed pitchers. Can he amount to more than just a strikeout avoider against the righties?
Stewart is not an offensive runner and projects to be more of a station-to-station type on the bases. For the same reason, groundball double play risk skews higher and increases as the aerial bias to the batted ball profile sinks (decreases as that rises).
Stewart played better at third base in 2023 than before the wrist injury struck midseason in 2024. A good arm should keep him at the hot corner for the short term. Second base or first base could end up as his primary MLB position if the third base play does not later meet the standards for a full-time major league third baseman.
Stewart shares some qualities with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Blue Jays, but has not put up huge MiLB offensive seasons like that player did at a younger age. One could optimistically forecast Stewart being at least one or two handfuls of points shy of a .300 batting average deliverer. He would not quite get there between the relative lack of speed and offensive running prowess, plus some uncertainty involving the batted ball profile and hit outcomes against right-handed pitchers, which he and any other full-time player predominantly face.
Brief Explanation of the FaBIO Model
My Fielding- and Ballpark-Independent Outcomes (FaBIO) evaluation model sorts every plate appearance into one of 12 outcome bins (BB+HBP, K, IFFB, Pull-Third OFFB, Center-Third OFFB, Oppo-Third OFFB, Pull-Third LD, Center-Third LD, Oppo-Third LD, Pull-Third GB, Center-Third GB, Oppo-Third GB) and charges the pitcher and batter with their league's mean runs value for said particular event that season.
Dividing a batter's total number of expected runs by plate appearance (PA) yields expected runs per PA that can be percentile ranked relative to the league mean and standard deviation for that parameter amongst league batter qualifiers to arrive at their Overall Rating.
Its three subcomponents of BB+HBP Rating (based on BB+HBP per PA), Strikeout Avoid Rating (K Avoid, based on K per PA), and Batted Ball Profile Rating (expected runs per batted ball) are also reported to identify the path the batter traveled to reach their Overall Rating.
Overall Rating and Batted Ball Profile Rating of batters should be considered power- and speed-neutralized metrics since the real-world runs value of a single batter's typical OFFB or LD varies with their strength, and the expected runs value of their typical GB varies with their speed.
To better understand the Path to Batted Ball Profile, we will also examine percentile ratings for select batted ball event types (on a per-batted ball basis). To check how well expected batted ball outcomes match real-world ones, we will compute percentile ratings for hits (AVG) and isolated power (ISO, or simply extra bases) on batted balls (recognizing full well that these two parameters are neither fielding- nor ballpark-independent outcomes).
What most explains a batter's ability to generate hits (AVG) on batted balls is any LD, IFFB avoidance, Pull-Third OFFB, and Pull-Third GB avoidance. What most explains their ability to generate extra bases (ISO) on batted balls is any OFFB, Pull-Third OFFB, Pull-Third LD, and IFFB avoidance.
A percentile rating of 97 amounts to plus-plus (two standard deviations above the mean), 84 is plus (one standard deviation above the mean), 69 is half plus, 50 is average, 31 is half minus, 16 is minus, and three is minus-minus.
A new addition to this suite of evaluation models is the Offensive Running Rating. This tool quantifies how each relevant inning's run expectancy was impacted by the player's action or inaction as either a batter or baserunner on very specific types of plays that are more likely to involve one or both of their speed or offensive running techniques, plus acumen.
The evaluated batter and baserunner events are summarized in the graphic.
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