A Thursday Scouting Notebook: 5/20/2021

Prospect writers Kevin Goldstein and Eric Longenhagen will sometimes have enough player notes to compile a scouting post. This is one of those dispatches, a collection of thoughts after another week of college baseball and minor league play. Remember: prospect rankings can be found on The Board.

Eric’s Notes

Wes Kath, SS, Desert Mountain High School

High schoolers with profiles driven by their hit tool are becoming more sought-after in the draft room, and every year there are guys who don’t light up the showcase circuit workouts with big tools and instead need some combination of time and impressive swing-and-miss data to be appreciated. Kath is one of those players. On Tuesday, his high school won the Arizona 5A State Championship as Kath homered and reached base several times. He has a sweet lefty swing and advanced bat control, as well as a good baseball frame. He’s currently a shortstop and is capable of making routine plays there, with a sufficient arm for short and good body control, but his size and slow-twitch movements might push him to third base, and some scouts think he’ll eventually end up at first. Kath does not have big bat speed, and his swing tends to look long when he offers at lower pitches, but that’s what has to happen for him to get the barrel there with lift. West Coast hit tool guys like this tend to sign for close to $1 million.

Marc Church, RHP, Texas Rangers (Extended Spring Training)

A 2019 18th-rounder out of North Atlanta High School, Church hasn’t yet played in an affiliated game, and I didn’t know who he was until I saw him face Padres prospects in an Extended Spring game earlier this week. He was 95–97 mph with carry and a tough-to-hit angle at the top of the zone and consistently located an 85–87-mph slider to enticing but unhittable glove-side locations. He dominated over two frames, the second of which was one pitch away from being an immaculate inning. Even though the slider had an average amount of movement, its velocity and Church’s command of it mean it’s going to play better than that. There is a good bit of effort to his delivery and some violence about his head and shoulders, but the consistency of his pitch locations was remarkable. This single look wasn’t enough to have a starter/reliever opinion, but Church is a 20-year-old with two impact pitches and command, so he’s definitely a prospect.

Alonzo Richardson, RHP, Cleveland Baseball (Extended Spring Training)

One of the rare 2020 undrafted free agents to sign out of high school, Richardson was a SoCal two-way player who looks like he’ll spend his pro career on the mound. In my look earlier this week, he sat just 88–91 and struggled to finish his breaking ball consistently, but I was struck by Richardson’s athleticism. He made several incredible defensive plays (including one in which he leapt off the mound, collected a ball that ricocheted off an infielder, and fired a strike to first) and is a premium on-mound athlete who is new to pitching full-time. He’d be on the Honorable Mention section of the Cleveland list at this point, but his is a name worth knowing in case his stuff ticks up.

Luis De La Rosa, RHP, Kansas City Royals (Extended Spring Training)

This is a very advanced 18-year-old righty with a good idea of how to use his four-pitch mix. De La Rosa only sat 88–90 in this viewing, but he’s somewhat projectable and that might improve. He landed his upper-70s curveball for strikes and was locating a mid-80s power changeup to his arm side over and over again. The velocity needs to improve, but the age and pitchability combo here makes De La Rosa a nice low-level sleeper in the Royals’ system.

Kevin’s Notes

Jake Burger, 3B, Chicago White Sox (Triple-A Charlotte)

The 11th pick in the 2017 draft, it’s hard to imagine a more injury plagued prospect than Burger, who entered the season having not played in almost four years due to back-to-back severe Achilles tendon ruptures. Suddenly 25, he was understandably pushed to Triple-A to start the season, and the results so far have been mixed. His .196/.245/.500 line in 11 games tells you everything you need to know about his offense. He’s hitting for power, with six of his nine hits going for extra bases, but isn’t hitting that much overall. “The bat speed is there, but he needs to simplify his swing in order to quit getting beat by good velocity,” said one pro scout who recently caught Burger in action. There is plenty of good news here, though, and not just because Burger is actually playing. He’s slimmed down and now projects as an average third baseman with a plus arm. There’s still a long way to go before we know what we have here, but it’s nice to see things moving in the right direction.

Jose Garcia, SS, Cincinnati Reds (Double-A Chattanooga)

There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over who the Reds would play at shortstop this spring, and that focus has extended into the first quarter of the regular season. What I kept wondering was why Garcia wasn’t in the mix. He looked overmatched during his 2020 big league debut, but there was still a reasonable argument to be made that he was the team’s best option.

Sent back to Double-A to start the season, Garcia has a profile everyone is familiar with: big tools combined with a poor approach that prevents him from capitalizing on them. But two weeks in the Double-A South League has the 23-year-old sitting on a .327/.390/.692 line in 59 PA, and along with never-before-seen in-game power, there are also suddenly six walks in the small sample. Waiting for a pitch to drive and then driving it is the best of baseball strategies, and it’s what Garcia is doing so far. Shortstop is still a mess for the Reds, but he deserves a shot at being the answer should his pace continue.

Robert Hassell III, OF, San Diego Padres (Low-A Lake Elsinore)

Hassell entered the 2020 draft season as one of the top high school players in the country, cemented that status by June, and was the first prep player taken, going eighth overall to the Padres. He received far more playing time on the big league side of spring training than your standard teenager does, and some started to wonder about his talent after he went 3-for-23 with 16 strikeouts.

There’s really nothing to wonder about. Those at-bats spoke to how the team felt about Hassell as a player, and given the setting, we should have expected him to struggle. Now at an appropriate level, Hassell has hit .273/.420/.509 in his first 14 official pro games and is showing the mature approach, sweet swing, and average power that was expected of him. His whiff rate is a little high at just under 25%, and he’ll likely need to move to right field from center as he matures, but despite his spring struggles, he remains one of the better pure hitters among professional teenagers.

Jordan Walker, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals (Low-A Palm Beach)

Walker was seen as the best high school power hitter in last year’s draft, but concerns about the hit tool and an eventual move to a corner infield spot dropped him into the bottom half of the first round, where the Cardinals scooped him up and signed him to a bonus of just under $3 million. Just two weeks into the 2021 season, it’s already looking like a steal. Palm Beach isn’t a great place to hit, but through 12 games, Walker is sitting at .357/.491/.643 and showing a mature approach with 10 walks, a more-than-acceptable strikeout rate (20.8%), and eye-popping exit velocities. On Tuesday, he hit a double that was 109 mph off the bat. Last week, he connected on a 434-foot home run that registered with a 111-mph exit velo. On May 13, he hit three balls over 108 mph. For context, 121 major league players, roughly four per team, have more than three batted ball events with exit velocities over 108 mph for the entire season. Walker turns 19 on May 22, and this kind of power in a player this young is clearly elite. Again, it’s just 11 games, but he feels like a slam dunk to be a big riser on the Cardinals’ team list and to earn a prominent place on The Board.

Brandon Williamson, LHP, Seattle Mariners (High-A Everett)

Williamson was a pop-up guy in the 2019 draft who transferred to TCU from an Iowa junior college, assumed the Sunday starting gig, and by midseason had teams sending scouts (including yours truly) to end their weekend in Dallas watching the 6-foot-6 lefty who was touching the upper 90s. His stuff passed both the scouting and data sniff tests, but inconsistent command and secondary stuff caused him to finish his lone Big 12 season with an ERA north of four. Still, this was a rare package, and the Mariners scooped him up in the second round.

After a brief but impressive 2019 pro debut, Williamson has hit the ground running in 2021, striking out 17 over eight shutout innings in two starts, allowing just three hits and walking four. The command still gets a bit loose, but his low-to-mid 90s heater and low-80s power breaker feature good shapes and spin, and his changeup projects as average. Pitch efficiency will ultimately define his role as a starter or reliever, but he certainly looks like some kind of future big leaguer.