Xzavion Curry is a prospect-on-the-rise in the Cleveland organization. A seventh-round pick in 2019 out of Georgia Tech, the 23-year-old right-hander is 8-1 with a 2.23 ERA in 18 starts between Low-A Lynchburg and High-A Lake County. With the lion’s share at the latter, Curry has allowed just 65 hits in 93 innings. Moreover, he’s fanned 118 batters and issued just 16 free passes.

Command is Curry’s forte, but it’s not his only attribute. As our own Eric Longenhagen wrote in early June, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound hurler’s “vertical arm slot creates angle and carry on a fastball that plays well at the letters.” Augmenting Curry’s 91-94 mph four-seamer are a curveball, a slider, and a changeup.

He’s only been a full-time pitcher for a handful of years. Curry came to Georgia Tech as a two-way player, having excelled both on the mound and at short as an Atlanta-area prep. That his college coaches made him a full-time pitcher is a testament to changing times. Curry is African-American, and Black players have historically been channeled into position-player roles. Black pitchers have been at a premium.

“That does enter my mind,” said Curry, who had a 17-inning scoreless streak come to an end earlier this week. “As I go around to different places, and play different teams, I don’t really see a lot of Black pitchers. So that is something I’ve noticed, but as the younger generation goes forward, those guys just keep getting better and better. We have a couple in our organization, and I’m pretty sure we’ll start to see more and more Black pitchers.”

Curry cited a different sport when addressing his plus command. Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Baty has a bright future, and he’s showing glimpses of why in his first full professional season. Just 21 years old, the left-handed-hitting third baseman is slashing .291/.378/.471 with 12 home runs in 378 plate appearances between High-A Brooklyn and Double-A Binghamton. Moreover, he’s doing so with a first-round pedigree. Baty was drafted 12th overall by the New York Mets in 2019 out of an Austin, Texas high school.

On paper, he’s a slugger. Ranked No. 2 on our updated Mets Top Prospects list, Baty was described by Eric Longenhagen prior to the season as having “light tower power.” His M.O. differs from that description.

“I like to say that I’m a hitter before the power, and the power is just going to come,” said the 6-foot-3, 210-pound Baty. “I’m just trying to hit the ball hard, wherever it’s pitched. I don’t want to get too pull-happy — try to hit pull-side home runs — so I’m up there thinking ‘line drive to left-center, line drive up the middle.’ Basically, I’m trying to stay within myself at the plate and hit balls hard, wherever they might land.”

Watching balls land over the fence is a thrill for any hitter, and that’s especially true for prospects looking to validate their first-round bona fides. But again, Baty shies away from the bopper label. Read the rest of this entry »

Martín Pérez has a plus changeup, and he relies on it often. The 30-year-old native of Guanare, Venezuela has thrown his “cambio” 24.6% of the time since coming to the Red Sox prior to the 2020 season. A four-seam circle delivered at an average velocity of 84.9 mph, it’s the pitch the southpaw was once told would be his ticket to the big leagues.

Perez discussed the art of the changeup prior to a recent game at Fenway Park.

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Perez on his changeup: “I started throwing my changeup when I was 14 years old. Before that age, I just threw fastballs. I’d met couple of guys in Venezuela who played — Ramon Garcia, a righty with Houston, and Ernesto Mejia, who signed with Atlanta — and they told me not to throw breaking pitches, to just throw fastballs. As soon as I started my process to sign as a professional baseball player, I started to throw changeups, breaking balls, and fastballs.

“It’s important to have a changeup that will have the same arm speed as the fastball. You throw your fastball, and you throw your changeup, and they’re going to look the same. That’s why it’s so hard to hit. It’s hard for hitters to recognize that pitch, because they both have the same rotation. So, that was my focus.

“After I signed [with the Rangers] in 2007, the guy who was my boss at that time was [Director of Player Development] Scott Servais. In 2008, I played in [short-season] Spokane and it was a good year. I threw my breaking ball, my changeup, and my fastball. I had a big breaking ball. It was 12–6 and really good; I could throw it in any count. But then, in 2009, I went to Hickory, Low-A, and they told me, ‘Martín, you don’t have to throw more breaking balls. We want you to focus on your changeup, because that’s the pitch that’s going to take you to the big leagues.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Dalbec is a bona fide music nerd. The son of a longtime Atlantic Records executive, the 26-year-old Boston Red Sox rookie not only plays piano and guitar, he’s an ardent fan of multiple genres. Growing up around the business influenced that. His father, Tim Dalbec, has worked with a diverse group of artists that include — to name just a few — Bruno Mars, Robert Plant, Smash Mouth, and the Zac Brown Band.

While he listens to everything from rap, to house, to Neo soul —“If it sounds good in my ear is all that matters” — guitar-based rock is clearly in his wheelhouse. Talking to the young power-hitter prior to a recent game at Fenway Park, I learned that he enjoys Jimi Hendrix, John Mayer — “a lot of people think he’s a pop guy, but his his guitar playing is pretty top-tier” — and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Another favorite is Goose, a jam-band out of Connecticut.

Somewhat surprisingly, Dalbec only recently began playing the guitar.

“My dad never pushed me toward music,” said Dalbec, whom the Red Sox selected in the fourth round of the 2016 draft out of the University of Arizona. “He was a drummer growing up, but I never learned drums. The first instrument I learned was actually piano, and that was three or four off-seasons ago. I was self-taught. Piano was kind of a gateway into learning guitar, which I really dove into after the first COVID outbreak.”

Why piano before guitar? Read the rest of this entry »

Whether it’s because they’re only just getting healthy or someone ahead of them has gotten hurt or their talent is kicking down the doors of roster manipulation made brittle by actual competitive spirit, some potentially important participants in postseason play are currently in the minors as we speak. This is especially likely when it comes to pitching, where health and effectiveness are tenuous, and team behavior surrounding promotion tends to be more opportunistic and aggressive.

For both leagues, I’m providing a scouting-centric update on pitching currently in the minors, either because the players are prospects who could conceivably play a September role or make a postseason roster, or because the player in question is a rehabbing big leaguer. Pitching can be streaky and fragile, so any of these guys could be in the big leagues at the drop of a hat, or they may simply convince their front office, like several rookies did last year, that they’re one of the best 26 guys in the org and need to be put on the playoff roster. The level of impact could range from Hunter Greene or Shane Baz dominating like Francisco Rodriguez in 2002, to Connor Seabold or Thomas Hatch humbly eating innings in a blowout loss in effort to save the rest of the bullpen for the series’ next game like J.A. Happ in 2008.

I’ll touch first on the American League this week, then provide some National League options next week. If any prospects moved on The Board due to info or opinions brought to light from this piece, I’ll note that below.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the elimination of the waiver deadline, the last two months of the season (or more accurately now, the last six weeks) can leave front office personnel feeling like little more than helpless observers. Problems at the big league level, whether of the health or performance variety, are going to pop up, but for the most part, the answers to those problems have to come from within. Yes, there’s the occasional player who gets designated for assignment who deserves consideration, but otherwise teams will either lean on the depth they’ve spent much of the year trying to establish or curse the risks they took in terms of depth in order to improve their big league roster. Here are the depth situations for the American League playoff contenders, with the National League to follow tomorrow.

American League East

Tampa Bay Rays
Strengths: The Rays bolt together pitching staffs as well as any team in baseball, and there are plenty more pieces available to them at Triple-A Durham should the need arise. They load up on pitch-data darlings while also developing plenty from within, and the result has been the best record in the International League, with their staff generating a team-wide strikeout rate of over 28%. With five current Durham pitchers already on the 40-man roster, managing innings down the stretch shouldn’t be an issue, be it for need or just for the purposes of keeping players fresh. In terms of position players, Vidal Bruján continues to slot in all over the diamond; his ability to play six positions makes him the most likely hitter to be called up. Read the rest of this entry »

The Orioles have a way of making the most free-falling of teams look healthy, but even so, the Red Sox had to be heartened by their three-game sweep this past weekend, as they finally took the wraps off two key stretch-run additions. On Friday night, trade deadline acquisition Kyle Schwarber made his Red Sox debut, and on Saturday, Chris Sale made his long-awaited return from Tommy John surgery. The pair should help shore up a team whose chances at a playoff spot have taken a hit in recent weeks.

The Red Sox trounced the Orioles by scores of 8-1, 16-2, and 6-2 from Friday to Sunday, giving the team just its second winning streak of longer than two games since the All-Star break. Even with the sweep, the Sox have gone just 6-8 in August, 14-15 in the second half, and 19-20 since the start of July, squandering an AL East lead that was as large as 4 1/2 games circa July 5. At 69-51, they now trail the Rays (71-47) by three games, and their chances of winning the division have dropped from a high of 70.8% to 39.4%. Those odds can’t help but improve with the additions of Schwarber and Sale, potential impact players who can each shore up an area of need.

Sale’s return came two years and one day after his last major league outing, dating back to his missing the final six weeks of the 2019 season due to elbow inflammation. After suffering a flexor tendon strain and experiencing continued pain, he underwent Tommy John surgery on March 30, 2020, his 31st birthday. The Red Sox were resolute in not rushing him back; he made the first of his five rehab appearances on July 15, 15 1/2 months after surgery, with the final two such outings lasting 81 and 89 pitches, respectively, which is to say that he wasn’t appreciably trying to increase his pitch count so much as fine-tune his repertoire. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Eric’s Notes — Games on 8/4

Chandler Redmond, 1B/2B/3B/LF, St. Louis Cardinals
Level & Affiliate: Hi-A Peoria Age: 24 Org Rank: 34 FV: 35+
Line: 2-for-3, 2 HR, BB

Notes
It’s time for Redmond to be promoted. He’s hit .245/.361/.520 since June 22 and owns a career .259/.368/.508 career line, but he’s done so as an old-for-the-level prospect. Redmond was a 32nd round pick out of Gardner Webb, so it made sense to begin his career in the Appy League even though he was already 22. Now 24, he’s not seen a plate appearance above A-ball. Redmond has big, all-fields power and has played all over the field. He could be a bat-first piece, hidden on defense wherever the opposing club is least-likely to hit one that day. Visually, his swing is kind of grooved, and I’d like to see Redmond’s contact skills stress-tested against more advanced arms. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Emiliano Teodo, RHP, Texas Rangers
Level & Affiliate: Arizona Complex League Age: 20 Org Rank: 25 FV: 40+
Line: 3 IP, 1 H, 0 BB, 0 R, 2 K

Notes
Like Daniel Palencia (now of the Cubs, formerly of the A’s), Teodo signed just before the 2020 season that never happened and only popped onto the radar screen in 2021, when we actually had consistent minor league activity on the backfields. He’s been parked in the 98-101 mph range and spins in an upper-70s curveball that’s at times in excess of 3,000 rpm. Skinny and featuring a fairly violent delivery, Teodo’s projection skews toward relief, but there’s ample time to develop him because of when he signed. He’s another high-variance/upside arm in the Rangers system. Read the rest of this entry »

What a ride this year’s deadline was. All told, we had 75 prospects move in the last month. They are ranked below, with brief scouting reports written by me and Kevin Goldstein. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of were analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below. I’ve moved all of the players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates. Our farm rankings, which now update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up post-deadline.

A couple of quick notes before I get to the rankings. We’ve included a few post-prospect players here (those marked in blue) so you can get an idea of where we value them now as opposed to where we had them at their prospect peak. Those players, as well as the Compensatory pick the Rockies will receive after they extend Trevor Story a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, are highlighted below. We had closer to 40 prospects (and 23 Players to be Named Later) traded last year, with the PTBNL number inflated by 2020’s COVID-related transaction rules. The backfields are not well-represented here, with just four prospects who have yet to play in full-season ball. Two of those are currently in the DSL and have no official domestic pro experience, though Alberto Ciprian has played stateside for instructs/extended spring training. Now on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »