In the AFL, Cubans Continue to Confound

Most of the Arizona Fall League attendees have been seen enough that the scouting community has a well developed opinion on each player before they arrive in the desert. Even that year’s draftees (such as Nick Howard and Trea Turner this year), while new on the pro scene, were heavily-scouted, top-of-their-class players who many have seen at least a time or two and have some sort of background with. This year saw three reasonably high-profile Cuban prospects get Fall League reps in Raisel Iglesias, Rusney Castillo and Daniel Carbonell who had scarcely been seen on domestic soil by scouts.

Daniel Carbonell, OF, San Francisco Giants (Arizona Fall League)

The 23 year-old Carbonell defected in October of 2013 and signed with the Giants in June for four years, $1.4 million, comprised of a $100k annual salary for the four years and $1 million up front to sign. Carbonell got in 31 games of work between Rookie Ball here in Arizona and the Cal League before getting Instructional League reps and finally finishing thing up in the AFL.

At 6’3/196, Carbonell is long and wiry. There’s probably some projection left in the body despite the fact that he’s already 23 and it’s possible that, as he fills out, Carbonell will add a bit of muscle and improve upon his already average raw power. A new country, a new diet, a new training regimen and it’s possible for the raw power to improve a tick. One could argue, however, that the influx of rocked up, body beautiful Cuban talent we’ve seen coming over since Yoenis Cespedes signed means that if it were in Carbonell’s genes to produce something even approaching a typical power hitter’s build we would have seen it by now. I tend to think the cement is dry.

Not that it matters because, if Carbonell continues to swing the bat like he was in Fall League, he won’t tap into much of that power anyway. Stiff, weak wristed and without good bat speed or any semblance of a weight transfer, Carbonell just doesn’t look like he’s going to hit. Scouts were wary of the bat when he hit the open market and they got their first looks at him. An ex-switch hitter, the Giants have pulled the plug on that and Carbonell has begun hitting exclusively from the right side. While there’s certainly going to be some adjustment time for a player seeing right handed pitching from a new batter’s box, Carbonell’s actions in the box simply don’t lend to much optimism. He’s a future 35 hitter for me, maybe 40 game power.

What Carbonell can do is run and throw. He’s a 70 runner for me, timed at 4.08 from the right side from home to first. While, again, he might fill out a bit and slow down, it should still be impact speed. The arm is a solid 60 on the scale. While those physical tools scream impact centerfielder, Carbonell really struggled to catch routine flyballs in the AFL. His feel for routes and the quality of his hands are both suspect. While I’d be glad to barbecue a teenager with that sort of raw speed in centerfield for half a decade just to see if he can figure things out, it’s hard to justify waiting that long on someone who turns 24 in March. Something is going to have to give here. Either the Bat Speed Fairy visits Carbonell while he sleeps and gives him some hope of profiling in a corner or he finds a feel for the center of the diamond in a hurry where a solid glove might, might allow his bat to play. Carbonell’s back door to the Major’s might be as a platoon guy who can hit lefties and pinch run for you, though the defense is too ugly to consider that right now and he’ll have to prove he can hit lefties all the way up the ladder.

Longenhagen’s Grades: Hit: 20/35, Game Power: 35/40, Raw Power: 50/50, Run: 70/65, Defense: 30/40, Arm: 60/60, FV: 40

Kiley’s Grades: Hit: 20/35, Game Power: 20/40, Raw Power: 50/50+, Run: 70/70, Defense: 40/45, Arm: 60/60, FV: 40

Rusney Castillo, OF, Boston Red Sox (Arizona Fall League)

Kiley wrote semi-extensively on Castillo in two spots before he and I became best friends so you can go there for a thorough bathing of back story. Castillo was a challenging player to evaluate for the few weeks he played out here before being shelved with a thumb injury. He didn’t exactly put forth his best effort, which is probably a nicer way of putting it than I’d like to. While that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things for Castillo and the Red Sox it was at least a minor annoyance for those of us looking to evaluate him, his coaches (who were more than happy to make Castillo run as punishment on at least one occasion before uttering to him, “Todo del lino” and pointing to a substantial line of autograph seekers) and teammates who sure would’ve done a hell of a lot more with those reps than he did. Just know that while my evaluation of Castillo is wholly independent of my feelings for him (as it is with any other player) I sat cross-armed more than once and shook my head while muttering expletives to myself while watching Castillo go for his evening constitutional a few times every week. Please enjoy the above footage of him “running out” a shallow flare single and try to empathize with me.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s discuss Castillo’s skillset. Defensively, Castillo has the pure speed to play CF, grading out as a 65 on the scouting scale (I had him at 4.18 home to first). His inherent feel for the position has come into question. Kiley stated in his recent chat that the Red Sox front office is kicking around the idea of fitting him in a corner due to concerns with his defensive ability. Front offices are stereotypically over-complimentary, optimistic and sunny when it comes to their own players, not critical.

While certainly possessing explosive range in center, there were some things about Castillo’s final approach to fly balls that seemed wonky, as if he weren’t sure how to best position his glove. On one low-lying line drive hit to dead center, Castillo sashayed in on the ball with an Andruw Jones-like grace and his glove and wrist pointed down toward the ground before realizing the ball had a bit more carry than he thought and was going to hit his shoulder. He quickly altered the position of his glove, making an awkward catch while somehow managing to maintain his silky smooth gait. I couldn’t decide if Castillo had made the play look easy or hard.  Despite the little idiosyncrasies Castillo showed with the glove I’m inclined to think he’ll still be a solid average or slightly above center fielder once all the rust is off. The arm is average.

Offensively, the diminutive Castillo packs a wallop for someone his size. He’s listed at 5-foot-8 and is probably a little smaller than that looks to me to have 40 grade power output in games with the chance for a bit more as his feel for contact improves. He has a smooth load (winks at Carson), strong wrists, generates good torque, plus bat speed and has a swing plan geared for contact high in the zone which, given his size, should come in handy. There are times when Castillo will swing too hard and lose sight of the baseball as well as the foundation and showed inconsistent hand extension (sometimes extending his hands far too early, creating length in the swing and sometimes not extending them at all, sapping him of any authority in contact). The flaws are enough to put a 40 on the bat right now and we may not see much improvement in that area until he sees a season’s worth of MLB pitching or at all. Based on pure hand talent and his legs I suppose it’s possible for him to put up 50 grade bat-to-ball numbers. I think he’s got an above-average everyday player’s upside but anticipate him to fall just short of that.

Longenhagen’s Grades: Hit: 40/45,  Game Power: 40/45, Raw Power: 50/50, Run: 65/65, Defense: 50/55, Arm: 50/50, FV: 50

Kiley’s Grades: Hit: 45/50, Game Power: 45/50, Raw Power: 55/55, Run: 65/65, Defense: 50/55, Arm: 50/50+, FV: 55

Raisel Iglesias, RHP, Cincinnati Reds (Arizona Fall League)

I’ve written about Iglesias before and Kiley has notes on him from the Reds list that went up last week. He’s going to be a very interesting prospect to watch, as will all of the Reds’ arms who seem to have bullpen written all over them but Cincy swears can start. It worked to a degree with Tony Cingrani and it appears to be working with Michael Lorenzen. We’ll see if it can work with Nick Howard and Iglesias, who were both maddeningly inconsistent this fall.

Iglesias is wiry, athletic and loose as they come with fantastic arm acceleration that allows him to generate fastball velocities consistently from 91-95mph and enough to kiss 97 mph here and there. His heater is flat and he leaves it up quite a bit but it’s hard enough that he’s going to get away with at least some of that. Whether he can sustain plus or better velocity for the duration of a start and/or duration of a season as a starter is debatable. Iglesias’ velo has suffered wild fluctuations in the past and did so again this fall, albeit to a much lesser degree. He was up to 97 in his first appearance and then couldn’t climb above 93 in his second, prompting a scout in attendance to shrug his shoulders and proclaim, flummoxed “Man, this guys was a no-doubter on Monday.”

My issue with Iglesias’ chances to start stem from the way he uses, or rather doesn’t use, his lower half. He’s very rotational, swiveling his body around east and west instead of driving off of his back foot and finishing out over his front leg. As such, Iglesias’ delivery is very dependent on his arm and his arm alone to generate that meal ticket velocity and it’s hard for me to see that holding water for 180+ innings annually.  In addition to the sustainability of Iglesias’ fastball velocity is at least up for debate because of how arm-centric his mechanics are, so to is his strike-throwing ability. High effort throwers like Iglesias tend to have a difficult time repeating and Iglesias showed difficulty with it as well this fall, resulting in below average control/command.

The secondaries were inconsistent but you can argue, and the same can be said for the command, that this could simply be chalked up to rust. The slider flashed plus and sat in the low 80s showing two-plane break that Iglesias can vary into more of a curveball that spins in a bit slower, in the mid-70s. The Reds say these are two separate pitches and, if that’s true, I prefer the slider to the below average curve. Iglesias also showed a changeup here and there, all below average in the low 80s, though he does have the sort of live arm that allows scouts to dream a bit on the change. While I think it’s reasonable to expect some growth from the changeup I wouldn’t expect it to improve by leaps and bounds in a hurry as Iglesias will be 25 in January.

The overall package screams reliever, albeit a good one, to me. The Reds have other ideas and have recently been successful in developing arms with similar shortcomings into something more than many surmised they could. With that in mind..

Longenhagen’s grades: Fastball: 60/60, Slider: 55/60, Curveball: 45/45, Changeup: 40/45, Command: 40/45, FV: 50 (Low end closer, high end setup type)

Kiley’s grades: Fastball: 55/60, Slider: 50/60, Curveball: 45/50, Changeup: 45/50, Command: 45/45+, FV: 55 (#3/4 starter or closer)