Daily Prospect Notes: 6/28/21

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Nolan Jones, 3B, Cleveland
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Columbus Age: 23 Org Rank: 2 (66 over) FV: 50
Line: 2-for-4, HR, SB

Notes
Jones got off to a poor start and his overall line hasn’t yet recovered (he’s slugging just .405 on the season, the lowest since his first pro summer back in 2016), but he’s hit .253/.374/.495 over the last month, which is enough to quell overall concerns about him right now. He is a three true outcomes type of player and there may be long stretches where his average is hovering close to the Mendoza line but he’s going to walk a ton and hit for power while playing poor defense at several positions. Jones can be beaten with well-located fastballs at the top of the zone and he’s swung through a lot of them this year, but his swing decisions are typically very good. Per Synergy Sports, he has just a 19% O-Swing% so far this year, which would put him in the top five of qualified big leaguers. There’s real, elite plate discipline here and 70-grade power, but also a clearly exploitable hole in the swing at the top of the strike zone. How those things will interact at the big league level I truly don’t know, though it feels like that hole in the swing is a load-bearing Jenga block against big league pitchers who throw hard and often work at the top of the zone.

Hoy Jun Park, SS, New York Yankees
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Scranton Age: 25 Org Rank: HM FV: 35
Line: 4-for-5, HR, 2 BB

Notes
Speaking of players with excellent feel for the zone, Park’s chase rates are even lower than Jones’ and Synergy has him offering at just 36 of the 263 out-of-zone pitches he’s seen since promotion to Triple-A, which maths to a 13% rate. Juan Soto’s is 16%. Park has always had good feel for the zone but this year his power output has exploded. He’s slugging a whopping .630 in 30 games at Triple-A and he’s already exceeded his single-season high in home runs. If a viable 2B/SS defender — the Yankees have tried him in center a couple times within the last week; he can make routine plays but is not altogether comfortable there yet — with premium feel for the zone suddenly has power, too, that’s an impact player.

I’m skeptical the power piece of this is real. While I spoke with an analyst to see if Park’s exit velos had shifted northward (they have a little bit), film study of Park shows a player much like the one the industry last saw in 2019. He tracks pitches well and his swing has natural lift but there isn’t big raw power here, definitely not the kind that generates a SLG over .450, let alone .600, across a whole season. His swing has limited in-zone efficacy and Park can really only impact pitches in the bottom two thirds of the zone with any kind of lift. I do think he has some big league utility because he’s a capable middle infielder with great feel for the strike zone and viable bat-to-ball skills, but I don’t think this is suddenly an everyday player.

Jared Jones, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Bradenton Age: 19 Org Rank: 17 FV: 40+
Line: 4 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 11 K

Notes
Jones was utterly dominant last night, totaling 18 swinging strikes, 14 of which came off his fastball, which sat 93-96 and touched 97 a couple of times. Jones has been working on extended rest, usually a full week, and has only gone three or four innings per outing since he joined Bradenton at the end of May. I think it’s important to view his velocity in that context but the important takeaway as Jones begins his pro career is that he hasn’t had extreme walk issues, which he sometimes battled in high school. There hasn’t been a mechanical adjustment or anything, and it’s not as if Jones has suddenly had a Shane Baz-like strike-throwing development, he just hasn’t melted down. It’s too early to start projecting Jones as a likely starter rather than in relief but based on how his career has begun, the future 35 I currently have on his command will be too low.

John Nogowski, 1B, St. Louis Cardinals
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Memphis Age: 28 Org Rank: HM FV: 35
Line: 0-for-3, SB

Notes
Nogowski hasn’t been playing well but recall that he was hit by a pitch and sustained a bone bruise to his left hand in April. Hitters can take a while to fully recover from hand injuries. Nogowski looked fantastic during winter ball in the Dominican Republic and even though he has a dreaded “backwards” profile, he’s been a competent upper-level hitter for several years (career .370 OBP) and might be the sort of late-blooming bat that can act as a competent big league band-aid for a couple of years. I think clubs, domestic and international, should stay on him and weigh his late-summer performance more heavily than what we’ve seen so far.