These are notes on prospects from Brendan Gawlowski. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.
Orelvis Martinez, SS, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 19 Org Rank: 3 FV: 50
After he torched A-ball, the Blue Jays promoted Martinez to High-A Vancouver for the last six weeks of the season. He’s found the waters much choppier out west, batting just .158/.198/.329 in his first 82 plate appearances, and while he’s hitting for some power (five dingers) and boasts an above-average strikeout rate, pitchers are luring him out of the zone in most directions. Breaking balls are harder and sharper at this level, and he’s chasing them in the dirt; he’s also being a little too aggressive on fastballs in on his hands. He’s consistently out front on anything slow, as his coiled leg kick and timing mechanism leave him off balance against anything that isn’t a fastball. Sometimes he makes contact, sometimes he doesn’t, but it’s hard to impact the ball when you’re lunging.
Defensively, Martinez looks rough at shortstop. He clanged a few balls in my looks, and on a turf surface, too. He’s quick once he gets going, but his initial step is a bit slow, and given his size, I’d guess he’ll grow off of shortstop in time anyway.
Despite the struggles, there’s a lot to be excited about here. Martinez is very young for the level, and growing pains are to be expected at this stage in his journey. His bat-to-ball skills are well ahead of most of his teammates, which is encouraging, and the physical tools are potentially special. His hands are extremely explosive, and when he hits a ball well, it stays hit. There’s a little bit too much hit tool volatility for him to be a sure-thing type of prospect, but I’m nonetheless bullish. Even if he hasn’t found his defensive home yet, I suspect that when he returns to the Northwest for a second spin at High-A, he’ll do plenty of damage at the plate.
Sam Bachman, SP, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: High-A Tri-Cities Age: 21 Org Rank: 6 FV: 45
Bachman wasn’t quite as high-octane as when Kevin Goldstein saw him this spring, but there’s clearly a lot to like about the Angels’ most recent first-round pick. In my viewing, he sat 94–95 mph with a tailing fastball. His slider was excellent — a modern hard one with relatively short break but in the upper-80s with late movement, capable of missing bats in and outside of the zone. He also has a fading changeup in a similar velo band, and it’s a pitch that he can also throw for strikes.
The long-term question is whether Bachman will start. The Angels are taking it easy with him for now, letting him face the lineup once and then getting him out of the game. That usage makes it difficult to evaluate how his stuff plays over the course of an outing. While he found the zone more often as a college junior this season, Bachman doesn’t have a long history of throwing strikes, and his delivery is a bit jerkier than your average starter’s. Between that and a low slot that gives his fastball more sink and run than the carry that’s in vogue these days, there’s a decent chance the Angels decide everything plays better in relief.
Sebastian Espino, SS/3B, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 21 Org Rank: NR
Espino has all the makings of a divisive prospect. Let’s start with the good. He’s 21, strong and lanky with room for growth, plays on the left side of the infield, and is already hitting for power. He’s hitting for everything, come to think of it, slashing .300/.359/.521 in 58 High-A games.
The bad news is that he has no approach to speak of. He’s very aggressive and doesn’t have much feel for the zone. He’s not helpless against offspeed — he made an adjustment on an inside changeup and lined it over the fence in a game last week — but spin gets him off balance, and his swing looks ugly when it does. Both that swing and his contact rates are notable for the wrong reasons.
Eric Longenhagen has written previously about how binary hit tool evaluations can make a non-prospect out of otherwise athletic players (Anderson Tejeda, for instance). Espino is flirting with danger here, particularly because his 8% walk rate is more the product of a low contact rate than patience or plate discipline. And yet, you can’t write him off, because he’s hitting .300 with power as a 21-year-old at High-A. For what it’s worth, a scout I spoke with raved about him and questioned how in the world the Mets lost this kind of player in the Rule 5 draft.
If we’re to continue a sort of shadow comparison with Tejeda, it’s worth mentioning that Espino’s numbers are superior at this stage in their respective development. Even so, he has a lot of work to do in refining his approach. While I don’t think he’s a high probability big league starter, he’s an interesting one to follow, and a guy who will certainly appear on our next Blue Jays list.
Jordyn Adams, CF, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: High-A Tri-Cities Age: 22 Org Rank: 3 FV: 50
After a dreadful start, Adams has played better over the last six weeks, hitting .260 with 16 steals, and if you squint, you can make the case that he’s hitting for as much power as his cavernous and windy home park — they’re not the Tri-City Dust Devils for nothing — will allow. His swing decisions have improved a bit since my first viewing, and in my last look, he had a nice approach in an at-bat that ended with a hard-hit opposite field single. If you’re feeling particularly charitable, you might notice that he has a 93 wRC+ since July 16th, which isn’t good but is a step in the right direction.
The overall picture isn’t particularly rosy, though. Even if you lop off the first month of the year, Adams has struck out in more than a third of his plate appearances. He’s doing better with fastballs in the zone but is still easily enticed to swing at breaking stuff outside of it. And if we’re playing the arbitrary endpoints game, it’s only fair to point out that he has a 79 wRC+ since July 20th. I’ve spoken with four scouts about him this summer, and none are excited about his offensive potential.
Bets on athleticism are tricky. Sometimes the two-sport star who joins the travel circuit late in the game looks like a natural in pro ball; others are late bloomers. But there are also plenty of guys who just never figure out how to hit. There’s still time for Adams to wind up in bucket two: He’s only 21, he hasn’t played a ton of baseball, and both last year’s layoff and a calf injury probably dampened his production in 2021. He’s also obviously an incredibly gifted athlete, and that alone gives him a long developmental runway. At the end of the day, though, he has to hit, and he hasn’t shown he can yet.
CJ Van Eyk, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: High-A Vancouver Age: 22 Org Rank: 8 FV: 40+
Depending on when you catch him, Van Eyk can look like a future rotation piece or a guy who won’t get out of Double-A. I saw the latter version back in July, when he had trouble keeping the fastball out of the righties batter’s box and was knocked out in the third inning. He looked much better in my second viewing in Hillsboro last week. He touched 97, comfortably sat 92–95, dominated the lineup with a plus 12–6 curve, and missed bats with a sweeping slider. His control drifted on him in the fourth, but he made an adjustment and looked as sharp as ever the following inning.
A little more mechanical consistency could go a long way here, because Van Eyk clearly has the arm strength and stuff to start. His control has faltered from inning to inning dating back to his time at Florida State, though, and it’s fair to wonder if there’s a fix here. Right now he’s a low probability starter with higher upside than normal given the first part of this sentence.
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Dan Szymborski