Top 30 Prospects: Cleveland Indians

Scouts’ opinions about where on the defensive spectrum Jones will end up are all over the map. He got quite big not long after he was drafted and seemed destined for first base, and while there’s still a chance he ends up there eventually, he looked leaner last year and has a better chance of staying at third for a while. Some clubs think he’ll move to right field, and the contact issues Jones has had due to his lever length are problematic if he doesn’t stay at third.

We’re intrigued by the three-true outcomes possibilities here, as Jones already has huge power and might grow into more, and he’s also had some of the higher walk rates in all of the minor leagues. Opposing pitchers are going to have to be careful with him or risk paying a 400 foot price, so we expect his on base ability to hold water at the upper levels. He could reach Double-A Akron as a 21-year-old later in the year if he performs during the spring.

McKenzie was a high-profile prep pitcher in south Florida before the 2015 draft, and the main question about him focused on his rail-thin 6-foot-5, 160 pound frame. If you thought he would put on a good bit of weight, then you could see him adding velocity to his 88-92 mph heater. But the question was whether he would have enough stuff and durability to start if he stayed about the same size. He’s filled out some since the Indians took him in the comp round in 2015, but it looks like he’s always going to be very thin.

His velocity has crept up a bit to 90-93, hitting 95 mph, but the life, plane, deception, extension, and command combine to make the fastball an above average pitch now. The additional arm speed has helped his breaker improve; it flashes plus at times. And he’s kept the positive attributes scouts originally noticed in his delivery and the athleticism, so the command may also end up being plus. The changeup is a 45, so his curve, pitchability, and deception are the carrying tools we think will turn him into a league average starter. McKenzie also had his first pro injury in 2018, and his strikeout rate was down in his first taste of Double-A, before he had upper back issues that have him on the shelf to start 2019. So long as his stuff in intact upon return, we think he’s a No. 4 starter with a chance to be a No. 3.

Teams have likely already studied this, but during our in-person looks at Chang, which date back to 2014, he seems to generate top spin on batted balls with more regularity than is typical for hitters. That’s not a good thing, as the same way a curveball does, it causes Chang’s fly balls to sink and die at a lesser distance than they should. We have no idea if the ability to hit balls with no spin (which is ideal) is a skill hitters have, but if it is, Chang probably isn’t one of them. He does have power though, and he’s a viable defensive third baseman who’d be capable of moonlighting at short or second base if Cleveland needed him to. We like him as a versatile, bat-first prospect who can play all over the place.

After a month and a half of DSL games, Cleveland decided to push little Brayan Rocchio to the AZL for the season’s final month, and his numbers there were almost exactly the same. He was the most naturally-gifted hitter in the AZL last year, a switch-hitter with sublime bat control and more power than one would expect a 150-pound 17-year-old to possess. He’s going to stay up the middle, either at shortstop or second base, and while he’s not an obviously desirable teenage prospect like most big-framed, 6-foot-3 types with power would be, this is exactly the kind of profile we’re seeking to identify earlier in the process. This is what several of the little middle infielders in our top 50 looked like at this age; they hit and played good defense somewhere important, but were literally overlooked because they were small.

Born and raised to the brink of adolescence in New York, Valera’s family moved to the Dominican Republic when he was 13. Injuries sustained in a car accident necessitated that metal rods be inserted in Valera’s father’s limbs, and the move was a way of providing him physical comfort in a warmer climate. It also meant Valera became an international prospect rather than an American high school draftee, and when he was eligible, he signed with Cleveland for $1.3 million.

He is polished for his age, not only in the batter’s box but in center field, where he’s very comfortable going back on balls. His frame is not especially projectable but Valera’s swing has natural lift and he has good feel for contact. He’s likely to get to whatever raw power he ends up growing into as he matures, and he may stay in center field for a while. A broken hamate limited his reps last year, but he may be ready for the New York-Penn League this season anyway.

The younger brother of Padres prospect Josh Naylor, Bo is a better athlete with similar feel to hit, but less raw power. He has the necessary twitch (some teams liked him at third base pre-draft) and just enough pure arm strength to catch as long as his throws become more consistently accurate. His defense was baptized by fire in the AZL as Naylor had to catch guys with huge stuff like Lenny Torres and Carlos Vargas, among others. If his offensive ability can withstand the developmental burdens and physical grind of catching, he could be a middle-of-the-order bat, too. Even if Naylor’s in-game power manifests itself as doubles, he profiles at catcher and Cleveland’s recent, brief experimentation with Francisco Mejia at third base provides some precedent for what may happen should Naylor prove unable to catch or if Cleveland thinks moving him will get his bat to the majors more quickly.

Torres checked a lot of amateur scouting boxes — the body, athleticism, stuff, and makeup were all lauded — and was a model-friendly prospect due to his age, so while issues with fastball command caused some clubs to project him in relief, he was still a clear top two round talent. Perhaps Torres’ control is behind because, as a cold-weather amateur prospect, he hasn’t pitched all that much. He only threw around 40 innings during his senior spring, and bad suburban high school hitters in New York couldn’t catch his fastball. As a result, Torres had little cause to use his changeup during varsity play — some national evaluators would go whole starts without seeing it — but it flashed 55 or 60 during his showcase summer and was easy to dream on.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of Torres’ post-draft performance was how regularly he located his slider down and to his glove side. He has mid-rotation components if you’re willing to dream and — based on his athleticism, age, and geographic background — we are.

Oviedo dominated the New York-Penn League, a league full of college hitters, as an 19-year-old in 2018, striking out 61 and walking just 10 in 48 innings. He’s less projectable than his age indicates because his body is already sturdy and mature, and so too is his ability to throw strikes with any of his four quality pitches. He was shut down with a lower back injury late in 2018, but was fine this spring, and will pitch at Low-A Lake County to start the year, while still 19 for several weeks. We have him projected as an innings-eating fourth starter.

A young, polished, but relatively unexplosive high schooler, Freeman was a bit of a surprise second rounder in 2017 but has quickly become much more interesting thanks to a sterling 2018 season with Mahoning Valley. As a 19-year-old, he hit .352/.405/.511 for the Scrappers, torching even the loftiest of expectations set by scouts who saw him during extended spring training and mostly considered Freeman a future utility man. Fundamentally sound at short, he lacks the explosiveness and big arm strength scouts look for at the position, and we wonder if Freeman will hit for enough power to be an impact player at any other position.

His early career strikeout rate (7.5% in about 450 PA) suggests his bat-to-ball skills are even more promising than amateur scouts anticipated, though he’s also an aggressive swinger who has been hit by nearly twice as many pitches as he has walks so far. When scouts talk about a player having “feel, polish, instincts” and the like, and the player has numbers like Freeman’s contact rates, we typically round up on that guy. In Freeman’s case, we remain cautious because the eyeball scouts are so resolute in their skepticism of the power projection.

Some projection-friendly traits for pitchers include: a young age, size/frame, and a cold-weather background (they’re raw, but also fresh from limited reps). Hentges, a 6-foot-6 Minnesota high school prospect, who was 17 on his draft day, has all of these, and also missed a whole year of innings rehabbing from Tommy John. And yet, still just 22, Hentges is in Double-A and on the doorstep of the big leagues.

His size and arm slot create tough angle on his fastball and vertical depth on his curveball. One should feel free to project on the changeup and the still-lacking fastball control into Hentges’ mid-20s because of the aforementioned traits and the TJ. So while there’s a chance Hentges winds up in the bullpen (where he could be a good multi-inning option), he also has realistic No. 4 starter upside. He was into the mid-90s with his fastball this spring and has a chance to debut this year if Cleveland is competitive and think he’s one of the 12 best arms in the org.

Line up all the teenage arms on the planet and few of them have stuff as hellacious as Vargas’, who had moments of being a dominant force of nature in last year’s AZL. At times, Vargas would sit 93-96; at others, his fastball would crest 100 and he’d break off the occasional plus-plus breaking ball. He also has long stretches where he’s wild, erratic, and visibly flustered on the mound. There’s much to be desired from a poise/mound-presence standpoint here, but that’s okay for now considering his age. He has a deep, plunging arm action similar to that of Domingo German and Jonathan Loaisiga, who have each had injury issues (as has Vargas), and he might end up a reliever, but we currently have him evaluated the way we would a late first round arm.

One of the questions we ask ourselves as we line players up is, “Would you trade Player A for Player B?” Sometimes the answer to that question depends significantly on which team would be making the decision, and perhaps was no recent trade a better example of this than Cleveland’s acquisition of Mercado. In anticipation of a short-term need for outfielders, Cleveland traded teenage beast Jhon Torres for Mercado, a low-ceiling lock to contribute to the big league team at some point soon.

Once a prep infield prospect, Mercado moved to the outfield after a few uninspiring statistical years with St. Louis, started to hit, became a plus outfield defender, and was part of a log jammed upper-level Cardinals outfield picture. The swap made sense for both teams. Cleveland got a potential everyday center fielder (Mercado won’t hit for much power but might be a 6 glove and 55 bat, which is playable everyday in center) and St. Louis diffused some 40-man pressure in exchange for a great, long-term prospect. Cleveland’s outfield situation may change depending on performance, and Mercado may be thrust into an everyday role at some point in 2019. He’s at least a good long-term fourth outfielder, but has a chance to provide everyday value.

Cleveland has done a remarkable job of finding international prospects with both advanced bat-to-ball skills and interesting physicality. The stocky, 6-foot-1 Sanquintin is the latest. Scouts don’t typically project bodies like this to stay at short but Sanquintin’s explosive first step allays some of those concerns. His hands are fine, he has a strong arm, and we think he has a good chance to stick at short.

Sanquintin had one of the more advanced bats in his international class and has some present pop due to his physicality, with room for a little more. He has much better feel to hit from the right side of the plate but there’s enticing lift and whip from both sides. He has the tools of a switch-hitting shortstop with power assuming the left-handed bat control improves with time.

He didn’t put on much of a show during MLB’s big winter showcase but as we approach extended spring, there’s palpable buzz surrounding Rodriguez, who signed for about $2 million last July. Though heavy-footed when Kiley saw him last February, Rodriguez has good infield hands and actions, and is a good bet to stay on the middle infield. He has mature feel for contact but his swing is currently pretty conservative, and Rodriguez likely won’t hit for power without an approach or mechanical adjustment. He’s a bat-first shortstop prospect and could soon be where Tyler Freeman is on this list.

Hankins was the consensus top prep arm in the class during his pre-draft summer and was a dominant part of Team USA in the fall. At that point, Hankins was commanding a lively 93-96 mph heater, a new, but already plus slider, and an at least average changeup that he didn’t need to use much. He looked a little rusty early during his senior spring, then walked off the mound with tightness in a shoulder muscle tied behind the joint. He returned over a month later and threw hard down the stretch, peaking at 97 mph in multiple open workouts for scouts after his school was eliminated from the playoffs.

He still hasn’t shown the promise from the summer, as he’s completely lost feel for his slider. He only threw the pitch in games last spring a handful of times and scouts speculated it made his arm hurt, but he threw it in some of the postseason workouts and simply had no feel for it anymore. At various points Hankins has utilized either a slider or curveball, and each looks good a few times a start but not often enough to project it as an impact pitch. He was noticeably thicker during the 2018 summer and continued having issues throwing quality breaking balls. Once a likely top 10 pick, he’s now a bounce back hopeful.

A broken arm shelved Bracho for all of 2018, save for a sliver of extended spring training, but he has been heavily scouted since age 14, when he impressed at the 2016 PG World Showcase in the states, so scouts are well acquainted with him even though he’s never played an official pro game. The totality of his defensive abilities (his hands, actions, arm strength) all likely push him to second base, and the presence of Rocchio, Sanquintin, and Rodriguez make that future even more likely.

But several promising offensive traits — a swing with natural loft, plus bat speed, precocious barrel control that is better from the left side — excite us. He’s an up-the-middle prospect with a well-rounded offensive skillset. We’re unsure how Cleveland will resolve their lower-level logjam of middle infielders but the fact that they’re poised to have two AZL teams for the second year in a row should open up sufficient at-bats for everyone including Bracho, if they feel his lost year means he should stay in Arizona for the summer.

It might shock you to learn that Benson’s 2018 line of .180/.324/.370 was a hair above the average Midwest League batting line. In high school, he was your standard high risk, high reward corner power projection bat. A monstrous and athletic 6-foot-5 (there’s a rumor Coach K offered him a hoops walk-on opportunity in an effort to get him to campus), Benson drew body and swing comps to Jason Heyward.

But as he has accumulated statistics in pro ball, he looks much more unique than his profile’s bird’s eye view would indicate. He strikes out 30% of the time, which is fairly common for prospects like this. But he incredibly only slugged .370 last year while still managing to homer 22 times, and Benson’s ground ball rate is a minuscule 28%. He walked at an encouraging 16% clip last year. Still just 20, Benson remains a tooled up project with a huge red flag, but now has several underlying statistical traits of interest. He’d be higher on most other teams’ prospect lists; we just prefer the ultra-young, up-the-middle guys in this system to a profile like Benson’s, and Cleveland has lots of those.

It’s uncommon for a college hitter to have more walks than strikeouts during his career but Palacios’ ratio during his junior season at Towson was exceptional. He walked 52 times and struck out just 16 while also swiping an ultra-efficient 25 bases in 26 attempts. He’s a nearly plus-plus runner and capable middle infield defender (probably at second) with premium hand-eye coordination and bat control. There was some concern that Palacios beat up on small conference pitching his entire career and might not replicate that performance against pro pitching, but we’re buying it. Once poised to perhaps move quickly through the system, Palacios had posterior labrum surgery in late-March and will miss much of the season.

We’re mindful of the need to identify pitchers whose fastballs play like impact pitches despite mediocre velocity, and Mejia appears to be one. He only throws in the low-90s but competes for swinging strikes in the zone, we think, due to big extension and effectual plane. He also has fantastic slider command, perhaps because his front foot lands so open, enabling Mejia to clear his front side consistently and preventing him from hanging sliders in the zone. He throws a lot of strikes and keeps the ball on the ground. We’ve warmed to the upper-level viability of his stuff and think he could be up at some point this year and become a No. 4 or 5 starter long-term.

Stung by bad BABIP luck in 2018 (.226), Bradley’s repeat tour of Double-A Akron looked discouraging on paper. He still managed to pound out 27 homers, though, and he remains a strong power/lift/plate discipline prospect who could perform at the big league level soon. Players like this sometimes have seasons in excess of 2 WAR but are generally the type who bounce around the fringes of active rosters, like C.J. Cron or Matt Adams.

So prodigious is Johnson’s laser arm that some amateur scouts wanted to see him on the mound in pro ball. He has some of the louder tertiary tools in the minors but limited bat control keeps some of them, especially his sizable raw power, from actualizing in games. Tools like this typically find their way onto a big league roster in some capacity, even if offensive issues exist. He’ll tantalize with the occasional all-world highlight à la Franchy Cordero, but Johnson realistically profiles as a platoon outfielder.

Civale does not miss many bats because he has limited fastball velocity, but he’s a high-volume strike thrower with excellent secondary stuff, including one of the best curveball spin rates in the minors. He draws from a spacious bag of tricks to get hitters out, and has now had success at the upper levels of the minors with limited velo, so we’re buying that he can make things work as a fifth starter.

Sandlin’s junior stats at Southern Miss read like he was playing MVP Baseball on the rookie difficulty setting. It was his first year as a starter and he struck out 144 hitters in 102 innings while walking just 18. He’s a side-armer with a running, low-90s fastball and above-average slider. Both pitches play up because of Sandlin’s command, and at times his stuff is so well-located that it’s unhittable. He was our favorite to be the first from the 2018 draft class to reach the big leagues but a 2019 spring forearm injury might delay his arrival.

Another in the long line of University of Virginia hitters with micro strikeout rates, Clement K’d just seven times during his entire junior season. He’s carried that contact ability into pro ball, where he struck out just 8.5% of the time at Low-A in his first full season before moving on to Hi- and Double-A late in the year.

We’re skeptical of his ability to play shortstop due to below-average hands and actions, and think he probably fits best in center field due to his speed, but Cleveland played him exclusively at short last year. The lack of power likely means he maxes out as a utility man, so it makes sense to hand Clement a ton of reps at shortstop to see if he can improve, since ideally he’d be able to play there on occasion. He spent a lot of time with the big league club during 2019 spring training and made characteristically high rates of contact. The bat and his speed should carry him to some kind of lesser major league role, with his defensive development determining if it’s of the super utility variety or a limited runner/bench bat gig.

Morgan’s velo was down a bit last year and at times his fastball sat in the mid-80s instead of the upper-80s and low-90s like it had the year before. He’s on this list because he has one of the better changeups in the minors and throws a lot of strikes, but he’ll need to exhibit a velocity bounce back this year to remain here, or else show that he has traits that make his fastball playable despite the lackluster velo.

Planez has big time pull-side lift in his swing, already has 45 raw power at age 17, and has a fairly projectable 6-foot-2 frame that portends more. He’ll reach down and barrel balls near his shoe tops and also crush mistakes. He’s too aggressive right now and probably has to move to a corner eventually, so our early assessment of the profile is that it’s very risky. But as far as teenage power projection bats go, this is a good one.

Holmes is a high-end athlete with elite makeup and speed. He’s sushi-raw, in part because he was one of the younger hitters in his draft class and in part because he’s a bat from upstate New York, and missed reps he desperately needed in 2018 due to a hamstring injury. The bat needs to develop a lot for Holmes to be an everyday player but his speed should at least make him a bench outfielder. If you buy into the notion that athleticism and makeup drive development, then we’re low on Holmes.

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of intriguing AZL prospects, Lopez is a switch-hitting third baseman with a good-looking swing and feel for the strike zone. He’s a little less physically projectable than is ideal, so it’s unclear how much power he’ll have at peak, but if he stays at third and ends up with a plus bat, it won’t matter.

Tena spent 2018 in the DSL and should come stateside in 2019. Short but good-framed, he has plus hands, good infield footwork, and will probably grow into enough arm for the left side of the infield. His swing is a little long right now but he’s athletic, wings harder than is typical for a teenager this size, and has plenty of time for mechanical tweaks. He’s an interesting, long-term shortstop prospect.

All sorts of traits indicate Rodriguez will need to barbecue in the lower minors for several years. He’s already spent two in rookie ball and is poised to spend early 2019 in extended spring training. He’s a long-limbed, switch-hitting outfielder who is still just 19 even though he was drafted two years ago. His early-career walk rates are promising, and so too are his fairly reasonable strikeout numbers. He’s an athletic ball of clay for player dev to mold, a quintessential high-variance prospect.