Top 39 Prospects: Houston Astros

Whitley was listed at 235 pounds on the 2015 Area Code Games roster but was tipping the scales at 260 not long before that. At that event, he was sitting in the 90-92 range with feel for locating a solid-average curveball. He looked like a mature-bodied pitchability prospect whose stuff might be done improving. During that fall and winter, though, Whitley began to reshape his physique. He dropped about 50 pounds and came out the following spring with much better stuff, his fastball creeping into the 93-95 range and touching 97.

Whitley and his stuff have continued to improve, though he had a somewhat chaotic 2018. He missed the season’s first 50 games due to a suspension for the use of an unknown stimulant, then had his season debut pushed back due to a lat strain. He finally toed the rubber at Double-A Corpus Christi in June and made five four-inning starts before he was removed in the first inning of his sixth outing and placed on the IL with an oblique strain. He missed a little over a month, then made two more starts in August before feeling lat discomfort warming up for what would have been a third. He was shut down as a precaution and sent to the Arizona Fall League to pick up innings.

His stuff was wholly intact in Arizona, as Whitley sat 93-97 and touched 99. His apparitional changeup haunts both left and right-handed hitters, disappearing beneath barrels as it approaches the plate. Whitley’s array of breaking stuff is well-designed. His power 12-6 curveball honors his Texas heritage but has been de-emphasized as an out pitch in deference to his tilting, mid-80s slider. He has the best collection of stuff in the minor leagues, and might have been in the big leagues last year if not for various setbacks. He may be on somewhat of an innings limit this year because he didn’t pitch all that much in 2018, but barring that, we expect he’ll help the Astros cause at some point in 2019.

A very divisive amateur prospect, some scouts were put off by Tucker’s unique swing, while it reminded others of Ted Williams’. The Astros have parlayed his natural bat control into more power. Tucker has gotten stronger and more physically mature, his lower half is better incorporated into his swing than it was in high school, and in 2017, he began lifting the ball more as his ground ball rate dropped from 42% to 34%. With that additional lift has come in-game power and Tucker has slugged well over .500 during each of the last two seasons, and hit about 25 homers during each campaign. He had a horrendous 28-game big league debut but his long track record of hitting suggests that should be heavily discounted.

Though Tucker spent much of his minor league career in center field, he’s a below average runner who is ticketed for an outfield corner, probably in right. He’s an opportunistic base stealer but almost all of his value is tied to his bat, and we think he eventually ends up as a middle of the order bat with a dynamic hit/power combination.

There are still detractors who don’t like Tucker’s motor, or his swing, but on the low end he projects somewhere in the Max Kepler/Nomar Mazara area, and that still plays everyday.

Martin was a solid two-way performer in high school who hadn’t quite grown into his frame yet when he got to Texas A&M. By the summer after his sophomore year, Martin was flashing three TrackMan-friendly plus pitches and starter traits in the Cape Cod League, but he only started 16 games in College Station due to a deep veteran staff and his own inconsistency. The Astros popped him in the second round in 2017, hoping to tease out the guy they saw on the Cape and in the last 18 months, they’ve done just that.

Martin sits in the mid-90s, mixes in a plus slider, with an above average changeup and average command. He still doesn’t post the strikeout rates that you’d assume from a possible No. 2 or 3 starter in the Astros farm system, which annually leads the minors in strikeouts in part because they know how to coach pitchers to make the most of their stuff. Sources with knowledge in this area indicate that Martin should see more K’s in 2019 if he can make a couple subtle adjustments to how he uses his pitches and fully unlock his potential, which could lead to a big league look at the end of 2019 if the vaunted Astros pitching staff has an open spot.

Bukauskas took time off from pitching and got in the weight room as a high school underclassman, and emerged the following spring with four or five more ticks on his fastball. He then reclassified and was suddenly on track to graduate and be draft eligible a year early, meaning every decision-making amateur evaluator in the country had to get in quickly to see a pitcher who had all this new velocity but with whom scouts had very little history. Then Bukauskas asked not to be drafted (he was, late, and didn’t sign) so he could go to North Carolina. After a middling freshman year, he was dominant as a sophomore and in the early part of his junior year before his stuff was depressed during North Carolina’s postseason games. It inflamed perviously held concerns that durability issues resulting from his size and a violent delivery might push Bukauskas to the bullpen.

After parts of two pro seasons, we still don’t have great feel for how Bukauskas will hold up under a pro workload. He hasn’t had any arm issues, but missed two months due to a slipped disk in his thoracic spine, an injury he suffered in a car accident. Bukauskas was electric when he returned and became increasingly dominant towards the end of the summer before his stuff was seen by the entire industry in the Arizona Fall League.

He’ll flash 70-grade changeups and sliders on occasion, bump 98, and has added a cutter. His stuff would lose some zip late in Fall League outings, and he may be more of a 120-inning starter than true workhorse, which would cap his value at around 2.5 annual WAR.

James’ fastball velocity has climbed each of the last three years and is now in the upper-90s. He struck out 171 hitters in 114 innings at Triple-A Fresno in 2018 before the Astros brought him to the big leagues for six appearances (some out of the bullpen, some as a starter), and he struck out more than a batter per inning there, as well. He was slated to compete for a spot in Houston’s rotation during the spring but was sidelined with a quad strain, and may begin the regular season rehabbing or in a lesser role due to the late start.

James’ secondaries can sometimes be easy to identify out of his hand, but purely based on movement, they’re both plus. His command may limit him to a relief role, or at least a starting role that carries fewer innings than is typical, but he has high-leverage big league stuff, and was perhaps 2018’s biggest prospect surprise.

The Astros initially agreed to sign Perez for $5 million but found something they didn’t like during a physical, voided his deal, then renegotiated his bonus down to $2 million. Perez has traversed the minors injury-free and reached Houston last year in just his second pro season in the U.S. All of Perez’s pitches have great action on them, including the changeup, which Perez just doesn’t have feel for locating yet. For now, he relies heavily on mid-90s heat and two good breaking balls, the best of which is a hard, upper-80s slider.

He had weird usage patterns last year and it’s not clear if Houston is developing him as a true starter or not, though lots of scouts see his skinny build and project him to the bullpen. He has multi-inning stuff if that move occurs.

The Dodgers signed Alvarez for $2 million just before the clock struck midnight on the 2015-2016 International Free Agent signing period, then traded him to Houston for Josh Fields a few weeks later, before Alvarez had even played a pro game. Houston took things slow for the first year 10 months, and left Alvarez in the DSL in 2016 and in Extended Spring Training to start 2017, but he has moved very quickly since then, climbing to a new minor league level every half season. And he has performed. Alvarez is a career .301/.381/.507 hitter in the minors, has always been young relative to his level, and reached Triple-A last year shortly after he turned 21. He has big, all-fields raw power, and balls he mis-hits will often still find their way to the warning track. While Alvarez has good natural timing in the box and isn’t often fooled by breaking stuff, he does have limited bat control and we anticipate his batting averages will be lower in majors than they have been thus far.

Athletic for his size, Alvarez has mostly played left field as a pro and he’s a 40 runner underway, but he appeared to stiffen last year and most teams have him projected to first base or DH. That will limit his overall value and makes his lack of bat control a little scary, but we still think Alvarez will become an average regular, and possibly get an opportunity quite soon.

The Marlins backed out of a $2.5 million agreement with Nova after he tested positive for PEDs as an amateur. He eventually came to a $1.5 million deal with Houston, which was reduced to $1.2 million after his physical. While there’s creeping doubt about his ability to stay at shortstop — some scouts have gone so far as to say he appears wholly disinterested in defense — there’s confidence in Nova doing well-rounded damage on offense. He’s an athletic swinger with plus bat speed and bat control, and is especially adept at impacting pitches in the bottom of the strike zone.

For now, Nova’s approach is rather hedonistic, and he’s talented enough to make that work, at least for a while. Though this feature adds some approach-related risk to his profile, there’s huge ceiling if Nova remedies his defensive shortcomings and becomes more selective, and it’s probably a strong everyday role if just one of those things happens.

The origin of Abreu’s superficially surprising 40-man add was the glacial pace at which the Astros moved him through the system during his first several seasons. He spent four years at various levels of rookie ball and barely pitched, only throwing about 40 affiliated innings per year on average. The 38 innings he threw at Low-A to round out 2018 were dominant, as Abreu recorded 68 strikeouts, most of which were accrued with either of his two excellent breaking balls, which he has better feel for locating than he does his mid-90s fastball.

There’s considerable industry doubt regarding Abreu’s ability to start, the result of several factors. The lack of total innings creates reasonable doubt about him handling a 140-plus inning workload, and the lack of fastball command, along with Abreu’s mediocre changeup, are also cited as pitfalls. As long as Abreu’s breaking ball command refines though, he may have the tools to attack lefties and get ahead of hitters even if these other components are sub-optimal. His 40-man addition makes it more likely that he spends the early part of his big league career in the bullpen, but he may be a dominant multi-inning piece and could evetually transition into the rotation. Despite some clear present issues, we’re betting heavily on the stuff here.

Bielak was one of several talented Notre Dame pitchers who had an uneven college career during ’15-’17. Bielak’s control issues were quickly remedied in pro ball, and his pitch utility improved. He can pitch backwards and consistently locates both of his breaking balls to his glove side; Bielak often sets up one with the other. He checks an awful lot of boxes; there’s a starter’s repertoire depth and pitch quality, starter’s command, good raw spin, and he performed and reached Double-A in his first full year. We think he’s a No. 4 or 5 starter and could be ready in 2020.

The Astros acquired Santana from the Mets for J.D. Davis when Santana was coming off a domestic debut at advanced rookie-level Kingsport, where he hit .348/.446/.471 with more walks than strikeouts.

A curvaceous 5-foot-8, Santana crowds the plate so much that he’s practically straddling it, and his idiosyncratic, low-ball swing enables him to impact pitches that cross the plate beneath his chest as he leans over it. It’s weird, but it works, and Santana looks like he’s going to be a plus hitter who also has a discerning eye for the strike zone, and whose plate crowding gets him hit by pitches so often that it actually matters. He has been hit in 4% of his 611 career plate appearances, which is nearly twice the career rate of active big league HBP leader Shin-Soo Choo (132 HBP, 1.9%) who became the active leader when Chase Utley (204 HBP, 2.5%) retired.

Athletically, Santana fits at second and third base. His body is pretty maxed out and he’s not likely to grow into sizable raw power, but he runs well, has infield-worthy hands, and an average arm. The combination of his defensive profile and promising feel to hit make him a potential regular. The bat control may be obscuring poor pitch selection.

Though it seems like Arementeros was more inclined to nibble with his fringy fastball in the hitter’s paradise of the PCL, he was still pretty successful and of interest to teams ahead of the trade deadline. His fastball plays because he hides the ball well, it has some life at the top of the zone, and he works it up around the hands of righties, causing significant discomfort. His command enables his milquetoast breaking ball to play, but his dastardly changeup, which Armenteros uses against hitters of both handedness, is clearly his best pitch. The deception may not play multiple times through a batting order if Armenteros ends up in a traditional starting role. Instead we think he fits best in a role like Chris Devenski, who has similar stuff.

If not for a very unfortunately timed Tommy John — which will keep him out until 2020 — Solis would have been several spots higher on this list. Among the non-Top 100 types of arms in this system, he not only has one of the better chances of remaining a starter but also has the best stuff among those who do, led by a plus-flashing curveball that he has great feel for locating. Solis also has a great arm for a 19-year-old and may still throw harder as he matures, with his fastball already sitting in the viable low-to-mid 90s. There’s some changeup feel here, too, and teams think Solis has mid-rotation ceiling so long as his command continues to progress.

The Astros will need to make a Rule 5 protection 40-man decision on him after the 2020 season, a decision that will be made easier if Solis hits the ground running after rehab.

The way Ivey’s jersey billows down from his long, skinny limbs throughout an eccentric, slowly-paced windup makes him look like a backup dancer in some kind of vampire musical. Despite the head whack that comes at the end, he’s able to throw strikes with his fastball and has a sufficiently deep repertoire for starting. He is the Astros’ type, possessing a fastball/curveball combination that plays well in sequence at the top and bottom of the strike zone. The rest of his stuff is just okay but enables Ivey to attack hitters in various ways, either by working his cutter in on the hands of lefties or by dipping his slider beneath the zone. He has a No. 4 or 5 starter’s mix or could end up a dynamic multi-inning reliever.

A multi-sport high schooler, Dawson drew some Division I football interest from MAC teams like Bowling Green but transitioned to baseball full time after suffering a torn ACL late in his high school career. In every regard he became a contextually toolsy outfielder at Ohio State, possessing a power/speed blend that’s rare for prospects in college baseball, let alone the Big Ten.

While Dawson ran well for a hefty, 230 pound former linebacker/fullback, it was assumed that his size would prohibit long term play in center field and that his arm strength would limit him to left. He has worked doggedly to improve both those issues. Weighted ball work has helped improve his arm, and he’s now considerably leaner than he was in college. He’s also faster, and shags batting practice fly balls with intense focus. He’s willed himself to become viable in center field, which gives him a real shot at becoming an everyday player because Dawson has more raw juice than is typical for center fielders. More likely he’s the larger half of an outfield platoon or a strong fourth outfielder, but he has already surpassed developmental expectations and may continue to do so.

Ramirez wasn’t a hyped international prospect and it’s easy to see why. As a 5-foot-11, 170 pound righty, he would need to have electric stuff to be a real prospect, stuff he didn’t have when he signed for $50,000 in the 2017 class. This year, that stuff materialized with a mid-90s fastball and plus-flashing curveball, along with a changeup that shows average at times. The future scouting grades add up to a potential mid-rotation starter, but Ramirez is still just 19, with no full-season minor league experience, a frame that likely isn’t conducive to starter bulk innings, and a ways to go to even reach those projected future grades. With a realistic outcome of multi-inning power reliever, Ramirez joins a number of power arms the Astros have been developing at a greater than usual rate.

One of the more unusual players in the minors, Straw has long been considered a likely bench outfielder due to his complete lack of power, but his other tools may prove to be so strong that he finds his way into an everyday role for someone.

Straw has one of the lowest Pull% in pro baseball, as only 27% of balls he puts in play are to his pull side. His 70-grade speed plays like an 80 from home to first, as his swing has a natural jailbreak that gets him out of the box very quickly. He lead the minors with 70 stolen bases last year, his closing speed is very valuable in center field, and Straw is a tough out thanks to his feel for the strike zone and bat control. Players like this occasionally turn into Michael Bourn or Ender Inciarte and provide sizable everyday value. Straw’s skillset indicates this sort of future is a possibility, but not a likelihood, and chances are he’s either a low-end regular in center or good fourth outfielder.

Beer was on the scouting radar very early as a prep underclassman who was old for his year but had tools, performed, and was a decorated swimmer. Instead of reclassifying and enter the 2015 draft as an 18-year-old, Beer skipped his high school senior year completely and early-enrolled in January at Clemson. He wasn’t on the radar for the top couple rounds, so scouts weren’t sure he’d perform well, but Beer went on to have one of the best freshman years in college baseball history: .369/.535/.700 with 18 homers, 62 walks, and 27 strikeouts.

The pessimistic view is that Beer is a player with old skills that peaked that season, as his stats regressed a bit from historic to merely among the best. The optimistic view is that Beer has impact plus-plus raw power, a long track record of production and will fit as an everyday 1B/DH type. We’re a bit on the pessimistic side, as Beer is a 20 runner whose athleticism has backed up. He may only fit at DH now and we worried his swing was grooved enough that the hit tool may only be a 40, but with plenty of walks and power. The slippery slope to platoon DH is in sight, so we’d like to see some higher minors performance before we adjust our projections.

His pro debut was strong and he’ll likely spend this year at Hi- and/or Double-A at age 22, age-appropriate for prospects, which will show us where he is on the spectrum of expected performance from Dan Vogelbach to Nate Lowe, or maybe Rhys Hoskins at the very high end.

Perhaps the most divisive prospect in this system, some clubs believe Toro has a chance to play third base everyday while others see a bench bat ceiling on a player who has yet to prove he can handle other positions. He’s a switch-hitter with feel for lifting the baseball from both sides of the plate, makes hard contact, and has plus-plus arm strength when he’s able to step into his throws. But Toro struggles to make throws from athletically challenging platforms, which leads some onlookers to question whether he’s actually a good fit there, and his one-note, pull-heavy approach to contact may be less successful in the big leagues than it has in the lower levels of the minors.

The median opinion has Toro pegged as a switch-hitting bench piece, but he’ll need to learn to play other positions before that can become a reality. Houston briefly tried him at catcher but that experiment ended quickly. The outfield corners are logical avenues to explore.

Solomon’s stuff garnered sizable hype when he was in college but he was not a competent strike-thrower and ended up walking 77 hitters in 110 career innings. He has become more mechanically consistent as a pro and now has an improved chance of starting.

He has plus fastball rise, two good breaking balls, and a changeup and cutter in their nascent stages of development. Houston has had success turning college arms like this into good starting pitching prospects, and Solomon’s 2018 was a step in that direction. He has No. 4 or 5 starter stuff if the metamorphosis continues, and either his changeup or breaking ball command sharpen.

In a prospect pool increasingly full of TrackMan darlings, Bailey might be Grace Kelly. His fastball has premium life, his once-stigmatized stature helps create a flat approach angle that enables his fastball to play at the top of the strike zone, and it helps set up his knee-buckling, 12-6 curveball. His changeup will flash plus and he can vary his breaking ball shape with a slider and relatively new cutter to give hitters different looks. All of these components allow Bailey to strike out lots of batters without big velocity, but his approach to pitching is not conducive to efficient strike-throwing. This, combined with his size, has teams projecting him to the bullpen. He threw 122 strong, albeit walk-heavy, innings last year as an old-for-the-level Carolina Leaguer, often with extended rest. We tend to think he’ll end up in a multi-inning relief role, especially since the tricks that enable his fastball to play may have diminishing returns the second and third time through the order.

Though he may be used as a short term rotation patch, Valdez’s future is likely in the bullpen due to his repertoire depth. Both his two-seamer and curveball induce lots of groundballs (Valdez has a 58% career GB%) and the curve can miss bats when it’s properly set up by the four-seamer. But that’s the whole show and while Valdez has plus velo and nearly elite curveball spin, that may not play for four or five innings at a time. Instead he profiles as a good middle reliever. There are very few lefties on the Houston 40-man, so Valdez will likely play a sizable role on the big league club in 2019.

McKenna had a solid Cape Cod League, putting him on the radar for the top couple rounds, but some scouts thought his lack of patience could be his undoing going forward. McKenna is somewhere around the somewhat classic profile of a power-over-hit center fielder with more tools than skills, but that archetype is in demand now more than ever. McKenna has above average raw power and speed and enough hitting skills to get to around average offensively, and around average defensively in center field.

At times, he’s shown a flat-planed swing that doesn’t tap into his power and other times he’s over-aggressive, but Houston thinks they can tap into this skillset and thought he was a nice value with performance and low-end regular upside in the fourth round.

Long in possession of one of the prettier swings in the minors, Arauz had a strong, BABIP-aided first two months (.299/.392/.471) at Low-A and was promoted to Hi-A as a 19-year-old, where he struggled. He’s a switch-hitting middle infielder with above-average bat control, so there are all sorts of exciting hit/power/defensive profile mixes in play, depending on how Arauz develops physically. He has filled out a bit since he first signed (he was acquired from Philly in the Ken Giles deal) but scouts had mixed feelings about his body composition last year, and largely have him projected to second base. If that’s the case, ideally there will be more power than there is right now, and it’s fair to project some based on Arauz’s age.

For now, though, he has very little strength and at times appears to struggle to rip the barrel through the top of the zone and instead is adept at letting the bat do most of the work on pitches near his knees. The lift this creates is intriguing, but there needs to be more raw power if it’s going to matter. He has an outside shot to be a regular at second base but may just end up as a switch-hitting bench infielder.

After a dour, injured 2017 season, Stubbs had a bounce back 2018 and hit .310/.382/.455 at Triple-A. He spent the offseason adding mass to his little frame, a body scouts have long been skeptical about being able to weather the full-season storm of catching. These doubts have been reinforced by Stubbs’ semi-frequent injury issues, which led him to focus on weight gain during the offseason.

His athletic capabilities are clear though, and Stubbs is a good ball blocker, an excellent catch-and-throw guy, and his passable framing may benefit from altering the depth at which he sets up. From a skills standpoint, totally ignoring the issue of durability, he looks like a potential everyday catcher. There has been some industry sentiment that Stubbs would be best deployed as a multi-positional bat, perhaps playing third base and the outfield corners as well as catcher. He hasn’t played other positions in games but has worked with Matt Chapman at third during the offseason, so perhaps he will be allowed to try new things once the season starts.

We have him projected as a contact-oriented, multi-positional bench piece.

Javier’s fuzzy shock of hair is the best in the system, and he’s one of the more creative sequencers among Houston farmhands as well. His front side flies way open during disconnection, and the dramatic manner in which his limbs bandy about during his delivery limit his fastball command, but also help create a weird angle on his stuff, which is quite good. He’ll sit in the low-90s, his curveball has premium spin, and Javier can manipulate the shape of his fastball and multiple breaking balls. There’s a chance he ends up in a rotation so long as the command progresses a little bit, and Javier’s feel for pitching is promising in this regard. If it doesn’t, he could be an excellent multi-inning reliever.

Schroeder was a pocket follow for most scouts, then his velo spiked in the spring at a Washington state high school, sitting 92-95, and hitting 97 mph, and flashing an above average breaking ball at his best. That often came with some head violence at release, so the Astros tried to calm down his delivery a bit, which led to more average stuff in instructional league, so pro scouts getting first looks weren’t encouraged by what they saw from the second rounder. Being a cold weather velo spike arm, we think there’s a happy medium with back-end starter potential, but prep arms are often a rollercoaster and there was a bit of a dip after the draft.

Little Enoli’s arm is so fast that it threatens to break the sound barrier and generates a lively mid-90s fastball. Everything about Paredes’ delivery involves max effort, which limits his command but also makes his stuff hellacious and unpredictable in a way that makes him a very uncomfortable at-bat. Not only does he throw hard, but his power curveball has big, bat-missing depth and competes for swings and misses in the zone. His arm speed enables very favorable changeup projection and Paredes already flashes some plus cambios on occasion. He can shorten the curveball into a slider or add cut action to his fastball, but the other three pitches should be sufficient for him to play a strikeout-heavy relief role.

We don’t stick many 23-year-old A-ball relievers on the 40 FV tier of lists, but Paredes only signed at age 19 and hasn’t had as much pro development as other same-aged Latin American players, and he’s not yet occupying a 40-man spot. He has considerable appeal as a trade target and a chance to be a rare 45 FV reliever on this list next year.

Perez was on the scouting radar for his upper-90s fastball, occasionally plus slider, and easy plus raw power at the plate. He was seen primarily as a pitcher who, while raw, also could show you BP power until he broke out with the bat in the spring. He blew up Twitter with a number of tape measure shots and looked like he had a chance to play third base, as well, though there’s questions about his lateral quickness.

After going in the second round in 2017, Perez required Tommy John surgery but the Astros drafted him as a hitter, believing they could tap into the raw power in games more often and that the bat offered more upside than the likely reliever profile. Perez got into games late in 2018 and scouts who saw him in the instructional league weren’t enthusiastic, but it’s still early.

Announced as a second baseman when the Astros drafted him, and deployed primarily in left field as a pro, Matijevic’s stiffness and immobility will likely limit him to first base, where he played in college. He has sufficient power to profile there but there have been questions about the contact since high school. He clubbed 22 homers in 2018, mostly at Hi-A, and will force some re-evaluation if he has a big year at Double-A. For now, he projects as a bench bat with limited defensive flexibility.

Sanabria was moved to the bullpen in 2018 but a lot of teams think he has the repertoire depth and command to start, assuming he retains the same quality stuff for multiple innings. The sizable strikeout totals Sanabria has posted come from his ability to locate his slider and changeup rather than from high-quality stuff, and he’d likely max out as a fifth starter if re-introduced to the rotation.

Adolph is an interesting small-school sleeper who hit .322/.445/.654 as a junior at Toledo, then signed for $125,000 as the Mets’ 2018 12th rounder. He continued to rake at short-season Brooklyn after signing, hitting .276/.348/.509 and swiping 14 bases (on 17 attempts) in 60 games. He’s an above-average runner with good instincts in center field, and there’s a chance he can stay there. He could be a 50 bat with gap power who is playable in center, which would make him at least a viable big league fourth outfielder. We whiffed on him pre-draft, but our sources who saw him in pro ball raved, and the industry’s error bars on small school bats are pretty large due to the quality of pitching they face.

Carrasco is a common type among middle bonus international signees: the skinny, speedy shortstop with some present skills. He signed for $480,000 and performed well as an 18-year-old in the GCL in 2019, with a short taste of short-season ball. He has very little present strength and only has gap power in games, but he has above average contact skills, plus speed, arm strength, and defensive ability, so there’s a chance for some real ceiling if and when the physicality comes along, though it’s more likely he becomes an athletic utility infielder.

Pena was widely considered to be the best collegiate defensive shortstop in the 2018 draft but despite his picturesque swing, he made very little offensive impact against out-of-conference pitching and with woods bats during the summer. The lack of offense likely caps Pena’s ceiling in the bench infielder area, but he has added about 20 pounds of muscle over the offseason and is also a sleeper breakout candidate if it makes a meaningful impact on his contact quality.

Duarte is an energetic, multi-positional speedster with an infectious style of play. He’s an aggressive hitter who strikes out a ton, but he played everywhere but first base and catcher last year and could find a big league role as a versatile bench piece.

There are moments when Guduan looks like one of the more dominant lefty relievers in baseball. He’ll touch 100, his fastball spins and has life, his slider is consistently plus, and he hides the ball well. At other times he’s unplayably wild. The early parts of Guduan’s 2019 spring were encouraging but, at age 27, it’s unlikely the issues that have plagued him for years have suddenly been remedied. He’ll likely be a scintillating and terrifying low-leverage relief piece.

Deetz is a pretty standard two-pitch, lowish slot middle relief prospect. He has a good curveball and is a dead ringer for Jason Ritter. We typically 40 FV this role, but Deetz is already 25 and has had a PED suspension, so we rounded down a tad.

Signed for just south of $700,000 out of Venezuela, Macuare was a polished amateur arm who has been as advertised in two years of pro ball. He has good command of mostly average stuff as a 19-year-old, so there’s a chance he either grows into better stuff through physical maturation, or develops such special command that he doesn’t have to. In either case, he’s got a shot to be a No. 4 or 5.

Signed as an undrafted free agent out of Virginia Tech, Scheetz has reached Double-A and performed at each stop, accumulating a 140:26 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 115 pro innings. He’s a low slot lefty with below-average velocity, on the surface appearing to be of the LOOGY endangered species. But Scheetz can really spin a breaking ball, and has a four-pitch mix that you could argue plays like a six-pitch mix because he likes to vary his arm slot. He could be a non-traditional bullpen mainstay.