Arizona Fall League Recap 10/14/25

Chris and Beck break down all of yesterday's Arizona Fall League action

The Arizona Fall League is back! My favorite time of the year and my favorite trip each year. The Dugout has boots on the ground in the desert and bringing out live coverage of the AFL for the next week.

Let’s dive right in! The top performances from Tuesday’s action!

Exit Velocity Leaders

Player

Exit Velocity

Patrick Clohisy

110.1

Parks Harber

109.4

Manuel Palencia

108.6

Esmerlyn Valdez

108.4

Miguel Ugueto

108

Whiff Leaders

Player

Whiffs

Jake Bennett

17

Cade Smith

10

Luis Martinez-Gomez

8

Winston Santos

8

Johan Moreno

8

Mesa Solar Sox

Owen Ayers, C, Chicago Cubs

Ayers is a player I was going to keep a close eye on in Arizona. A former 19th-round pick out of Marshall who got just a $50k bonus, Ayers was respectable in his time on the field with Myrtle Beach this year. Hitting six home runs in 273 plate appearances, Ayers also added 14 doubles and five triples. He has a sound approach with respectable contact skills.

Ayers has definitely been the best hitter in Arizona, and that continued on Tuesday. Blasting his second home run Ayers nearly left the yard a couple of other times. His home run left the bat at 105.4 mph and traveled 422 feet. He has a smoked lineout that also left the bat at 105.4 mph and traveled 381 feet. He also had a long flyout in the seventh inning off Winston Santos.

Ayers has looked the part so far, and he is someone who could really raise his stock if this kind of performance continues.

Cade Smith, RHP, New York Yankees

Smith’s 2024 ended with a shoulder injury, and it also kept him out for a large portion of 2025. He made just 11 starts, eight with High-A, totaling 39.2 innings. Across those innings, he was strong, posting a 2.50 ERA with a 26 percent strikeout rate.

Yesterday, Smith was the star of Mesa’s pitching staff, striking out five batters across three scoreless, no-hit innings. Smith generated ten whiffs, good for a 59 percent rate, while having a 100 percent whiff rate on his slider.

The fastball averaged 92 mph and topped at 94.2. Smith mixed the 84 mph slider and the 80 mph curveball well, keeping hitters on their toes. The outing was sharp and goes a long way for Smith as he continues to build back up from his shoulder injury.

Surprise Saguaros

Winston Santos, RHP, Texas Rangers

Santos returned from a stress reaction in his back to throw three abbreviated starts in September with lackluster results. He’d been a buzzy name entering the year after a 110.1-inning campaign spanning Hickory and Frisco that featured a 3.67 ERA and 138 strikeouts. The stuff was there on Tuesday as he sat 97 mph with his four-seam fastball, registered a 32% whiff rate, and held Mesa to a 71% in-zone contact rate. His locations were less than spectacular as he walked four batters over three innings of work and put just 44% of his pitches in the zone. The lack of control is understandable given his lengthy absence and I’d consider him a buy-low.

Dylan Campbell, OF, Philadelphia Phillies

Campbell was a fourth rounder in 2023 out of Texas but spent just one full year in the system before being shipped out to Philly in exchange for international bonus pool money. The deal was necessitated by the Dodgers’ desire to sign Roki Sasaki, leading to an unceremonious ousting just a few weeks before Spring Training. Campbell struggled in the Phillies system, slogging his way to a .666 OPS between Jersey Shore (A+) and Reading (AA). He’s had a better go of it through three AFL appearances, logging three extra-base hits in eight at-bats to go with four walks against just one strikeout. He finished 1-for-2 with a double, an RBI, and a pair of walks on Tuesday.

Salt River Rafters

Esmerlyn Valdez, OF, Pittsburgh Pirates

Pop-ups are bad. They’re almost always an automatic out and almost never advance runners. Esmerlyn Valdez hit a pop-up yesterday that looked like an easy out until it crested the left field wall and he advanced four bases. It had a 49 degree launch angle and left the bat at 108.4 mph, which classifies it as one degree away from a true pop-up by Statcast definitions and significantly harder hit than most. He’s had a superb AFL through four games, walking eight times in 17 plate appearances and collecting three hits, all of which were home runs.

Luis Perales, RHP, Boston Red Sox

Any questions about the health of Perales’ right arm have been decisively answered over the last week. He touched triple digits three times on Tuesday and regularly generated 18 inches of hop, making it one of the premier fastballs in minor league baseball. There’s a long road ahead to build up as a starter again — he maxed out at 89.2 innings in 2023 — but I would not consider selling him for less than top 100 prospect prices. He has the arm talent of a top-10 pitching prospect and any discount is predicated on uncertainty about his role. He’s on the 40-man roster and should move quickly, and given the dearth of starting pitching on Boston’s roster, it would be unsurprising if he got a chance to start in 2026.

Jansel Luis, 2B, Arizona Diamondbacks

Luis finished 2-for-5 with a single and a double on Tuesday, but the events as they played out on the field aren’t why he’s on the rundown. First, he’s bigger and has more room to fill out than I had anticipated. He’s listed at 6’0 but often appears smaller on video — the listing looked more accurate to my eye. He posted a 107.9 mph exit velocity on the single, which was more juice than I thought he had.

Glendale Desert Dogs

Jhancarlos Lara, RHP, Atlanta Braves

Lara has been on a reliever trajectory for quite a while. He certainly has the stuff for the job; he sits 98 mph with his four-seamer, can bust righties inside with a 97 mph sinker, and fires in a pretty good slider. Yesterday’s appearance reinforced a bullpen role — he threw just four of his 15 total pitches in the zone, airmailed his catcher, and walked two batters in an inning of work. He escaped unscathed but had very little to do with the outcome.

Miguel Ugueto, OF, St. Louis Cardinals

Ugueto has played just two games in the desert and has appeared on the rundown twice. He was 1-for-2 on Tuesday, which is relatively unremarkable on its own but stacks up well relative to the rest of the Glendale lineup that finished with four total hits. He registered a 108 mph exit velocity on a ground out, the third-hardest hit BBE of the game behind a Patrick Clohisy 110 mph single and Esmerlyn Valdez’s pop-up homer at 108.4 mph.

Peoria Javelinas

Jonny Farmelo, OF, Seattle Mariners

Farmelo has been swinging a hot bat in Arizona as he finally looks healthy. Smoking a double 98 mph off the bat, Farmelo also walked twice, showing a respectable approach, and has his OPS up to .921 in the early going.

While it is only ten batted balls, Farmelo has a 94 mph average exit velocity and a 109.2 mph max. The launch angles are good, and Farmelo is putting plenty of balls in play.

He has the upside of a top 10 prospect if all clicks.

Brandon Winokur, SS, Minnesota Twins

Speaking of players with upside and a power/speed blend, Brandon Winokur is swinging it well and had two hits yesterday. All four of his batted balls reached the outfield, and his hardest hit ball was a smoked line drive at 96 mph, which traveled 329 feet.

What we have seen from Winokur so far in Arizona is in line with what he has shown throughout his career. While having a tall frame, Winokur is a premium athlete who has an outside chance to stick at shortstop.

The power is good, and Winokur is a threat on the base paths with his speed. The contact skills are still a major question mark. Despite putting four balls in play yesterday, Winokur had a 45 percent whiff rate on his 11 swings.

Scottsdale Scorpions

Max Anderson, 2B, Detroit Tigers

Anderson’s regular-season breakout has carried over into the AFL, where he continues to swing a hot bat. Hitting 19 home runs and driving in 88, Anderson slashed a smooth .296/.350/.478 during the regular season. With a strong contact-oriented profile, Anderson experienced a significant leap in power this year, which completely changes the future outlook. If suddenly projects to be a 20-home run second baseman with a strong feel for contact, he could be a top 100 prospect.

Last night was Anderson’s first home run of his AFL season, but he also has three doubles in three games. The home run left the bat at 104.5 mph and traveled 395 feet. Anderson also reached two more times via walk. He is off to one of the hottest starts of any hitter in Arizona.

Walker Janek, C, Houston Astros

Janek, the Astros’ 2024 first-rounder, put up a successful first season in pro ball even though he missed time and had just 399 plate appearances. Over those, Janek hit 12 home runs and had 21 doubles while posting a .263/.333/.433 slash line.

He has been swinging it well in Arizona and blasted his first home run on Tuesday while driving in three runs. The home run left the bat at 103.3 mph and traveled 418 feet.

While being known for his defensive skills, Janek can swing it. He looks like the Astros catcher of the future.

Jake Bennett, LHP, Washington Nationals

After being selected in 2019 by the Nationals but ultimately signing to play at Oklahoma, Bennett improved his stock significantly, getting selected in the 2nd round of the 2022 draft. Despite only pitching 63 innings in 2023, Bennett enjoyed a successful season, posting a 3.14 ERA with 73 strikeouts and 16 walks. Unfortunately, his season ended early due to Tommy John surgery, and Bennett missed all of 2024.

Returning in 2025, Bennett tossed 75.1 innings, reaching Double-A. He posted a 2.27 ERA, but he struck out just 21.5 percent of batters. Bennett posted a strong 6.3 percent walk rate to counter it.

After sitting around 89 mph in 2023, Bennett has seen a huge tick up in velocity. He averaged north of 94 mph on Tuesday across 61 pitches and had an impressive 17 whiffs. Seven of his whiffs came on the sinker, another five on his changeup, which he used 21 percent of the time.

The changeup averaged 85 mph and has over 15 inches of fade on average. The cutter worked 86-87 mph with two inches of cut action. The slider has similar IVB, but five to eight inches of sweep while working in the low-80s. Bennett rounded out his arsenal with an upper-70s curveball with two-plane movement.

Considering Bennett is a lefty, gets seven feet of extension, throws from a low release height, and has seen a huge tick up in velocity, he looks like a viable starting pitching prospect.

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