Arizona Fall League Recap: October 9, 2024
Chris and Beck break down everything you need to know from the Arizona Fall League action.
After a sluggish first game on Monday, offense was a plenty on Tuesday. After a 28 run day game, the nightcap saw a 9-8 game with Scottsdale victorious. A ton of big names stepped up and performed but we also had some lesser known standouts.
Beck and I will split the teams each day. Let’s get to the action.
Arizona Fall League Breakdown: 10/9/24
Scottsdale(Chris)
Termarr Johnson, 2B, PIT, 20
Johnson homered in his first bat of the fall league, traveling 393 feet to right field with an exit velocity of 98.6 mph. He also added a single on a batted ball of 97.3 but had a groundout as high as 105.3 mph. Johnson left the game early due to a cramp during a swing and he appeared to be fine postgame as he was griddying(dancing) post-game on the field.
After being selected fourth overall by the Pirates in 2022, Johnson was labeled one of the best pure prep hitters in decades. Interestingly enough, Johnson traded in his contact for power and has put up strong exit velocities throughout his career. During the regular season, Johnson hit 15 home runs and had 35 extra-base hits while slashing .237/.366/.386.
Johnson rarely expands the zone, getting on base at a high clip, but does struggle mightly against breaking balls. He came to the desert to “prove he is the best hitter in the world.” Don’t expect Johnson to miss any time.
Josue Briceño, C/1B, DET, 20
Three hits for Briceno in his first AFL game, including batted balls of 94 and 102.6 mph. Briceno was a major buy suggestion after he started the year so strong but missed significant time during the regular season.
Briceño posted a 104 mph 90th percentile exit velocity with an average of just shy of 90 mph. It has not actualized into game power yet due to ground balls and a large population of infield fly balls. I do think Briceño is close to a breakout.
He made contact at an impressive 83 percent clip this year with an 89 percent in-zone mark. The chase rate of 23 percent is also impressive. Briceño is a profile that should get on base at a high clip and have plenty of pop, and he will get to it in Arizona.
He looked strong in his first game in the desert and one that I think will continue to build on it and have a strong AFL.
Bo Davidson, OF, SF, 22
Davidson was a player I suggested buying before the fall league, writing:
Probably the most unlikely breakout candidate, Chanteyon Ajria Davidson, better known as Bo, has been doing just that. An undrafted outfielder out of Caldwell Community College in Hudson, NC, the 6’2”/205 lb outfielder is what you truly call a pop-up prospect.
After starting the year in Single-A, Davidson struggled and eventually rehabbed at the complex, where he got his confidence back. He ended the year with a .327/.437/.605 slash with 11 home runs, 14 doubles, and seven triples in 63 games.
The contact rate and in-zone miss might be the biggest question in the profile. For the year, his overall contact rate was below 70 percent. The chase rate is impressive though, sitting just north of 22 percent on the year.
The exit velocities and quality of contact metrics are extremely good, as Davidson posted 106 mph at the 90th percentile. He is hyper-aggressive in the zone and lifts the ball with ease.
Davidson looks like a true diamond in the rough here and a legit prospect. I would not go too crazy on him, but he could be a top-20 prospect in the Giants system. The biggest concern is how much contact he will make against better competition, and that holds me back just a ton.
Davidson smoked a double 111.1 mph off the bat, one of the hardest hit balls yesterday. Having bat speed data, Davidson was electric, registering swings of 77.7 mph and 78.9 mph. For reference, only two hitters in MLB averaged a swing speed north of 78 mph: Oneil Cruz and Giancarlo Stanton.
Drew Gilbert, OF, NYM, 24
Gilbert missed the majority of the 2024 season due to a hamstring injury. Upon his return there were struggles on the surface, but Gilbert mashed and hit ten home runs in 247 Triple-A plate appearances. He slashed a modest .215/.313/.393, but he still made contact at an above-average 74 percent overall and 84 percent in-zone. Gilbert did not chase often, and continued to show many of the traits that made him a top prospect in 2023.
Needing a big AFL, Gilbert collected one hit in his first game in Arizona, a double that left the bat at 103 mph and traveled 382 feet, nearly leaving the yard. The good thing, is Gilbert swung ten times during the game and did not miss. He showed a patient approach and has a well rounded skillset. Gilbert is a solid buy this offseason.
Salt River(Chris)
Robert Hassell III, OF, WSH, 23
Third time is the charm for Hassell who is now on his third different AFL team, previously playing with Peoria in 2022 and Scottsdale in 2023. He had a strong first game in a Rafters uniform though collecting two hits with three of his batted balls being hard hit. Hassell’s hardest hit ball came off the bat at 104.7 mph that had a 21 degrees launch angle and traveled 377 feet. Unfortunately it was struck to dead centerfield.
Hassell could use a big fall league as he has seen his prospect status take a huge dip since joining the Nationals org in 2022. This season he spent time on the injured list and in 85 games he slashed .241/.319/.328 with five home runs and 15 stolen bases.
Michael Prosecky, LHP, COL, 23
Prosecky turned in the best outing of any of the eight Rafters pitchers who took the mound on Tuesday night The team yielded nine runs to the Scoprions, but Prosecky was having no part of that, tossing two scoreless innings with two strikeouts. He needed just 30 pitches to work through his two innings, striking out two and allowing two hits.
Landing 19 of his 30 pitches for strikes, Prosecky located his entire arsenal exceptionally well, keeping his four-seam fastball up and the three secondary pitches down. The fastball averaged just 92 mph, but it had good carry through the zone with decent horizontal movement from the left side.
Prosecky threw a mid-80s changeup with nice fading action and paired it with a mid-to-upper 70s curveball with nice depth and some sweep. He won’t overpower you, but if the pitchability is there, Prosecky could be an interesting arm. It was a solid first start for him.
Tommy Troy, 2B, ARI, 22
Troy is another player who could use a big fall league. He struggled mightly in 2024 after being selected in the top half of the first round of the 2023 draft. You can read all about Troy, his 2024 season and long term outlook here:
https://www.thedynastydugout.com/p/arizona-diamondbacks-top-prospects-2025
Leading off for the Rafters, Troy collected just one hit, a double that traveled 405 feet with an exit velocity of 106.3 mph. How it did not leave the yard with how the balls were flying yesterday? I do not know. It was also encouraging to see Troy consistently put good wood on the bat all game. He added two more batted balls that left the bat at 95.3 and 93.4 mph respectively, both sadly ending in long outs. If anyone could use a big fall league, it’s Troy.
Kala’i Rosario, OF, MIN, 22
Rosario looks like he will be the bat speed king of the fall league in his second year in the desert. The 2023 AFL home run derby champ is back aftera disappointing 2024 season which saw him play just 69 games and post an uninspiring .238/.329/.428 slash with a 30 percent strikeout rate.
While he did not register a hit in Tuesday’s action, Rosario did have the hardest hit ball of the game, leaving the bat at 112.1 mph, and added two more batted balls of 106.7 and 84.6 mph. His bat speeds all registered north of 75 mph, which is considered a fast swing.
All three batted balls traveled 300 feet, and one nearly left the yard at 385 feet. Rosario just needs to prove he is healthy this fall and show improved contact. He swung and missed just twice on seven swings.
Peoria(Beck)
Colt Emerson, SS, SEA, 19
If you want to take issue with Colt Emerson’s 2024, the most potent ammunition you have is his lack of over-the-fence impact. He hit just four home runs over 337 plate appearances, 139 of which came at Everett – a very friendly place to hit, particularly for left-handed bats. You might point to his ground ball rate (48.7%) and spray chart (very few pulled fly balls), and you’d be right. His hit tool is real (as real as it can be for any 19-year-old), and he has more than enough juice, but we’re all really waiting for his batted ball distribution to shift in such a way that those things matter for doing damage. He showed some encouraging signs on Tuesday by lacing four doubles in a 5-for-6 day. He had three batted balls over 95 mph (95.5, 107.7, 107.8) and four with a launch angle greater than 10 degrees.
Brock Wilken, 3B, MIL, 22
You can’t take a five game sample to mean much, and his numbers weren’t awesome before breaking multiple bones in his face on a HBP, but I can’t imagine taking a heater to the noggin does much to help performance either. Wilken slogged through 108 games with Biloxi (Double-A) and managed a meager .200/.314/.365 line with a 28.2% strikeout rate during the regular season and Milwaukee opted to send him to Phoenix to get some extra work in. Not all was so bad – he still hits the ball extraordinarily hard, he was hamstrung by a well below-average .248 BABIP, and his line did equate to a 105 wRC+ in a downtrodden Southern League – but it was largely a season to move on from. Milwaukee’s infield situation is a bit in flux given the imminent departure of Willy Adames and a strong AFL could mean Wilken finds himself in the mix for big league playing time toward the end of 2025. He was 2-for-5 with a home run and a single in Tuesday’s game.
Drake Baldwin, C, ATL, 23
I’m not sure how Drake Baldwin isn’t more widely considered a top 100 prospect, whether that be by Pipeline or fantasy writers, but he absolutely is one. He posted a 106.5 mph EV90, an excellent 86.5% zone contact rate, and swung outside the zone just 22.5% of the time. That combination should have him pushing top 50, not flirting with 100 across a number of publications. He hits the ball on the ground too often, yes, and he had a slow start across 52 games in Double-A, but the overwhelming sample of performance was great. Sean Murphy will be in Atlanta for quite some time, but Travis d’Arnaud has an $8M club option for 2025 and then he’s at the end of his rope, which should mean opportunity for Baldwin in the near-term. He finished Tuesday’s game with a double, a single, and two walks.
Ethan Salas, C, SD, 18
A lot of people fell off the Ethan Salas bandwagon over the course of the summer – frankly, for a lot of people it would be more accurate to say they jumped. I get it; Salas slashed .206/.288/.311 over 111 games with Fort Wayne and had short but unproductive vignettes at High-A and Double-A last year. There is still the fact that he didn’t turn 18 until June and should have spent the spring facing high schoolers before going at some point in the first round of this Summer’s draft, but that doesn’t change the fact that he looked entirely overmatched for the duration of the season. It’s possible the aggressive push derailed his offensive development, and through that lens I’m more interested in him as a real-life prospect than I am for fantasy. He’s working on recouping some of his luster while in Arizona and started on that rehabilitation project with a 1-for-5 night that included a 402-foot home run.
Glendale(Chris)
Tim Elko, 1B, CHW, 25
Elko starred in an offsense-laden game that saw Glendale and Peoria score a combined 28 runs. He homered and added a single, but it was the damage Elko did at the plate that really stood out. Elko’s home run left the bat at just 102.5 mph and was an opposite field shot that traveled 368 feet. The swing was pretty impressive, Geoff Pontes caught a good shot of it here.
He added a single that he smoked at 112.2 mph and added another hard hit ball at 99.9 mph.
Being a bit of an older prospect at 25 years old, Elko has been consistently good since being drafted in the 10th round of 2022 out of Ole Miss. This season between Double-A and Triple-A, Elko mashed 18 home runs and had 43 extra base hits while slashing .289/.346/.439.
Grant Taylor, RHP, CHW, 22
Taylor has been a long time favorite of mine dating back to his draft year. The righty out of LSU missed his final collegiate season due to Tommy John and after looking like a major breakout candidate in 2024, his season ended on June 7 due to a lat strain.
In his first official game action since then, Taylor was grooving through the first inning, striking out three batters. The second inning did not go so great as Drake Baldwin led off the innings with a double, then Kemp Alderman left the yard for a two-run home run. Taylor then walked the next two hitters before Colt Emerson doubled both home. The final line was a completely uninspiring 1.1 innings with four hits, four earned runs and two walks. I would not worry too much about Taylor’s line, the stuff was good.
Taylor’s fastball sat 97 mph with above-average IVB at 16 inches and a flat -5 VAA. From a 5’8” release height, the IVB is strong and the fastball is going to play up even more given his 7’3” of extension.
The secondaries looked strong as Taylor mixed a 90 mph cutter, an 83 mph curveball, and an 86 mph slider and changeup. Taylor has a deep arsenal and solid command as well. He has some of the best stuff in Arizona.
Luis Mey, RHP, CIN, 23
Mey is probably going to be the most electric arm in the desert. Mey tossed a clean ninth inning as he struck out one batter. What is worth noting is Mey’s sinker averaged over 100 mph and topped out at 102 mph. The pitch has exceptional horizontal movement, averaging over 15 inches of arm-side run. Mey also mixed an 88 mph cutter in with similar IVB to his sinker but shorter horizontal movement. Command will be a big thing to watch, but he had a good zone rate of 59 percent in his inning of work.
Matt McLain, SS, CIN, 25
The Reds sent multiple players with MLB experience to the AFL, with McLain being one. He missed the entire 2024 season due to a shoulder and a rib injury and likely won’t be in the AFL long. We are talking a different caliber pitching than McLain is used to be, but he looked ready on Tuesday, mashing a home run and a double in his return to game action.
The home run left the bat at just 93.7 mph which shows the kind of conditions we were looking at yesterday and how the ball travled. That swing led to a 398 foot shot at a 35 degree launch angle. HIs double left the bat at 106 mph and was smoked off the wall in left field. Don’t be surprised if McLain has a strong week or two and heads home.
Christian Encarnacion-Strand, 1B, CIN, 24
Encarnacion-Strand was the other MLB player the Reds sent out to Arizona. Playing in just 29 games in 2024, he missed the rest of the season after a wrist injury on May 7. Strand is defiently a man among boys in the AFL, having big time power, but a player that could use the game action.
In his return to action, Encarnacion-Strand mashed a double that left the bat at 110.3 mph on a line drive to left field. He also added a single on a line drive to right and a sacrifice fly. He did swing and miss five times on 12 swings, having just a 58 percent contact rate and he chased 43 percent of pitches he saw out of the zone. Something to watch moving forward.
Colson Montgomery, SS/3B, CHW, 22
Montgomery dealt with a minor injury during the 2024 season which certainly affected his swing and ability to get to power. While many, including myself, thought Montgomery would spend a large portion of the season in Chicago, he struggled in Triple-A, slashing .214/.329/.381 while seeing his strikeout rate explode. It was very uncharacteristic of the kind of hitter he. The injury largely played a part in my opinion.
Having nearly three weeks off, hopefully things have healed up. Montgomery was aggressive, seeing just nine pitches in four trips to the plate, but he put every ball in play that he swung at. In the first inning, he smoked a 105.4 mph single to right before doubling to the opposite field in his next AB. Montgomery was hit by a pitch on the elbow in his third plate appearance of the game and ended up leaving. Something to monitor. Hopefully Montgomery is back in the lineup today.