Arizona Fall League Recap: October 27, 2024

Chris and Beck break down the slate of AFL action from Saturday's games.

Beck is back and we had a full slate of games from Saturday in the AFL. A ton of great performances, some big time exit velocity and statcast standouts, and pitching performances that you need to know.

Let’s get to the action.

Arizona Fall League Recap: 10/27/24

Glendale (Chris)

DJ Gladney, OF, CHW, 23

Gladney is an exciting player that I have liked since I first saw him live in 2023. Built like an NFL wide receiver, Gladney stands at 6’2”/195 has has a ton of athleticism. This year between High-A and Double-A, Gladney slashed .246/.303/.450 with 16 home runs and 38 extra base hits. 

The power is off the charts, and that was on display on Saturday as Gladney smoked a home run at 117.2 mph and traveled 468 feet. Two more batted balls led to a single with a 107.4 mph exit velocity and a fly out to right-center that had a 99 mph exit velocity. 

Gladney is aggressive and has shown plenty of swing-and-miss and chase, but when he connects, he does damage.

Sean McLain, SS, LAD, 23

It is pretty cool that Sean McLain gets to share the field with his brother Matt again for the first time since high school. Sean played 95 games this year in the Dodgers Single-A and High-A affiliates, slashing .215/.326/.337 with six home runs and 25 extra-base hits. He swiped eight bases but punched out 28 percent of the time.

McLain mashed a home run on Saturday that traveled 420 feet and a 104 mph exit velocity. It has been just ten AFL games, but McLain has shown a good feel for contact and plate discipline, walking more than he has struck out with a .346/.500/.577 slash.

Scottsdale (Chris)

Josue Briceño, C/1B, DET, 20

Shocker, Briceño hit another home run, hit his seventh of the fall. Halfway through the AFL, Briceño is the current front-runner for MVP. The pitch was low and away, and Briceño took him out of the yard for an opposite-field shot. 

Briceño now has 21 hits in 13 games, slashing .438/.500/.958 so far this fall.

Jett Williams, MI/CF, NYM, 20

Williams missed nearly the entire 2024 season due to a right wrist injury. Returning to action late in the year, Williams got 148 plate appearances, posting a .215/.358/.298 slash with zero home runs and nine extra-base hits. Williams was sent to the Arizona Fall League for additional work.

It has been a mixed bag of results so far in the AFL, which was fully on display on Saturday as Williams collected two hits but also struck out twice. He now has a slash of .238/.373/.429 with four extra-base hits and a stolen base in 51 trips to the plate. 

Surprise (Chris)

Austin Deming, INF, HOU, 24

Deming is a player I have seen a ton after he spent the end of 2023 and most of 2024 in Asheville, and he has always looked strong. He mashed 19 home runs and added 24 doubles while slashing .262/.348/.464 between High-A and Double-A this year. Despite the bigger frame at 5’11”/213, Deming moves extremely well and makes plays in the field.

On Saturday, Deming blasted his second home run of the AFL and is slashing .241/.303/.448.

Josh Stephan, RHP, TEX, 22

Stephan has thrown the most innings among any AFL pitcher after tossing three more scoreless innings on Saturday. He struck out three batters and issued, bringing his strikeout total to 12 strikeouts with just three walks across 12.2 innings.

With a fastball in the low-90s, Stephan works east-to-west with a lower slot. The slider is a solid pitch with above-average traits and is his true bat-missing pitch. Stephan relies heavily on it, but I would like to see the changeup take a step forward.

Stephan threw 52 pitches and landed 36 for strikes in the start and allowed just two hits. He generated five whiffs and landed 14 more for called strikes. Another day, and another impressive showing for Stephan, who has allowed just one earned run. 

Salt River (Beck)

Juan Guerrero, OF, COL, 23

I’m back after a brief hiatus for some important day job items and my birthday, which is also my wife’s birthday! Starting my first day returning to the rundown with Juan Guerrero, who signed for $650K out of the Dominican Republic in 2018 when signing day was still in July. The class included Francisco Alvarez, Marco Luciano, Luis Matos, Noelvi Marte, Luisangel Acuna, and Orelvis Martinez, all of which have either had more success or are currently highly regarded. That isn’t to say Guerrero hasn’t been productive – he has a career .287/.343/.412 slash over 444 games – but it’s hard to see exactly how he stands out. He strikes out very sparingly and hits for average but it’s relatively empty. Usually, a player with Double-A experience and five minor league seasons under his belt is a good bet to perform well in the AFL, though it’s been a rough go for Guerrero. He hit his second home run and his third double in a perfect day at the dish on Saturday, bringing his AFL slash to .184/.262/.421.

Tommy Troy, 2B, ARI, 22

Troy is one of the players I’m most excited to see when I touch down in Phoenix on Wednesday. I’m not taking his AFL performance all too seriously but I am of the belief that a slew of injuries derailed his 2024. Perhaps that’s a remnant of the optimism I had for him when I ranked him in the top 50 coming into the regular season, but he was one of the best hitters in the nation just a year ago. He started slow but has pushed his AFL line to .291/.365/.491 with two singles and a pair of walks on Saturday.

Peoria (Beck)

Drake Baldwin, C, ATL, 23

Baldwin will likely leave the AFL shortly as he joins the USA Premier 12 roster that plays Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, and Venezuela in a little over two weeks. It’s been a long year of baseball for him – 124 regular season games, 10 AFL games, and still more yet to come – but he’s continued to produce despite whatever fatigue he might be experiencing stemming from his near full-time catcher role. He’s been one of the league’s strongest performers thus far and kept it rolling on Saturday with a 2-for-3 game that included two walks. 

Luis Lara, OF, MIL, 19

​​I like Luis Lara even outside of my typical Brewers bias. He was pushed aggressively in 2023, as a fair number of Milwaukee’s international signees are, and performed quite well. This year was a step back in a number of facets: he put the ball on the ground a lot, his hit tool looked shakier, and he didn’t damage the ball consistently (or at all, frankly). His short AFL campaign to date looks a lot like the regular season, though it’s notable that he’s still just 19 years old while the average age in this year’s circuit is 22 and change. He doubled and walked twice on Saturday.

Mesa (Beck)

Xavier Isaac, 1B, TBR, 20

Isaac has been very productive thus far. He’s swatted three home runs and collected three doubles through his first eleven games en route to a .936 OPS, but as I’ve written before, I’m not particularly interested in the power numbers. He’s striking out at an alarming rate after a big decline in contact rate over the course of the season, and I’ll be dropping him down a tier or two in my year-end ranking barring a significant development over the last few weeks of the AFL calendar. He was 1-for-3 with a home run, a walk, and two strikeouts in a 5-4 win over Glendale yesterday.

Brooks Brannon, C, BOS, 20

After a brief check, it would appear I have not written about Brannon yet this year, which tracks given his subdued regular season stats. He finished with a .244/.323/.374 line split between the Florida Complex and Single-A Salem, though some of that can be explained by a knee injury that limited him to 62 total games. Now fully healthy, Brannon has an encouraging .300/.364/.475 line in his first 10 AFL games. He notched the other of Mesa’s two home runs in Saturday’s win.

Samy Natera Jr., LHP, LAA, 24

Natera has been lights out in the AFL (literally – he has a 0.00 ERA through 7.0 innings) and is making his third appearance on the rundown. He went 3.0 scoreless, hitless innings against Glendale on Saturday. Here’s what I had to say the last time I wrote about him:

“Natera is a 24-year-old lefty with a longer track record of starting than Rujano but may be likelier to transition to the bullpen in the future. They’ve had similar issues with control (Natera’s minor league walk rate is 11.6% vs. Rujano’s 12.3%), but Natera only used three pitches in his two-inning outing on Sunday: a sinker at 96-98 mph, a slider at 81-83 mph, and a four-seamer at 96-97 mph. He didn’t get as much whiff but has a longer track record of punchout potential (career 31.1% K-rate). He has a solid foundation to work from, and adding an offspeed pitch could help him get righties out more regularly. You never know when a pitcher is going to take off, and I’m not saying he will, but a 6-foot-4 lefty who throws two fastballs in the upper 90’s isn’t the worst gamble out there.”