Arizona Fall Leauge + LIDOM Recap: October 18, 2024

LIDOM

It was a slow day of action with few standout performers in the two games that were played. Deyvison De Los Santos made his winter league debut, going 0-3 with a strikeout. Jordan Lawlar reached base once via walk and struck out three times. Orelvis Martinez walked twice and scored the other run for Licey.

Mesa (Chris)

Jonathon Long, 1B, CHC, 22

Long led the way for Mesa on Thursday, collecting three hits; two singles and a double. He added a lineout that traveled 368 feet with a 101 mph exit velocity. With bat tracking data available in Salt River, we can see Long posting some highly impressive bat speeds, as high as 79 mph. Two of his hits left the bat with exit velocities of 111.7 and 110.4 mph. 

During the regular season, Long enjoyed a massive breakout in 2024 between High-A and Double-A, posting a .283/.391/.461 slash with 17 home runs and 21 doubles.

Putting up solid exit velocities, Long has shown the ability to get the ball in the air, with a 61 percent air percentage. The biggest flaw is that Long needs to pull the ball more. In Double-A, the pull rate was just 24.6 percent, something we would like to see improved. The 90th percentile exit velocity of 105 mph is above-average and he is capable of getting to home run power.

Brooks Brannon, C, BOS, 20

This is the second straight day that Brannon made the report thanks to another good performance. Three hits, all singles, but Brannon but up some strong exit velocities, with one of them as high as 107.5 mph. His performance in Arizona has looked quite good to this point.

Brannon was a 2022 ninth-round prep bat who received an over-slot $712k bonus. Much of his career has been riddled with injury, and this year in Single-A, a knee injury limited him to just 54 games. The slash line sat at .251/.326/.396 with six home runs and 16 extra-base hits. 

Ben Cowles, UTL, CHC, 24

For the second time in three days, Cowles put up a multi-hit performance. While both hits were singles, Cowles did have a long fly out to center field. While there were no standout exit velocities or anything of that nature, he smoked two line drives and is picking things up this week after a slow start to the AFL.

I have loved Cowles as a potential UTL type since I saw him last year in Arizona. He has a strong glove at all infield positions and has solid contact and on-base skills. Don’t be surprised when he is in Chicago next year.

Scottsdale (Chris)

Bryce Eldridge, 1B, SF, 19

It has been a rather slow start to the fall league for Eldridge who was one of the minors hottest hitters to end the year. It is highly possible Eldridge is exhausted, given he played a full minor league season, even reaching Triple-A and is now out for an extra month of work in Arizona.

On Thursday, Eldridge blasted a ninth-inning home run off Jun-Seok Shim for his first AFL home run, and he added a double earlier in the game. Eldridge did reach base a third time via walk but also stuck out three times in the game. 

If there are struggles the rest of the way in Arizona, I would honestly put little stock into it, given the long season.

Sammy Siani, OF, PIT, 23

Siani just keeps hitting. He made the report yesterday after a two-hit game and today after he tallied a three-hit day on Thursday. Two singles and a double were the box score, and Siani has continued to show impressive bat-to-ball skills all AFL. It is a much-needed performance for him.

Siani is a former first-round pick in 2019 but has failed to live up to the hype over the years. Spending most of 2024 in Double-A Altoona, Siani slashed .265/.338/.401 with nine home runs and 33 extra-base hits. 

Peyton Williams, 1B, TOR, 24

Williams is a big boy with big power. Standing at 6’5”/255, the former Iowa Hawkeye gets to juice with ease. While he has not hit a home run yet in the fall league, he did collect two hits, both doubles, in Thursday’s action. He has only been featured in three AFL games so far, but had four hits in 15 trips to the plate.

During the regular season, Williams missed time due to injury, but over his 363 plate appearances, he slashed .288/.375/.476 with 11 home runs and 22 doubles.

Surprise (Chris)

Jake Cunningham, OF, BAL, 22

Cunningham collected the hardest hit ball of the day on Thursday, mashing a single 114.4 mph. Sure, it had a negative two-degree launch angle, but 114 is 114, nonetheless. Cunningham added a second hit on the night, which was also a single, raising his slash in Arizona to .391/.423/.652 in 26 plate appearances. 

A 2023 fifth-round pick out of Charlotte, Cunningham missed a decent chunk of time during the regular season, reaching just 350 plate appearances. He slashed just .220/.312/.308 with four home runs and 11 doublers during that time and struck out more than 30 percent of the time. The good news is, so far in the fall league, he has a respectable 77 percent contact rate with a 94 percent in-zone contact.

Alex Santos II, RHP, HOU, 22

Santos was a buzzy name when he was selected in the second round of the 2020 draft out of high school, but has never really been able to put things together to this point. After throwing just 23 innings during the regular season, the Astros sent Santos to Arizona for additional work. 

He looked quite good on Thursday, firing three scoreless innings with one hit and walk allowed a piece while striking out six. Santos generated seven whiffs on 20 swings and added 11 more called strikes. Thirty-one of his 50 pitches were landed for strikes. 

Santos’ fastball averaged 96 during the start and he utilized a cutter, slider, and curveball. The fastball averaged 16 inches of IVB with good arm-side movement. The upper-80s cutter looks like a good bridge pitch to the slider which sits in the 82-84 range with some carry and sweep. Santos dials it way back with the curveball to around 78 mph with good depth and an 11-5 shape.

Salt River (Beck)

Tommy Troy, 2B, ARI, 22

It was a tough 12 months for Tommy Troy, no two ways about it. He suffered a foot injury to end the 2023 season that required surgery, then strained a hamstring in April that was likely caused by a previous groin issue. He missed almost two months of game action before returning to Hillsboro and never found his groove from there on out. After the injury he posted a .238/.339/.361 slash with four home runs and 11 stolen bases (caught five times, though) in what was a stark departure from his college track record and his previous 99 plate appearance sample at the level the year prior. I’m giving him somewhat of a pass given his data didn’t entirely crater but rather looks like what you might expect from a player who isn’t quite right. He had the best night of any AFLer on Thursday, finishing a single shy of the cycle in a  3-for-5 night.

Gino Groover, 3B, ARI, 22

I was pretty hyped for the Diamondbacks’ 2023 draft class after they went Troy-Groover in rounds one and two. Unfortunately, both suffered injuries in April that held them out for extended time, and in Groover’s case, it was a broken wrist that had to be surgically repaired and kept him sidelined for nearly three months. He played well while he was on the field, compiling a .272/.360/.457 line, seven home runs, and three stolen bases over 40 games with Hillsboro. It wasn’t totally supported by underlying data, though I would expect a major wrist injury to sap some power. He launched seven home runs over his last 17 games, all of which came roughly six weeks post-return from injury, and his power output from here on out will be something I’m watching closely. He was 2-for-3 with a walk and three runs scored on Thursday.

Kristian Robinson, OF, ARI, 23

Robinson was on yesterday’s rundown – I would encourage you to read that iteration for a more in-depth breakdown of how I feel about him going forward – and returns today after a 1-for-2 night that included a walk, a run scored, and two stolen bases. There are no questions about his tools, really, but he needs to make strides eliminating strikeouts for them to matter.

Peoria (Beck)

Ethan Salas, C, SD, 18

It was kind of a ho-hum night for Salas as he continues his hot stretch in the desert. He finished 2-for-4 with a walk, two RBIs, and a stolen base, raising his AFL slash to .333/.364/.600 through seven games. He’s still striking out a fair bit, but he’s tied for second in RBIs and tied for fourth in hits thus far at just 18 years old. I said it yesterday, but I think the industry was hasty pushing him way up fantasy lists and equally hasty yanking him off of them. I’m not totally sold – he’s a catcher, the bat trails his defense by solid margin, what-have-you, but there’s a lot of runway before he’s fully grown into his body.

Juan Baez, 2B, MIL, 19

Baez signed for $10,000 in 2022 and has since pushed his way to Single-A, though the results along the path haven’t really stood out. He’s hit for average but has almost no thunder in the bat at present with just nine career homers over 838 minor league plate appearances, and though we usually expect young players to grow into power, his frame doesn’t provide for a lot of imagination. He missed a little bit of time with an undisclosed injury this summer which likely explains his AFL designation, but the Brewers have also been known to push international youngsters of late. He had a home run and three RBIs in a 3-for-4 night on Thursday, bringing his AFL line to .524/.583/.857 through his first six games.

Kemp Alderman, 1B, MIA, 22

Last year’s second-rounder out of Ole Miss is a southern behemoth listed at 6-foot-2, 250 pounds, and he’s done what you might expect someone of his stature to do thus far in the AFL – lead the league in home runs and strike out in 31.3% of plate appearances. Neither of those dynamics were as pronounced during his 77 regular season games across the FCL, Single-A, High-A, and Double-A (quick mover!) as he managed just eight home runs but carried a 24.4% strikeout rate. He’s pacing to be one of the biggest risers in this year’s AFL class and I can think of worse profiles to bet on than a guy who has registered a 116.8 mph EV. 

Glendale (Beck)

Colson Montgomery, SS, CHW, 22

Glendale managed just three hits and scored a single run on Thursday. Montgomery, on the other hand, did just fine with one hit and two walks. Reports from people on the ground say he looks much better physically than he did last year and during the regular season, which tracks pretty well with both his public and private injury record. He’s up to a .353/.607/.588 line and is tied for first with nine walks through seven games.

Eriq Swan, RHP, LAD, 22

Swan is simultaneously one of the more unknown players in this year’s AFL crop and one I’m most excited to see when I arrive in a little under two weeks. He’s an enormous 6-foot-6, 240 pound righty out of Middle Tennessee State. He’s thrown just 28.1 innings as a pro due in large part to an injury he sustained in his first 2024 start that held him out until June. He has a huge fastball from a high release point that regularly runs in the high-90’s, a gyro slider, and a changeup, and could be the kind of arm that moves quickly if he can get his control in check. He walked 12.8% of batters in the regular season (14.7% with Rancho Cucamonga), but made progress in that department with 3.0 scoreless innings, five strikeouts, and zero free passes against Surprise yesterday.