Beck's Minor League Threecap: 4/10/24

Beck breaks down three major things you need to know from yesterday's MiLB action.

Hello, all! We’re on to week three of minor league baseball – can you believe it? It’s the first full week of games for all levels but Triple-A, so we’re still seeing a lot of debuts and waiting for meaningful markers of true skill gains or losses.

Tuesday’s MILB Standouts

Have You Forgotten About Us?

I’ve been fairly adamant over the offseason that a slow (by his standards) post-draft debut from Dylan Crews (WSH) shouldn’t change your evaluation of him. It didn’t help that he started his 2024 by going 0-13 with seven strikeouts over the weekend, and I saw a number of folks on Twitter questioning his elite prospect status. If you are in a league with an owner who is feeling skittish about Crews, I strongly recommend feeling out a price. Development is not linear, and true skill gain and regression for prospects with his amateur track record does not happen over a weekend. Crews went 4-for-5 on Tuesday with a home run that left the bat at 114 mph. Another one of his hits had a 109 mph exit velocity.

Matt Mervis (CHC) was all the rage after his hellacious 2022, when he managed to improve his strikeout rate at every level while climbing all the way to Triple-A. He capped that season with an AFL campaign that included six home runs in 68 plate appearances. His major league debut went spectacularly poorly, but he continued to mash at Triple-A. Still, he was largely dismissed by the fantasy community. He kept up his Triple-A hijinks on Tuesday with four hits in five plate appearances including a double and a home run. His underlying data from last year was strong – he had a 106 mph 90th percentile EV – and he may yet settle into a solid regular role at first base.

Like Mervis, Jhonkensy Noel (CLE) was once a rather highly regarded fantasy prospect. His age 19 season in 2021 across Rookie Ball, Single-A, and High-A looked like we had a premier power hitter in the making on our hands. He had slugged 19 home runs en route to a 1.005 OPS while striking out just 21.4% of the time. We were right about the power part – no doubt about it – but his hit tool could not handle advanced pitching. A 41% chase rate in 2023 led to a 26.6% K-rate, and his average exit velocity showed that he was producing a lot of weak contact despite depositing 27 baseballs in the seats. It’s been a slow start to 2024, but he got on the home run leaderboard with his first of the year last night in a 2-for-5 effort. He had four RBIs.

You Don’t Have to Swing the Bat to Have A Good Time.

Kendall George (LAD) posted a pretty rare line on Tuesday with Rancho Cucamonga. He had five plate appearances, and that’s not unusual whatsoever, but he walked in all five of them. It brought his on-base percentage to .615 through three games and turned his slash line into a hilarious .167/.615/.167, which is the kind of line you can only achieve in a small sample. He had a .458 OBP in 28 games after the draft and was judicious about his swings – he offered at just 42% of all pitches – and if he’s showing this kind of discipline, he can really let his 80-grade legs go to work. As far as prep hit tools go, his seems solid. There’s a lot of intrigue here.

I liked Gabriel Rincones Jr. (PHI) quite a bit when I was at the Arizona Fall League. He has an exceptional frame at 6-foot-3, 225 lbs, and hits the ball extremely hard (2023 90th percentile EV was >107 mph). He hit 15 home runs and swiped 32 bags last year, but last night, he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he took four free passes in five plate appearances, raising his early-season OBP to .444. He has two home runs in four games to open the year for Double-A Reading.

Ball-Throwers.

Cade Kuehler (ATL) was Atlanta’s second-round selection with the 70th selection in last summer’s draft out of Campbell University. He has an excellent fastball that sits just under 95 mph with excellent shape, and he mixes in four other distinct offerings, of which his slider and cutter stand out. He’s yet to surrender an earned run as a pro (11 innings), including a scoreless four-inning outing on Tuesday in which he fanned seven of the 18 batters he faced.

Moises Chace (BAL) is a 6-foot-1, 215 lb righty out of Venezuela who struck out 100 batters over 68 innings in his age 20 season for Single-A Delmarva. I don’t know much about him, admittedly, but he signed for $225K a few years ago as Baltimore re-engaged the international market and has found success largely in relief. He struck out nine over four innings of work on Tuesday in his first appearance for High-A Aberdeen.

Blade Tidwell (NYM) is just a standout name. He also had a pretty solid 2023, posting 153 strikeouts in 116 innings and a 3.57 ERA. Unfortunately, he’s had some problems with control that make his future as a starter a little murky (career 4.9 BB/9), and he’ll probably be a back-end rotation arm who flashes #2 or #3 upside but is frustrated with the rate of free passes. His first outing of 2024 was encouraging, though, as he went 5.2 scoreless for Binghamton with five strikeouts, two walks, and three hits allowed.