Beck's Minor League Threecap: 6/12/2024
Beck breaks down three major things you need to know from yesterday's MiLB action.
Late night posting. Where my night owls at? My day job is picking up so it was a long day at work followed by a lovely dinner with my fiancée and friends. Picking this up at 10:00 CT, so we’ll see when this goes live. Nevertheless I hope you enjoy!
Bay Area Boys.
There is not a lot out there on Lisbel Diaz (SFG). Finding reports from folks who have seen him live is very difficult, and in fact I could not locate his signing bonus from the 2023 IFA period. He had a respectable .312/.386/.455 slash in 22 DSL games last year and Eric Longenhagen reported (albeit opaquely) that his underlying power and contact figures were promising. Now an 18-year-old, Diaz is tearing up the Arizona Complex League through his first 15 games. He’s popped four home runs and collected three doubles through his first 56 plate appearances en route to a .426/.482/.745 slash (that’s a 1.227 OPS for all my math heads) while striking out at just a 14.3% clip. I’ve not seen much of him live, but what I can tell you from the snippets I have seen is that he looks very impressive and has a beautiful, if unorthodox, swing from the right side of the plate. He starts his hands almost on his back hip and throws them forward without much of a load whatsoever, which would typically make it difficult to generate power but that hasn’t seemed like an issue. I’m very intrigued by him and his 4-for-4 night with two doubles and a home run on Tuesday didn’t hurt.
Bryce Eldridge (SFG) is on a tear. He has four home runs, two doubles, and 11 total hits in his last nine games for the San Jose Giants, bringing his total slash to .280/.332/.509 for the year. He was the 16th overall pick last summer as a cold weather prep hailing from the same high school that produced James Triantos in 2021, though he couldn’t be a more different player. He’s a behemoth – and I mean that almost literally – standing 6-foot-7 and listed at 223 pounds with limited defensive versatility but big time power. The Giants have shown something of a penchant for this kind of profile after taking two-way players in back-to-back drafts, but Reggie Crawford transitioned to full-time pitching while Eldridge has not pitched since becoming a professional. He checked in at #82 in my off-season top 100 and has flown up to #44 by way of performance and a smattering of graduations. He’ll have to learn how to best cover his enormous strike zone as he moves through the minor leagues (he’s running a 26.4% K-rate in Single-A, which is manageable but liable to balloon against better pitching), but the offensive upside here is immense. He was 3-for-4 with two home runs, a double, and five RBIs on Tuesday.
Florida Men.
I haven’t talked or written about Yoniel Curet (TBR) in a little over a month, so consider this a scheduled update. I think he’s one of the most underrated pitching prospects in baseball, which is bizarre to me because his results in 2023 were unreal. He pitched to a 2.94 ERA while striking out 144 batters over 104.0 innings split between Single- and High-A, and the only thing I can think of is that the risk he becomes a reliever is too overwhelming for some to stomach. His walk rate has improved year-over-year (14.0% in 2024 vs. 16.7%), and while that’s not a particularly fantastic figure and will certainly need to come down, there’s a lot of time for that improvement to come to fruition. There’s some low-hanging fruit in his delivery I think the Rays can hammer out, and frankly, this quality of stuff is rare for a 21-year-old. I’m not jumping on him just yet – he’s somewhere between #200 and #250, probably – but I’m also not so sure what separates him from someone like Mick Abel. Similar problems, you know? Curet tossed 7.0 shutty on Tuesday with 11 strikeouts.
Jacob Miller (MIA) is from Baltimore. Oh, you thought I meant Maryland? Wrong. Baltimore, Ohio, and better luck next time! He had my attention early in 2023 after he was promoted to Single-A with just 8.1 innings on his Complex League resume but he hasn’t done a ton to keep it since. He ultimately finished with a 4.36 ERA across 64.0 innings, which is a fine number and shouldn’t be taken all too seriously, but he also managed a meager 21.0% strikeout rate in that time. Now in High-A as a 20-year-old, Miller’s control has improved, his fastball has been more effective, and he’s pitched his way to a 2.85 ERA over 47.0 innings this season. There’s not a ton of ceiling, but he has a legitimate chance to stick as a back-end starter if everything breaks right. He went 6.0 scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts on Tuesday.
Cheating (For a Good Cause).
I’m trying something a little different to make up for the lack of a table yesterday, and that’s putting together a pseudo-table based on arms I think I would have recommended had I written a Threecap on Monday. It’s kind of cheating but I think it’s a value-add, so here it is!
Here’s Thursday’s viewing guide with my recommendations italicized, as usual:
Yorman Galindez (2.67 ERA) for the Carolina Mudcats (MIL) at 6:30 ET
Travis Sykora (4.43 ERA) for the Fredericksburg Nationals (WSH) at 6:30 ET
Adam Serwinowski (3.18 ERA) for the Daytona Tortugas (CIN) at 6:35 ET
Brock Selvidge (3.07 ERA) for the Somerset Patriots (NYY) at 6:35 ET
Will Warren (7.24 ERA) for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (NYY) at 6:45 ET
Matt Wilkinson (3.00 ERA) for the Lake County Captains (CLE) at 7:00 ET
Samuel Aldegheri (3.00 ERA) for the Jersey Shore BlueClaws (PHI) at 7:05 ET
Carson Palmquist (2.96 ERA) for the Hartford Yard Goats (COL) at 7:10 ET
Brett Wichrowski (5.96 ERA) for the Biloxi Shuckers (MIL) at 7:35 ET
Yilber Diaz (0.00 ERA) for the Reno Aces (ARI) at 9:35 ET
Sean Sullivan (2.60 ERA) for the Spokane Indians (COL) at 10:05 ET