Beck's Minor League Threecap: 6/9/2024

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

I’m posting before 1:00 AM CT, everybody clap! I spent six hours in the car today and the very first thing I’m doing after wrapping up the long trek home is diving into Minor League box scores. Away we go!

Colt .45, Full of Led.

Today we’re talking about a pair of second-rounders from the 2023 draft, starting with Colton Ledbetter (TBR). He started his college career at Samford before transferring to Mississippi State where he went on to post a .320/.452/.574 slash in his platform year before going 55th overall last summer. He’d demonstrated exceptional plate and bat-to-ball skills albeit with middling batted ball quality (104.4 mph 90th percentile EV with metal), though the skill set that was expected to shine hasn’t yet translated as a professional. He has a career 27.7% strikeout rate over 271 minor league plate appearances spread across Rookie Ball, Single-A, and High-A, and he hasn’t been slugging enough to carry his profile. It’s entirely possible he makes an adjustment and becomes the hitter we knew as an amateur, but it was already somewhat fringy offensively and will require a real jump in either quantity or quality of contact. He hit his fifth and sixth home runs of the year in a 2-for-4 effort on Saturday.

Mac Horvath (BAL) went two picks earlier than Ledbetter at 53 after an extremely productive platform year at UNC in which he slashed .305/.418/.711, hit 24 home runs, and swiped 25 bags in 60 games. He carried that momentum into a scintillating 99 plate appearance sample post-draft and he caught a lot of buzz as a player with a chance to contribute as both a power and speed threat at the next level. In some ways his profile was opposite that of Ledbetter’s – geared for impact and exceptionally toolsy but with real questions about how the hit tool will translate – but hasn’t unfolded how we’d expected. Horvath has a career 21.9% strikeout rate and a respectable .813 OPS as a minor leaguer, though 2024 has been a slog and he’s currently sitting at a .692 OPS with High-A Aberdeen. He went 4-for-6 with three doubles and a home run on Saturday.

Guess Who’s Baz, Baz Again.

We all loved Shane Baz (TBR) as a true prospect and later when he came up and looked electric over a 40.1 inning sample with the big league club. He’s been rehabbing from Tommy John surgery after he went under the knife in September of 2022 and got his first taste of game action in 20 months in the beginning of May. He’s been shaky, which is entirely to be expected, primarily because his command/control were unreliable early on, but I’m happy to report Saturday was his best outing yet on the road back to the bigs. He went 5.0 innings and allowed just five baserunners and one earned run while striking out 10.

This is Brandyn Garcia (SEA)’s second Threecap appearance of the year, and he probably should have more. He’s pitched his way to a 2.50 ERA through 50.1 innings with High-A Everett with 60 strikeouts to 23 walks. He last appeared on the May 16th edition, here’s what I had to say then:

An 11th rounder last summer, Brandyn Garcia made the vast majority of his appearances for Texas A&M out of the bullpen including all 27 in his platform year. The Mariners are throwing him largely as a starter (five of seven appearances as the starter), which makes sense given his 6-foot-4 build and left-handed delivery, and Seattle has done more with less even in recent years. His low three-quarters release looks rather tricky for batters of the same handedness. He had his best outing as a professional (by far) yesterday, going 5.0 strong innings with 11 strikeouts. He conceded one run on four hits.

Santos Claus is Comin’ to Town. 

Outside of a couple of blowups by Dylan Lesko and Mason Black, it was a pretty good day for the table. Winston Santos bounced back from a tough outing last time around (3.2 IP, 8 H, 4 ER), Yorman Galindez lowered his ERA to 2.67, McDermott continued to make his case for a call-up in Baltimore, and both Mavis Graves and Shane Baz punched out 10 batters.

You know the drill – no viewing guide for Mondays!