Live From The Arizona Fall League + Team USA: November 4, 2024

Chris and Beck break down their live looks from the weekend in the AFL and Team USA scrimmage.

I(Chris) am now back home in South Carolina, but luckily, Beck is in town through this entire week. We have a ton more live coverage to bring you from the AFL and even Team USA, who has been working and scrimmaging in the Phoenix area for the last few days.

Today, we have a great breakdown of what happened this weekend in the AFL and in the Team USA action. All live looks and our takeaways on what matters from the games.

Arizona Fall League and Team USA Recap: 11/4/24

Glendale (No Game-Rain)

Scottsdale (No Game-Rain)

Salt River (Chris)

Tommy Troy, 2B, ARI, 22

Troy looked excellent in my looks this week in Arizona. On Saturday, he hit a mammoth home run to give Salt River the lead early. Watching Troy and talking to Will Garafalo who worked with Hillsboro(Arizona’s High-A affiliate), I think its’s clear that Troy played injured most of the year.

He has a strong and compact frame, and Troy is a good runner. The power is probably average at best, but I do think Troy has a good feel to hit. Look for a bounce back in 2025./

Carlos Lagrange, RHP, NYY, 21

Lagrange was on my list as one of the top arms I wanted to see in Arizona. Standing at 6’7”, Lagrange is armed with a big fastball and slider combo, and on Saturday, he posted the most Lagrange esq stat line. He tossed 2.1 scoreless, no-hit innings. Lagrange did not strike out a batter and walked three.

Even though he is likely a bullpen arm, Lagrange can punish hitters with his 97-99 mph fastball and throws a slider in the upper-80s. He is a fun arm to watch, even if the command is sub-par.

Kristian Robinson, OF, ARI, 23

If we are honest, I have pretty much written off Robinson as a prospect at this point. The soon-to-be-24-year-old was once a top prospect, but legal trouble caused him to miss significant time. The tools took a step back this year, and Robinson made contact on less than 60 percent of pitches he swung at, one of the worst marks in baseball.

Robinson is looking to prove me wrong, though, as he showed flashes throughout the week. He is physically as gifted as they come, standing at 6’3” and a chiseled 190-pound frame. On Saturday, he collected two hits, which included two hard-hit balls. Even if the tools have taken a step back, there is still a lot to like from a power standpoint. Contact will be quite telling about his future.

Mesa (Chris)

Tre’ Morgan, 1B/OF, TB, 22

Morgan is one of the best pure hitters in baseball. The approach is old-school, but I really appreciate watching a hitter like this consistently hit and rarely swing and miss. His two-strike approach includes Morgan getting extremely wide and choking up about three inches on the bat. 

Morgan also looked incredible in the outfield. Spending his time in left field every game I saw him in, Morgan truly impressed with good range and the ability to get to balls that it did not look like he would. 

While Morgan is not likely more than a 12-15 home run bat, he is an everyday regular in the majors. The profile is just so unique and good.

Surprise (Beck)

Creed Willems, C, BAL, 21

Willems can really hit. He left Saturday’s game with three hits in six plate appearances, including a double. My concern is that I don’t think he’s a primary catcher, and I’m not sure how often Baltimore would be comfortable deploying him as the backup for fear of runners taking advantage of his arm. That puts him in a tough spot defensively, as he’s never played anywhere but behind the plate or at first base. I do think there’s enough bat to be a big leaguer, though, and he registered three hard-hit balls against Peoria to prove it (95.1, 103.8, and 106.2 mph).

Chase DeLauter, OF, CLE, 23

DeLauter’s here not because I learned anything new about him – he’s really good when healthy and less so when he isn’t – but because he nearly killed Jun-Seok Shim. One of his two hits on the night was a 105.0 mph liner right back up in the middle, and Shim barely got his hands up in time to knock down. Luckily, he did and was able to remain in the game. DeLauter finished 1-for-3 with a trio of walks.

Brett Squires, OF, KCR, 24

Squires passes the bus test. He looks like a ballplayer and performs like one when he makes enough contact; the problem is that it’s fleeting. He struck out in 25.9% of all plate appearances in High-A this year as a 24-year-old, and you’d prefer a better figure given his age at the level. His mechanics can be inconsistent – he has a prominent stride that isn’t always well-timed – which leads to poor contact or none at all. He had a great year despite his strikeout rate, launching six home runs and swiping 16 bags in 62 games, but it’s hard to put too much weight on that until we see how he fares against better pitching (and he’s not being exposed to it in the AFL). He has a strikeout rate of over 33% through 15 games (67 plate appearances) with Surprise.

Shane Panzini, RHP, KCR, 24

Panzini has been one of the most impressive ostensible starters I’ve seen out here. That’s a commentary on both him and the quality of pitching present in this year’s crop (I haven’t seen Painter or Taylor yet). He came on in relief following Luinder Avila, who looked good in his own right but has a startling lack of command/control and tossed 2.1 scoreless frames with three walks and four strikeouts. He carried a 37% whiff rate (seven whiffs on 19 swings) with his fastball (93 - 96 mph) and cutter (89 - 92 mph) doing the heavy lifting. His four-seamer had pretty decent carry (17 inches of IVB), and the whiffs were primarily under it. I’m a sucker for a good fastball, and the cutter played more like a hard slider, which was very effective in building off of the heater. Panzini is firmly on my watch list.

Peoria (Beck)

Andrew Pintar, OF, MIA, 23

It started to downpour in the top of the eighth inning, which initially felt like mercy from a sloppy game that included 22 total walks. Peoria had loaded the bases by way of two free passes and a single, and there wasn’t a sign that we were going to have many competitive at-bats left in this one. However, we were hopeful to stick it out and see the top of the Peoria lineup in the top of the ninth. Just as I had retrieved my camera and stuffed it into my bag, Andrew Pintar launched a grand slam that would constitute the majority of Peoria’s scoring. So it goes. It left the bat at 106.7 mph and gave him a final line of 2-for-5 with four RBIs.

Leo De Vries, SS, SDP, 18

It feels like De Vries made it his mission to rebut the blurb I wrote a few days ago about his defensive acumen. He’s committed a couple of errors in the days since, the most recent a booted ball on a strange hop that he was trying to be a bit too quick with. It’s not an uncommon error to make, especially at 18 years old, and it doesn’t change my outlook on him. He finished 1-for-4 with an RBI and registered a 109.9 mph line drive.

Jun-Seok Shim, RHP, MIA, 20

Besides nearly getting beheaded by a Chase DeLauter liner in the seventh, Shim didn’t look like the same guy he was prior to his shoulder injury. He was sitting just 92.4 mph on his fastball, relied largely on two pitches, and threw only seven of his 25 pitches for strikes. He made his way to Miami in the Bryan De La Cruz trade in July and hadn’t pitched until getting to the AFL as he recovered from injury, so I’m inclined to weigh what I saw pretty lightly. Still, it was concerning.

Premier 12 (Beck)

Matt Shaw, 2B, CHC, 22

Shaw looked like a top prospect in baseball, which isn’t entirely unexpected given the competition. Team USA was scrimmaging Benedictine Community College and the average fastball velocity was in the 85 mph ballpark. He did what he should against the pitching of that quality, lacing both a single and a stand-up triple to the opposite field. The primary reason for the blurb is his defense; Team USA had him stationed at third base, and while I only saw him get two chances, both provided evidence that he doesn’t have the arm requisite for the position. My best bet is that he’ll play second base long-term.

Justin Crawford, OF, PHI, 20

Crawford is a lot more physically impressive in person. I was about ten feet from the Team USA on-deck circle, which meant I got to measure the players up better than I can from the stands, and he was one of the more impressive athletes I saw. He had a standup triple that caromed off the right field wall, just short of a homer, that I was able to get on film (@upper_beck).

Chandler Simpson, OF, TBR, 23

Simpson stole 104 bags in the regular season and is a popular sleeper in early NFBC drafts as a late-round source of swipes. I only caught a couple of his at-bats, so take this with a grain of salt, but he didn’t look as evidently fast as Victor Scott did last year. Speed isn’t the only trait of a good base stealer, of course, and I know he’s an 80-runner, but he did get nailed on a stolen base attempt by a community college catcher yesterday. This is more noise than signal and I wouldn’t move off Simpson as a stolen base threat in high-stakes redraft formats, I just thought it was funny.