Live from the Arizona Fall League: November 6, 2024

Chris and Beck break down the Arizona Fall League action from Tuesday.

Hello everyone, happy Wednesday. Tuesday brought us a full slate of AFL action, and we actually got four games thanks to a double-header. Beck is still on-site through the rest of the week, and he got a look at Andrew Painter, which was another strong start.

Let’s break down everything that happened from Tuesday’s Arizona Fall League action.

Arizona Fall League Recap: 11/6/24

Surprise (Chris)

Creed Williams, C, BAL, 21

Willems is a fun player who will likely be a fan favorite if he reaches Baltimore. He was a fun look for me last week as someone who put the bat on a ton and was a scrappy at-bat every time up to the plate. 

Surprise scored just three runs on Tuesday, but Willems was the entire offense. He collected three hits, drove in two, and scored two runs himself. The exit velocities on the three hits were all 102.5 mph or higher, and one wound up being smoked off the wall, which led to an improbable inside-the-park home run. It was an all-around great showing for Creed, who proved the reason Surprise was tied when all was said and done.

Alex Santos II, RHP, HOU, 22

Santos started the game for Surprise and dominated. He tossed a perfect three innings with four strikeouts and four whiffs. I came away pretty impressed when I saw Santos last week in a game where Surprise faced a pretty stacked lineup against Glendale. 

Having a deep arsenal of pitches, Santos throws several variations of his fastball in a four-seam, cutter, and sinker. The four-seam sits near 95 mph, and the sinker closer to 94 mph. Santos’ cutter sits in the upper-80s.

Santos’ slider is a long sweepy pitch that registers up to 15 inches of sweep in the low-80s. The curveball sits in the mid-to-upper 70s with depth and is closer to a 12-6 shape. For Santos, it is all about his command and strike-throwing. On Tuesday, he tossed strikes around an average clip of 62 percent. 

Salt River (Chris)

Dylan Ray, RHP, ARI, 23

Ray turned in a dominant performance by AFL standards on Tuesday. While he only pitched 2.2 innings and allowed six hits, Ray struck out seven batters and did not allow a walk. He threw strikes at an above-average 66 percent clip and generated an impressive 12 whiffs.

Ray features a mid-90s fastball that sometimes fluctuates in velocity from start to start. Some starts are 91-93, and others can be 94-98. It is a strange progression, but he has made it work thanks to consistently 20 inches of IVB, generating a ton of swings underneath it. 

His slider is his best secondary, sitting near 90 mph, with good command. A large portion of his whiffs and chases out of the zone come on the slider. Ray also has a curveball that plays with more of a 12-6 shape and is well distinguished from the slider. The changeup plays more like a splitter and was a key part of his success in 2023. If he can find more consistency with that offering, it could be a very solid four-pitch mix. 

Ben Ross, SS, MIN, 23

Ross was one of the more impressive players I saw in the AFL, despite what the stat line suggests. Spending some time around Ross in early morning BP and INF/OF sessions, I find him to be a highly coachable player. 

There is juice in the bat, evidenced by Ross’s 19 home runs in 2023, and even though that number took a step back in 2024, he is still an interesting bat. On Tuesday, Ross had a four-hit game in which he scored three times and drove in two.

So far in the AFL, Ross has posted above-average exit velocities and good contact rates. All hits were singles on Tuesday; he was peppering the gaps where fielders weren't, showing signs of a hitter who can hit it where it was pitched.

Mesa (Chris)

Jonathan Long, 3B, CHC, 22

Long blasted his fifth AFL home run on an opposite-field shot to right field in the bottom of the ninth. Unfortunately, the Mesa comeback train ended up just short as they dropped the game to Salt River 13-11. Long added a second hit on the night as well.

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.

Mac Horvath, 2B, TB, 23

Horvath has seen minimal playing time this fall in the AFL, playing in just his seventh game. He made the most of his opportunities, though, collecting four hits and driving in three runs. Horvath even swiped two bases. 

Having an up-and-down 2024 season, Horvath was traded from the Orioles to the Rays at the deadline, and in his 444 plate appearances, he slashed .229/.318/.406 with 13 home runs and 35 stolen bases.

Scottsdale (Beck)

Josue Briceno, 1B, DET, 20

Chris has written this before, but Josue Briceno is not a catcher. He’s much larger than he was when I saw him in March – not in a bad way, taller and more filled out – and that will almost certainly necessitate a move off of the position but may also add some oomph to his already sterling batted ball profile. I’ll be writing him up as a first baseman moving forward. He hit his league-leading eighth home run on Tuesday, a shot that left the bat at 108.4 mph and traveled 423 feet, setting him up for a shot at the first double-digit AFL home run total since Mike Olt in 2011 (that nugget brought to you by Aram Leighton, @aramleighton8 on Twitter).

Kervin Pichardo, SS, PIT, 23

Pichardo has never really shown up offensively as a professional but has a sterling line in the AFL thus far (.293/.408/.512). He’s a good athlete, not particularly surprising given he plays a fair amount of shortstop, and I was surprised to see his historical performance because he looks like a ballplayer. He spent the entirety of 2024 with Altoona, where he struck out in 27.9% of his plate appearances, and I don’t think he does enough damage on contact to carry a poor bat-to-ball profile. He was 1-for-2 with a walk and a stolen base in the second game of Scottsdale’s double-header with Glendale on Tuesday.

Adrian Pinto, 2B, TOR, 22

Pinto is pint-sized, no two ways about it. He plays more like a gallon. He only played in 26 games in the regular season because of a rib injury that held him out until July but was excellent once he returned, quickly moving from the Florida Complex to Low-A and ultimately High-A. He’s been hit-over-power historically but I’ve seen him sting a few batted balls that raised an eyebrow and mentally raised his damage ceiling in my mind as a result. He’s walked more than he’s struck out thus far, which is typically notable but perhaps less so in this environment where walks are often more plentiful than hits in any given contest. He finished game two of yesterday’s doubleheader with four walks but was stranded all four times.

Glendale (Beck)

Sean McLain, SS, LAD, 23

I don’t know how I went almost the entire AFL season without recognizing that Sean is Matt McLain’s brother, and frankly, I’m embarrassed by it. I’m noting it here for accountability, but let’s agree not to bring it up again. He’s been one of the best performers of this year’s crop, slashing .318/.483/.591 – tantalizingly close to an absurd .300/.500/.600 line – with three home runs, ten stolen bases, and more walks than strikeouts. He took Kendry Rojas deep in the top of the second with a majestic 106.8 mph shot, punctuated by a bat flip.

Otto Kemp, 3B, PHI, 25

Kemp has played a lot of first base in the AFL. He’s capable enough to play third or second, but his usage here has been interesting. The 25-year-old is coming off of a strong campaign that ended in Triple-A and culminated in a .285/.392/.489 slash (buoyed a bit by a .345 BABIP, .025 points better than 2023). That’s translated pretty cleanly to this environment where he’s slugging over .700 through 15 games and in the conversation for AFL MVP. He launched a grand slam in the 6th inning of game one that left the bat at 107.7 mph and sealed the contest for Glendale.

Andrew Painter, RHP, PHI, 21

Painter is back. He’s dealing with some command issues, particularly on the four-seam fastball, that is customary with a return from Tommy John, but his stuff has returned almost immediately. He’ll be my #1 pitching prospect, barring any surprising posting news regarding Roki Sasaki. I think he’ll move with a timeline similar to the one we observed for Paul Skenes this year. He went 3.0 scoreless, hitless innings yesterday and looked good doing it despite struggling to locate and getting some help from his defense.

Peoria (Beck)

Luis Lara, OF, MIL, 19

Lara can flat-out hit; there’s no doubt about it. I’ve run into this profile before and been enamored (see: Frelick, Sal), but I’m much more hesitant this time around. The problem is that Lara’s hit tool manifests in a lot of singles and not much else, which, for fantasy purposes, is rather hollow. In a pure baseball sense, he’s a good prospect; he plays great defense and gets on base. He’s a major leaguer, but how valuable he’ll be in fantasy is a different question. He finished Tuesday’s slate with two hits in four at-bats (one of which was a double, bucking my earlier point about all singles) and added two stolen bases.

Brock Wilken, 3B, MIL, 22

Wilken hasn’t had the AFL bounceback we’d hoped to see. He’s pacing for a worse performance out here than he had in the regular season, which was a little easier to dismiss, given the pitch he took to the noggin. I have heard various non-baseball reasons explaining why his mind may not be entirely on baseball and find them compelling, but at some point, rubber has to meet the road. He was 1-for-2 with a home run, a walk, and a strikeout on Tuesday in one of his better nights of the AFL circuit.

Ethan Salas, C, SDP, 18

Salas launched his third homer of the AFL on Tuesday. His line thus far has been a vast improvement over his regular season. Unlike some of the older players on the circuit, there may be something to take away from his rebound against comparatively older competition. His underlying data was solid for much of the regular season, and it seems to translate into a friendlier offensive environment. Asking him to be productive in High-A while learning the nuances of the catcher position may have been too tall of a task, and I’m willing to grant him a little leniency. I think he’ll be a volatile prospect in terms of valuation until he debuts.