Cleveland Sports Forum

Interesting stuff, thanks civ.

Baseball America presason Top 100
Our best is no 62. Freeman. Espino 64 Rocchio 66. Valera 68. Arias 100. Jones drops out is our No 6. Followed by Logan Jr. gavin williams. Naylor. Angel Martinez

Civ,

Have the Guardians shown any interest in Oscar Colás? He's a Cuban and 22 years old. You know how much I like these guys. He's being compared with Ohtani. Hasn't quite lived up to that expectation yet. He's supposed to be one of the best prospects to come out of Cuba in years. I read where he may be headed to the White Sox. Jose Abreu may have a lot to say about it if he does sign with them. Jose's done a great job getting these young guys into Sox uniforms. When I first saw him, Oscar reminded me of Puig.

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White Sox to sign Colás, Hernandez

January 15th, 2022

The highly anticipated signing of Oscar Colás is becoming a reality.

Colás, age 22, who ranks No. 5 on MLB.com’s Top 50 International Prospects list, has agreed to a $2.7 million deal with the White Sox, according to industry sources. The White Sox have also agreed to a deal with outfielder Erick Hernandez, No. 28, for $1 million.

[ The White Sox - The Cuban Connection ]

[ Colas, who made a commitment to the Sox months ago, joins a deep pool of Cuban talent in the Sox' organization that includes Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert, Cuban-born Yasmani Grandal, Cespedes and Norge Vera, another prospect. ]

The White Sox, who have a base signing pool of $5,179,700, have not confirmed the deals.

The 6-foot-1, 209-pound Colás can play all three outfield positions but will likely end up in one of the corners because of his strong arm. He has pitched in the past, and his repertoire features a 95 mph fastball, but his days on the mound are over.

Colás can hit. In 2019, the left-handed batter hit .302/.350/.516 with 11 home runs in the Minors for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan and .278 with one home run in seven games for the organization’s Nippon Professional Baseball club. He did not pitch for either team.

In three years of Cuba’s Serie Nacional, he hit .305 and slugged .487 with nine homers. He slashed .289/.389/.533 in 54 at-bats in 2019, his third and final season for Santiago in Cuba’s Serie Nacional.

G's signed a couple of the top 50 international prospects, but no one terribly high rated. Let me find the story and post it.

I saw something about 2 16yr old Venezuelan kids getting most of the money and the rest signing for the minimum or close to it.

https://www.cleveland.com/guardians/202 ... turis.html

That seems to be the way they usually do it.

at a site called "Covering the Corner" they use a democratic model of prospect ranking, with site visitors voting on each spot. The top half dozen are like most rankings, gets a bit more subjective thereafter with some bias to those closer to the majors rated higher, but not unreasonable at all.

1. Valera OF
2. Rocchio SS
3. Freeman SS.2B
4 Espino RHP
5 Arias SS
6 Jones 3b?
7 Allen LHP
8 G, Williams RHP
9 Palacios UT
10 Noel 1b?
11 Kwan OF
12 Morris RHP
13 Tena ss
14 Lavastida C?
15 Halpin CF
16 Naylor C
17 looks like the voters are going to go for Battenfield RHP
on the current "ballot" are X Curry, A Martinez, I Greene, O Gonzalez, T Burns, T Myers, D Nikhazy

Keith Law came out with his new rankings today - highest was Rocchio at #22:

22. Brayan Rocchio, SS, Cleveland Guardians
Age: 21 | 5-10 | 170 pounds
Bats: Both | Throws: Right

Previous ranking: No. 99

Rocchio is a switch-hitting shortstop with surprising pop for his size, above-average defense at short and a great feel for the game on both sides of the ball. I apologize if I’ve inadvertently reminded Guardians fans of anyone in particular. Rocchio does a little of everything, and his 2021 season, where he went .277/.346/.460 between High A and Double A as a 20-year-old, is even more impressive given that he didn’t get to play anywhere in 2020, not even the Guardians’ alternate site. Rocchio has a short swing with quick wrists, but he generates more power than you might guess for a wiry 5-10 middle infielder, with real strength in his wrists, with 15 homers in 108 games last year. Rocchio’s a 55 runner but doesn’t always show it, and he’s a below-average base stealer, perhaps the only real flaw in his game. It’s an exciting package, and he’s a player who’ll probably be underestimated right up until he hits his way onto an All-Star team.

29. George Valera, OF, Cleveland Guardians
Age: 21 | 5-11 | 185 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left

Previous ranking: No. 76

Valera signed for $1.3 million way back in 2017, but due to multiple injuries and the lost 2020 season, he still has just 599 pro plate appearances, or just over one year’s worth. When he’s played, however, he’s shown exceptional patience and easy all-fields power, with 100 walks and 28 homers already in that brief career, all before he turned 21 this past November. Valera only played 86 games last year due to an oblique strain and had a weird season at the plate, barely facing any left-handed pitchers — they accounted for about 18 percent of his plate appearances — which skews his overall line, especially since he struck out in more than a third of those plate appearances against southpaws. He plays with a lot of panache — I believe “swaggy” might be the more contemporary term, fellow kids — and bat-flips his home runs like a boss. He has bat speed, big strength and an advanced eye at the plate, along with solid-average defense for right field, and there’s just an electricity to the way he plays. He’s not a finished product, due in no small part to his limited playing time, but he might be a 30-homer/80-walk guy at his peak.

51. Daniel Espino, RHP, Cleveland Guardians
Age: 21 | 6-2 | 205 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 24 in 2019

Previous ranking: Unranked

Espino was the 24th pick in 2019, part of a run of hard-throwing high school pitchers the Guardians took in 2018-19. He made his full-season debut in 2021, where he posted the highest strikeout rate (40.5 percent) of any pitcher who threw at least 75 innings at any level. Espino came into 2021 in better shape to get through a full season, and progressed over the course of the year as well, learning to use his fastball more effectively and seeing development on his offspeed stuff.

He’s pitching more vertically now, going up with the four-seamer (which can touch 100) and staying behind the ball more, resulting in hitters missing the pitch more than they did even in high school. His slider projects to be plus, and has supplanted his curveball as his primary breaking pitch, while his average changeup has been good enough to help him dominate lefties as he was right-handed batters. Espino’s main issue now is command and control — he walked just over 10 percent of batters this year, but he’s also generally inefficient and has to work to generate some more weak contact rather than trying to finish every at bat with a strikeout. I doubt he’ll ever get to above-average command, but even average command with this stuff would make him a No. 2 starter.

68. Jose Tena, SS, Cleveland Guardians
Age: 21 | 5-10 |160 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right

Previous ranking: Unranked

Tena was just 20 years old in 2021 but finished above the median for all High-A hitters in average, OBP, and slugging despite his youth, all while playing solid-average defense at shortstop. Tena has plus bat speed and an aggressive approach, attacking early in the count, with good plate coverage that allows him to put a lot of pitches in play, even just beyond the zone, a good tool that he needs to develop into more of a skill by becoming more selective. He’s strong for an undersized guy, hitting 16 homers in 107 games last year and projecting to at least that many when he gets to the majors, and an above-average runner who has the arm for shortstop or third base, although he could always move to second and become an above-average defender there if he’s bumped by a premium defender at shortstop. Tena has shown he can make adjustments in-season, though, starting slow in the Arizona Fall League and improving his pitch recognition as the fall went along. His bat speed and wrist strength will allow him to hit enough to be a regular or better anywhere on the infield, but becoming more patient would give him a chance to be a star.

Kwan made honorable mention after the top 100:

Steven Kwan, OF, Cleveland Guardians
Age: 24 | 5-9 | 170 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 163 in 2018

Kwan doesn’t quite look the part of a top prospect, since you won’t find many 5-9 left fielders of any sort in the majors — only Andrew Benintendi and Ben Revere have had at least 2 WAR and played the majority of their games in left at 5-9 or shorter in the last 10 years.

Kwan does hit, though, and hit, and hit, going .328/.407/.527 last year between Double A and Triple A at age 23, with more walks than strikeouts. His strikeout rate of 9.1 percent was the fifth-lowest of all minor leaguers with at least 200 PA, and it came with more power than any of the guys who struck out less often.

He runs close to average but doesn’t have the arm to play center, and there’s a ceiling on his production given his size and positional limitations. I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t hit enough to be at least a fringe regular, though, and his upside is someone who challenges for the league lead in batting average.

Boy he really likes Rocchio. I'll hope he's right.
Valera may take a little longer to reach his prime, but has always look good
Others put Freeman in their top 100; he doesn't dazzle but could be a very good hitting 2nd baseman and has hit a ton of doubles
He's more of a Tena fan: perhaps he's the 3rd baseman when, alas, Jose moves on for the big bucks.

BA rates Guardians' farm system No. 12 overall. Love the depth. But they don't put any of our guys in their Top 50. If Keith Law is right on his more positive takes on Rocchio and Valera the system would crack the top 10.