10 Compelling Numbers For 10 AL Central & AL West Prospects
"He has done nothing but hit since turning pro"
December is the time of year where I'm more involved in editing than any other point on the calendar, and because of that I've found myself with less writing energy than is typical for me.
We're in the final stages of putting together our annual Prospect Handbook over at Baseball America, which for me means a lot of reading, a lot of grade smoothing and picking up random odds and ends that need to get done for a huge print product like this.
Despite the grindy nature of the handbook, it's a process I love being a part of. I get to learn more about each team's player development process, read about prospects I don't know much about—or players who have changed drastically since the last time I spent time covering them—and be a small piece in something much bigger than myself. That team-based workflow is always incredibly satisfying for me, and that's only been amplified in our post-pandemic remote working days at BA.
On the site, we recently rolled out our Rangers Top 10 list, which means we now have updated top 10 prospects for every team in the league. No matter which team is yours, we've got updated reports on the top end of your system. Apparently, this is the fastest we have ever completed updated top 10s for all 30 organizations.
In other BA news, our new national college writer is officially onboard: Jacob Rudner.
If you follow and enjoy my work or just appreciate college baseball you should definitely give Jacob a follow. He's going to crush it and his passion for the game has me even more excited than I was for the college season to get here and get rolling. He’s already been pumping out content.
Today I'm going to combine the AL Central and AL West and complete the "compelling numbers" series for the league. It's been fun. If you missed previous installments you can see them all at the links below:
AL Central
Grant Taylor, RHP, White Sox — 115
Taylor has barely thrown since being drafted in the second round in 2023. He threw 19.1 innings across five starts in 2024 then pitched a few games in the Arizona Fall League after the season (where he was lit up), but his regular season data from those first five starts is loud. His 115 normalized Stuff+ score was third among top-10 pitchers in the AL Central behind only two of the best pitching prospects in baseball: Jackson Jobe (119) and Noah Schultz (118). While it's not a large sample, this is where metrics like stuff+ should shine. He averaged 96 mph, touched 100, gets great riding life and has a decent approach angle with his four-seam and stuff+ likes his high-spin slider, curve and cutter as well.
Kevin McGonigle, SS/2B, Tigers — 133
McGonigle is one of my favorite prospects who might not be getting the love I think he deserves. He was one of the best pure hitters in the 2023 class but somehow fell to the Tigers at 37th overall. Yes, he's only played 14 games above Low-A, but I'm bullish on his pure hit tool and our Hit+ metrics at BA back that up. His 133 blended Hit+ metric cleared every top-10 hitter in the division, he makes a tremendous amount of contact (11.9% miss rate), he swings at the right pitches and his 111.8 mph max exit velocity hints at more power potential than you might think of a 5-foot-10 hitter who has just six home runs in 95 pro games. If you preferred him to fellow Tigers prospect Max Clark I wouldn't blame you, nor would I if you had him as a top-20 prospect in the game.
Emmanuel Rodriguez, OF, Twins — 9.5%
Rodriguez has one of the strangest offensive profiles in baseball. He rarely takes the bat off his shoulder (31.9% swing rate), and when he swings he whiffs at a huge rate (33.7% miss rate), but when he *does* swing and *does* connect he hits the ball as hard as anyone—his 110.1 mph 90th percentile exit velocity and 114 mph max exit velocity both topped Royals first baseman Jac Caglianone for the best in the division among top-10 prospects. While it's a profile of extremes, Rodriguez's discerning eye could tie it all together and make it work. He chased out of the zone just 9.5% of the time in 2024, and yes much of that is explained by his passive approach in general, but he's maintained superlative walk rates as he's moved up the minor league ladder and owns a career .422 OBP. This profile won't be for everyone, and he needs to stay healthy, but I'm pretty enamored with it.
Jac Caglianone, 1B, Royals — 40.3%
If you trade swing decisions for contact skills, you go from Emmanuel Rodriguez to Jac Caglianone, who as mentioned previously hits the ball as hard as anyone except E-Rod of the prospects in this division. I spent plenty of words—both on podcasts and on the web—on Caglianone's hyper-aggressive approach before the draft and he maintained that free-swinging nature after signing with High-A Quad Cities and in the Arizona Fall League. Caglianone's swing rate of 57.6% was nearly seven points greater than the second-most aggressive hitter in this tier of players (Brandon Winokur, Twins, 50.9% swing rate) and his 40.3% chase rate was nearly 10 points higher than No. 2 (also Winokur at 30.5%). This remains a scary profile for me, though Caglianone does have great plate coverage and his 12.6% zone contact rate was a great figure.
Chase DeLauter, OF, Guardians — 7.8%
DeLauter's 128 blended Hit+ mark was tied for second in the division behind McGonigle and alongside pure hitters like Luke Keaschall and Chase Meidroth. If DeLauter didn't have an extensive track record of injuries that have limited him to only 96 games in his first two pro seasons, he'd have a strong case to be the top prospect in a deep Guardians system. Whenever he's been on the field he's excelled, and he has a unique combination of plate skills, contact ability and power with an imposing 6-foot-3, 235-pound frame but an unusually compact and short lefty swing. His 111.1 mph max exit velocity was ninth in the division, his 20.6% chase rate was tied for 10th and his 7.8% zone contact rate was third. Each of the other four hitters who fill out the top five in zone contact rate are contact-oriented hitters with power questions (Kaelen Culpepper, Chase Meidroth, Kevin McGonigle, Cooper Ingle).
AL West
Colby Thomas, OF, Athletics — 56.1%
Thomas is a polarizing prospect, but I think Mark Chiarelli makes a compelling case for him in general and ranked him third overall on our A's list. He's a dynamic athlete and toolshed with above-average tools or better outside of the hit tool. He homered 18 times across both Class A levels in 2023 and hit 31 home runs and 44 doubles between Double-A and Triple-A in 2024. He also owns a career 25% strikeout rate. I'm less concerned with pure bat-to-ball skills with Thomas than I am his extremely aggressive approach. He expands the zone a ton and swung the bat 56.1% of the time in 2024—more aggressive than any top-10 hitter in the division. This is overly simplistic but I wonder what he'd look like if he just baked in a few more takes.
Alejandro Rosario, RHP, Rangers — 68%
Rosario was one of the breakout pitchers in the minors this season. He's been a well-regarded pitching prospect dating back to his prep days, but spent three years at Miami where he posted a 6.47 ERA. He immediately flipped a switch with the Rangers in his debut pro season, posting a 2.24 ERA over 17 starts and 88.1 innings with a better strikeout rate (36.9%) and walk rate (3.7%) than he ever managed in college. His 68% strike rate this season is maybe the figure I'm most impressed with and Josh Norris put a 70 on his future control—a number that would have shocked me just a year ago. I'm a bit skeptical he's become a real 70-grade control pitcher overnight, but if he is... watch out.
Walker Janek, C, Astros — 41.1%
Janek was the first catcher taken in the 2024 draft when the Astros popped him at No. 28 overall and signed him for just over $3 million. He's as safe a defensive catcher as I think you could find (though perhaps not quite at the Drew Romo, Chase Burns level from the draft side in recent years) but his ultimate upside will depend on how his offensive game translates to pro ball. We put average tools on his hit and power in the draft, but he showed a hyper-aggressive approach in a 25-game debut with Asheville that would have been more in line with what I expected from Nationals draftee Caleb Lomavita. Janek's 41.1% chase rate was the highest among top-10 hitters in the division, and no other player crossed the 40% threshold—with names like Tommy White, Juan Flores, Colby Thomas, Joswa Lugo and Jacob Wilson coming the closest.
Christian Moore, 2B, Angels — 28.1%
Moore had a top-three debut among hitters from the 2024 draft, pushing to Double-A essentially immediately and homering six times in his first eight games. It was a hot and cold showing, however, and there are some real swing-and-miss tendencies that temper my expectations for Moore moving forward. After hitting .563/.588/1.188 with eight extra-base hits, four strikeouts and two walks in his first eight games, Moore hit .246/.316/.304 with four extra-base hits, 25 strikeouts and seven walks in his final 17 games. His 28.1% zone miss rate was the second-highest among top-10 hitters in the division (behind only A's outfielder Henry Bolte at 32.3%) and I think he's pretty comfortably a power-over-hit offensive profile who's going to be reliant on great contact quality. He's got plenty of thump, though, and it was good to see his big EVs translate from metal to wood.
Colt Emerson, SS, Mariners — 122
Man, the 2023 draft was so good. We ranked Emerson 27 in the class and he went 22nd overall to the Mariners. Pre-draft we praised his advanced hitting ability1 and post-draft he showed surprisingly good exit velocities considering his age and physicality. With his first full pro season wrapped, he now looks like one of the more well-rounded hitting prospects in the game and his 122 blended Hit+ metric was good for second among top-10 hitters in the division—trailing only A's shortstop Jacob Wilson (123). He makes a ton of contact (17.5% miss), he makes a ton of contact in the zone (12.6% zone miss), he doesn't expand the zone (17.7% chase) and he hits the ball reasonably hard (102.5 mph 90th percentile EV) with more physical projection and strength gains hopefully on the way.
Most of the writing I've done since the last newsletter was centered on the third-annual draft lottery, which has been a fun addition to the calendar and a nice disincentive for tanking.
In preparation for the lottery, I looked at the 1-1 draft history of every team that had a chance for the first overall pick, and immediately after the lottery order was finalized we pushed out a complete first round mock draft—the first of the 2025 draft cycle to go through all 30 picks.
If you're catching up on the lottery you can view the complete draft order, as well as the original odds, here and I also had a quick look into the winners and losers of this year's lottery: spoiler alert, it was not a good result for the Marlins.
If you want even more content on the draft lottery, our very own JJ Cooper is the pool reporter who's been in the room for each of the first three drawings. He gives a detailed breakdown of how exactly the lottery balls fell.
On the podcasting front, Peter Flaherty and I reacted to the draft lottery and talked through some of the mock draft, while on Episode 107 of Future Projection, Ben Badler and I talked about the Garrett Crochet trade and dug into the farm systems of AL Central organizations. Episode 108 of Future Projection released today and we talked about AL West organizations.
Thanks for reading and hope you have a great weekend!
Here’s what we wrote about Emerson’s hitting ability before the draft: “The 6-foot-1, 197-pound infielder is a pure hitter, with a smooth and compact lefthanded swing that stays in the zone a long time. Scouts rave about the repeatability and balance of his swing, as Emerson maintains a consistent posture throughout his operation, with a steady head and few unnecessary movements. His barrel manipulation is apparent, and he has a savvy ability to square up the baseball in different quadrants of the strike zone, with good timing vs. all pitch types.”