Lesser Known Toronto Blue Jays Prospects Off To Hot Starts
There are a few lesser known minor league prospects in the Jays system who are off to hot starts that I wanted to highlight.
Riley Adams has been a guy I've been waiting to breakout for the past 2 seasons and it appears like it is finally happening. In 18 games at High-A Dunedin he is hitting .295/.456/.492, good for a 191 wrc+. That line is only propped up by a little BABIP luck as his .357 BABIP isn't extraordinarily high. He has run a tremendous 17.7 bb%. The only thing keeping him from better numbers the previous 2 seasons was the fact that his power had yet to emerge. So far he is running a solid .197 ISO. If he keeps drawing walks and hitting for this much power he should make his way onto every Jays top 30 prospects list and will be a name you will hear a lot more about. He currently ranks 30th on MLB pipeline's list, but is absent on most others. He is repeating High-A so ideally I would like to see him promoted to AA at some point this season to see if his gains in the power department carry over when facing a higher level of pitching.
Alejandro Kirk is a name some might be familiar with after producing a 1.001 OPS in rookie ball last season. Due to his listed height of 5'9" and weight of 220 lbs he had his fair share of sceptics. So far in 2019 he is once again proving his doubters wrong. He is hitting .310/.432/.521 and is accomplishing that with a totally normal .302 BABIP. The power he showed last year is still there with a .211 ISO and his great pitch recognition has been on full display with a spectacular 2.67 bb/k ratio(!!!). It will be interesting to see if Kirk can remain a catcher with such a stocky frame, but even if he can't stick behind the plate he may just have enough bat to play elsewhere.
Maximo Castillo is another prospect I've been high on for a while and he is off to a great start in Dunedin. Through 27 innings he has a 2.33 ERA. He is striking out 26.7% of batters while walking only 4%. He is very young for High-A at nearly 3 years younger than the average player in the league and still blowing hitters away. I expect him to be added to most Blue Jays top prospect lists this year and he could be ranked very high if he continues doing what he has been doing so far in 2019. He has always had solid stuff and it's long overdue that the prospect world starts giving him more recognition.
Josh Winckowski's 1.04 era through 5 starts is stellar and that strong number isn't entirely the result of luck as his 2.60 FIP and 2.95 xFIP are also solid. He has struck out 25.2% of hitters so he is doing a fine job of missing bats. His 8.7% walk rate could be better, but it's not a major issue. My main concern with Winckowski is that he's soon to be 21 years old at single-A. He isn't old for the level by any means, he is actually nearly a year younger than the average player. I would just like to see if he can maintain this type of dominance against a higher level of competition before I fully buy into him. Hopefully he will be promoted to Dunedin at some point this season and that assignment will give us a better idea of the type of prospect we're looking at. He was dominant last year with the short season Vancouver Canadians so it's not like this year's performance came out of nowhere. He gets a lot of groundballs so if he can mix those groundballs with a high strikeout rate he's going to be a hard guy to score runs against.
Hagen Danner's numbers to start the year are all over the place. His .197 AVG and .275 OBP are terrible, but his .508 SLG ranks 11th in the Midwest League. His .311 ISO is topped by only 3 players. All together it is good for an above average 113 wrc+. The former 2nd round pick had a terrible debut in 2017, but quietly put together a solid 2018 campaign. He showed tremendous plate discipline with a 14.6% walk rate. So far in 2019 that plate discipline has been absent and he is working a walk in just 5.8% of his plate appearances. If he can combine last year's plate discipline with this year's power breakout he will have a solid offensive ceiling. Strikeouts have been a major problem for Danner since becoming a pro and this year is no different. He has a 31.9% strikeout rate. This will limit his potential unless he can find a way to make more contact.
