I’m in the Valley for my annual Arizona Fall League scouting trip, which runs almost a full week this time and will cover 12 games. I’ll have much more as I continue to see players, but here are some highlights from the first half of my trip.
Kumar Rocker made his pro debut, of sorts, last week with a disappointing one-inning outing where he walked three and looked rusty in both command and mechanics. The Rangers prospect looked better his next time around, going two innings for Surprise and working 94-97 mph while throwing about half his pitches for strikes. His slider came and went, some above-average and some fringy, with his two strikeouts, both against left-handed batters, coming on the two best sliders he threw. His changeup remains too firm at 88-91 mph and is going to have to improve.
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The bigger concern with Rocker on the mound is his delivery, as his arm slot remains lower, as it did in indy ball before the draft. He was looser overall in his second outing than the first here in Arizona, but this lower slot appears to be a permanent feature, without any clear reason why it would be the case. Pitchers usually don’t change arm slots unless they’re hurt or ineffective; and while this alteration does give Rocker a little more life on the fastball, I’m not sure it does his other pitches any favors. There was huge risk when the Rangers drafted him third overall in July; though it’s great to see that his arm strength is still there, all the risk is still there too.
More observations from the Arizona Fall League:
• If you like stuff, Oakland starter Mason Miller, who missed nearly all of 2022 with a strained muscle in his shoulder, threw three innings on Tuesday and hit 100 mph nine times on my gun, with a power slider at 84-86 mph. His changeup lags behind the other two pitches, although he does have one at 91-93 mph. Miller only made six appearances during the regular season, throwing 14 innings, but for pure stuff, the 6-foot-5 right-hander has few rivals in the minors, and there’s nothing in the delivery or command here to say he can’t remain a starter.
• Cardinals fans are justifiably excited about the ascent of right-hander Tink Hence, who threw just eight innings in 2021 with a 9.00 ERA but was dominant in 52 innings this past season with 81 strikeouts, 15 walks and a 1.38 ERA for Low-A Palm Beach. The 19-year-old Hence is out in the Fall League, throwing an inning at a time, and was 95-96 mph with a plus changeup with big fading action and at least an average curveball in his appearance on Tuesday. He’s small, listed at 6-1, 175 pounds and maybe an inch shorter than that, but athletic as all get-out with a loose, fast arm. If he stays healthy, we might talk about that 2020 Cardinals draft — which also included Jordan Walker, Masyn Winn and Alec Burleson — as an all-timer.
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• Ryan Cusick went to Oakland in the Matt Olson trade and was working heavily on his changeup in his five-inning start on Wednesday, working 92-96 mph with his lively fastball in the outing but barely throwing any breaking stuff. The changeup is still not great, 86-89 mph but firm and fairly true, like a BP fastball, so I can see why the A’s would have him throw it more, but I also wonder if they need to find a different grip or try a splitter. He’s big and strong with a fast arm, so I could see him being a good candidate for the split-fingered fastball or a hybrid split-change, one of which he’ll need to be a starter.
• Red Sox right-hander Thad Ward returned late this year from 2021 Tommy John surgery and is working in Fall League with stuff that’s a bit below what he had before the injury. On Monday, he was 91-93 mph with four pitches, the curveball ahead of the slider and the changeup probably too close to the fastball in velocity. With that kind of stuff, you’ve got to throw strikes, and Ward didn’t, walking five in three innings, throwing just 43 percent of his pitches for strikes. He’s still on the way back, but at this point he has a lot more ground to make up to be where he was before the surgery when he looked like a potential fourth starter.
• Jordan Lawlar has been extremely impressive at the plate, from the quality of his at-bats to frequent hard contact. The 20-year-old shortstop, whom Arizona took sixth in the 2021 draft, had three hits, all hard-hit, in the Thursday afternoon game at Salt River, all with exit velocities of 98-102 mph. He also turned one single into a triple when the center fielder let the ball get a little bit past him. On Wednesday, he reached base three more times, walking twice and getting hit by a pitch. And his approach in both games has been very advanced for someone his age and with as little experience as he has – he got hurt in his second pro game last year, and has less than 500 professional plate appearances to date.
• His teammate Zac Veen (Rockies) has shown that his baserunning can be game-changing, between his plus speed, and incredible jumps and reads while on the bases. He stole three bases in Wednesday’s game and leads the league with seven, three more than anyone else has. I haven’t seen as much hard contact from him and he’s had more trouble with junk than with velocity.
• Speaking of hard contact, Andy Pages (Dodgers) homered twice in a Tuesday night blowout, where Glendale beat Salt River 20-4 in a game that took roughly seven hours to complete and as many years off my life. Those two bombs and one of his two singles on the night all had exit velos from 106-108 mph, and he showed he could turn on 95 mph from a right-hander and stayed on a slider for another homer.
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• Zavier Warren was the Brewers’ third-round pick in 2020 out of Central Michigan, but the 23-year-old had a very disappointing 2022 season, hitting .226/.307/.374 between High A and Double A, mostly at the lower level. He’s off to a great start in Arizona, and while it’s a great hitters’ environment and this year doesn’t have a lot of good pitching, it’s good to see Warren hammering right-handed pitching, both fastballs and sliders, with EVs right up by Pages’ figures.
• The Rays took Mason Auer in the fifth round in the 2021 draft out of two-year San Jacinto College after he transferred there from Missouri State, and they got a steal, with one of the toolsiest players in the minors. Auer hit .290/.372/.487 this year between both levels of A-ball, with 48 steals in 55 attempts, 15 homers and a minor league-leading 12 triples. He showed his plus-plus speed and hard contact this week, whacking a left-hander’s curveball to the left field wall for a double, tripling (natch) off a right-hander’s fastball away by driving it to the right-field corner, and using his speed to beat out an infield single on what should have been a routine 6-3. He’s also struck out nine times in 30 plate appearances so far, without a walk, struggling with breaking stuff in my looks so far. That might be the thing that keeps him from becoming a star commensurate with his physical tools, but he still has a good chance to become a regular even with what will probably be a 25-30 percent strikeout rate in the majors.
More to come…
(Top photo of Kumar Rocker: AP Photo / Tony Gutierrez)
