Alberto Tirado, RHP, Blue Jays (Short-season Vancouver)
Tirado entered 2014 the no. 3 prospect in Toronto's system and no. 76 on our Top 101, fueled by strong reports on his stuff. It was noted, though that his command needed work and the delivery was inconsistent. Fast forward to the end of this season and those highlighted areas are exactly what came to the surface. We need to remember Tirado is only 19 and developmental paths are often jagged when isolating short-term sections. I’m labeling Tirado's 2014 a “disappointment” more because his present weaknesses were too much for the strengths to overcome than due to a long-term decline in forecast. Still, some of the initial shine has diminished and warts were exposed. We now have concrete areas of focus when evaluating Tirado next season. –Chris Mellen
Austin Hedges, C, Padres (Double A San Antonio)
Hedges was the top-ranked catcher in the minors entering 2014, and he maintained that title when the midseason Top 50 rolled out in July. While the Junipero Serra (San Juan Capistrano, CA) prep product continues to outstrip his contemporaries on the defensive side of the ball, Hedges ran into a buzzsaw on the offensive side in the form of Texas League pitching.
Hedges has always been a glove/arm-first backstop, but the offensive profile carried enough weight in the form of contact ability and on-base skills to make him a true threat both at the dish and behind it. This summer, Hedges struggled to drive the ball with any authority against Double-A arms and, as a result, those arms more frequently challenged him in the zone, limiting the utility of his strike zone command and significantly cutting into his on-base rates.
Hedges will play most of 2015 as a 22-year-old, so a repeat trip to San Antonio would not be unreasonable. In addition to the jump in competition, Hedges also saw 17 more days of action this year than he saw in any year prior, making fatigue another potential culprit in his struggles. While the glove and arm still remain special, there are some newfound concerns with the bat after this season, and time will tell if Hedges is able to hold on to his title as the best catching prospect in the game when the BP Top 101 is unveiled this offseason. –Nick J. Faleris
Aaron Sanchez, RHP, Blue Jays (MLB)
I knew what I was getting into when I saw Aaron Sanchez on the Double-A New Hampshire roster to start the 2014 season. I had seen him plenty in the Midwest League in 2012, and I had heard about all the wonderful strides he made throughout 2013 in High-A. Maybe that was part of the problem; my expectations for Sanchez may have been too high. I expected to bear witness to a budding front-of-the-rotation horse who would spend the majority of the season dominating the competition. Instead, I spent the summer watching seven games from one of the most enigmatic starters I have seen at Double-A in the last few years. Sanchez battled his delivery from game to game, inning to inning, and even pitch to pitch. As he struggled with consistency in advance of release, his results were all over the map. Sanchez would demolish one hitter with premium velocity and a ridiculous curveball and then look like a Rookie Leaguer against the next batter. At any given moment in his starts, Sanchez’s raw potential was clearly on display, but that potential showed with maddening infrequency. I like the mid-90s heat and the hammer breaking ball, but the firmness of his changeup and lack of feel for his craft left me wanting more. It is obvious Sanchez can get big-league hitters out, and he will be able to accomplish that over the long haul, but after scouting nearly 50 innings from him this summer, I remain far from convinced that the former first-round pick can be an impact starting pitcher, a conclusion I could not envision when the season began. –Mark Anderson
Robert Stephenson, RHP, Reds (Double-A Pensacola)
This selection may come as a bit of a surprise. After all, Stephenson was ranked 10th on our midseason Top 50 and has firmly solidified himself as a top-tier prospect. First, let’s run through the positives. The 21-year-old pitched the full season at Double-A and has the frame and athleticism to be a workhorse, showcasing an electric arm capable of reaching back for the upper-90s in short stints and sitting comfortably in the 92 to 95 range with generous arm-side bore. The curveball has hammer tendencies when he’s consistently on top of it, giving it the potential to be a plus pitch at the highest level.
Now the negatives, of which there are also many. Stephenson lacks command, a fact that is holding back his repertoire and diminishing his results. His mid-90s fastball has a tendency to flatten out and live up in the zone due to a drop-and-drive delivery that limits his natural plane. His upper-80s changeup plays very firm and stays up in the zone far too often, giving me serious doubts that the pitch will ever play above the fringe-average level. There is also apparent effort in his motion, including a tendency to finish too upright and a noticeable head whack. The most telling aspect of his performance in my viewing, however, was an inability to pitch out of jams, attempting to blow hitters away with his fastball rather than hit his spots and elicit weak contact, driving his pitch count up and forcing him to leave the game early. This is a troubling realization and a discernible trend, but Stephenson is relatively young considering the level of competition he faced this year, leading some to project gains in the pitchability department with further seasoning. With that said, his command will need to take a mighty step forward before I can comfortably project him as anything more than a mid-rotation starter who teases with stuff but never quite has the command profile to headline a rotation. —Ethan Purser
Eric Jagielo, 3B, Yankees (High-A Tampa)
To be disappointed requires context, and it is in the context of being a recent first-round pick that I was disappointed with Jagielo when I finally saw him this year. He can do a few things well—he hits for moderate power and throws the ball across the diamond quite well—but the overall package was lacking compared to my expectations for a polished college bat. He has a gaping hole on the outer half of the plate, pulling off badly even against fastballs. His plate coverage was quite poor and will be exposed at higher levels unless he makes a major adjustment, especially once he gets to the majors and teams get a book on him. Because of his size and strength, he's still going to run into his share of home runs and should hit for moderate power, but it won't be the kind of production a team like the Yankees is looking for out of an everyday third baseman. Additionally, he offered virtually no power against left-handed pitchers and looked uncomfortable about them in the batter's box. With only average to below-average power, limited range, and a possibly large platoon split, Jagielo profiles as a second-division regular at best. –Jeff Moore
Michael Ohlman, C, Orioles (Double-A Bowie)
The tall catcher has traveled an arduous road throughout the minors, but began to show flashes of his potential in 2013. After viewing Ohlman for over 20 games this season, I walked away disappointed. At the plate, he looks like he should generate power, but the swing is more conducive to contact and lacks true pop. He is mostly upper body with the swing, failing to provide sufficient torque with his hips, and he does not use his legs enough to generate drive. This is the largest reason why his bat has often been hollow, generating a multitude of shallow flies and routine grounders. The swing is smooth, with minimal noise, but very conservative and does not always reap the benefits of making contact. Defensively, Ohlman has nearly regressed. He is slow moving behind the plate, lagging in the efficient footwork and fast-twitch muscles to provide value as a pitch framer or blocker. It was a routine issue the entire season, and I also believe he showed durability problems behind the plate. Ohlman looked tired often, and it might be best if the Orioles did think of giving him more time at other positions. I think there is a chance Ohlman contributes in the majors, but I do not envision him as a second-division talent moving forward. –Tucker Blair
Mark Appel, RHP, Astros (Double-A Corpus Christi)
The plan was for Appel to make only, hopefully, a handful of starts in High-A and quickly transition to Double-A, then on to Houston in late summer. That plan didn't come to fruition, obviously, and quickly the former no. 1 overall selection fell behind schedule. As I wrote in July, Appel had a shortened spring training due to appendicitis and didn't have much time to get into pitching shape. It's my opinion that the shortened spring led to his thumb and wrist issues, which also sparked rumors of excessive shoulder soreness. Still, after all that, Appel ended up reaching Double-A after a controversial bullpen session with the big club. His ERA dropped to 3.69 from 9.74, and he lowered his hits per nine innings to 8.1 all the way from 15.0. A bevy of issues contributed to his struggles, including health, his home ballpark, and the way the team handled him early in the season, but some of the blame still must fall on his shoulders. Those seven appearances in Double-A seem to have righted the ship, for the time being at least. A good, healthy start in Double-A in 2015 will be a huge for his future. –Chris Rodriguez
Jacob Hannemann, OF, Cubs (High-A Daytona)
Hannemann is a gamble of a prospect, purportedly a raw product without much in the way of refined baseball skills. He was a cornerback at BYU and didn’t play baseball for a year. In his first year back, in 2013, Hannemann flashed athleticism and competence at the plate as he held his own at Boise. I thought of him as a raw product with enough upside to warrant attention. I got an extended look and came away unimpressed with his baseball skills. He has major-league speed but I don’t believe in his ability to hit enough for his speed to matter as he climbs the ranks. Hannemann failed to make consistent contact and when he did hit the ball it was listless contact. I can see why he was an enticing product and one worth taking a shot on. The athleticism is enough to warrant a look but to this point he hasn’t made any improvements in his game as the season progressed. From my early looks to later on, shortly before his promotion to Daytona, Hannemann exhibited the same strike zone judgment and contact skills without much in the way of growth or progression. He’s a raw athlete but ultimately he’s one who disappointed given what he teases at with his athleticism and background. –Maurico Rubio
Garin Cecchini, 3B, Red Sox (Triple-A Pawtucket)
Following a 2013 campaign in which he slashed .322/.443/.471, Cecchini seemed well positioned to establish himself as Boston's best position-player prospect with a strong 2014. This season didn't go according to plan. Cecchini only hit .263/.341/.371 at Triple-A. He struck out at the highest clip of his career (21.6 percent) while walking less than ever (9.6 percent). While I'm disappointed in the results and I've adjusted my projections downward, I still do believe in Cecchini. I did see marked improvement in his glove over the course of the year. The bat speed and swing are still there. Cecchini still consistently worked himself into good counts, too, but often seemed to overthink things and get caught guessing. This was especially true against lefties, though he actually showed a reverse split at Double-A in 2013. A midseason shoulder injury didn't help his power numbers, either. With the failure of Will Middlebrooks and the struggles of Xander Bogaerts, Cecchini seemingly missed a golden opportunity to seize the future at third base in Boston. It seems unlikely the organization will enter 2015 without finding an external solution at third. –Al Skorupa
Luke Jackson, RHP, Rangers (Triple-A Round Rock)
If you held up an index card so that you could only see the first half of Luke Jackson’s season, you’d wonder what happened that made his year such a disappointment. The right-hander pitched well in Frisco, earning a promotion halfway through the season, but started allowing runs with alarming frequency once reaching Round Rock. Seemingly overnight, he lost the ability to consistently throw strikes, either missing the zone or giving hitters meaty pitches, resulting in 46 earned runs over just 40 innings. Even in the traditionally hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, Jackson’s 10.45 ERA in 11 appearances stood out for all the wrong reasons. Most of these runs occurred in big innings, when Jackson would lose control of the zone, shortening his outings. In fact, Jackson averaged around five innings per start in Double-A, but managed fewer than four in Triple-A, though he still averaged 75 pitches. Jackson’s never had the simplest of mechanics, and in those difficult innings, he’d get out of sync and fail to repeat his plant location, which exacerbated the problems with location. Despite the disastrous numbers, the strikeouts (and pure stuff) are still there, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Jackson bounce back in 2015, though he may not be in immediate contention for a major-league spot. –Kate Morrison
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I think most would applaud 2014 as a developmental win for Sanchez, and absolutely a step in the right direction in terms of fulfilling his overall potential. It's unfair to expect every young pitcher to explode into the Show and have immediate success in the rotation like Marcus Stroman has enjoyed. That should be the exception, not the standard.
If you told me the day he was drafted that Sanchez would develop into a very good late-inning arm, I'd gladly take that as a "win". But that's not the point of reference for the piece. I'm not sure there's a good argument that the work we saw at Double A and Triple A for 100+ innings represented developmental progress, though I'm open to hearing one. Pointing to 30 innings of relief work (regardless of level) falls well short.
The silver lining is Sanchez is gaining experience, adjusting to big league lineups, and learning what it takes to 1) gameplan and 2) execute at the highest level. If he builds on that and returns in 2015 with some of his control/execution issues ironed-out, that's great. If he's in the pen for good, I'm not sure how that's painted as a positive, as opposed to a satisfactory fall-back.
I never saw Sanchez pitch in New Hampshire or Buffalo, but what I've seen from him in Toronto is certainly more positive than many reports. He still has his moments where he'll walk a guy on four straight fastballs that all run high and away, but the overall body of work has looked to me like someone with at least a passable command profile.
For a long time there have been "sack" questions following Sanchez around, and the combination of his inning/situation usage and the subsequent results leads me to believe that there's been mental development there. He's risen to the occasion and has handled the best hitters on the planet, often times with relative ease.
Often times the difference between starter and reliever is not the ability to get out big league hitters. There's a big difference between handling batters with pitches 1-30 and with pitchers 50-80. There's a big difference between getting out big league hitters the first time you face them in a game and the third time you face them in a game. There's a big difference between being able to throw six strong innings against an organization during their first good look at you and throwing six strong strong innings against an org after it's thrown resources into advance scouting and picking apart the analytics.
I think it's great that Sanchez has look good in limited relief action at the Major League level. I don't view that cross-section of data (scouting or otherwise) as priming the much larger volume of data (scouting or otherwise) we have with respect to Sanchez, both this year and, for purposes of comparison and analysis, years prior.
It is reassuring to see him have success out of the bullpen because it supports the idea that he will be a major league contributor if he fails as a starter, but I would not feel comfortable using his success out of the bullpen as an indication of improved command.
In the context that Mark outlined, I agree that Sanchez has been disappointing, having also seen him a handful of times this year and witnessing the same inconsistencies. From a raw stuff perspective, Sanchez's suggests a pitcher than should align with frontline potential and the ability to anchor a rotation for multiple seasons. However, the lack of command outing-to-outing and even inning-to-inning is extremely noticable.
From a developmental standpoint, the success in a late inning role for Sanchez has been a positive, but this also may be the role that ultimately suits him long-term. There really weren't any signs this season when he was starting in the minors that the command was taking steps forward or growing. It was mostly stuck in neutral, which perhaps is why Toronto fast-tracked him as a reliever to see how it plays up in short bursts because from a stuff perspective all season it aligned as major-league caliber.
I took a look at first round picks for the past 10 or so MLB drafts, and the pitchers who became closers were college guys, unlike Sanchez who is a HS player.
With regards to Mondesi, some of the disappointment on the production side (his stat line) is softened by the fact that he started the season in High A as an 18 year old and didn't turn 19 until midway through. That's a really big factor in the equation, for me, and while there's still separation between Mondesi and Russell/Correa, he's basically operating at a pace around a half-season faster than those two (and he also offers a little more value on the glove/run side, setting a higher default floor).
While my preference is always to see success in the stat line, I'm encouraged by the fact that Mondesi was still showing an ability to drive the ball some (and in particular that he was doing a much better job of it as the season progressed), and held his own as far as K-rate and BB-rate in spite of climbing a level and taking on more advanced arms. He's working on an accelerated dev path, and that is going to lead to stumbles along the way.
I could make a case for the season being a disappointment, but in honesty I don't consider the outcome that surprising. If he had put up a .275/.340/.385 triple-slash as an 18 year old shortstop in High A with good glove/run chops, we'd be talking about him as a potential top 10 prospect in the game. The same, if he had dropped his 2014 line while running through a repeat stint in the Sally, we'd have a big question as to why he seemd to have stalled on his dev arc.
This reminds me of Machado from a few years ago, despite the differences in their skill set.
Whatever all that adds up to, "disappointment" isn't the adjective I would choose.
Yes, the thirty innings in the bigs is relatively encouraging, although the peripherals are much closer to good performance than elite, but the question with Sanchez has always been about command, and whether he would have enough of it to succeed as a starter. Even pre-season, it was pretty unusual to find a report suggesting that he wouldn't be, as a minimum, a very solid reliever. If this season has shown that he's less likely to be an effective starter, and I think it has, then it's entirely fair to classify it as a disappointment.
I'm playing devil's advocate here a little bit Eric, but also curious as what exactly in that stretch of plate appearances signals a definitive adjustment has been made over a player just having a good stretch in the ebbs and flows of a season.
Second is that you do see guys having hot and cold stretches, but you really don't see a 378% increase in HR rate too often, for an obvious reason: you need a very low baseline to get that. You can hit better because you were "seeing the ball well," or because you got lucky, or for the reasons you suggest, but I think it's really hard for a guy with a long-established .010 HR/Contact rate to hit the ball out of the park almost five times as often (.049) because of those reasons. BABIP can get boosted big-time, sure, but my sense is that you need at least a swing path tweak to get those HR results.
To put it another way (and maybe this more detailed narrative is a third reason), you've got a guy who has never hit hit for the power he seems he ought to possess, and is struggling mightily for the first time in his pro career, and who as a result has homered twice in his last 540 PA ... and he homers twice in the span of *five* (which in fact triggered the start of the strong finish). Your first thought is:
A) Must have got lucky.
B) I wonder if he's made an adjustment?
Oh, BTW, tonight he hit a ball off of Cobb that would have been a HR in a bunch of MLB parks, lined out, and had a LD 1B. He looks very good.
Definitely could have been written up. To my mind, I didn't think the narrative was as interesting as it was for Hedges, who we have pretty strongly supported and whose season had a greater potential to negatively impact his stock.